This past winter the Settler family was invited to a (Yuppie) kosher restaurant one evening in Tel Aviv with some friends and family. Admittedly, the first time in years that we went out to a Yuppie place in Tel Aviv in the evening.

The Settler family walked in with our not-black outfits, baby carriage and a minor delay at the door because the guard didn’t know what a gun license looks like, not to mention the Orange T”Z cover.

I can’t begin to say how out of place we looked there.

The only ones not dressed in black. The only ones with children. Not the only Kippah, because it is a kosher establishment. Clothing and hair styles completely different from what we are used to seeing in say the Jerusalem restaurants.

It was a bit surreal, very otherworldly.

As many of you probably know, the Aroma café – a Jerusalem institution for some, just (or at least one branch) went kosher.

Yesterday afternoon the wife decided that we will try it out.

So in we walked, into a poor man’s Tel Aviv!

Everyone dressed in black. Almost not a single Kippah in sight. Round table discussions going on in each corner, etc.

I suddenly felt myself being transported back to that evening in Tel Aviv, merely by walking through those Emek Refaim doors.

Talk about two Jerusalems.

The truth is, I knew the Left and Yuppies of Jerusalem must hang out somewhere, but never having entered a non-Kosher restaurant in the past I never saw them.

When Aroma went Kosher, they didn’t flee their watering hole but entrenched themselves against the upcoming invasion.

Still, it’s interesting; one can still see the subtle differences between Jerusalem’s Yuppies (young and old) and Tel Aviv’s.

So while I felt transported, it felt like I entered a poor man’s Tel Aviv (just like Tel Aviv reminds me of a poor man’s Miami Beach).

I had the Portobello sandwich.

Afterwards I took the kids to Pizza Sababa and got us a pie.