29 March - 4 April 2001
Issue No.527
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 29 March - 4 April 2001 Issue No.527 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Good enough to be true
Injy El-Kashef discovers joy in this reincarnation
I was once a happy dolphin too, in my past life; then I became a ladybird, then a shark, then a vampire, then a mushroom. In all these existences I adored sea food and will probably continue to even if in the future I must live as a banana. Happy Dolphin is also the name of a boat restaurant which seems to suffer from a scarcity of customers that is incomprehensible considering its brilliant kitchen.
At first sight, it is scary: lots of families -- what are all these children doing up so late? -- gathered around shishas, listening to Ihab Tawfiq, next to tiny cages where big monkeys look out with as much curiosity as the people looking in. Daddy and I shudder, but summon the courage to enter the actual boat and search for the restaurant. No noisy band, thank heavens, but no customers either. We take a look at the dead-fish-on-the-rocks display, place our order, and return to our rearranged seats facing the Nile.
The first dish to land is the sautéed gandofli and its soup. Before the waiter had placed all the salads on the table I had gulped down my soup and was offering him the bowl with a big smile on my face. I had washed my hands in preparation for the gandofli scene: a half kilo was piled on a plate seasoned with parsley, garlic and lemon in the most basically delicious way. The tabboula and baba ghannoug were similarly good but the pickles were too hot for my taste.
Dad was very happy with his grilled grey mullet, which was impressive in both form and content (he had a hard time letting go of a little chunk for me to taste: "Do you have to? I'm telling you it's good"). When my sole fish arrived I understood the meaning of greed. Whoever said food tastes better when it is shared ? He did not get one flake of my grilled fish with butter -- since it was too good to be true, I pretended it didn't exist.
Meanwhile, the quarter kilo of deep-fried calamari and the quarter kilo of grilled shrimps (only five this time, not the number of the beast) were getting cold. Divine calamari. Divine batter, no rubber to battle with but bitable and chewable strips of ivory. And the shrimps... huge, with juicy heads and lots of garlic -- I didn't even mind those awful legs (ever think how much terror you would feel if shrimps were earth creatures that could be seen crawling around your kitchen if you left dirty dishes overnight in the sink?) -- they were simply delicious.
No room at all for dessert, although they had a long list, including pumpkin custard, Umm Ali, crème caramel and more. We paid our LE142 bill and left with a cheerful gait. The shisha situation was still on but the monkeys had fallen asleep.
Happy Dolphin, 70 Abdel-Aziz Al-Seoud St, Nile Corniche, Giza.
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