Muchentuchen: My new favorite town

After Buffalo, we headed out on the road again – thinking that we would rather drive a little today and a little the next day rather than a lot the next day.

The only problem was that we realized only a little too late (meaning I had already passed out and was sleep-talking) that it was a Saturday night and we were driving along the very touristic shores of Lake Erie = even the crappiest hotel was charging over $100 for a room.

Eventually we say an exit sign with 2 motels of unrecognizable names, that weren’t even in the GPS. We stopped and were successful - we found a room for $60 after tax!

Why am I going into this amount of detail? Because as Uri and I were getting out of the car and into the room, we both had the exact same thought “this looks like the motels that people get murdered in on CSI”. For me, the feeling was enhanced by the Circle K across the street, because as some of you might know “strange things are afoot at the Circle K”.

The next morning we headed out towards Detroit.

Our destination was a Lebanese restaurant called Al Ameer that we saw on the same episode of No Reservations I had mentioned yesterday. It looked so good on TV – just like back home. And they even had fried Kebbie (aka Koobe)!

Driving to the restaurant was a bit like driving through an

American version of Daliat El-Carmel and we were a little scared, it was pretty obvious that we should not wear our “I [heart] Israel” shirts. But we were prepared – Uri had not shaved for

a couple of days, and we told ourselves that we would only speak in English, and I would do the ordering. The place itself was pretty surreal. Probably one of the last places in the US to still have a smoking section, decorated with plastic flowers, pictures of Jerusalem (as Uri said “there’s a picture of my house behind you” and Cedars of the Lebanon (we wondered if that meant they welcome Golani soldiers). What can I tell you? It was everything I expected and more. I mean, I could see myself making the 7 hour drive just to come to this restaurant… especially considering that it will likely be another year before I make it back to Israel!

Another highlight was a supermarket across the street from the restaurant. We knew we would go in as soon as we that the English sign was also translated to Arabic. If the restaurant met my expectations – this place defiantly exceeded them. Not only did I find semolina like the one we have in Israel (btw – I bought 6 lbs), not only did Uri find sumac and za’atar, there were also fruits and vegetables there at reasonable prices – like cucumbers “balaadi” as the sign said, for $0.77!

Since even we feel wired going all the way to an out of the way city for one restaurant - we also went to the Henry Ford Museum (actually I had made a note to go to the museum before we knew about the restaurant, but if it wasn’t for the restaurant, we probably would have skipped Detroit). It was really cool – it’s a huge complex that actually has 3 giant museums. We got there an hour before closing – so we chose the museum with the most artifacts in it – it was fantastic. Obviously there were a lot of cars – lots of cars! from wagons from the 18th century to one or two “cars of the future”, which I thought wouldn’t be very interesting, but it was very cool. It turns out they are all in running condition too! There were also other things like the chair Lincoln was shot in (from the Ford theater), and an original copy of the 13th amendment. Also all kinds of chairs from different periods, and a sad exhibit about pop culture in the 20th century which contained things I actually played with like a Speak-and-Spell (that’s why it was sad – I’m now old enough that parts of my life can be artifacts in a museum). Here you'll find a link to the pictures, there's just too many of them to post. But since we seem to be consentrating on food - here are two cool ones - George Washington's mess kit and his field bed: