Restaurant review:
Of religion and politics
Revolution Square in Mohandessin is where a second revolution is happening. Nabil Shawkat runs out of ammunition
At first I thought the girl slouching on the sofa, latte in hand, had her feet on the highly polished coffee table in the middle. She didn't. Cairo's young, hip contingent is still a little too conscious of body language, thanks to streets that, though safe -- we're all proud of that -- will not let a woman walk alone without being harassed every 20 seconds or so. Yet this does not stop the well- heeled march of the new age. It did not stop the latte glasses from exploding, with a whiff of percolated Belgian coffee, on our dining scene.
"Who are these kids, where do they come from?" asked my friend, who had just finished editing a 150-page magazine over the weekend. There is much you can miss out on when you've edited a 150-page magazine over the weekend, I thought. And, on a more personal note, there is much you can miss out on even when you haven't. As the Egyptian intelligentsia cower downtown at increasingly overpriced, drab looking haunts, aging -- gracefully, it must be admitted -- while they do so, an altogether new genre of dining has hit the metropolis -- one that peripatetic individuals used to seek out in Manhattan or Paris. Forget all that, a taxi ride to Mohandessin suffices.
Retro Café is a vision from Greenwich village, an up-market buddy of Central Perk, the coffee shop (does it really exist?) where the Friends of the famed TV show hang out. Only it is classier, in terms of ambiance and décor and food. All of the clientele were hip, each in his or her way -- even the hijab-clad Amr Khaled nouveau devotees. They sat on sofas or chairs with intentionally mismatched upholstery, at highly polished tables, their elegant shoes -- some were undoubtedly bought from one of a handful of footwear shops within walking distance -- resting on a chopped-wood floor. Ordering from a Retro Tribune menu -- a tabloid-shaped, disturbingly readable affair with quotations from Mark Twain and Antheime Brillat- Savarin -- they glowed in the light emanating from lamps positioned within beige and brown walls (the decorator was too classy to go for the now mandatory terracotta).
Since I have little doubt that few of the young and hip clientele of Retro Café are familiar with Mark Twain, let alone Savarin, I should perhaps point out that the latter is a Frenchman who took part in the French Revolution, and authored, two months before his death in 1826, Physiologie Du Gout, the most famous book ever written on gastronomy, which includes such wonderful aphorisms as: "Animals feed; men nourish themselves; only men of distinction know how to eat"; "The destiny of a nation depends on the manner in which it feeds itself"; and -- I expect most of you have heard this one -- "Tell me what you eat, I will tell you who you are."
The menu took us half an hour to get through. What with all the quotations, the crossword puzzle (we've learned that Chicago trains are called "Els", but then, you know what Chicagoans are like. They must've been going for "El-Terraino-s", when the snow storm hit them right where the middle syllables were supposed to come out.)
I had the best burger I ever imagined existed. The Moroccan Burger (top right on page 4 of the Tribune) was served in Italian Ciabatta bread with chickpea sauce that had a hint of mustard to it. One companion had Fettuccine à la Française, which came covered with chicken, walnuts, grapes, and Brie. She said it was on the greasy side, but finished most of her portion. The other companion had a Chicken Kashmiri sandwich, which came wrapped in Chapatti bread and contained, aside from the spicy grilled chicken cubes, what we thought were pickled mangos, but were too busy to ask.
Drink-wise, the hot chocolate came with two big and delicious marshmallows swimming proudly on top. The Totally Yogi was a satisfying concoction of yogurt, honey, and fruits. The Almond Frappe had a touch of gritty sophistication. Dessert-wise, the Trois Petits Couchons sounded good in the menu but was not available. The coffee cake with caramel sauce was as discreetly delightful as an experienced ventriloquist telling jokes with a straight face. The chocolate cake was black in demeanour and desperately accurate, like a Viennese soldier thinking of the warmth of home while he fires his last round of ammunition in the starless night.
