Firmly Planted
Potato-mushroom boureka
Place: Deshe Gan, Kfar Yonah
When: Tuesday, mid-afternoon
Environment: Another food truck café ensconced within a nursery. The outside of the not-going-anywhere-anytime-soon vehicle was coated with fake greenery. There was plenty of garden-furniture seating, most of which was under awnings, pergolas, or other shady fabrics. It was very quiet during my visit, but from the size of the space, it seems it must have some busy times. The menu was surprisingly extensive, with pizzas, bourekas, pastries, sandwiches, and salads. I asked the proprietor for a recommendation on what to order, and she was pretty helpful and friendly. There was almost a beach vibe, which makes no sense since the nursery is right off a busy intersection and the water is nowhere in sight.
My Order: A mushroom-potato boureka, which comes with a side salad (NIS 45); cold coffee (NIS 18).
The low-down: As much as the fruit shakes were calling to me, this blog is meant to be about coffee. So on a hot summer afternoon, I compromised on a cold coffee. It was ready quickly, and it was good. The milk almost seemed thick, it was refreshing, and the coffee was potent. The boureka, however, took forever to be ready. I could only assume it had been frozen and they were defrosting it and heating it. Once received, I relaxed. The boureka was piping hot, and came pre-cut. The menu and proprietor boasted that it was margarine-free and handmade. It was pretty good, though perhaps a bit on the salty side. It was accompanied by a sliced hardboiled egg sprinkled with zaatar, a slaw salad, tehina, a tomatoey-and-not-at-all spicy matboucha, and olives. The fresh salad was lightly dressed. The egg was perfectly cooked – and warm. It may very well have been cooked once my order was placed. In all, it was a nice meal and pleasant vibe.
Who else was there: A man in is thirties sat at long bar seating on his own. He wore a light orange Under Armour baseball hat, sunglasses, a white t-shirt and khaki pants. He had some bracelets tied around his wrist. He spent the whole time on his cell phone, on speaker phone.
The call was mainly an argument with his girlfriend. They were trying to make plans for the coming weekend. They were meant to go to his parents in the north of the country, but she was nervous due to threats of attack coming out of Lebanon. He tried to reason with her that his parents were on their own up there, and despite the potential danger, they shouldn’t have to be alone. She has been pushing to bring them down to stay with them and get them out of harm’s way, but they won’t hear of it. They don’t want to abandon their stake hold in the face of the enemy. They’ve been through war before and made it out alive, which is their plan for this war, too.
I wouldn’t normally include a photo of a toilet on a food blog, but this was just too wild not to share. And yes, it’s the same greenery that coats the outside of the food truck.
