Revel in Casino de Paris

December 12, 2011 - 9:31 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, Entertainment, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life 

Well, I’m clearly not the first Jerusalemite to have visited Casino de Paris, the latest bar in the shuk, but I’m a happy customer. Truth is, I’m always happy in any establishment owned by Eli Mizrachi, the man responsible for the rejuvenation of the market, and the chairman of its merchants association. He’s the guy who opened the shuk’s Cafe Mizrachi, first known as Hakol Laofe V’gam Cafe (Everything for the Cook, and Coffee Too), and then Tzachko, a really wonderful bistro that unfortunately closed but was my favorite restaurant when it was still open. His idea? Mix the coffee drinkers among the ‘bastot,’ or stalls, so they drink their coffee while staring at sides of beef, bins of olives, sacks of beans. It worked.

Eli Mizrachi, the man who started it all

Casino de Paris is his joint venture with musician Shaanan Street, the lead singer of Hadag Nachash and a Jerusalemite as well, albeit from the northern neighborhood of French Hill. It was Street who came up with the marvelously ‘Jerusalem’ cocktail names, including King Agrippas – cava, a touch of arak, sugar and walnuts; Ha’agas 1 – pear syrup, white rum, spearmint and a pear slice (named for one of the shuk streets, Ha’agas or The Pear); and Yitzhak Rabin – Scotch whiskey, soda, ice and an olive branch, among others.

The menu is spare, fresh bread and spreads, excellent sandwiches, fishes, simple foods that go well with the great beer list, including all the Israeli microbrews. But it’s the space that’s the best part of this bar, located as it is in the former site of a British officers’ bar cum bordello. Now it faces the Georgian market of the shuk, an inner courtyard that includes a bakery and other small stalls. The bar itself is dim but not dark, with the right selection of tables, bar stools and outside tables. It’s intimate, friendly and most importantly, very well stocked.

Make sure to visit soon.

Directions: From Rechov Yaffo (Jaffa Street), walk down the open part of the market, turning left at the first left and continuing into the courtyard. The bar will be on your left.
And it opens at 12 noon every day, perfect for a beer and sandwich before or after a shopping trip.

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Machne online

October 11, 2011 - 4:51 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness 

Photo montage #1

You know things have changed around here when the age-old Jerusalem establishment, food market Machane Yehuda, puts up a website. Yes, it’s true. Check out www.machne.co.il — as in machne, the way it’s pronounced locally, like restaurant Machneyuda, rather than ma-cha-ne — where there is a good-looking, well-organized site offering great information.

There are maps of each of the shuk streets, with lists of each stall and then pages for each and every stall, whether it’s the beloved Cafe Mizrachi, a newer addition to the market on Rechov Hashezif, Fishen Chips, a, yes, fish ‘n chips place on Rechov Haegoz, or an old standby such as Atliz Refael, a butcher of 37 years standing on Rechov HaTut.

Photo caption #2

Read out this week’s events in the shuk, watch a video or consider one of the half dozen tours of the market, including a bakery tour, classic tour, wine and cheese tour, tastings tour or cooking tour.

It is a little annoying to be doing your shopping in the shuk, only to have to bypass yet another group of people expounding on the relative merits of one stall’s collection of guavas. But I’m sure there are many shuk old-timers offended by those of us sitting at Cafe Mizrachi with our perfect hafuchs and ricotta brioche.

No doubt they’d raise their eyebrows in disdain at the idea of a website, no less. But hey, it is helpful. Next up: A shuk app.

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Rami Levy and the Fogels

March 15, 2011 - 9:05 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General 

It’s been a tough week, grappling with the horrors of the Fogel family massacre in Itamar, and the stories and images coming from Japan. I find it difficult to turn away from the news, whether in the pages of the newspaper or on my computer screen.

Rami Levy and his one-shekel chicken deal

But tonight, I shook my head in appreciation of local supermarket mogul Rami Levy, who — I read on Facebook — has been stocking the shelves of the Fogel family kitchen himself all week during shiva, and has pledged to provide groceries to the three surviving Fogel children until they turn 18, wherever they may live.

Levy is a Jerusalem phenomenon, who turned one Machane Yehuda stall into one of the country’s most successful discount supermarket chains. Granted, it’s a supermarket I try not to frequent — although they have the best prices on cereal — because it’s an aggressive shopping scenario out there, and I’ve been trying to lower my stressful situations.

Whatever one might think of the guy, including his recent politically-motivated real estate deal in East Jerusalem, he’s acting on what many of us are thinking about this week, doing something to help this broken and bereaved family, the three children left to live life without their mother, father and three siblings.

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Slow food

January 8, 2011 - 9:41 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Environment, Food, General, Israeliness, Life 

Check out the yellow carrots...

Sometimes you need your visitors to take you somewhere new. And for that, I can always count on my dear food writer friend Adeena Sussman, particularly when she graces us with a lengthy month-long visit to the holy land.

With her penchant for photographing one’s food before diving in — which helps you stop and appreciate what you’re about to devour — and our shared love of Machane Yehuda, we’ve shared some great meals over these last few weeks (not counting a not-so-great chicken dish we made at our place, but you can’t win ‘em all). But Thursday’s lunch at Tel Aviv’s new indoor farmer’s market was a high point.

The indoor version of the original outdoor market at the Namal (Tel Aviv’s northern port boardwalk) was begun by two female entrepreneurs, Shir Halpern and Michal Ansky. Having bumped into the youthful Shir during our lunch, we got a bit of the history. She was born and raised in Tel Aviv, studied at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked in France and Washington, D.C. as a chef before heading back to Israel. She had fallen in love with the green markets of those two cities, particularly in D.C., and missed the availability of the particular kinds of fruits and vegetables that are sold in green markets. Once back in Tel Aviv, she was working at Al Hashulchan, the Israeli version of Epicurious, and was frustrated by always searching for one perfect berry for a photo shoot. Meaning, out of a NIS 25 package of 24 raspberries, you might only find one, and that just didn’t make sense to Shir.

So she and Michal made the tour of Israel’s small, organic farms, and found a wealth of special produce. In fact, the opening of the initial outdoor green market really helped revive the farming careers of some of the growers, and quickly spread to green markets in, yes sigh, the country’s center, including Ra’anana, Herzliya, Rishon and Netanya. Shir did say that they’re talking to the Jerusalem municipality about opening a green market in the holy city, but the Machane Yehuda stall owners are putting up a fight.

Anyway. In the meantime, they opened the indoor green market, with 30 stalls that include produce purveyors, a bakery that has divine parmesan sticks, a florist that sells the only peonies in Israel, fresh pastas, cheeses, meats, coffee and all the food products you need to create a great meal.

Make a visit. Your kitchen will appreciate the effort.

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The amateur tour guide

December 30, 2010 - 10:24 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Entertainment, Food, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Travel 

We’re in a hosting week. Given that it’s Christmas-New Year’s week, it’s time for visitors to come, well, visit. For us, there’s the added incentive of my nephew’s bar mitzvah — Akiva, my special, special-needs nephew who did fabulously at his bar mitzvah on Monday morning — and the more than 30? 35? friends and relatives who decided to take advantage of a vacation week and come celebrate with us over here.

And so, I’ve got four cousins staying with me, plus some more family up the block in a rented apartment, and a variety of others staying in a range of hotels, from the simple to the more luxe. When that happens, you become tour guide for the week. Or ten days. Or two weeks.

It’s a funny thing. I mean, what do I know about being a tour guide? I didn’t take the tour guide course, of course, but when you’ve lived somewhere for 15 years, and it’s a place that people like to visit, you end up gathering information and knowledge about this kind of stuff. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that I just finished a project updating the Jerusalem section of the Fodor’s guidebook, and am now a local expert — among family and friends — about where to eat, stay and shop in Jerusalem.

We’ve tramped around Machane Yehuda, wandered through the newly renovated Israel Museum, walked around the ‘Mitcham HaRakevet’ in Tel Aviv and gone shopping in Gan Hachashmal. I’ve sent them to eat and see a flick at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, feed the goats in Moshav Tel Shachar and munch on grilled chicken in the shuk.

It’s fun to rediscover your fave places through the eyes of others. And, hey, to vacation in your own town.

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