Carmel Market in Tel Aviv שוק הכרמל

On my last day in Tel Aviv, we decided to go get shakshuka for breakfast and walk through the Carmel Shuk (market), the largest in the city. The market is like many around the world: winding corridors of covered tables displaying specialty goods. What makes this different, of course, is what’s for sale. Above, as you can guess, is a display of brilliantly coloured spices and flavourings.

OLIVES (!) GALORE.

Check out all the candy…

Purple figs and pomegranates.

Souvenirs? :)

I love all these bins of nuts, teas, dried fruits… I wish I could run my hands through them, but I would have gotten in trouble for that!

More sweeties.

A bakery! Bins of bread!

Do these not look absolutely delectable?!!

Yellow dragonfruit? I have never eaten one of these before…

These pomellos are bigger than Monica’s head… !!

Kosher Certificate :)

Someday, we all must try this passionfruit slushie. Magically refreshing to say the least. I love passionfruit!

I was told very early on that I must absolutely have שקשוקה‎ (shakshuka). It is a traditional breakfast meal of eggs poached in tomatoes with spices including cumin. We got ours spicy (!) and served with bread to soak up all the sauces, yumyumYUM.

Here we have bread, oj, Israeli salad סָלָט יְרָקוֹת יִשְׂרְאֵלִי of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce… little dish of tahini, and labneh which is like a yogurt cheese. Here it has olive oil and black pepper. It’s pretty good, reminds me of a not-so-salty cream cheese. Milder in flavour, making it very likely for me to consume exorbitant amounts of.

Caffe doppio… already I miss Italy…

To get to the market and back, we took the sherut שירות which is like a shared taxi that runs on the same route as certain buses. The difference is that they are cheaper (0.40 shekels less) than the bus, come more frequently, are air-conditioned, and have less passengers. They also just keep going along the route until one of the passengers calls out a stop. For all you hong-kongers, they are like the mini-buses : )

Another aspect, is that you pay with your coins usually after you enter the taxi. So, you probably will pass your money up the driver, who will place your coins on a little stand and count them as he drives. Then, he will dispense the correct change from his change machine, and pass those back down the row of passengers to the right person. I like this bit. When we ride public transportation, it’s easy for everyone to ignore each other despite our physically intimate proximity to one another. Passing coins up and down, slight side touches of hands, was a little bit of communicative connection. A bit of breaking through the bubbles.

Here, an interior shot. I like sheruts!!

Just before getting on the bus (to get on the train to the airport) I took two more pictures. One, is this bar that we went to the night before. If you can’t read what it’s called… it’s called “Rosa Parks”. I wish I knew how and why : )

The other, is a ‘family’ of stray cats foraging for food. They’re so cute. Shalom, darlings!!