What I Ate In Jerusalem (and after the Marathon)

Hello! When we last spoke I had just run the Jerusalem Marathon. Now let’s talk about what I ate after and how I almost tried mystery paste…

After the race the entire group waited for me to finish the full marathon. That was really sweet. They 100% didn’t have to do that. Plus, I took a long time! Once I was done I grabbed my stuff and we made the short walk back to the hotel. I showered and decided to head out in search of food. Some of the others were going out to lunch, but I didn’t feel up to it and wanted to do my own thing.

I walked two blocks from the hotel to a small grocery store. Note: I felt 100% safe walking alone in Jerusalem. If I felt unsafe at all it was with the group in religious areas just because of the ideas I already had about this place.

Most of Jerusalem is completely bilingual – all the signs are in Hebrew and English. Most people I encountered spoke both languages.

But a lot of the food at the store was labeled in Hebrew only. It wasn’t that big of a problem since I can tell what most of the foods I wanted look like without labels.

I grabbed a few things and headed to the check out. One of the foods I was most excited to eat here was the HUMMUS. I made sure to get some crackers and picked out a hummus…

But when I got to the checkout to pay I asked “Is this hummus?”

“No. You want hummus?” In Hebrew the guy advised another worker to grab me a small hummus and he came back with two options. I grabbed one and was potentially saved from eating pate or something.

We had a few hours to relax after the race so I watched Sweet Home Alabama with Hebrew subtitles. I put my feet up and caught up on some email and called my family.

We stayed at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Jerusalem. It was really nice. The gym was just okay, but did the job. The breakfast and dinner buffet was amazing though. Loved it.

After our time off to relax the group met in the lobby to head to the Western Wall. We went to see Shabbat at the wall. Our guide wanted to show us this special time of prayer and tradition. It was sunset and a really beautiful moment.

After Shabat we headed back to the hotel for dinner. Since it was the Sabbath a lot of kosher places are closed (on Friday night). We ate at the hotel’s buffet. They included this wine that was basically like syrup (so of course I liked it).

I made an epic salad with all the goods. Plus, there were eight different kinds of bread and a bunch of different desserts. I didn’t take pictures of round two or three because I was very busy talking to my friends eating.

I loved all the food in Jerusalem.

Every meal (including breakfast) had a lot of different fruit, vegetables and vegetarian options. One of the bloggers in our group had a nut allergy and that was a bigger issue than the vegetarian journalist. Each sit down meal started with several small salads, vegetables and bread. The hummus was amazing (so smooth). There were a lot of fruit options too. The one thing I thought was weird was that our pre-race food didn’t include a banana and there weren’t bananas at the breakfast buffet. I think of bananas as a runner food and a breakfast food. Outside of that there was nothing lacking at each meal. A lot of times when I travel I come home craving a salad because I’ve missed my usual veggies and big salads. But that wasn’t an issue in Israel. In both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv there were plenty of veggies. I loved the food. (I already said that. Ha!).

Question: Have any questions for me on the food there?

What is one food you miss when you are traveling?

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