a, ah, ahh, Aroma

New breakfast dish at Aroma

Aroma cafe is a chain of coffee shops across Israel - they've been very successful. Even Starbucks couldn't make it here, but this chain seems to be thriving. They even have one branch in New York City.

I was pleased to see that they've added to their menu quite a few dishes. Instead of the usual Israeli breakfast fare of eggs and a huge salad with tons of cream cheese I won't eat plus sliced cheese and a few olives, they now have pancakes with fresh fruits and mascarpone cheese on the side. The sauce over the pancakes isn't maple syrup. It's Silan - which is the Israeli/Middle Eastern version of maple syrup. The taste is quite similar.

Thankfully this is Israel, where you don't have to be as polite as I had to be in Canada and you can ask people what is that on their plate. I did that twice this morning because of salads I'd never seen before there. One was a bowl of chickpeas, hard boiled eggs, veggies with techina - their new Jerusalem salad and the other was called the Garden Salad - a roasted veggies salad - both of which looked great.