Fresh Produce (can make a girl very happy)

Yesterday we went shopping at the Carmel Market in preparation for Friday night dinner with friends. We barely food shop there since our move to north Tel Aviv, instead preferring to shop at our local grocer. We shopped, grabbed a quick lunch and walked home in the rain: the beginning of a perfect Friday.

HOLON DESIGN MUSEUM

We have meant to go to the Holon Design Museum for some time since it opened earlier this year, but somehow it took us until now to get there. So... we hit the road over the weekend to take a look at the Ron Arad designed structure. The orange-toned building really stood out in the gloomy Holon landscape and is quite impressive from afar. Alas, the moment we looked closely it was obvious that the building was poorly crafted and we imagined an overwhelmed construction crew who could barely piece together the architectural details. The exhibitions though were quite impressive and it's nice to know that there is a local museum interested in displaying the likes of Issey Miyake (love!) in an exhibition entitled, Mechanical Fashion. Our final thoughts: there's a new design museum in town only 20 minutes away from Tel Aviv and afterwards we can always stop for hummus in Yaffo. We'll be back...

Northern Eats

Whenever we go up north, we find that there are really only two options for eating out. We ignore all those "wannabe-south-of-France-home-in-the-countryside-style" restaurants that usually serve sub-par uninspiring dishes with elaborate names and instead go for either local Arab restaurants or Uri Buri.

The first option can be found everywhere around the Carmel, Galilee and Golan mountains. In recent years the simple highway hummus/kebab joints have made some changes to their menus, and some now serve traditional vegetable and meat stews and incorporate local herbs and spices found in the mountains. Perhaps one of the best (and also the most famous) of these spots is El-Babur, a family owned restaurant from Um-el-Fahem, that now has a new and tacky branch in Yokneam. The food, unlike the decor, is absolutely amazing. They offer a large variety of traditional salads such as garlicky cauliflower in tahini, labane goat cheese with mustard grains, finely chopped tabulleh salad with pomegranate seeds, the list goes on... Their kubbeh is one of the best in the country, fresh, tasty and with a pinch of cardamon that really gives it an interesting kick. We also ordered delicious sauteed chicory and okra in tomato sauce. The El-Babur kebab is their specialty, made from ground lamb cutlets, baked in spicy tomato sauce in a hot oven covered in a lid of bread. Top it off with some sweet yet refined knaffe, some black Turkish coffee and you're good to go....

 
The kubbeh

Sauteed chicory and onion

El Babur
Star of Yokneam Mall
Yokneam Intersection
tel 04 9891619

If we don't want to stuff our faces with endless arab mezze, we head up to Akko (Acre), have a quick go through the historical sites and head straight to Uri Buri. Uri Yermias, a fisherman with a long white beard and mustache is a self taught chef who creates miracles in the kitchen with fish and seafood. The fish are seasonal and the dishes are precise. For starters, thai fish soup in a coconut milk base (pic here) was a favorite dish. It had just the right amount of spice but still maintained a delicate feel with seasonal fresh sea food. An appetizer of baby St. Peter's fish fillets (pic here) was the perfect blend of a sweet Asian flavoring and tangy pickled beetroot. The smoked forell was rich with smoky flavor and served with baked root vegetable and tangy sauce. The grilled amberjack was simple, but grilled exactly to make it crisp and tender at the same time. Even the gluten free bread, made of almonds, was fantastic. A stroll around Akko, with it's beautiful alleys and ancient monuments is always even better after a meal at Uri Buri, so far we think it's the best fish restaurant in the country.

Smoked forrel with baked rot vegetables

Grilled amberjack

Uri Buri
Ha'Hagana (Lighthouse square), in the old city
Akko
tel 04 9552212

Weekend #2

It was decided that we were to go away up North for the weekend, yet again (this is starting to become a pattern we can get used to). On Friday we spent some time in Akko. We wandered around the old city, saw the Khan El Umdan, entered the Templar Crusader Tunnel, visited the port and had an excellent seaside dinner at Uri Buri and bought his cookbook of course.

The clock tower above the Khan El Umdan.

Docked fishing boats at the port

Fishing

The top of St. John Church.

The next day we were joined by our dear friend N and traveled to Nazareth (we had such a great time the week before that we had to return). This time we came a little earlier on in the day so we could explore the market. There were all kinds of shops, many selling kitchen ware, but this perfume shop caught our eye.

Since a trip to Nazareth is never complete without indulging in some sweet oriental dessert we had to sample the divine knafeh at El Muchtar Sweets (we thought it was better than the knafeh at Mahroum Sweets that we tried last week). But to be fair, we don't think you can go wrong with knafeh anywhere in Nazareth, the capital of sweets.

We soaked in the landscapes...

... and drove around finally reaching Zichron Ya'akov. We decided to drop by the city cemetery and pay a visit N's grandfather, one of the founders of the city. Our weekend of northern indulgence culminated at dinner in El Babur and before we knew it we were on our way back to Tel Aviv.

El Muchtar Sweets
Toufik Ziad Road
tel 04 6556027
(there's another branch on Paulus the Sixth Street tel 04 646 1661/2)

Northern Churches

When up North, we made sure to see some churches and visited the Muhraq Monestary in Daliat el Carmel, with its great rooftop views, and the Church of Annunciation in Nazareth, a must for its spectacular interior.

A Weekend North

It was time to spend some time away from Tel Aviv and a weekend up north was just what we needed. We had a house all to ourselves in Zichron Ya'akov (thanks to our friends who had gone away and left it to us). We spent our time enjoying the late summer landscapes, wandering through Nazareth, visiting churches and candy stores (we bought some Syrian chocolate and black tehini), eating a lot of Galilee mezze (of course) and breaking for knafeh and other Ramadan treats as much as possible.

Summer in the North
Dinner in Ayn Hawd.

Mahroum Sweets, the best place in Nazareth to pick up some knafeh and other oriental treats.

Baklava!

Off the highway.

Fahoum Coffee Shop

Syrian Chocolate

Nahalal, the concentrically circled moshav by architect Richard Kauffman.

Weekend Getaway

We decided to take a little trip up North for the weekend. More to come soon...

Nanuchka

For many years, Nanuchka has been one of Tel-Aviv's much celebrated restaurant-bars. The hazy atmosphere, beautifully eclectic/quirky interior, electronic music, together with excellent Georgian dishes (and Georgian wine!), made us all feel proud of the Great Bubble in which we live. Unfortunately, they moved and their new location just doesn't live up to the former charm.

As another turn-of-the-century building made way for a glass tower, Nanuchka was forced to relocate. Going to Nanauchka's used to feel like eating at Grandma's, albeit a super-cool Grandma. Now it doesn't feel like much at all. Let's just say, Grandma's furniture doesn't really go in the new living room... The place suffers from bad spacial planning, destructive lighting and boring back garden. Add this to the suburban family crowd, who only recently heard yesterday's news and we were not pleased.
On the other hand, the food is still delicious. After passing the noisy "food court" we were seated to our overly lit table at the back garden. For starters we ordered the Pkhali, a large and delicious dish of Georgian antipasti (walnut salads, pickles, and stuffed vine leaves). We also ordered a Farmer's Salad with a warm and mouth-watering cornbread filled with salty cheese. The main dish of Lamb Ossobuco in White Bean Stew, was not to fatty, and had a wonderful tangy-ness, and the Eggplant with Goat Cheese, Yogurt and Tomato Sauce was simple but flavorful. An all time favorite desert, the Churchkhela, walnuts wrapped in hard grape jelly, was fabulous and as tasty as you find it on the sideways outside of Tbilisi (we know because we've been there).
It was VERY hard for us to ignore the poor aesthetic choices of the new location. This made it difficult for us to enjoy our meal. But as we are big suckers for Georgian food we'll just have to return and keep our eyes closed.

Pkhali

Lamb Ossobuco

Eggplant with Goat Cheese

Churchkhela

Nanuchka
28 Lilenbloom street
Tel Aviv
tel 03 5162254

Tel Aviv in the Summer

It's been a terribly hot week and we've mostly stayed indoors, hibernating with the air-con on full blast. We've managed to come out of our concrete shell for some early morning trips to the beach, afternoon drinks and the occasional dinner with friends (once the sun has set). These hot and humid Tel Aviv summers are not easy to handle, we could never do it without our trusty sun hat, favorite sunglasses, Avene sunscreen and flip flops.

We are beaching...

and building a castle.

Fashion Dept. Graduate Exhibition @ Shenkar

The Shenkar Fashion Department is maybe Shenkar's best known department and is most famous for producing Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz (class of '88). At the Graduate Exhibition 2010 we found the collections to be not as impressive as their sister exhibitions in Textile Design and Jewelry Design. Still though, their were a couple of projects worth sharing. Many of the collections focused on the details: the sleeve, the knot, the pleat, the jewelry.

The Sleeve: A jacket caught our eye from Annat Meshulam's collection For Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return. We are always on the lookout for a good jacket and this one, wool and beige, was beautifully constructed with sleeves coated in crumbling plaster.

The sleeve from the collection. More photos here and here.

The Knot: Lately we've been tying the bottoms of our long dresses into big knots and wearing them shorter for summer (by we I mean Rena, the dress wearing half of the two of us). So naturally, we were attracted to Omer Poizner's collection The Virgin which was filled with lots of large knots.

The Pleat: Meytal Shaul's collection Black Swan White Swan showcased a lovely black and white tie dyed pleated dress. Another photo here.

The Jewelry: Local Elegance by Yael Keila-Sagi's featured a summer dress with a richly detailed neckline: off-white rope coiled around a large flat stone with found turquoise jewelry. Another photo here.

The Jewlery Dept. Graduate Exhibition @ Shenkar

When we go to design school exhibitions it's often the most fun to poke into the jewelry department first. We don't wear a lot of jewelry on a day to day basis, but jewelry projects are small and ready to wear. Hypothetically, you could take the jewelry out of the display and slip it on immediately. But mostly, we just ogle the display and make a mental note to rummage through the boxes of jewelry in our closet. The Jewelry Design projects at the Shenkar Graduate Exhibition did not disappoint. The projects varied in materials from wood and feathers to felt and gold and the projects were shown beautifully in display cases made from stacked styrofoam bases covered by glass tops. We were impressed by the marketability of many of the pieces. We could easily see them being sold at boutiques around town. There are still 9 days to go until the exhibition closes.... it's open to the public and we recommend.

A dress clasp by Shanny Alon. Carved wood fitted with internal gold clasps.

Necklace by Moran Moshinski.

A very furry necklace from The Furry Tales collection by Yarin Bylica. More photos of the collection here.

This ring by Dikla Rozen reminded us of this Dr. Seuss character. More photos of her collection here.

We loved this headband by Tal Barouch. It differs nicely from on the many headbands we've seen the past couple of seasons.

Felt Follows Form by Hanan Kedmi was one of the more playful and conceptual collections. The use of brightly colored felt embedded with computer parts was super cute. More pics here and here.