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what? No Intrepid Traveler thread on Israel??? Just bought tickets to Israel for next year. Will be staying with friends who live in Jerusalem (and we will be hitting Tel Aviv as well) so I'm sure they will have good ideas for foodie places...but might as well get some input from the Rockwellians. any suggestions?
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I just visited Jordan for the first time in six years and had forgotten how much I like the place. While it has gotten significantly more expensive, food costs remain slightly below the United States, the people are almost jarringly friendly, and the coffee, food, and sweets are excellent. I spent most of the week in Amman, staying at the quasi-new Kempinski Hotel. While it's fine, I would recommend the Four Seasons, Sheraton, and Hilton--in that order--before it (though to be fair, the memories of those places, too, are six years old). I ended up eating two dinners at the Orthodox Club in Abdoun--once with a Jordanian friend/regular, once with a crowd of (mostly) Americans. Probably built (and last decorated) in the 1960s, the fact that the massive indoor dining room and its equally massive terrace were half full on a Tuesday night and three-quarters full on a Wednesday shows that it's pretty darn popular. When you walk into the restaurant, you are immediately bombarded by the strong scent of fruit tobaccos burning in the countless nargilas around the room, which are constantly, and endlessly, tended by men with tongs and buckets of burning embers. It's not a fancy or high-end place, more of a community center with terrific food. I never saw a menu because my friend ordered for us the first night, and we had a set menu the second. But the mezze was across-the-board excellent. Favorites included the falafel, lebneh with garlic, fattoush, what we know as baba ghanoush (but which they call muttabl), and what they know as baba ghanoush (but I don't know what we call it; a vinegared eggplant, tomato, and sweet pepper not-quite-salad/not-quite-puree). The kebab entrees are fine, but if I go back, I'll just dive into the small plates. I recommend getting a quarter or half bottle of arak, which is tended as regularly and with as much care as the nargila; the bottle is decanted, and each glass that is drained gets replaced by a fresh glass mixed with the proper proportion of water and ice. Nothing goes better with the food, and the beer and wine suck. I don't know the prices; you do not need to be a member or have a reservation to dine. Fakhr al-Din, at the second circle, is a well-known place and a lovely restaurant with the requisite foyer of pictures of the king and queen and other dignitaries dining there. When you sit down, your table will already be set with a garish centerpiece of vegetables about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, with carrot sticks, pepper slices, and whole small zucchini jutting out of an entire massive head of romaine lettuce; also, a gorgeous sliced tomato, olive oil, and more of that awesome lebneh with garlic. After a while, a server came around and asked if we wanted our tomatoes "prepared"--well, sure!--so he spread each slice with the lebneh, sprinkled them with sumac, and then drizzled the lot with olive oil. A dining companion who said she was "scared" of tomatoes (don't ask) LOVED these. Each of our appetizers was excellent--Lebanese sweet sausage, shanklish, hummus with lamb, and kibbee nayyeh (this had excellent flavor, but the texture was a bit too pasty for my taste). The server had specifically recommended the shanklish and kibbee nayyeh as a great match for our bottle of arak, and he was right. For mains, one of us said she was too stuffed to order, one ordered lamb in grape leaves, and two ordered the lamb in yogurt. Oops. They serve family style. Note: don't order for yourself, order for the table. That said, the lamb in yogurt was spectacular--the dish of the week--and we ate both orders. And the lamb with grape leaves was also very good. We could have lingered forever, but unfortunately, you DO need reservations at this place, especially on a Thursday (the weekend is Friday-Saturday), and we were told when we called that we could only keep the table for an hour and 15 minutes. After paying, and then waiting in the foyer for powder room visits, we were offered gorgeous, free Turkish coffee with however many refills we wanted. Dinner for four, with too much food and plenty of drinks, was around $140. So we went across the street to Grappa, which looks like a promising dinner place, but I'll have to check that out next time, as we were stuffed to the gills and perfectly happy using them for their lovely courtyard and a few after-dinner drinks. On my day off, I wandered up to Um Qays, Ajloun, and Jerash. The food at the tourist restaurant at the top of Um Qays is perfectly acceptable, and I had a dandy fettoush (I have a thing for fettoush) and Coke for $3; the view is stunning and worth dealing with the bizarre service to relax for a spell after a dusty walk through the ruins. I wish more tourist sites in the world were like Ajloun, where you can get a perfect Turkish coffee (I also have a thing for Turkish coffee) or a bag of fruit for a dinar (about a buck). [Why don't more places do this? Seriously! I now know that after a day of walking through tourist sites, I don't want a hot dog or a bag of chips or some such nonsense. I want a bag of cherries, warm from the sun. Glorious.] I didn't eat at the tourist joint at the Jerash ruins, but man alive, that site is exceptional. It has to be up there with the best Roman ruins in the world, and may possibly eclipse Petra on the list of Jordan sights to see. I hope to get back to Jordan before another six years have passed. Next time: Wadi Rum!
