THIS PLACE IS AWESOME. No if's and's or but's about it…read more
My boyfriend lived in Turkey for a year while he taught abroad and he got used to the food (Ayran, turkish delights, dolmas, chai, havla, pitas with hummus, etc.) and then turned me onto it. In LA we could at least find delicious, dependable Mediterranean food whenever we craved it, but here in Syracuse it's been tougher. Thankfully, now that there's the Jerusalem Super Market, you can not only buy all these delicious foods for yourself, you can also buy the separate ingredients to make your own at home, and for EXTREMELY reasonable prices.
Some wonderful highlights: they bake fresh pitas here two or three times a week. And a bag of 6 freshly baked pillowy pitas will cost you less than $2! They have dolmas (marinated stuffed grape leaves) by the can, and they are mouth-watering good, I was surprised to find out they came from a can and cost about half what you would pay for a plate of them in a restaurant. They have tahini as well if you want to make your own hummus or tahini dressing (so delicious!) They have an array of spices to choose from, a wealth of Turkish delights, cookies and juices (Tamek cherry juice was a fave when we travelled in Turkey). They are also the only place in town that sells red lentils for lentil soup (we know because we have looked everywhere! and by everywhere, I mean all the Wegman's locations in a fifteen-mile radius). And they have a butcher section in the back where you can order fresh cuts. All this and for half, maybe a third, of the price it would normally cost to shop at Wegman's or the other big groceries in the area - you can bet we'll be back again soon!
Finally, and this is what makes this place charming on top of awesome, Jerusalem Super Market is family-owned. And the family is so, so sweet. The son came right up to me and my two friends the first day I was there and struck up a conversation with us, like we were old friends. And he was really helpful and invited us to try some of the dolmas we bought in the store, which is how I know they were delicious.
In sum, I'm so very glad I found this place. It's not often you get the pleasure of friendly service with the advantage of reasonable prices AND an international variety of flavors. Which for Syracuse, really is saying a lot.