Selling Chinese Takeaway on a Remote Hilltop

Well we had to try it. Sitting in a Chinese restaurant on a visit to Tel Aviv, enjoying all the old favourites… hot and sour soup, Szechuan beef and sesame rice balls… Husband suggested we open our own mini take-out in our yishuv. After all, we eat Asian food half the week in any case, and people think my food tastes like take-out (is that a compliment??) so we might as well.

I said yes, but it would have to be this week, or I would wimp out.

So we did. Why on earth I waited until I had my smallest kitchen ever, my Magimix in storage and 3 rugrats, I will never know. But somehow I managed to produce around 30 portions, including main courses, starters, soups and desserts in a student sized kitchen with ankle-biters at my feet. Actually they were quite helpful for the most part, peeling carrots, shredding seaweed, that sort of thing. They were dead excited for The People to come and collect their food, so bedtime sort of went out the window. But they got to see friends and pick at desserts so hopefully they will get over the abject neglect we ended up being guilty of. (At least in this community, nobody gets teased because their parents own the local Chinese…)

We hit our target orders, we had just enough leftovers to make an easy Shabbat, and we even threw in free delivery to friends of ours who were unable to leave their houses. Our feedback is coming back slowly… people are happy to see the arrival of a new service, but we have no idea if it will survive the test of time. We have no choice but to try again and hope for the best!

I have often felt that there are 2 reasons many people reject the idea of living in a yishuv. One is the lack of makolet (aka newsagent), in other words, nowhere to buy emergency chocolate. The other is the lack of takeout. If you live alone, or your partner is away or you Just Can’t Be Bothered, its a great fix. Plus you can’t beat the soups. In fact nobody makes soup like that unless they really love you, and food is very much linked to love (remember the critic in the movie Ratatouille?) so what better way than to order in? So we felt there was a real need to provide this – and how much better if we can do it without adding junk? (organic egg-fried rice anyone?)

So folks, even us hilltop folks can have a taste of the city-life. I’m off now. Time to read my kids a story. I’m thinking Mrs Wobble the Waitress.

Here is a link to the takeout menu for those that are curious.