Peace

I finally ate hummus at Abu-Gosh (أبو غوش). This Arabic village near Jerusalem is known amongst Israelis as the best place in Israel to "wipe" hummus, which is the proper way to eat it. Now the thing is that everyone talks about it, but no-one could tell me where to go exactly - Arabic settlements are very confusingly planned, and it's hard to find your way around the barely named and paved streets (years of goverment neglect, about which i'm not proud at all).

So i just tried to go there myself, alone. I heard about the Hummus Wars between the two restaurants that are both called Abu-Shuqri (أبو شقري); there was even violence against customers (!) a few months ago, but i guess that they understand now that there are lines, crossing of which will hurt everyone.

I drived into Abu-Gosh and just kept driving forward. I saw a couple of restaurants on the way but they looked like 100% tourist traps. So i kept driving until i saw a small arrow pointing left - Abu-Shuqri. So i turned left. A minute later i was in a "piazza", the size of which was no more than 8 square meters, but it was the home of no less than four restaurants, including "Abu Shuqri the Original!" and "Abu Shuqri Number 1!". Of course i saw no parking, but very quickly someone started to point me to some direction, so i just complied. Whatever, i said. He helped me to park in a side alley and of course called me inside to his restaurant. It was not one of the Abu-Shuqri's - it was called Naji and to make a long story short, it was excellent. I ordered hummus with mushrooms, my favourite; by mistake he brought me a plate without mushrooms. Later he apologized and added mushrooms. Actually, their mushrooms were simplistic and just couldn't add much to the wonderful hummus, but they didn't spoil it. The density was just right; the proportion of hummus, tahina, olive oil and pine nuts was perfect.

I've gotta admit that i still think that there's NOTHING like Hummus with Mushrooms in Pam Pam, but Naji provided me with a damn good plate to wipe.