Restaurant review:
Restlessness
Of ennui, fuel and the railway syndrome
Mobility is the blessing of the age -- or its curse. All that is known for sure is that more and more people are finding it difficult to sit down to a meal or a cup of coffee. I thought I was alone in this until a relatively sane friend unexpectedly came clean while we were cruising the Maadi corniche for perhaps the 20th time in two hours, "Driving is fine so long as we're not going anywhere." Others in rising numbers have likewise confessed that they are comfortable only in motion. The accepted theory is that the pressures of life are such they turn any idle moment spent at rest into an unbearable torment -- a development that concurs with the corporate world's compulsion to cater to so called Egyptians on the move. No matter, in the end, where to. I think I know one such Egyptian: he has grown so used to forging ahead on the narrow paths of his life he frequently mistakes himself for a train. The condition is known as the railway syndrome and affects mostly privileged young people with lucrative careers: it is hard to walk with them anywhere because they invariably forget you are there, trudging further and further ahead at the same locomotive pace; they collect miniature steam engines and regularly bump into walls.
Notwithstanding such extreme manifestations of the go-go lifestyle, it is often in petrol stations that my cruising companions and I end up. These stops are undertaken for the objective purpose of refuelling our long-suffering vehicles, but increasingly, as I've noticed, they involve an inordinate amount of subjectively motivated lingering, usually spent in what has become Cairo's venue of choice for the automobile-oriented, the culturally hybrid and the ill at ease: On the Run. The title alone reflects the insistent anxiety of a generation on wheels. I might as well admit it at this point: this assignment was particularly welcome in that it involved a reasonably long drive on that bit of highway leading up to the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road. Parking difficulties notwithstanding -- I was trying to avoid going through the frontier-line Esso station in question -- there was a peculiar delight about walking into that air-conditioned interior and seeing a pile of Reisen chocolate bars stacked up in front of me. This consumerist dream come true had the invaluable bonus of being almost entirely free of stasis. There are tables to eat at, it is true, but you can pick up your food without waiting for service that is always slower than it should be, you can walk in and out as frequently as you like while you eat it, and, best of all, I say, you can actually leave without suffering the interminable wait for the cheque.
All of which is not to mention On the Run's excellent selection of very reasonably priced sandwiches, provided, along with the buns and cakes and croissants, by one of Cairo's most popular patisseries, La Poire. They even have stuffed vine leaves and pasta salad, and some hot food if you can wait for it. My own submarine, with three different kinds of cold cut, cheese and mayonnaise, proved an excellent prelude to the long, long awaited climax of the Reisen. Yet after standing around, munching, for maybe ten minutes, watching all manner of affluent Egyptians walk in and out, walk up to the teller and back through the winding paths of the adjoining mini mart, that ever more persistent compulsion caught up with me. And for some inexplicable reason I ended up holding my chocolate bar in one hand while manipulating my steering wheel with the other, hurtling along at as many miles an hour as the traffic allowed with no destination in mind.
On the Run outlets are open 24 hours at Esso and Mobil petrol stations. Not all provide space for standing around while you eat, but who has time for that anyway
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/700/li2.htm