Issue No. 605
Living
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Living |
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Fishy stories
When both you and a dear friend insist on sharing a meal as an excuse to discuss what morally repugnant acts each has been up to since the last confession, there is nothing better than fish. It is light, healthy, wholesome, quickly digested and oh so very delicious -- unlike anything we had to say to each other; therefore, the perfect balance. The muffled "I'll tell you later" and the suppressed exclamatory giggling were finally giving way to the hard facts, the naked truth, in all its fishiness. And it is not that we are particularly immoral or evil; it is simply that we are a couple more specimens of the most wicked of the animal species: the disgusting homo sapiens.
And so we selected our fish from the icy display tables, casually and hurriedly, eager to return to the table and talk about all that. She began; and as the words poured into my ears, my eyes opened wider and wider... and wider... until a very pleasant waiter arrived with our much needed cool beers on that particularly hot night. She cleared her throat, and proceeded, my eyes growing as wide as physically possible, until the same waiter showed up again with a huge round tray covered in appetisers for us to chose from. We grabbed the beetroot salad, the tehina and baba ghannoug, and a larger plate of fresh mixed salad with onions -- no onion breath was going to shut these mouths anyway. It was helpful that we had no complaints about the restaurant; for, active criticism often seems even more tantalising than juicy personal confidences. The place was spacious and clean, the ambiance quite lively with customers strolling in and out, the decor appropriate but not too imposing, the windows affording a close Nile view with adjacent marina where yachts were anchored for the night.
As we picked our (rather sandy) clams off their shells from a big bowl, she was concluding her salacious saga. Some of my input was highly appreciated, the rest, I was told, I had better kept to myself, and take my turn instead in disclosing what I had been up recently. "Moi? Mais, je suis un ange, moi," was my answer. One of those soul-drilling looks from her and my façade melted: "Ok, ok, if you really insist... but brace yourself." And so it was that another pair of eyes was now widening.
Mercifully, the food soon turned the focus away from my adventures, culinary praise being the other verbal exercise capable of drowning gossip. We had a medium-sized grey mullet (bouri) grilled with lemon and oil; no garlic, no onions, just the succulent pure taste of the fresh fish accompanied by the brown rice, cooked "fish-style" with the traditional fried onions. Carving the fish was a most gracefully elegant experience thanks to the ease with which the white tender chunks separated from the bones. Next on the plate were some calamari, which we chose to divide into fried and tajin. A good calamari tajin will always be sweet with lots of tomatoes and green peppers and this one was perfect. The fried calamari, which we ate almost as a dessert so completely wonderful were they, brought us to the end of our juicy LE200 meal.
Fish Market, Nile Corniche, opposite Maadi entrance
Tel 380 4250
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