Cafe Liz

Ramle, for food and history

I recently took a trip to Ramle with my friend Ben of Savor Israel. Admittedly it was my first time, even though Ramle is quite easily accessible from Tel Aviv — 15 minutes on the train and you’re there. And by there, I mean about a 2-minute walk from the market and the center of town. Couldn’t be easier.

Ramle is known for being the only city founded in the land of Israel during the era when it was under Arab rule. It’s been around since 716 CE, and is full of architectural artifacts. Much of the old city is built from pale stone, Jerusalem style. What struck me most was seeing people living among and literally in ancient buildings — you have minarets sticking out of people’s homes.

As a bonus, the city is small and easily walkable — most things you’ll want to see are within five minutes of the train station, and nothing is more than 20 minutes away.

Nowadays, Ramle is a melting pot of ethnicities and religions, which means the market, located among ancient, arched buildings, is quite colorful in multiple ways. Continue reading Ramle, for food and history…

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Banana oatmeal muffins

What’s driving me to bake in the middle of this infernal summer? Maybe it’s heatstroke. Or maybe it’s the surplus of overripe fruit in the house. And it just might have something to do with the cute new cupcake wrappers I ordered off eBay.

I had three mushy bananas sitting on the counter that needed to be dealt with. I had the idea to toss them into a muffin of some sort. Since I didn’t have a tried and trusted banana muffin recipe, I figured I’d be just as well off throwing together the usual suspects, er, ingredients and seeing what came out Continue reading Banana oatmeal muffins…

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Levinsky street market — a blast from the past

The Levinsky Street market always makes me stop. I pass through nearly every day on my way to work, and regularly restock on coffee beans at David’s spice shop and spices at Pereg (no more than 80 grams at a time — that’s what fits into my jars). I get my olive oil from Oded, where they refill my glass bottle from a big metal tank and I leave with nothing more than freshly pressed oil. And if I’m hungry, then I break down and buy a boureka or fat Balkan pita from Panaso, and if there isn’t too much of a line, I indulge in some cured salmon at Haim Rafael.

Negotiating the morass is a bit difficult; the grid of narrow, tree-less one way streets was not made for modern traffic, and it’s generally gridlocked so tightly that it’s a fight to get a bicycle through. In the middle of it all are a handful of synagogues, where men come and go amid the hubbub outside.

But if one thing can be said for the people who frequent the area, it’s that they appreciate the treasures of the market, which starts at Haaliyah Street and ends rather abruptly just before Herzl, in a colorful explosion of toy shops. Coincidentally or not, the traffic jam ends around there, too.

One day I brought my camera with me. As I stopped in front of Pereg to take a photograph, an elderly man pulled up beside me on his bike. Continue reading Levinsky street market — a blast from the past…

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Indo-Chinese stir-fried noodles

Chinese by Indians. A simple yet strange concept, I was introduced to this cuisine when my friend Iris returned from a year in India. It was one of her favorite things to eat there. It came to into existence thanks to Chinese who migrated to India, and adopted their native cuisine to suit the local palate. I was inspired to try it myself by a post on Hakka noodles by Soma on eCurry.

What makes this dish explicitly Chinese? Well, there are the egg noodles and the tofu, as well as the soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar. What makes it Indian? There’s the cilantro, the tamarind and the tomatoes. The rest of the ingredients can be found in both cultures.

What distinguishes this from another east-west fusion dish? Couldn’t this same dish have been made, say, by Westerners cooking Thai? It seems so to me, at least. Particularly because this recipe is my interpretation of Indo-Chinese dishes. Indo-Chinese by a Westerner? That definitely describes it.

But regardless of how you look at its cultural identity, this is a fabulous combination of flavors — tart from the tamarind, sweet from the sugar, salty from the soy and spicy from the chili (all key flavors in Thai cooking, mind you). Plus, it’s rich from the plump egg noodles, and chock full of vegetables. In short, it’s now one of my favorite ways to stir-fry egg noodles. Continue reading Indo-Chinese stir-fried noodles…

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Israeli chopped salad

There’s nothing more debilitating to a food blogger than having no appetite. And frankly, in this oppressive summer heat, not only have I not wanted to cook, I haven’t even wanted to eat. I have a theory that when your body needs less energy to warm itself, you don’t need as many calories. I wonder if science backs me up.

In fact, one of the few things I’ve been eating as of late are Israeli salads. Some people call them Arab salads (it’s all politics, ultimately), while in Hebrew, they’re often simply called chopped salads.

The base is always the same — little chopped cubes of tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s the basic salad you get at falafel shops. In order for cucumbers and tomatoes to carry an entire salad, they have to be fresh and ripe. Now that it’s summer, you can expect to find plenty of these — the cucumbers here are no longer greenhouse-grown, and the tomatoes are bright red and juicy — as they were once, people like to say. Americans, read: No tomatoes picked green and unripe, and then transported two weeks. That will make your salad taste like cardboard.

Once you’ve got your base, you can dress it up with all sorts: Continue reading Israeli chopped salad…

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Brunch: Poached eggs in bird’s nests, and grilled asparagus

This brunch looks complicated, but it’s actually quite quick and simple to pull together: You pack the kadaif noodles into bowls and stick them in the toaster, toss the asparagus (or vegetable of choice) into a pan to grill, and let the eggs boil for a minute or two in the meanwhile. Then you assemble it. That’s all.

As a bonus, it tastes good and looks nice — the nest comes out crunchy and buttery, and soaks up the liquid egg yolk. And fresh vegetables are (almost) always welcome. Continue reading Brunch: Poached eggs in bird’s nests, and grilled asparagus…

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Rose-flavored cupcakes

Trendy western baked goods meet traditional local flavors in these rose-scented cupcakes – a delicate whiff of rose gives these cupcakes a dreamy, Middle Eastern flavor where you least expect it. Rose and pistachio, a combo frequently found in baklava, mesh seamlessly with the buttery crumb, and create an elegant dessert that’s food-coloring free. Continue reading Rose-flavored cupcakes…

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The cupcake craze

Once there were none. Now, cupcake boutiques are popping up on nearly every major street in Tel Aviv, like mushrooms after the rain (or, if you will, cupcakes at a child’s birthday party).

It all began not long ago, in late 2008, when this blog was still in its infancy. Continue reading The cupcake craze…

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Ice limonana — mint lemonade, the drink of the Israeli summer

Limonana is the quintessential drink of the Israeli summer. Simple and ubiquitous, there’s nothing more refreshing than freshly squeezed lemons and ground sprigs of mint, whether served on ice or blended into a smoothie.

In the summer, limonada becomes my social drink of choice — the drink that captures the spirit of the moment, a pleasant afternoon nestled into a chair in a lively streetside cafe. In the winter, I order a cappuccino; in the spring and early summer, I make that iced coffee; and once even milk is too heavy for the oppressive summer heat, I get limonana. Big, green and frothy, and very cold, please. Continue reading Ice limonana — mint lemonade, the drink of the Israeli summer…

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Thai papaya salad

It’d been a while since we dared to enter the Carmel Market on a late Friday afternoon. At that hour the shook is packed, so crowded you can barely move. The first sign it was late in the day (as if we needed one) was when I went to my greens guy and asked for a head of lettuce. He gave me four. Four heads of fluffy, curly lettuce. They filled an entire grocery bag. I guess he likes me as much as I like him.

As Eitan wilted in the heat, we cut a quick retreat down a side alley, coincidentally (or not) passing one of the far-east specialty stands. Among the many things that require cooking and the sundry strange gourds was a pile of green papayas — green, crunchy, watery papayas, which get chilled and grated into refreshing, Thai salads. I snatched one. Continue reading Thai papaya salad…

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