In an effort to keep our finger on the city's food pulse, and develop new tours, the Delicious Israel Team visited South Tel Aviv to taste the neighborhood's ethnic food culture.

From 1993 to 2010, Tel Aviv was home to the world’s largest bus station. With eight floors covering 230,000 square meters, it is now beaten only by New Delhi’s Millennium Park Bus Depot. The station services approximately 60,000 travelers per day, so the Delicious Israel Team decided to visit the surrounding area to learn more about its food culture!

South Tel Aviv is home to immigrant groups from several countries including China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Philippines, and Sudan; as such we found an expansive variety of restaurants and shops:

Ethiopian Smoothie Shop – Levinsky 94

Just up the street from the bus station is a shop specializing in smoothies thickened using avocados. They also blend in fresh papaya, bananas, and strawberries. If you have a few minutes before your bus leaves and need a filling pick-me-up, this should fit that hole in your stomach!

Dragon Market – Rosh Pina 6

Turn North off of Levinsky and curve up Rosh Pina Street, and you’ll reach an expansive “ethnic foods” mart. I was ecstatic to find that Dragon Market had some of my favorite ingredients: mirin, sesame oil, and good old American barbecue sauce! Next time my roommates and I make teriyaki chicken, we know where to look for Asian cooking supplies.

Tsochi – Noah Shaanan 26

Not to be confused with the Russian city, this Chinese restaurant’s name is a play on the Hebrew words for the cardinal directions – Tsafon, Darom, Mizrach, and Maariv. After tasting part of a steamed beef bun (which was the size of my head!!), the team dug into pan-fried wontons, fried rice, and lo-mein.