THE PALACIO DOMAIN
Breakfast here is cooked to order and served in the beautiful 14th century restaurant. The magnificent furnishings in this hotel really raise your game, even this early in the day! The menu of egg and meat dishes is complemented by excellent, quality sides, like steaming, home-baked bread, freshly squeezed juice and top quality smoked salmon.
RUTH RIMONIM HOTEL
The hotel prides themselves on creating a hearty start to the day that will get you through “a whole day’s sightseeing,” so the buffet style breakfast is treated like a main meal with a great variety of hot and cold choices. There are also supervised kosher meals available for observant travelers. The real highlight of breakfast is the locale out on the Mt Meron Terrace, where you can enjoy your morning blintzes overlooking the gorgeous grounds and sculpture garden.
What could give you a truer snapshot of a country than sampling its roadside food, crossing paths with street vendors and other citizens? I have a real affection for food stalls and holes in the wall eateries - they have given me some of the tastiest meals and memorable encounters of all my travels.
When my guide, David and I were making our way to the Kibbutz Kfarlid we encountered Bedouins that had set up shop on the side of the road along the northern border between Lebanon and Israel.
We pulled over at a small sheltered oasis where a trestle table had been set up under the Acacia trees, half hidden behind scrub. They sell olives, thick chucks of sharp cheese, creamy homemade humous and tahini ,olive oil and jugs of iced lemon juice, all displayed on a table.
The Bedouin men would actually bake the bread on a big, metal drum hot stove right in front of you. I was in heaven! Sitting under a tree, listening to the grass slowly rustle and the chattering birds, smelling the olives and somehow communicating though hand gestures with a man who doesn’t speak a word of English, eating my favourite kind of food in the world… It’s a scene that has remained unchanged in these parts for thousands of years, and was one of my most beautiful experiences in Israel. I’ll take the spontaneity and authenticity of a roadside lunch over a fancy restaurant banquet any day…
This riverside kosher restaurant near the Syrian border is a great place to try specialty seafood in an idyllic spot on the Dan River (it literally means “fish by the Dan”). I was traveling to a nearby kibbutz, and enjoyed passing though this beautiful region where the Dan and Hasbani rivers meet (along with the River Banias) to form the north fork of the mighty JORDON RIVER, the third largest perennial river in the Middle East.
According to Arab legend, God got so angry with these three rivers as they argued over which one was the most magnificent that he forged them into one to silence them forever. But the water rushing by still roared and gurgled as my guide, David and I sat outside, enjoying this lush, pretty setting in the heart of the Upper Galilee.
The restaurants’ glass walls look onto the forest, with raw timber adding to the pastoral atmosphere. It really complements the beautifully simple plates of baked fish cooked just the way I like it, salt encrusted and crispy on the outside, moist on the inside (hard to do without making it soggy). There is a rich and varied menu but I definitely urge you to try the whole, oven-grilled fish - it’s incredible.
The restaurant attracts summer pleasure seekers who don’t need the beach, local day-trippers who have come to kayak on the river and campers - Israelis are big on exploring their country in tents. It also gets flow through from visitors to nearby, well-known town, KIRYAT SHMONA, so it’s a great combination day trip and lunch.
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