Hasneh Haboer: A Fire Lit Behind the Petrol Pumps

Traffic funnels through the Kfar HaYarok junction while the pumps of a Paz station click through their cycles. Walk past them and the setting changes. A shaded courtyard opens behind the forecourt, small tables face a counter, and someone calls a skewer order across the room while a tray of little dishes heads outside: eggplant in vinegar, egg salad under fried onion, a Moroccan carrot with real heat, and three pots of hot sauce. Nothing from the road suggests any of it. This is Hasneh Haboer, the Burning Bush, at Moshe Sneh 199 in Kiryat Shaul, a skewer house that borrows the shape of the Israeli fuel stop stand and then applies the discipline of a serious kitchen to every plate. The name is a joke about fire, and the kitchen takes the fire seriously.

The people behind the counter explain the ambition. Hanan Azran is the partner of chef Erez Komarovsky in Erez and Hanan, a well known Tel Aviv catering house. Sharon Yarizt owns Petrozilia, the Tel Aviv kosher grill that has been serving hummus and mangal since 1995. The hummus at Hasneh Haboer comes from Petrozilia, which tells you how the two kitchens relate: one is a decades old grill room in the city, the other a young counter on the edge of it, and they share a pantry of ideas.