Well, I personally found the falafel in Israel to be lacking--little spice and no herbs. Putting fries in the pita was a welcomed texture change and the local style of pickles were interesting (although not salty enough to suit me). I also became sick to death of eating meze in a kebab-centric culture, as well as tired of only being able to get fire roasted veggies without any seasoning, salt, or general complexity to the "dish." (Simple meals are nice, but I consider a plate of veggies to be a plate of ingredients that need further preparation.)
The Israeli Vegan Diet Guide makes it clear that there are a number of options in Israel, but I was busy with my research project, and didn't have the time to check anything out. Again, grad school = time suck. At the end of the stint there, I did have a day "off" (part of which was supposed to be spent typing up my notes) that a teammate suggested we use to visit a veg*n restaurant in West Jerusalem.
Thus I visited Vegetarian Shawarma for a much needed change of pace. They have a website, but it's only in Hebrew, so I made sure to take a picture of the English menu:
Vegan Schnitzel on Baguette -- The patty was nicely firm, but obviously something you get frozen. (This is technically a fast food restaurant, after all.) The only thing it needed was a bit more sauce, and there was mustard on the table, the taste of which I hadn't had in ages. Gobbled down the whole sandwich.
"Nuggets" -- As my dining companion remarked, it's a very interesting concept of nugget. The thinner pieces were like eating the fried crust off of a morsel of food--and I'm not even remotely complaining about that, since I miss doing so. The thicker pieces were more meat-like and the crust had a good herbed/peppered flavor to it.
