While Tiberias is famous for St.Peter’s fish, my personal recommendation would be this restaurant called Yali’s. The Halloumi Cheese Salad here is so so so good! It’s so good that I didn’t mind that there wasn’t meat in it! Yes! It’s that incredible! Even as a non-vegetarian, I loved it!
Location
Yali’s is on the Main Street in Tiberias. The Great Mosque is right behind it. And I don’t understand why the rating is 3.9.
We were sitting right in front of the mosque!
Dishes
We didn’t come here for good reviews online, but simply because the restaurant seemed to have more customers than others in the area. That’s a good sign!
I chose a salad and pizza so that the 3 of us could share!
I never heard of Halloumi cheese, and to my amazement, every piece of it was a bite of happiness. It’s like fried cheese, and it tasted better than meat! And the salad was a combination of fresh mushroom, nuts and rocket leaves. I couldn’t believe this was in Israel! And this was large size salad (with complimentary bread), it was enough for 3 of us, even if we didn’t order pizza.
And pizza was good! The crust was crispy. The cheese was not boring, you could feel the love of the mother cow (seriously!) From my other reviews you’ll see I’m not a fan of cheese. But I love this pizza! Again, since it’s kosher, there’s no meat!
This is Sahleb, an Middle Eastern drink available in winter only. This was 17NIS I think. Cinammon stick, nuts, cocoa and coconut powder. Well, it is okay. It’s very thick milk and spices. It looks pretty though!
And mint tea, you have to try mint tea in Israel! I think this was 12NIS
Our paked dinner. Yes we underestimated the serving size in Israel. I like this paper bag. The bill was about 175NIS.
So the 3 of us tried very hard to finish the lunch, yet we still had salad, one big piece of bread and two slices of pizza….. haha!
I couldn’t wait for dinner time because this salad was SO GOOD! And after finishing this leftover salad, I was already planning my next trip to Israel. For this salad! Seriously!
This restaurant honestly changed my view to Israeli restaurants. I could finally say that I found good food in Israel! It’s hard because I come from Taiwan where you easily find GREAT food at cheap prices. And this salad was good because it is only 80NIS, not expensive in Israeli standard. But it was simple and good!
Final Verdict
1 of my only 3 restaurants in Israel that I will definitely recommend. Order Halloumi cheese salad!
