Tel Aviv is where it’s at once the sun goes down. You want parties? You want clubs? You want a bar where you sit on rugs smoking hookahs and playing backgammon while drinking Belgian beer? Then it’s Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, and Tel Aviv.

When I’m in Israel, usually I stay in Jerusalem.

So what can I do? Well, the commute isn’t that bad. Driving halfway across the country takes under 40 minutes. But if you don’t have a car, or you aren’t in the mood for a drive, all is not lost. There’s the Yellow Submarine (Hatzolelet Hatzehuba), a great place to find live music most nights of the week. Right outside the old city walls, the neighboring valley is a great place to find the recurring arts and music fairs (usually during the summer). But my favorite? Lev Smadar.

What is Lev Smadar, you ask? Well, it’s a bar…kind of a restaurant, also…and a movie theater.

That’s right. It’s heaven. You can go, drink a couple of beers with your friends, and then order a soup and take it right into the movie theater. Thanks to the Israeli practice of holding intermissions during movies, you can even go back for a refill if you finish your soup before the final credits.

And the place has character. It’s not a multiplex cinema in the mall; it’s a one-theater movie-house on a side street in a quiet neighborhood. If you didn’t know it was there you might never find it, and even if you did, you might not realize that through the back door was a movie theater. They don’t screen every movie that comes along – there’s something of a predilection for artsy/creative movies, so you get to feel artsy, too. Don’t worry, they’re not obscure independent films. At least, not usually.

The only problem I have with Smadar is that when I walk in, the heads that turn give me a look that says ‘you’re definitely not cool enough to be here’. Of course, it may be true. But I just order my soup, buy my ticket, and walk into the theater.

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