Last morning in Haifa

I woke up on my last morning on Haifa and had my coffee on the balcony and waited a while before texting Orli. I sent her links to a few places for breakfast, but she was not interested in getting out of bed quite that early. I decided to go in search of breakfast. I wandered around, looking for something light, since I knew that Orli would want lunch in the not-too-distant future. I wandered a little through the German Colony, but those places that were open had big, full breakfasts. I started to head toward where we had ice cream the day before, near the port, but decided that I really didn’t want to walk quite that far. So, I headed toward Wadi Nisnas.

I knew that I wanted some coffee and also wanted to purchase some from Cafe Haifa, so I headed there first. I noticed a much bigger crowd than I had seen the previous day. I tried to slip inside the tiny store and found myself in the middle of a tour group, just as their presentation was about to begin.

No one seemed to object to my presence, so I stayed and listened to the presentation. The group was Israeli and the entire presentation was in Hebrew, but I was able to follow most of it. Mustafa, the owner explained his process of roasting the beans, grinding them, then mixing in the hel or cardoman. He brews the perfect cup of coffee.

There is more than coffee in the tiny shop. He sells a halvah that is incredibly smooth. Normally halvah has a gritty texture, but this halvah is almost velvety. He explained the creaminess is due to the addition of potato starch in the halvah. he was able to slice small pieces off of the log, crush it with the side of the knife, and then spread it back onto the log.

Next, we sampled a sweet known as the Garden of Eden. It is a log made of carob, date, and pistachio, that is incredibly sweet and delicious. From there. we were able to sample locally produced techina, that was nutty, creamy, and smooth.

He also showed us carob syrup, olive oil, and olive oil infused with coffee. At the end of the presentation, I brought some coffee to bring home with me.

After leaving Cafe Haifa, I started on my way back to the hotel. I stopped by a bakery a bought two small pastries, one a cheese filled one, another a triangular one filled with zaatar, onions, and other spices. Both were delicious and enough to tide me over until lunch.

Back at the hotel, I repacked my bags to be sure that everything would fit. It was definitely a tight fit, largely due of course, to the franchise-worth of pumpkin seeds I was carrying with me. Orli and I put our bags behind the desk in the hotel and went out for lunch.

She chose the Butterfly Cafe, about a 20 minute walk for us. It featured a breakfast/brunch menu. We selected the breakfast for two. Two eggs for each us us, sharing nine small side salads. The food was ok, the service did leave a little to be desired. The server got our drink orders wrong, in terms of what type of coffee we each wanted, I received scrambled eggs, instead of an omelet, and we only received eight, not nine side salads. We also received three, not four rolls. The side dishes (labneh, Bulgarian cheese, hummus, techina, avocado, jam, salmon, and cream cheese were all tasty, but nothing was a wow. We finished up, wandered back to the hotel, and waited for our cab to the airport.

The cab arrived, we loaded all of our stuff into the trunk and we were off to Lod, to Ben Gurion Airport. We gave ourselves a little extra time and arrived almost an hour before our scheduled COVID test for departure. We waited, and waited some more, had our tests performed and then began the several hours of waiting prior to departure. My time in Israel was nearing its end.