Restaurant review:

Upward immobility

To where the mighty no longer live, walks a lone Armenian in proxy

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There is an alien tree that grows in the heart of each soul. A seed drifting from afar that finds home in unlikely places. It reaches the innermost parts of the living cell, entwines with the genetic imprint, becomes us. Sometimes it has a name, sometimes it has a face, often it doesn't. We carry it along with a mixture of relish and fear, like an unplanned pregnancy. The world's best known unbeliever, Salman Rushdie, once said his soul has a hole where God used to reside. Ten years ago, a London-based friend wanted to remove a sizeable tree in his garden. The council authorities refused, saying the roots are of equal size to the visible parts. If the tree is cut down, the roots would weather away, threatening the foundation of nearby structures. The tree still stands.

Aliens are our version of this tree. The Hadjipauloses and Severises, Ciccurels and Sarkissians, Groppis and Pontrimolis once ran garment and furniture shops, traded in fabrics and rugs, fixed watches and shoes, sold toothpaste and jewellery all over the land. The rich lived in style, the poor in humble rooftop dwellings, surrounded by little gardens of potted plants. One of the latter worked at the till of a baladi restaurant in Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat, downtown. His name was Artine. He was old and honest and podgy, just another unnoticeable Armenian. But there was something about him, a kindness of disposition, a liveliness of character that made people miss him when he was gone.

Artine is a hole in the memory. The restaurant named after him is a hole in the wall. The baladi eatery nestles discretely at the entrance of one of Cairo's once most formidable apartment building. I have patronised Artine since it opened a bit over a year ago, sitting often for leisurely lunches with a friend or two at one of the six bare wooden tables, enjoying, through the unadorned windows, the view of a spacious, cobbled courtyard. Artine's austerity mirrors that of the original establishment in which the namesake used to work.

You can see the head of Mustafa, the old, taciturn cook, through the small service window separating the dining room from the kitchen. A soft-spoken African woman will bring you the freshly prepared bamia and fasulia, moussaka and moloukhia dishes a few minutes after the orders are taken. The chicken is done the local way, boiled then fried. The rabbits, not always available, are a treat. The fried meat is a favourite of my friends, but I have a thing for the moza (meat on a bone end), although it requires patient handling, if you use utensils. The rice is short, broad shouldered, and conservative (do rice grains emulate the populace in looks and demeanour, like dogs their owners?).

The fictional characters of Naguib El-Rihani would gladly dine here, perhaps on credit. A plaque adorning an entrance to the double-towered, 300-apartment Immobilia Building, notes that the comedian lived here for 11 years. The singer Abdel-Wahab, a former resident, would have opted perhaps for the more fashionable Ritz around the corner, a slick affair with a European menu and elegant sidewalk tables that no longer exists. Singer Laila Murad and actor Anwar Wagdi lived here, so did film directors Kamal El-Sheikh and Barakat.

The Immobilia cost one million pounds when it was built in the late 1930s, so extravagant was that sum that the ensuing public clamour prompted a cabinet change. The building -- a brainchild of sugar and shipping tycoon Abbud -- was equipped with the latest luxuries, including postal shoots. You walk out of your apartment, place your mail in a crack in the wall, and it drops down to a ground floor receptacle emptied daily by the postal service. One day, the receptacle was walled over without notice, keeping the last batch of letters homebound for eternity, like lost souls.

Artine 2000, at the courtyard of the Immobilia Building, 26 Sherif St, (02) 3927954, offers genuine Egyptian cuisine. Clean, austere, and friendly. Alcohol not available. Open 11am to 10pm, except Fridays. Lunch with tips averages LE25 per head.

By Nabil Shawkat