#foodtourofisrael

Aug 19, 2020
1 min

How to Make 3 More Classic Israeli Dishes

Want to learn how to make some classic Israeli dishes? Israel 21C - which shows off Israeli innovations - has created a YouTube channel called 21see Tayim (which means tasty). Here are a few of their highlights along with recipes... Of course you can always come with me, your Israel tour guide, on my Israel culinary tour to get the best versions of these dishes and much more! For more on those click here: https://www.tourguideofisrael.com/culinary-tours Babaganoush: https

14 views0 comments

Top Israeli Chefs' Favorite Dishes: Rama's Yogurt Panna Cotta

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Aug 19, 2020
1 min

Top Israeli Chefs' Favorite Dishes: Rama's Yogurt Panna Cotta

The top chef in the United States is the Israeli-born James Beard Award winner Michael Solomonov. One of Solomonov's favorite places to eat in Israel is Rama's Kitchen, located in the Judean Hills outside of Jerusalem. It even featured in his documentary movie, In Search of Israeli Cuisine" [clip below]. And one of Rama's favorite dishes is her Yogurt Panna Cotta. https://www.israel21c.org/yogurt-panna-cotta-from-ramas-kitchen/ This is just one of the many wonderful places w

4 views0 comments

Visitors from 20 Countries Can Enter Israel Without Quarantine

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Aug 16, 2020
2 min

Visitors from 20 Countries Can Enter Israel Without Quarantine

A major travel update: Visitors from 20 countries can now enter Israel without requiring entering into quarantine upon arrival. Israelis (or visitors coming from Israel) can also now enter into a few more countries without quarantining, though they will need to show negative tests for covid-19. Just keep in mind that if you do come to Israel, you may need to quarantine upon returning home, depending on the current rules in your home country. As a tour guide of Israel, this

13 views0 comments

Icelandic Sephardic Jewish Cookies... Say What? [Recipe]

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Aug 14, 2020
1 min

Icelandic Sephardic Jewish Cookies... Say What? [Recipe]

In 1492, just days before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain kicked out all the Jews from their domain. Part of my family was there. They went to Portugal and were kicked of there 5 years later. They then went where the Inquisition could not reach them - Protestant Netherlands. And they brought their cookies with them..... So how did these Dutch Sephardi Jewish cookies end up in a Manitoban cookbook about foods from Iceland called The Culinary

21 views0 comments

My Life is Complete: Tel Aviv Has a Cereal Bar!

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Aug 12, 2020
2 min

My Life is Complete: Tel Aviv Has a Cereal Bar!

As a young child, I would keep all my finished cereal boxes stacked on the floor of my closet and when my parents couldn't find me in my bed in the morning, they knew exactly where to find me; sleeping on top of my best friends. As a quickly-growing teenager I would eat an entire box of cereal in one sitting; friends' parents knew to stock up if I was coming over. But ever since I made aliyah to Israel it has been hard getting some of my favorite cereals - or affording them

4 views0 comments

Israelis and Palestinians Fight Over LGBTQ... and Tahini

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Aug 4, 2020
5 min

Israelis and Palestinians Fight Over LGBTQ... and Tahini

In yet another episode of the theater of the absurd, the Palestinian LGBTQ group al-Qaws, which was founded in 2007 but recently banned by the Palestinian Authority amid a crackdown on LGBTQs in the areas under their rule, has held a rally in the Israeli city of Haifa against Israeli oppression. That's right - the country that allows them to exist freely is then accused of being the ones who oppress them (as opposed to the actual oppression from their own government - and d

5 views0 comments

Israel Now Plans to Begin Opening for Tourists in August

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 29, 2020
2 min

Israel Now Plans to Begin Opening for Tourists in August

Tonight begins Tisha B'Av. According to the rabbis, the original sin of Tisha B'Av, the Jewish holiday which occurs today and which commemorates a litany of tragedies in the history of the Jewish people, is the story of the spies. In the Torah, the Israelites are not ready to enter the land of Israel, as they are afraid. Despite everything that God did for them in the Exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Mount Sinai, once they got word from the spies [whom Moses had sent

18 views0 comments

Could Israel's Cars Run on... Watermelons? + Fun Recipes

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 26, 2020
1 min

Could Israel's Cars Run on... Watermelons? + Fun Recipes

At the end of the famous movie Back to the Future, Doc Brown grabbed some trash and threw it in the The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor at the back of the DeLorean time machine. Trash became fuel and off they went. In recent years, bio-ethanol-powered vehicles have become a reality - or at least a possibility. In Israel, an unlikely source of ethanol [as well as lycopene] has manifested itself. Watermelons. Could Israel's cars actually end up running on watermelons? Fin

29 views0 comments

Check your P̶r̶i̶v̶i̶l̶e̶g̶e̶ Hummus. Seriously. Now.

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 22, 2020
1 min

Check your P̶r̶i̶v̶i̶l̶e̶g̶e̶ Hummus. Seriously. Now.

If I have said it once, I've said a million times. If you want to have amazing, authentic and healthy hummus, you need to get off of your tuchis (Yiddish for rear-end) and get yourself over to Israel. None of this supermarket plastic container stuff (and definitely no "white bean kale pumpkin spice white people hummus"). Now, there is a new reason. This fake hummus is killing you. That's right. A new report came out about a carcinogen in a bunch of store-bought hummus bra

36 views0 comments

Tour Guide on Tour to The Wild West... Bank

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 16, 2020
6 min

Tour Guide on Tour to The Wild West... Bank

On Tuesday I set out for Samaria - of Judea and Samaria - also known in modern political terms as the West Bank. It's an area, as a tour guide of Israel, that I don't often get to in my tours. Unless someone is particularly interested in politics or ancient Biblical sites or multicultural sites it's not going to show up at the top of one's itinerary requests. However, a case could be made for a nice day out which involves a little bit of everything (especially for a repeat

3 views0 comments

The Ultimate Jewish Superfood Has Arrived & It's Blasphemous

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 9, 2020
2 min

The Ultimate Jewish Superfood Has Arrived & It's Blasphemous

As a tour guide of Israel who runs a quite tasty Israel culinary tour, one of the themes I talk about is fusion. What happens when East meets West? Ashkenazi meets Sephardi meets Mizrachi meets Yemenite, etc. When Jews bring their various culinary traditions from 100 countries around the world together? Over the last number of years the general answer to that has been, as Borat would say, "great success!" The ability to blend and mix and fuse these various cuisines together

7 views0 comments

Surprise! "Coronapolice" are Out in Jerusalem

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 3, 2020
1 min

Surprise! "Coronapolice" are Out in Jerusalem

A little video from the shuk - the Machane Yehuda Food Market - in Jerusalem (my favorite place in the city as a tour guide of Israel and Jerusalem resident). Apparently the Coronapolice are out but it's not what you think :) Shabbat Shalom Everyone! Don't forget to follow me on FB, Instagram and/or Twitter to get all my blog post updates: https://twitter.com/israeltourguy/ https://www.instagram.com/tourguideofisrael https://www.facebook.com/Kobi-Walk-Israel-205758425509 A

7 views0 comments

Tour Guide on Tour: Cavalry Charges, Matzah Art & The Who

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 3, 2020
5 min

Tour Guide on Tour: Cavalry Charges, Matzah Art & The Who

As a tour guide of Israel I have been unemployed for the past 4 months with cancellations for the next 4 months as well, due to the coronavirus situation. So how have I kept busy - besides building this website? Now that we are allowed outside, I have been going on my own tours to the kinds of places that one does not usually see on a first or even second tour of Israel. These true off-the-beaten path places are full of hidden gems and one of them - where I spent the last

15 views0 comments

3-D Printed Steaks... This Is Real and from Israel

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jul 2, 2020
1 min

3-D Printed Steaks... This Is Real and from Israel

The Israeli company Redefine Meat "says it created the first plant-based 3D-printed kosher and pareve steak with the texture, taste and look of the real thing." Apparently 8 out of 10 people cannot tell the difference between real meat and the 3-D printed vegan meat. There are a few other companies making fake meat [including Israel's Aleph Farms which does it in a test-tube] but nobody uses this technology. I have brought people to Aleph Farms on my Israel tech tour and Rede

19 views0 comments

Bagel Crimes... Crimes Against Jewsanity

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 29, 2020
2 min

Bagel Crimes... Crimes Against Jewsanity

Yesterday I did something I have not done in years. I had an American Sunday Brunch which included, of course, bagels. Sunday is a work/school day in Israel - when you are not an unemployed tour guide of Israel - so it is pretty hard to pull it off during regular times. But the opportunity presented itself thanks to Corona. Yet it seems today that there is nothing that is not controversial. Even the innocuos bagel - and how it is treated or mistreated, what constitutes a

8 views0 comments

Hipster Israel: The Official Guide to the Young, Cool & Hip

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 29, 2020
1 min

Hipster Israel: The Official Guide to the Young, Cool & Hip

One of my favorite sites, Israel 21C, just made an incredibly cool "HIPSTER GUIDE TO ISRAEL." It's a collection of articles, photos, interviews, videos and more about topics such as... street art, veganism, Midburn (Israel's Burning Man), vintage fashion, microbrews, tattoos, [medical] marijuana, yoga, indie bands and of course Florentin, which was voted the 2nd hippest neighborhood in the world (after Williamsburg of course). It's a peak at the young, hip, mostly secular,

12 views0 comments

Famous Israeli Chefs' Favorite Dishes: Uri Buri's Barramundi

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 26, 2020
1 min

Famous Israeli Chefs' Favorite Dishes: Uri Buri's Barramundi

A new initiative is collecting some of Israel's top chefs' favorite recipes. The first one published is from Uri Jeremias - the famous owner/chef of the Uri Buri fish/seafood restaurant in Akko. As a tour guide of Israel - and one who leads a mouth-watering Israel culinary tour - it is one of the places my clients most rave about [note: it is for non-kosher or kosher-style diners]. Recently Uri Buri was named among the Top 25 restaurants in the world for fine dining by Trip

14 views0 comments

Tour Guide on Tour: Orchids, Wine, 9/11, Elvis & The Bard

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 25, 2020
3 min

Tour Guide on Tour: Orchids, Wine, 9/11, Elvis & The Bard

One bonus of having all this unexpected time off is it has left me with time to travel around Israel looking for off-the-beaten path sites and hidden gems to add to future tours. And yes, even as a tour guide of Israel for the past 13 years, there are amazingly still places here I have not yet experienced. Today I spent some time in the Jerusalem hills visiting some of these places (as well as some old favorites). Stop 1: The Grave of William Shakespeare - No, not that Willi

24 views0 comments

Forget Trees - Plant Vines, Get Wine & Help Israeli Charities

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 23, 2020
2 min

Forget Trees - Plant Vines, Get Wine & Help Israeli Charities

I am very excited about this... A new initiative of the Israel Innovation Fund is not only organizing a number of wineries together to be able to sell their wine online but is even allowing you to plant vines in Israel - and help Israeli charities at the same time. The wine on the vine program allows you to plant a vine in Israel for $18 (the same price as a JNF tree) with part of the money going to an amazing charity of your choosing, which includes 3 of my favorites - The

14 views0 comments

Kobi Tour Guide of Israel

Jun 16, 2020
2 min

When Is Israel Opening Up For Tourism?

As a tour guide of Israel, this is the question I have been asked most often over the last month or so: When is Israel opening up for tourism? Yesterday Israel reached what was supposed to be the end of the internal opening up stage. The last things were supposed to open - our Stage 3 - however is on hold due to a rise in daily infection rates (though serious cases have been holding steady, likely because most of the infections were happening via the school system, and overa

24 views0 comments

walkisrael@gmail.com

Israel #: +972544354430

US #: +15109625264