For years we would travel to Moshav Udim and have our Friday breakfast at the wonderful Muscat café in the heart of the old moshav.
After our meal, it was always a pleasure to visit the ladies’ dress shop adjoining the café and pick out some good Israeli-made fashions.
The cafe closed some years ago and we have never really found a replacement for our Friday morning jaunts, trying various cafes in a variety of places.
Then we discovered Salento, which opened about a year ago, and went back to Udim, with all its surrounding bucolic beauty, to enjoy a Friday breakfast once again.
A new place for Friday morning breakfast
Not that it’s anything like the old Muscat. Not possessing the understated elegance of its predecessor, it’s cheap and cheerful. Breakfast is NIS 52, reasonable by any standards, and is almost enough for two diners. An added small, toasted sandwich was enough to satisfy all the hunger pangs.
When we drove up to the café, the first positive aspect was that the nearest parking area is reserved for septuagenarians and there was a space. Not that parking is a problem anywhere there, as the place is in a moshav with plenty of open space. But we didn’t have far to walk.
We ordered breakfast for one that did not take long to prepare. The place describes itself as self-service, which simply means that you have to get up and get the tray yourself. No big deal, especially for me, as I spent student vacations working as a waitress and once, memorably, as a barmaid.
Apart from the usual fried eggs, the tray also contained a nice selection of salads – small quantities, but quite enough – of tehina, different white cheeses, chickpeas, pesto, tuna, and a large salad which was served straight onto the paper. Not the height of elegance, one has to say, but practical.
Everything was very fresh and tasty, and the whole-meal bread and butter added to the pleasure. The two cappuccinos that we had asked for before the food were outstanding.
The extra toasted sandwich, which was vegan with grilled aubergine, took a while and I had to keep an eye on the hatch from the kitchen to the serving area to see when it would appear. After several false alarms, it arrived and was all that I had hoped for.
Salento is famous for its pastries and cakes, but we demurred as we don’t especially like sweet stuff at breakfast. We finished our meal very pleasantly surprised by the high standard and lovely, warm atmosphere, and quite determined to go back for more. We happily paid the very modest sum of under NIS 100 for the pleasure of an excellent breakfast in the beautiful Israeli countryside.
Café Salento1 Harimon St. Moshav Udim050-291-8131Open: Sunday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-4 p.m.; Friday, 7 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed SaturdayKashrut: Hof Hasharon Rabbinate