Restaurant review:
Zen Mezzanine
Nabil Shawkat finds inner peace in Mohandessin
The chaos that surrounds our world must have started somewhere in Mohandessin. The juxtaposition of drabness and elegance is staggering, all the more so once you venture into the backstreets. What was 40 years ago the sleepy village of Mit Uqba is now home to a crazy mix of urban horror and dining elegance. It was about 7pm when my companions, two gym-occasionally-going young women and a man who gets his exercise walking around with books by Chomsky and Umberto Echo, led me into Midan Aswan, a curiously shaped square that looks as if the urban planner who made it was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, with a bludgeon, and succeeded.
At the part where the bludgeon fell, knocking out a crack all the way to annoyance of Gamaet Al-Duwal Al-Arabia St., a surprise was waiting. The façade of the Mezzanine Restaurant greets you with understated, almost pious, beauty. Candles glow faintly behind frosted glass, framing the shadow of a mock mantelpiece, overhead an irradiance of subtle lanterns.
We settled on red velvet-covered armchairs around a table that had an interesting formation of gravel, and what seemed like red sea urchins under its glass top. The menus, typed on recycled paper, promised a manageable variety of appetisers, sandwiches, pizzas, and meat plates. None of us was in a pizza mood, but the four handsomely attired young women in the next table were munching their pizzas with obvious abandon. I went for a consommé soup (LE13) which came in elegant thick-bone china, a minimalist taste, not too spicy to confuse the palate. One of my women friends had the fried mushrooms with tartar sauce (LE12.25), which was so delicious and crunchy the rest of us were literally snatching it from under her nose. The other one, a slow eater and even slower shopper (she had just taken us through several garment shops, complaining all the time that the skimpy dresses on display were "too huge") settled for the salad nicoise (LE12.50), a mix of lightly-cooked, colour-coordinated veggies which was utterly sublime. The intellectual in our midst went for bruschetta with cheese (LE5.25), and judged them as crisp and satisfying.
Confusion ensued when the waiter recommended what we thought was fillet artichoke. Me and the slow one ordered it (LE35), only to discover that the fillet came not with artichokes, but shaped like one, or perhaps like an octopus, a cross between kebabs and the slab of meat I expected. My fillet, medium done, was tender but unassertive. Hers, a well- done, stayed tasty through the half hour it took her to dissect it carefully it into small shreds and chew each 30 times in slow motion, just as the dietician said, when he was kidding. The other woman had a stir-fried chicken (LE24) that looked and tasted playful. The grilled spicy chicken (LE16.50) was fresh and juicy, the intellectual announced.
For dessert, we had a chocolate cake (LE15) and a banana crepes (LE12), which came with ice cream on the side. What I remember from the haze of the following moments is forks and long-handles spoons travelling dangerously across the table, chipping out little pieces of cake, coating them with ice cream, and the sound of indiscreet moaning. Another frenzy ensued with the arrival of the mezzanine surprise (LE15; order 20 minutes in advance), a chilled, multi-layered cake of biscuits, caramel, and nut chocolate. This was hard to cut and too sweet and unforgettably delicious. The coffees that arrived afterwards smelled and tasted real, but could have been stronger.
The Mezzanine has a spiritual, Zen-like quality. Its clientele is suave, sophisticated, and not noisy. The tables, only five or six of them, were close together, but the seating was definitely luxurious. The place has a less formal loft area upstairs, with low couches and stools, and low ceiling, and a bathroom of unusual elegance. The décor is Japanese meets modern meets minimalist, but warm and easy. This is a place you would take your aunt to on her birthday, but only if she's in the film industry. More realistically, it is good for quite conversation with non-alcoholic, health-conscious people with a sweet tooth. The music is an ever-changing mix of new age, Latin, and Arabic pop.
