Shabbat Shalom

You’re on vacation. Relax and treat yourself to prepared food this Shabbat. Simply set the table and enjoy your meals with family and friends around the table in the majestic dining room in Villa Tiferet. You will feel like kings and queens. 

This Shabbat, we decided to sample the take-out food in Tsfat. Here are the findings of our culinary venture. 

We left Villa Tiferet around 9:30 a.m. and walked three minutes to the midrechov, (called Rehov Yerushalayim) the main shopping street of Tsfat. We first passed two bakeries where the windows were steaming from freshly made challot. You can choose from Angel Bakery or Ariel Bakery. 83Rehov Yerushalayim. They are very close to each other. We decided on Angel bakery because we happen to love their olive bread. Warm it up just before Shabbat and it’s crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Right across the road from Angel bakery is a tiny shop called Atliz.  They have freshly roasted chickens and spicy sausage. Buy a whole chicken and they'll cut it up for you. 

Want some appetizers, vegetable dishes, fish or kugel? If you walk up the road just past the Baghdad Café, you will see a restaurant called Arale. On Friday mornings, the restaurant is converted into a catering place with long tables filled with Shabbat goodies by Peretz catering. Just pick up a silver foil pan, fill it with your favorite delicacies, then get it weighed and pay. The food looked great and was mostly Sephardi style. This Shabbat catering place is kosher mehadrin.  (052)827-2299 

Keep on walking.  Just across from the City Hall, there is a restaurant called Moniteen. The food was cooked Sephardi-style again, although we did spy schnitzel. The huge selection included a variety of salads, potatoes any style, chicken dishes, salmon, eggplant, rice, noodle dihes, peas, beans and carrots. The food is kosher rabbanut. Moniteen, 37 Rehov Yerushalayim. 04 682 1251

Next in line is Mendi’s.  This is Ashkenazi 100%, with gefilte fish chopped liver and Yiddish-speaking caterers to boot. The food is nicely presented in two rooms. They have soup, chicken dishes potatoes presented in six different ways, salmon, chicken, beef and more. Mendi’s is Kosher Bedatz (Eidat Charedi). It opens at 9:30 and closes three hours before Shabbat. Mendi’s, 29 Rehov Yerushalayim. 04 692 3067

There are several other places that offer Shabbat food outside of Tsfat, in Har Canaan and Rosh Pina. But if you do not have a car and prefer to walk from Villa Tiferet, you can buy all your Shabbat food quite easily. 

Our food shopping done, we were then free to roam the galleries and sip a steaming cafe afuch before returning back and getting ready for Shabbat. 

We set the table and warmed the food. After shul, as we sang Lecha Dodi and welcomed the Shabbat Queen, we too felt like royalty. 

There is nothing like a Shabbat in Tsfat. The ruach, the singing and the dancing at the synagogues touch the soul. As for our meals, they tasted just like home-cooked food. Without having to spend time food shopping, cooking and cleaning up, we were able to bring in Shabbat relaxed and enjoyed ourselves like royalty dwelling in a sweet palace.