Now that Andy and I have left the Middle East and Iran behind it’s time for a confession: we spend four secret days in Israel.

One consequence of the tensions in the Middle East is that some countries, such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran, will not allow entry to people with an Israeli stamp in their passport. We managed to enter Israel via Jordan without getting a stamp, but didn’t write about it on our blogs until after we had been to Iran for fear of jeopardising our visa application.

Andy was initially unsure about visiting Israel, but I managed to convince him with a singularly compelling argument: Israel is a vegetarian friendly nation.

Judaism has a number of rigorously laid out dietary rules which determine whether food is kosher (i.e. permitted to be eaten). One of the most fundamental rules is that meat and dairy foods may not be eaten together. In many instances this is also interpreted to mean that the same food utensils may not be used to prepare both meat and dairy dishes.

Our first stop in Israel was Jerusalem. In a city so redolent with religion, it was hardly surprising that restaurants strictly observed kosher rules. Often when we entered a restaurant we would be met by a waiter, then asked if we would like to sit in the meat or in the dairy section (even better, sometimes we were also given the sub-choice of smoking or non-smoking). The dairy section had a meat and shellfish-free menu, making life very easy for vegetarians, if not vegans.

Some restaurants took this a step further by only offering dairy or meat based food. While not always of the best quality, the dairy restaurants at least took the stress out of finding something vegetarian to eat and meant that we had a choice of food for dinner.

We spent our last day in Israel in the carefree city of Tel Aviv. While we weren’t there long enough to experience the full range of restaurants, it seemed as though the dairy and meat prohibitions were less frequently observed, with many restaurants not segregating diners.

Another facet of Israel’s vegetarian friendliness is the popularity of felafel. As a devotee of Yummba, the delicious, vegetarian felafel store in Bondi Junction, I couldn’t wait to try the real thing in Jerusalem.

Felafel in Israel is different to felafel in the rest of the Middle East. The felafel balls are a lighter colour and softer to eat. The pita bread is stuffed with different types of delicious pickled vegetables, along with fresh salad (or sometimes instead of it) and hot chips are also added to the roll by default.

I tried a couple of different felafel places, but found them disappointing. The felafel balls weren’t as well spiced as Yummba, the bread was not as soft and fresh, the hot chips were a guilty pleasure but are unnecessary when the filling is good, and the dips were not as flavoursome. Perhaps Yummba is not authentic, but if so I think it’s better than the real thing.

While we only had a short time in Israel, I thought it was a fascinating country and gave us a welcome opportunity to eat a plethora of vegetarian food.

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