TLV Named Among World’s Top 10 Best Cities For ‘Street Food-Obsessed’ Travelers

The city of Tel Aviv nabbed the seventh spot in a list of The World’s 50 Best Cities For Street Food-Obsessed Travelers according to a survey by CEOWORLD magazine, a business magazine and news site for CEOs, CFOs, senior executives, and business leaders.

The magazine annually ranks different categories such as the best business schools, top universities, richest individuals, and so on

In its latest ranking, the magazine looked the best cities for travelers who love street food The data for its Street Food Index 2019 draws from an annual survey commissioned by the magazine of 92,000 business travelers and 1,400 corporate travel agents in 86 countries. The magazine, which says this was the “first index of its kind,” conducted the survey over three months from mid-July to mid-September.

The cities were selected after reviewing numerous “best street food cities” lists, the magazine says.

The Street Food City Index 2019 ranked the cities on four parameters: number of street food vendors, affordability, number of street food experiences, and food hygiene.

“To get a figure for the number of street food vendors in each city CEOWORLD magazine analyzed street food data in Google Maps. CEOWORLD magazine used Numbeo to find out the current price of an inexpensive meal in each city,” the publication writes, “Data from UNICEF was used to rank the cities by food hygiene.”

Tel Aviv is known for its unique street food industry, which includes a melting pot of Middle Eastern cuisine from locations such as Turkey, Yemen, and Iraq. Delicacies like bourekas, flaky pastries made from puff pastry or phyllo dough and filled with cheese, spinach, and potato and falafel, or deep-fried chickpea fritters are on the menu. Other foods include hummus, shwarma, or spice-infused meat, shakshuka (poached eggs in a spicy, stewed tomato sauce) and sabich, deep-fried eggplant slices in a pita.

Singapore took the top spot, followed by Bangkok and Hong Kong in second and third places respectively. Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam ranked fourth and Mumbai, India came in fifth place. Just above Tel Aviv, Rome took the sixth spot.