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Ok, so a brief update I think. Mary has been beavering away at her blog entry for almost an hour so I suspect she'll be done soon - I'll make it snappy. In fact, even better, I'll make it themed. Middle Eastern Food: An Odyessy.
Tripoli is supposedly the home of Arabic sweets and this has certainly been a theme of our stay here. After this entry we are heading to Le Palais, a tea-shop with an extensive range of baklava, cakes, ice cream and chocolate. This will be the fourth time we have paid it a visit (though we have only indulged in sweets once) and we are quite familiar with the staff. Yesterday we had ice cream - all through the Middle East you can get the most delicious flavours. The standard one - the Arabic vanilla - is milk flavour, usually with pistachios sprinkled on top. We had this first in Damascus, from a very famous shop (the name of which escapes me but it's in Lonely Planet - every single tourist to this area has an LP clutched to their breast, even though the maps are rubbish). This shop was the most packed parlour on the row. You could go up to the window and peer in at the man using his hands to mould the ice cream into lumps, from a huge vat, and roll it in pistachios before putting it in bowls or cones. We ventured inside to get ourselves some (I have a feeling this may have been lunch one day). Chaos reigned. No queue to speak of (being a Brit I like a good queue), raucous shouting, bizarre token system, no price list, about 8 men behind the counter, children jostling, and to top it off, drum music. As if you're not stressed enough about your imminent purchase without the beat of a drum in your ear. We got them in the end though: huge, light (made with semolina) and very tasty.
Damascus was also home to the best meal out we've probably had. Many of the old Damascene houses have been converted into lovely restaurants with courtyards and fountains, making them little havens away from the noise and heat of the souq. One of these was Elissar. We went there on our first night, feeling rather flush (hopefully Mary covered the reason for this sudden influx of money, if not never mind). I think it was about eight or nine when we got there, so it was pretty quiet. Most people seem to eat lunch at about four and dinner at ten or later. We ordered mezze only, having worked out earlier that's what we should always do. So many times before we'd got hummus, fattoush, tabbouleh and more and then we'd be too full for mains (which were always disappointing anyway; chicken and chips, steak and chips, anything and chips). The best of the mezze was muhamara (my memory does not serve me well and this is probably wrong), a red pepper and walnut dip. Really good with hummus. Another great thing about Middle Eastern food is the bread. You get flatbreads with everything, breakfast, lunch and dinner. They're always there on the table. Not like in English restaurants where a measly bread basket is passed round and you get one lonely roll........ having an empty bread basket must mean the sign of a bad restaurant as in Beirut it was once replaced four times in one meal. Not that it was empty, just dangerously close to the bottom. All the waiters here have OCD, if they're not replacing your bread basket, they're swapping your ashtray, filling your glass, tidying your cutlery. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, Beirut.
Beirut was home to a fairly uninspirational selection of restaurants, the one earlier mentioned being in the Downtown area. Downtown is the name given to the centre of Beirut that was artificially created after the civil war. The rest of the city has shelled out buildings and is scruffy, dilapidated and a bit hotch potch - like most Middle Eastern cities in fact. Downtown is like Westfield shopping centre - shiny, glass-and-steel, and very very clean. It's fairly unpleasant, like a Disneyfied version of what a city should be. But if you want McDonalds, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, Starbucks or a Dunkin Donut it's the place to go. Late at night underage Lebanese prowl the toytown boulevards in their western clothes...... Beirut doesn't really have its own identity. Maybe I'm being unfair, but I didn't see anything unique or exciting there. Appearance rules, drinking culture is big. On our last night we ate pizza and chips.......... it was a bit depressing (the atmosphere, not the pizza - it's nice to have a break from hummus). Though there were two meals of note in Beirut, the first being the best Italian food I've ever eaten, in the tiniest restaurant ever. There were 10 tables making it feel like being in someone's living room. We had real butter and olive tapenade, salty and pungent, on French bread. For main I let the waiter recommend - I ended up with a spinach cannelloni with parmesan and tomatoes. It was amazing - all the flavours came through cleanly and I could have believed I was in an Italian mama's house in deepest Tuscany.
The second meal worth mentioning was the result of a chance encounter with a man in Starbucks. I think a man who opens conversation with 'do you play facebook poker?' is never going to be a good thing, but we chatted readily enough for an hour about our travels so far. He - Mahmoud - then invited us to his home where his mother would cook for us. Being polite British girls we attempted to decline politely but according to many sources the Middle Eastern people are very hospitable and genuinely do want you to come to their home to eat, so we caved in. The next afternoon we made our way to Mahmoud's home (after possibly the worst set of directions involving two contrasting landmarks and a huge hill). His mother was a lovely lady in a floral frock who spoke no English. She had prepared such an array of food that we couldn't possibly have eaten; it could have fed six. Still, we gave it a go and tried everything on the table. She had made kibbeh (raw meat with cracked wheat and herbs - actually really good despite its umpromising premise), flatbreads with mince, meat patties, stuffed artichokes and chicken and rice cooked with almonds. It was wonderful to eat in someone's house and the food was brilliant. All women in the Middle East seem to be able to cook like this, casually whipping up a small feast with no notice at all. Sadly the presence of Mahmoud somewhat diminished the atmosphere as he revealed himself to be an arrogant misogynist bore but hey! still a great meal.
This covers only a small part of our culinary adventure; other highlights include an amazing 24 hour restaurant in Amman that had one menu (variety is an over-rated creature, the only option here was hummus, falafel, fuul (hot spicy beans) and salad), the fish restaurant in Alexandria where you chose your own fish from the cold-room and they grill it for you in the open air, our first ever kebab in Amman, the falafel cafe in Damascus where we witnessed a beating-up but still went back for seconds, watermelon on a hot cloudless day, and numerous tiny places on long journeys that provide you with a falafel sandwich and are then instantly forgotten.
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Daniel
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"Downtown is the name given to the centre of Beirut that was artificially created after the civil war." ---> actually 90% of the buildings in downtown beirut are at least a 100 years old and date back to the ottoman empire and the french era in the beginning of the 20th century. Downtown was RENOVATED (and not created) after being greatly affected by the 1975-1990 civil war.... being a "day to day" tourist is a good thing but having some basic information about the country you're visiting can be very useful instead of spilling random/ridiculous comments that only show you have no clue what you're talking about.... enjoy your stay