Friday Morning Brunch

As a lover of breakfast food and of Israeli food in general, Israeli breakfast has become my favorite meal. Two eggs prepared to your liking, Israeli salad (finely cut cucumbers and tomatoes in an olive oil and lemon sauce), a few types of soft white cheeses, a basket of bread, fresh juice and coffee complete the basic components of the meal. Breakfast is typically served in most coffee shops, usually until the early afternoon, and it is most popular on Fridays, when people have time to relax over breakfast, the paper and/or friends.

Friday morning brunch has become a sacred tradition for Ariel and me. We wake up leisurely and head out in search of the ultimate Israeli breakfast. There are so many cafes in our area that we have actually managed to check out a new place every week. The portions are quiet large so one breakfast will suffice for two people, and we usually get an added piece of cake to accompany our coffee at the end just to top off the meal.

Cafes in Tel Aviv could very well be the most popular and ubiquitous shop in the city; however, as common as they are, they go out of business almost as fast as their waitresses quit. What amazes me is the amount of renovations a space goes through just to be opened up as another café. There was a coffee shop on Dizengoff street that went out of business. One day I stepped off the bus and it was just a vacant building. For the next few months there were workers there everyday using heavy machinery, putting up drywall and paining it anew. Then one day there were suddenly table and chairs and a new café had taken its place. We had breakfast there this weekend, along with the rest of Tel Aviv. There is this allure about a new place that people just have to check out in fear of missing out, before it goes under or becomes too trendy to actually get a table on a Friday afternoon.

Breakfast was tasty, but not enough to stop us from checking out a new place next week.