31 May - 6 June 2001
Issue No.536
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 May - 6 June 2001 Issue No.536 |
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Rhapsody in blue
Injy El-Kashef brings out the earplugsHip-hop night, Saturday. I get past the first door, read the LE30 minimum charge notice, get past the second door and see not a soul in Indigo. I go to the bar where I decide to wait for my friend Raef, whom I am taking out to dinner in celebration of his birthday. Robert, the bar-tender (a very nice guy) serves me my juice and we discuss all the pros of having funny plastic fish swimming in the small aquarium behind him -- "they won't die... and they won't go to the bathroom." A few male customers begin to stroll into the very dark, spacious and cool Indigo interior. Raef calls me on the cell: "I'm so sorry... the traffic is awful. Is everything OK? Anyone bother you?" Well, actually... no! "The guys in here are really very sweet and perfectly harmless."
By the time he shows up, I am already addicted to the funky neon gadgets that I've been staring at whilst sipping my spicy Virgin Mary. Raef and I take our seats and, with the indispensable assistance of my lighter, begin struggling to read the menu. Thank goodness, at last, hallelujah: no spelling mistakes -- perfect English, coherent descriptions and even some witty remarks. We begin with a Seafood Salad and some Deep Fried Shrimp. They take some time to arrive but eventually make it, with Robert extending his apologies via his sweet smile. This is good stuff. The shrimps, accompanied by cheese toasts, were fried a little beyond the golden stage but remained juicy, tasty, fresh and perfectly satisfactory. As for the salad, it was really delicious. Crispy fresh onions, calamari, tuna, shrimps and lots of lemon juice combined for a very tangy and aggressive flavour that provokes the palate to beg for more.
Our main courses arrived much more quickly, which was a good thing, too, because the music was getting louder, making the chit-chat more of an effort. The birthday boy had ordered Chicken Breasts, which came sliced and covered in a tasty tomato-based sauce with onions and green peppers as well as a mountain of French Fries on the side. As for my Beef Tenderloin (this is the beauty of Cairo: you don't really need to worry about Mad Cow, you can just be one), it was, to say the least, impressive both in quality and quantity. I have actually never seen so much food on a plate outside of my great-aunt's house and had to leave the fries untouched to concentrate on the meat. Yes, I am a happy carnivore.
The only available dessert was (excellent) Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce, which I relished with a long spoon while we watched the crowd getting down on the dance floor to awful music. Although it's not Indigo's fault, we had to admit we were nostalgic for the tunes that once put smiles on our faces. After paying LE132, we headed to the car with full bellies, ringing ears and a desperate hankering for a nice tape.
Indigo, 8 Abdel-Rahman Al-Raf'i St, Mohandessin.
Tel: 7600513
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