The Mahane Yehuda Shuk, or outdoor market, has been changing over the last few years. More and more of the stores that used to sell cheap vegetables or fruit, or that sold cheap kitchen wares and so forth have become fancy shops and restaurants. Soon there won’t be anywhere left to shop for inexpensive basic food items.
The latest addition in this trend is a place that only sells fried cauliflower. That’s right! I said just fried cauliflower. No fried broccoli, sweat potatoes or French fries.
It kind of reminds me a sketch from Saturday Night Live from the 1970s with Fred Willard. It was about a store that only sold scotch tape. That’s right! Just scotch tape!
Shmuel Zohar, 31, is from Moshav Bet Meir. He previously worked as a truck driver. Shmuel opened “Cruvim” (cauliflower) a little over a week ago.
While he never operated a store or restaurant before, Shmuel says that it is not too difficult. “It’s easy to do this even without business experience,” he said. “I worked with someone who saw the same thing in Berlin so I decided to do it myself.” Shmuel also previously worked in a clothing store.
Shmuel Zohar at Work
I asked Shmuel why just cauliflower and not other vegetables. He explained that, “it’s the best fried. Broccoli and other vegetables do not come out well fried.”
And what about French fries or even sweet potato fries?
“Everybody else already sells that so what would be the point in my doing that too? I want this to be special,” said Shmuel.
There is only one size and it costs 20 Shekels. They also have Estrella beer on tap. It comes from Barcelona. They expect to be open for Pesach. Cruvim is located on one of the Shuk’s cross streets between the main Mahane Yehuda Street and the covered street in what use to be a store’s storage refrigerator.
- On Turning 50 and Other Observations - 8/7/2020
- Pesach Movies To Watch While You Social Distance - 4/12/2020
- You vote for Likud – Not BIBI - 9/16/2019
I think the Yafo flea market is also going in the same direction. More and more upscale yuppie places moving in.