Just eating lunch is more solitary, finding the best food deal, like this one I saw advertised in the Englishcake Bakery on King George St, Jerusalem.
For NS18.90, you get a sandwich and a hot or cold drink. It's probably about $5- at today's rate. That's a great deal compared to the prices I saw recently in New York's kosher restaurants.
Doing lunch is a social thing, meeting a friend, like I did the other day. We ate at the Village Green, Jerusalem's well-known vegetarian health food restaurant. We both chose their Tofu-Spinach Pie and chose a variety of salads and vegetables from the salad bar. You pay for them by the weight. I took one their sour dough rye rolls with garlic butter. I hope to remember not to take the garlic butter ever again; it was much too salty.
Everything else tasted great, and the pie portion was very large. The restaurant used to offer all the bread you can eat. There were loaves of bread and bowls of sweet butter. We could just slice as much of the delicious bread as we wanted. Of course it was easy, too easy, to eat too much bread, and I guess it wasn't very sanitary, either. Now they have a variety of their rolls at the checkout counter and they ask you what you want. Cleaner and fewer calories. No surprise that this lunch cost much more than the sandwich I had seen advertised.
That's the difference between just eating lunch and "doing lunch."
both yum :)
ReplyDeleteyes, and such a great choice of kosher places
ReplyDeleteIt all loooks yummy.
ReplyDeleteI always managed to stay away from the desserts at village green, but I always spent enough on the rest of the meal - paying by weight can really get you...especially with so many tempting choices. I love the bread basket they have, although I don't remember if the current setup was what they had when I was there. There's a certain tofu dish of theirs that I love, but I can't recall exactly what it was...
ReplyDeleteI love the Village Green. It was the only restaurant in Israel that we went to twice on our trip.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was less expensive than the fancy Italian restaurant, Little Italy. All relative.
ilana, yummy's the word
ReplyDeletet' how is it that we like the same restaurants. You always resist the desserts, don't you? My friend ordered the pecan pie and made me eat half. Lots of pecan and none of that corn syrup candy taste.
leora, yes, I can understand that.
Looks good! I am jealous of all of your choices!
ReplyDeleteBaruch Hashem, it's so easy to find kosher places in Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteIf you're ever here, we can f2f at one of them.
Well, we both enjoy healthy, delicious food, so...our restaurant choices are bound to overlap, it would seem.
ReplyDeleteUsually I'm too full to order dessert at restaurants, or I've already indulged enough during the meal that dessert is just a bit too much for me.
I'm never too full, just too cheap! And thank G-d for that, or I'd be even fatter than I am.
ReplyDelete