"All the best restaurants are in the backs of gas stations"

Day Four: Yom Daled

I spent my morning uploading my travel writings and photos to my blog and sent it to my family. Aaron responded almost immediately that my blog is banned in China. My phone rang around 7am, and it was my Saba (grandfather). He said he knew I was awake because he saw my updated pictures on facebook, otherwise he wouldn’t have called so early. He asked me to join him for lunch in a restaurant nearby called Unis, the exact same spot I met him for lunch three years ago. Don and his family were packing up to go to the beach, and Joanna asked me if I had any magazines she could borrow. I told her “Ya, I have the New Yorker”, and she laughed and said “wow, stop being so serious all the time”.

Tali dropped me off at the restaurant, which looked nothing like a restaurant from the outside- rather an extension of a gas station. “All the best restaurants are in the backs of gas stations”, Tali assured me. I found Saba sitting at a table with his wife, Kay, and my Aunt Tzipporah. Before I could sit down, there was a flurry of photo taking, and they all commented on how blue my eyes are and how I should gain some weight. Not a difficult thing to accomplish at a place like this.

The waiters started bringing out plates and plates of salads and a huge stack fresh pita. I filled up on tabouli, hummus, cabbage salad, grilled eggplant, and fifteen other identifiable but delicious appetizers. Just when I thought I couldn’t eat anymore, the waiters came over to take our order. I thought we already had eaten the whole meal, but additional plates of shish kebab, lamb, and fish, were brought out.

The owner of the restaurant came over to chat with my family, and I was introduced as their American granddaughter who is trying to learn Hebrew. He turned to me and in slow Hebrew said “ Oh! If you worked here, you would learn Hebrew very fast!” My family laughed and said “see you have a job here already”.

After doing some catching up, Turkish coffee, baklavah, and a yoghurty-type of flan drenched in rosewater were brought out for dessert. I literally couldn’t take another bite. The meal could have probably fed an additional five people. Don suddenly appeared to pick me up on his way home from the beach, and my grandfather frantically pulled out his camera and started snapping pictures again. With an overly full stomach and hundred-degree heat, I needed a nap to recover. I woke up at sunset, unfortunately dragging my jet lag out one more day.