Saturday, December 22, 2012

Sufganiot Gallery and Ode to a Great Mocha


My family took our first ever family vacation last week. We rented an apartment in Jerusalem for five days and four nights. ( I would highly recommend At Home in Israel for apartment rentals.) After the restaurant we had planned to go to turned into a sushi bar, we wandered into Shosh Cafe.

The restaurant and menu looks like your average Israeli dairy restaurant/cafe. However, the ingredients, flavor, and presentation had that extra something you don't get from a chain. All the food was delicious, but what really stood out was the REAL mocha. I think cafe mocha should be a cross between good cappuccino/cafe latte and good hot chocolate, but it is usually only one or neither. It should be based on good espresso and good chocolate. I've had many good "cappuccinos" and many great "shoko-ham"s (hot chocolate), but never the two shall meet... until today. Now I've only been to Shosh Cafe once, so I can't promise it wasn't a fluke. Maybe the barista was just in a good mood and tossed some extra chocolate in my drink, but this was good espresso with steamed milk and real chocolate. The milk was hot enough to melt the chocolate and the proportions were perfect. Maybe Jerusalem just has higher standard for their hot drinks.

The first day of Hanuka I took my kids and a friend to the "big mall" and the "big park." I was overwhelmed with the variety of sufganiot, filled donuts, on sale. All the pictures are from English Cake, a bakery chain with a store in the mall.

Cheese cake filling with crumb topping (My favorite!)

left: strawberry glaze and filling, right: wild berry filling with cherry on top

Sweet cream filling and chopped mekupelet chocolate topping

front: white chocolate filling with waffle cone topping, back: nutella filling

Tiramisu - coffee flavored mascarpone cheese and chocolate chip filling
with gold covered chocolate coffee bean on top (my other favorite)

Blueberry filling, and blueberry filled "mini" donuts

Strawaberry filled and Halva filled "mini" donuts

Nutella filling

You may also enjoy Israeli Treats: Crembo, Sufganiot, and lots of chocolate and my review of Katzefet.

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