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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Interview International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Accursed, of course
By Injy El-KashefYou do not need to be a believer in things supernatural to realise that people as well as places are subject to forces beyond human control, like luck, fortune or good and bad karma. Opposite Al-Shams Club is a space that has been suffering a long and tenacious curse for years. It used to be a mechanic's paradise, and did very well fixing the neighbourhood's cars for as long as I can remember. Suddenly the mechanic shut down -- packed his gear and left his curse behind. In the space of six years, this same place has undergone a minimum of five transformations, from shoe shop to souvenir shop back to shoe shop then to home furnishings, each enduring only a few months of the mechanic's legacy before expiring into nothingness, despite long and expensive decorative face-lifts. As time went by we -- and others who witnessed the work of such evil -- began to prefer walking on the other side of the street, always glancing its way with a mixture of fear and disbelief.
The most recent metamorphosis was into a restaurant, and took place only a month ago. Boredom conquers everything, even that feeling we have about "the mechanic's place." And so we went, and sat, and even ordered food. The menu is ridden with the most hysterical mistakes and inconsistencies, which, in my opinion, are purposely created to help customers unwind from the tension of being there. We were invited to look inside by a manager, himself apparently unable to believe that his newly opened joint should have lasted a whole month. All the way back is an "Oriental den," as they call it, meaning that a few poufs are scattered on a large carpet with a tabliya (low table) in their midst. It looked neither comfortable nor compelling. The decor, generally speaking, betrays a total lack of taste. As a matter of fact, it's awful. The theme colours are blue and yellow, the metal of the chairs is painted pink, the tables are too small, the plants are all plastic, the overhead lamps are distributed in no particular aesthetic order and are themselves perfectly ugly, the music is deafening and the whole experience borders on sensory torture.
The menu features main courses, appetisers, sandwiches, desserts and cocktails. My friend ordered quails (a pretty bad move, in my opinion), which he claims were both fresh and well seasoned; he ate them unhesitatingly and cleaned his plate. Was this the work of hunger or good food? Only the Lord knows. My smoked salmon toast came with mayonnaise, onions and (for the first time in history) tomatoes and cucumbers. What happened to butter, lemon, onions and capers? And my fried calamari sandwich contained the exact same ingredients. cucumbers on calamari and smoked salmon? Bad, bad, bad. The creme caramel was good, but was served with the unnecessary addition of preserved fruit chunks. Why?
The worst part of this meal is seeing the cook bring out the ingredients from a fridge placed at the other end of the room. So you see him walking about with his Tefal pan and his cold sauce in plastic boxes. Not a pleasant sight.
Should you wish to flirt with a curse, visit Harmony and pay LE71 for the abovementioned meal and cocktails.
Harmony, 6 Al-Liwa Ahmed Mohamed Ali St., off Abdel-Hamid Badawi St., Heliopolis. Tel: 2412712
