11 February 2013

We both once again slept very well last night and got up quite early. Soon, I need to get back to my morning walks and exercise.

I had only 5 units of Berlitz today: 10:00-11:30, 2:00-3:30, and 8:00-8:45 (later this evening).

We ate lunch at a new restaurant today, one which only opened a view days ago. It's called 9 Bar, and it's located right next to Greg at the Ice Park & Mall. We've been watching them prepare it for months now. The decor is really quite amazing! The walls are covered with fancy carved wood (of course, it may be fake, but it looks nice anyway!). There are HUGE golden bas relief figures of angels, winged fairies, winged lions, etc. and quotations (in English) from various pop/rock music groups (I presume they come from the lyrics of songs, but I don't know them, of course!). The ceiling is high, there are floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the lagoon and towards Aqaba and the Jordanian mountains to the east, and there are nice chandeliers above. The only thing marring the elegance is that the wooden floors look rather unfinished.

It's basically a meat restaurant, so there are relatively few vegetarian dishes on the menu. I ordered shakshuka, and David ordered noodles. Both were okay, but certainly nothing special. We both had "ice-café", but it turned out actually to be iced coffee (i.e. coffee with ice in it). The sweetener was sugar water served separately in tiny pitchers. But, even with double sweetener, it still wasn't very good. David only drank a little of his.

The service, though, was just about the best I've seen in Israel. Of course, there weren't busy at all in the middle of the day, but the waitress was very prompt and attentive. She did bring only ONE drink at first, but when I told her we had ordered two, she apologized and quickly brought a second one. She was also very attentive.

So, the place gets an A- for decor and atmosphere, A for service, and C for food. We'll probably seldom go there, but that could be quite different for people who eat meat. Instead, we'll continue to go to Greg quite a bit (B for decor and atmosphere, mostly due to the mall; B+ for service; and A for food!).

I did some editing of pics I've taken recently, and I posted a couple of new entries in my old blog. So, to see pictures of nice flowers along highway 12, click here. For more about our visit last Shabbat to Ein Avdat (including some really nice pics), click here.