Issue No. 594
Living
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11 - 17 July 2002 Issue No. 594 Living |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Pink flamingoes
Injy El-Kashef watches the children play
I love it when I can actually tick an item off my huge mental scroll of to-do things. It is a rare event, and the scroll only keeps getting longer but, every once in a blue moon, it actually happens. One of the items mentally added last summer was a review of Al-Dawaran, the Merryland branch of the famous seafood restaurant in Shubra that goes by the same name. What first attracted my attention were the humungous shrimps lying in the display table, covered in ice. I remember my mouth watering and going through all the pockets in my purse trying to collect every last penny in an effort to afford them. I did not have enough and so I ended up eating at another of the multitude of restaurants now available at the Merryland.
The summer is back, however, and so was I at Merryland -- only this time prepared with a full purse. My friend and I headed to Al- Dawaran and realised we were the only diners there although the park was crowded everywhere else. Strange, I thought, although I did not allow myself to be discouraged by such trivialities. I wanted my shrimps and I wanted them now.
I went to pick my meal from the display table, instantly recognising the large crustaceans I had dreamed of since last summer. But one important item was missing: the ice. I asked the waiter "How come the fish is left without ice in heat like this?" He replied nonchalantly: "We had ice. It melted." I smiled sarcastically and replied just as coldly: "Well then, get some more; or do you underestimate what food poisoning can do to the restaurant's reputation?"
We went to our table and began nibbling on the pickled cucumbers and tomatoes with garlic and cumin we had ordered while sipping a cold Stella. The atmosphere was quite sweet: the huge pedalling flamingoes were floating by with happy chidren in them, a carousel was going round and round as proud parents watched their children waving atop the horses; veiled women, clearly from the Gulf, were jesting loudly as they smoked their shishas -- it was all really quite pleasant.
But more interesting than all was the sight of the waiter bringing the shrimps and calamari to our table. My original request for a quarter-kilo of grilled jumbo shrimps had grown to a half-kilo by the time the waiter told me they had no butter to put on the sole fish that I had asked to be grilled with lemon and butter. I am a practical woman: cancel the fish, increase the shrimps, no problem. And so we indulged ourselves with about 10 delicious, juicy and (surprisingly) fresh shrimps covered in grilled onions, tomatoes and green peppers. We shelled them with fork and knife, dipped them in baba ghannoug and, one after the other, went down with gusto. We hardly paid any attention to the quarter-kilo of fried calamari -- not only because the shrimps imposed themselves but also because the calamari were actually not so great. They had a fishy, not very fresh flavour and were too greasy despite not being covered in much batter.
A still-warm crème-caramel followed, as seafood-meal-tradition would have it, topped with unnecessary crème Chantilly, though nonetheless tasty. Done was our LE102 meal, happy were we.
Al-Dawaran, Merryland, Roxy, Heliopolis
Tel 451 2313/4/5
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