Abu Kamel Hummus Place

We went to this little outdoors hummus place in the old city of East Jerusalem, Tarek and I. Abu Kamel Restaurant. We found it by chance, looking for another hummus place that I once visited in 2008 and thought would be somewhere close to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I have mostly stopped trying to find my way around the old city of Jerusalem, because I always get lost anyway. But I really thought I could find this place.

I think they moved it.

(They could have).

Anyway, this Abu Kamel place seemed nice enough. It has been there for at least 75 years--nailed up on the stone wall is a black and white picture of old men eating hummus in that very place in 1935--so the hummus couldn't be all that bad.

We sat down on a plastic chair each. It was only the two of us, and a young, shy waiter who spoke with a lisp. He recited the menu:

"Feeh hummuth 'ady, hummuth thnober, hummuth thawerma..."

Old Arabic music was playing from somewhere, the air was chilly, the sky gray, and close by was a small coffee place where men sat and smoked shisha.

We ordered plain hummuth, hummuth with pine nutth and a plate of frethly made falafel. All very nice (if not in fact nicer than the other place I was trying to find), and I plan to go back there when my parents visit in April.

That is to say, if they don't move it before that.