(JNi.media) Condé Nast Traveler, which is part of a network of 20 print and digital media brands reaching more than 164 million consumers, focuses on literary journalism and hard news reporting. This month, it declared that Israel’s trend-setting city Tel Aviv has become a Mecca for herbivores. The magazine extols the city’s Carmel Market, with its “gleaming pyramids of eggplants, peppers, and cabbage heaped like pinups.” It is astonished by all the gastronomic influences: Russian, Polish, Arabic, Moroccan, Bulgarian, Iraqi, which “can coax a world of flavors out of the most humble potato.” And best of all, for the religious Jewish traveler, Tel Aviv’s abundance of no-meat, no-dairy restaurants are “kosher by default,” if you trust the owner, of course.

The article divides the eateries into outright Vegan and “veggie friendly.” Vegan food, in addition to being vegetarian, does not contain animal products and by-products such as eggs, dairy products or honey. The list of top notch, Tel Aviv Vegan joints is impressive (served here with choice lines from each):

Café Anastasia: tofu crepes, macadamia or chickpea omelets, and veggie scrambles.

Caffe Kaymak: fundamental bean soup is a medley of nutty al dente beans sitting in a sweet tomato broth roused by black pepper.

Nanuchka: hand-made dumplings, include a pastry pocket stuffed with potato, paired with eggplant salsa, as well as a pirashki filled with seasonal mushrooms.

Tenat (Ethiopian): crepe-like Injera bread, which you can wrap around the accompanying lentils, root vegetables, beetroot leaves, and potato salad.

Bindella: open ravioli piled with green-pea puree, mushrooms, and green-vegetable ragu.

Chiripom: Tip the party hat and out roll croquettes made of fried onion, parsley, and white potatoes.

Dallal: A forest-mushroom-and-mascarpone tortellini with hazelnut and truffled goat cheese makes for a rich starter.

Incidentally, Carmel Market, Shuk HaCarmel in Hebrew, is a vast, open air marketplace in old Tel Aviv, bordered by Allenby Street and Magen David Square. The market is open every day of the week, except Shabbat, and sells mostly food but also home accessories and flowers. Tuesdays and Fridays are the days when independent artists and vendors sell unique crafts, art, and jewelry nearby, along Nahalat Binyamin Street.

Domino’s Pizza in Israel has come up with the world’s first Vegan pizza that does not have cheese or any other products derived from animals.

“Israel is leading the vegan revolution around the world, and this is another indication,” said Vegan Friendly Director Omri Paz. The vegan pizza will use a soy-based topping with vegetables instead of dairy cheese.

Yossi Elbaz, the CEO of the Israeli franchise, said it took six months to develop the new pizza, Haaretz reported.

“We’ve notified Domino’s Pizza’s world headquarters and they’re very pleased,” Mr. Elbaz said. “They’re waiting to see the results.

In 1969 I came to Israel to be a student at Machon Greenberg in Jerusalem.  At the time I had many friends doing the year at Hebrew University.  Most of them were housed in brand new dormitories, called “Shikunei Elef” at the edge of the Givat Ram campus near the orchards that separated the campus from Givat Mordechai and Bayit Vegan. The buildings were long, thin rectangles on barren land.

I spent a Shabbat with one of my friends, and in the afternoon we walked from her dorm through the orchards to Givat Mordechai to see friends of hers.  Two years later I was married, a mother and we lived in a top floor walk-up on Rechov Bayit Vegan which davka overlooked Shikunei Elef.  During the ten years we lived there, I was able to observe how the university’s landscaping department managed to camouflage those plain buildings.

I hadn’t seen them for a long time until last week when I visited a friend who lives in the Senior Citizens Residences of the Shalom Hotel.  During the time we lived in Bayit Vegan we also saw the hotel under construction.

My friend and I went out on the terrace and I was mesmerized by the view.  It was the same basic view I had from my old apartment.  That’s for sure, because you can’t see our building from there.  I walked around and tried to see from the sides, but it blocks our old building.

The Shalom Hotel has two buildings.  In between is the swimming pool.  I couldn’t get a picture of our old home.  It’s blocked by the other building.

There’s so much building going on in Jerusalem.

It doesn’t matter how many apartments are built.  Housing prices still go up in Jerusalem.  Supply never reaches demand, because the more there is, the more people want to be in Jerusalem.

When we moved to Bayit Vegan in 1971, it was considered a suburban, almost country-like neighborhood.  There’s little to remind anyone of that today, except for the tall trees in the park near our old building.

This picture is taken on Rechov Uziel, under our Rechov Bayit Vegan.  Our old building is hidden by the trees. When we lived there, we were next to the large park/playground that connected the two streets.  There was just an empty lot in-between us and the park.  I could even see my kids playing there from our apartment.  You can’t do that today.  Just as we were planning our move to Shiloh building began on an apartment house on that empty lot.

Nothing stays the same in Jerusalem.

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