If you love hidden city gems, stories and good food, try spending a day with Bitemojo. That is what we did on one sunny Friday morning.
Bitemojo is a self-guided culinary and culture tour. You install the application on your iPhone or Android device, buy the tour and go at your own pace.The cities currently covered are Barcelona, Rome, Berlin, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. London is coming soon. The tour includes six "bites" – tasting portions of food and drinks in carefully chosen locations. Although in Tel-Aviv tour I would rather call them "gigabites" – we asked for a take-away bag already at the second location, since my "tasting portion" of sweet potato chips was huge!
I took the Tel-Aviv Vegan tour (yes, the tour is appealing not only for vegans) and my husband chose Levinsky Market and Florentine tour. They are both set in the same part of the city and partially in the same cafes. Each tour costs 30 EUR – comparable to a price of modest dinner in an Israeli restaurant.
Florentine quarter in Tel-Aviv is famous for its graffiti and art galleries. You may call it shabby, but it has a lot of character. Even a local synagogue has graffiti on it!
But the best part was visiting the cafes. Whoever has picked up these locations, knows and feels Tel-Aviv deeply. They managed to snap the essence of hip and relaxed Florentin and pack in into a two-hour tour. I love how the route in the application is built – it was intuitive and easy to navigate.
Vegan tour starts with a glass of cortado (typical local coffee with milk) and a cookie in the hip "hole-in-the-wall" coffee point "Pina" – "corner" in Hebrew. We continued with vegetarian snacks in a super-telavivian "Casbah" where local bohema, artists and romantic couples start the day. We wiped hummus with pita and top it up with lemonade in a classic "hummusia" at Herzl street and got freshly baked burrekas with cheese and spinach in a family-run bakery at Levinski market. And, last but not least, we spent half an hour in "Tavlinski" – the kingdom of spices, dried fruits and teas, all super-fresh and flavourous.
Overall – we enjoyed the tour tremendously. Even in Tel-Aviv, the city we both know well, we discovered unusual places with fascinating stories… and also great tastes!
What a great introduction to the city and food! Everything looks and sounds delicious!
It really was! By far exceeded our expectations!
I remember visiting Tel Aviv and seeing the amount of food on offer. It was my first visit to the Middle East and loved checking out the cuisine. Seeing your photos of the food did bring back some memories.
Yes, Israeli food is great!
Bitemojo sure sounfs interesting!! I wouldn't mind testing also their Berlin or London ones, especially because they offer a mixed experience, food and culture!
You are welcome to try (and they work with bloggers, so worth contacting them and asking).
Wow, the food looks imcredible!! You just made me hungry, ahaha, X
It also tasted great!
Wow this tour sounds amazing especially as its vegan! Allt the food looks delicious and it must have been a great introduction for you!
What a great tour that is.I used to live in Israel and really miss their authentic hummus and the burekas. My daughter used to live in Florentin too 🙂
Israeli food is so healthy and delicious its easy to be vegetarian there
Very easy due to kashrut, you just eat in dairy places :))
This is a great idea! Kind of funny that the vegan tour included milk and cheese! : )
Hmmmm, I did not think about it since I am not vegan myself. But you can definitely take a coffee without milk or with soya milk and burekas with potatoes or spinach.
I had never really thought about the food when I think of Tel Aviv. I usually think of history. From your pictures though, it looks like the food is delicious! Can't wait to try it when I'm there next Spring.
Tel Aviv is a very young city – it was established in 1909. So it less of a history, more of beaches, nightlife and yes, food!
love the idea of this! food looks amazing too!
This sounds so freaking cool! I love taking food tours and this would allow one to do so at their own pace and at any time. Love it! Hope they come to the states soon!
Hope so!