A street named Emek

My first full day in Jerusalem wasn't very exciting, I'll admit. But I'm on vacation! I'm allowed to take one day to lounge around and do nothing productive, right? Well, I did do some productive things, but I only left Liz and Ronen's apartment at 4 PM... and was back an hour and a half later.
I decided to go walk down to Emek Rafaim, which is one of the trendiest streets in Jerusalem. I can't actually say if that's accurate, but it's very trendy. There are about 50 restaurants in a mile strip of street: cafes, sandwich shops, steak houses, pizza shops, and even a McDonalds (not kosher) - so many of each kind that it's really amazing that they all stay in business. They have had American chain restaurants other than Micky D's, but sadly, they don't stay around too long. There was Pizza Hut (kosher) on Emek, and KFC (kosher) somewhere off Ben Yehudah, but they've closed sometime in the past 5 years. I do have to go down to Ben Yehudah to see if the kosher Burger King is still in business. It was so cool to order a burger there, even though it's greasy and horribly over-priced.

The other businesses on Emek are jewelry/judaica shops, sunglasses stores, little clothing boutiques, and markets for food. There's a book store, a video store and a few other random things, but the predominant business there is definitely the food industry.

I went into a few little shops, practicing my Hebrish (half Hebrew, half English) as I went along, and since everything was way too expensive, I bought myself a shnitzi and walked back to Liz's. Shnitzi's is a chicken place where they make your chicken in many different styles and give you pickles, lettuce, tomato, onions, anything you want on it, smothered in whatever yummy sauce you want on a gigonzic* roll. It was highly recommended by my good friend/food connoisseur, Alan, so I bought one. There is one in Brooklyn, but I hear it doesn't do the Israeli Shnitzi's justice. Next time I go there to get dinner, I will have to get me some burger's bar - it's essentially the same thing as Shnitzi's, but replace the chicken with the best burger you will ever have. I've been to the Burger's Bar in Brooklyn, and it does do the Israeli one justice. Am I right, Alan?

*not an actual word, but gives you the idea of how big the roll is.