MUSAFIRA: i go, meet, eat, capture

in case you’re wondering what i’ve been eating since i’ve been here, i’ve decided to start my london travel blog with an abbreviated account of the highlights of my restaurant experiences in the UK so far. i’m happy to write all of this down monthly if you are happy to read it. by the way the images are mostly taken off the restaurant websites, except for the pasta @ jamie’s. as most of you know i have fully documented that meal and posted on facebook already.

ottolenghi

near: angel tube station (islington)

went on: a saturday morning

with: amy stenson (stopping on route from uganda to los angeles)

ate: cinnamon-dusted brioche french toast; for the road, i picked up a basil, feta, cherry tomato and pine nut “muffin”

drank: a massive bowl of latte

in two words: completely satisfying

in a few more words: they served greek yogurt with the french toast, which was pure genius! i enjoyed the muffin later in the day with my afternoon tea and it was so phenomenal that next time i’ll order something savory in the restaurant too.

tayyabs

near: aldgate east tube (around the corner from the big mosque in east london)

went on: early on a saturday evening (long line, but moved fast)

with: amy stenson

ate: naan, saag, lamb kabobs, tandoori fish

drank: brought our own bottle of red, the corkscrew was ready & waiting on the table

in two words: halal heaven

in a few more words: i smelled like tayyabs for days after the meal - the place is so smokey and tightly packed with eager customers - but it was entirely worth it. the service was mixed - i think we had five different servers over the course of two hours. but the fish…oh the fish…and the saag was divine. and the price is right.

zaika

near: high street kensington tube

went on: a friday night (had to make a reservation the week before)

with: my parents

ate: coconut soup, wild mushroom truffle naan, a vegetarian platter that got licked clean, the lamb trio (kabob, lamb chop, + lamb kefta), also had bites from mom’s sea bass w “indian gnocchi” and dad’s chicken biriyani which came in a puffed pastry shell

drank: italian red

in two words: high-class (pakistani) fusion

in a few more words: i love restaurants that serve an amuse-bouche! ours was an oversized thimble of coconut soup - what a scrumptious teaser! the most delicious part of my actual meal was the tiny lamp chop in my trio. if i went back i would definitely get the veggie platter as an appetizer again (eggplant + okra = unreal) & probably would want to order the fish-gnocchi dish.

core grill

near: paddington station

went on: sunday midday

with: mommy and auntie samira

ate: softly scrambled/folded eggs tucked into a crown of ripe avocado and topped with delicate layers of smoked salmon

drank: a latte and fresh oj

in two words: clandestinely californian

in a few more words: tucked in a side street behind paddy, core grill’s space is slick & industrial (glass walls, high ceilings) with a hint of rustic wooden decor (long benches, second-hand cabinets), and the food is thoughtfully prepared with quality organic ingredients. yum, i can still remember my feeling of joy and anticipation when the avocado crown was set down in front of me. the place isn’t fancy but the food is!

cay tre

near: old street tube (shoreditch)

went on: a friday night (no reservation, 20 min wait)

with: idalina baptista (visiting from oxford)

ate: pho sate (spicy beef), marinated grilled beef cubes with watercress, “special” fried rice with chicken and pork (which i picked out)

drank: tap water

in two words: (a) sure thing

in a few more words: tried and true, this is my third time eating at cay tre. it’s always a bit of a wait but always worth it. strangely this time i was able to resist my favorite salt and pepper calamari, but i suppose it was because i was really craving pho this time around since i was fighting the end of a cold (hence the tap water instead of wine). well the spicy pho won me over and is now my new go-to.

benugo kitchen

near: waterloo tube (inside the BFI bldg on the thames walk)

went on: sunday midday

with: anisa bhettay (at the tail end of her trip around the world!)

ate: pumpkin coconut soup

drank: fresh oj + latte

in two words: autumn-flavored goodness

in a few more words: i know that soup is a weird brunch item to start with, not to mention a soupy concoction of pumpkin puree and coconut milk. but this choice was right on target i have to say. it was cold outside and i had a cold inside my body, and the words leapt out at me off the “specials” chalkboard. cleverly, i coupled my soup with the complimentary bread basket on the table to make a heartier meal (i did let anisa have one piece of bread, being the generous co-eater that i am). i also ordered a fried egg on the side, which made it even odder. but whatever, it worked out great.

the white hart

near: kennington tube (around the corner from where i live!)

went on: a wednesday night

with: my cousin mariana ziadeh + friend james khoury

ate: half of a burger (yes beef) and fries.

drank: two unimpressive glasses of red, one malbec and one spanish something (i hate ordering by the glass & getting what has been open since the night before or longer)

in two words: posh pub

in a few more words: again, this is a case where the food called to me. i wasn’t going to get anything to eat, was just intending to go for drinks…but then mariana said she was eating and then the burger just yelped out: “how about me?” it was one of those thick rounded patty’s with a good bun and yummy cheese. it seems appropriate to tage this as classic posh pub food.

jamie’s italian

near: central Bath (1.5 hours west of central London by train)

went on: friday night…and then again on sunday night

with: my aunties samira + amira

ate: (friday) globulous green olives + black olive tapenade appetizer, pappa pomodoro soup, truffle tagliatelle, crunchy root salad of beets + carrots, lemon ricotta cheesecake, (sunday) penne arribiata, mozzarella + tomato salad, a few of my aunt’s truffle chips, half an order of tiramisu with orange zest brilliantly zested all over it.

drank: (friday) glass of red: montepulciano (sunday) tea w milk after dessert

in two words: guilt-free indulgence

in a few more words: the entire experience was chalked with anticipation. we had to wait one hour in drizzly weather on friday night (note to self, do not show up at 8pm) but in this case i could argue that the waiting ultimately made the whole meal more satisfying. on friday, (not realizing i’d be back in less than 48 hours) i wanted to take full advantage and taste a variety of things, so i strategically ordered the half portion of the pasta to make sure there would be enough room…needless to say that after that feast, i was still sufficiently full bellied by the end of the meal. it was pure delight bite to bite! as for how i ended up back there on sunday…well my aunt and i were heading to a moroccan restaurant when she suggested “let’s ditch moroccan and go back to jamie’s”. how could i argue?

OVERALL the highlights (both friday + sunday) were the 1) truffle tagliatelle - which was the pasta was so fresh i was sure it had just been rolled out moments before it got to the table and the rest of the dish left my mouth coated in the distinctly buttery and pungent flavor of truffle; 2) the mozzarella - literally melted all over my tongue; and 3) the tiramisu with orange zest - UNbelievable.

Dear friends and family,

I am in London! A huge city with incredible food and fabulous people to share it with. While I’m here for the next several months, I’m going to post about the restaurants I try, places I visit, and films I see.

I’ve decided to do this in a personal letter format each time just to change it up from typical posts. Stay tuned!

Love, Mona

The train from Asilah to Fez was considerably more comfortable since the temperature had dropped significantly since our first train ride days before. As we whizzed by fields of sunflowers and little girls waving from atop stinky (yet adorable looking) donkeys, I was overcome by a giddy feeling of anticipation as we neared Fez. In Fez we would meet up with some of my favorite people in the world, Gautam, Alex (Jia Ching’s roommates from Berkeley) and Ricardo…as well as two new beautiful friends fresh from Johannesburg, Gautam’s dear friends, the hilarious duo of Anissa and Sharmi!

The happy reunion happened in the most unexpected place: an impossible to find newly rennovated old riad tucked into the narrow alleys of Fez that Gautam had booked for us. It was only to our amazement that we all managed to find the place, despite a torrential downpour that managed to completely drench the medina and turn its unlit corridors to darkness. But we did all make it there in good spirits, delighted to see each other!

In the Pension Sekaya where we stayed our host was the fabulous, attentive, and handsome young Zak who boasted spectacular English and was ridiculously kind. He served us sweet mint tea and always with a huge smile! There is no alcohol consumption allowed in the medina, and notices were posted all over the walls of our pension, and so all the fun to be had was completely sober.

The sights, sounds, and tastes of the medina in Fez was given to us on a silver platter by Ahmed (aka “Habibi”) the most spectacular guide one could hope for. As the story goes, on the train from Asilah I was chatted up by a random guy named Khalid, a Fez local, who recommended we call up his friend Ahmed for a great tour of the medina. He warned us that many people pose as tourguides when in fact they just take commission from storekeepers for delivering tourists into their stores, and guaranteed us that Ahmed was a lisenced and top quality guide, for a very very low price. It seemed TOO good to be true, and the skeptical little voice in the back of our head started to tell us so…but we had nothing to lose other than a day in Fez and so we gave Ahmed a call. And to our delight, he was real and everything that Khalid had promised!

Well, back to Fez…the fact of the matter is that the city of Fez turns out to be the famed maze of streets that mostly look the same to the clueless newcomer that so many guidebooks describe it to be. We were sure we would get lost and never find our way back to the pension. But the hero of our story, Ahmed, effortlessly and gracefully swept our slowgoing ecclectic group of phototaking, socializing, city loving selves in and out of some of the most interesting places one could hope to see…all in just one day’s time. I am posting a slew of pictures from our day in the city with captions, since the photos undoubtedly will speak more expediently than my ramblings:

View of the Medina from the terrace of the pension

Giving our full attention to our FABULOUS guide Ahmed (aka “Habibi”). For the record our group consisted of: 1 Arab American, 1 Taiwanese American, 1 Jewish American, 2 Indians, 1 South African, 1 Portugese, and was led by 1 Moroccan.

In the market where they make the BIG POTS

My new favorite animal friend, the DONKEY! So cute!! I know you are thinking of Eddie Murphy’s voice right now.

Very old (I dont remember how old) madrasa. The boarding school for boys was free for anyone who could recite the Quran by heart by age 8. Now its open for tourists like us to enjoy.

Me in the madrasa.

Fez Fashion statements.

Street scene in Fez - starting to feel like an Orientalist.

In the silk market, the thread is made from cactus silk and died with natural goodness like saffron and indigo. I thought this was great, and yet Jia Ching was pretty sure they used chemical dyes.

Getting a “traditional” Bedouin headwrap. I didnt ask for the wrap, he just came over and started wrapping me up!

Ta-dah! Instant Nat Geo!

Near the biggest mosque in the medina (left).  The narrow slices of blue sky we could see from in the medina.

The leather tanneries: awesome, old, and stinky!

A weaving performance at the women’s rug cooperative.

Ricardo and a really old rug overlooking the medina.

Getting a lesson in hand woven rugs…now we know how to spot a good one!

Jia Ching enjoying the soft velvety goodness of a really expensive rug.

Dreaming of the day I can afford to buy one of these babies.

Gautam consulting Sharmi on a rug purchase. They got a steal!!

The top highlights of our time in Fez, other than the overall experience of being swept through the city…can surely be reduced to two “moments”. First, our lunch in a local restaurant where we feasted on mouthwatering tagines of lamb kefta and fried eggs, with delicious small dishes of eggplant and cauliflower to sweeten our palettes. The restaurant was flooded with smoke and we were served by perhaps the most enthusaistic chef/owner/host one could imagine. Alex perhaps described him as an “ancient mariner” who also did handstands and gave affectionate kisses to all the boys at the table :)

Second, our final night in Fez was celebrated on the roof terrace of Pension Sekaya (which as a sidenote was under construction despite the fact that the place was fully booked up) in the middle of a lightning storm. We had a view across the rooftop of the medina and in the distance was the most unbelievable sight: a DOUBLE rainbow. We were in a state of sheer (very sober) delight. It was unforgettable.

Caught in the lightning storm

A little bit about our time in Asilah. As our first stop in Morocco, we stayed for two nights in the sweet, pretty, little medina of Asilah, which has no shortage of white walls, blue doors, shoe stores, original artist murals, and spectacular views of the Atlantic. Jia Ching and I had a great time walking within the walls, realizing just how tiny the old city is.

Art on sale in the medina

Shoe display in the medina

Asilah medina

Our favorite mural in the medina

Mural on the wall of a school

Artist working in the medina

Watching the waves on the pier

Surrounding the medina is of course the new city, where the idyllic gives way to the mundane of any other rapidly developing ocean front city. Our experience of the new city came when we set out to go to “paradise beach”, which was about an hour ride by horse cart from the medina gate.

Foolish tourists that we are, we hopped aboard a horse cart believing Herve when he said that it was the only way to get there and the roads were too small for taxis. We only realized later that Herve probably had not been to this particular beach in years because the entire ride we saw dozens of taxis and europeans in little cars zooming by us, laughing and honking as they sped down the dirt road to the beach.

Our ride to paradise

No matter though, it was worth the minor humilation and bruising on the bum that we endured during the ride. We got a view of the city that no taxi would have shown us, passing by the outskirts of the city which exposed a revealing confluence of informality and hyperdevelopment.

We stopped next to a settlement to the south of the city called “Mexique” (Mexico in Arabic), which was an incredibly dense and well organized conglomeration of tin roofs and brightly painted walls with hand drawn numbers that indicate what we assumed were an address system. Mexique was teeming with young children who were staring at us with, I imagine, as much curiosity about us as I had about them. The settlement directly abutted a row of new development housing, mostly multistory apartment blocks, and it almost seemed as if the street between the two plots was a standoff zone between formal and informal housing.

Informal settlement “Mexique”

New resort development nearby

When I asked our horse cart driver in my Lebanese Arabic, which he was skillful enough to navigate and respond to in a mix of French, Spanish and Moroccan Arabic, about the neighborhood he explained that the people who lived in Mexique “had never had any luck in their whole lives”, and yet when I asked him if the new development was threatening to push them out of the area, he responded confidently that “they were not going anywhere”.

The rest of the road to paradise beach was characterized by desolate resorts that were in a phase of mid-construction, and plots of farmland. When we finally arrived to the beach we were delighted as there were few people, plenty of sea, and the sun was not too strong. Everyone who did show up  to the beach that day (including one guy who we noticed running from Asilah all the way to the beach, schooling our cart on the way there) seemed to be interested only in playing soccer on impromptu fields that were drawn into the wet sand along the shore.

Paradise beach

Perhaps the greatest part of our time in Asilah was the dinner we were served later that night, cooked by the Moroccan woman who works daily for Herve and Danielle. She is a genious with couscous, and we knew it would be difficult to top! What we managed to learn about the recipe is that it involved honey, almonds, raisins, chicken, and lamb all tossed into a coucous masterpiece! Sahtain indeed!

Couscous that rocked our world!!

Leaving Beirut was bittersweet, as difficult as it was to say goodbye to friends, family, and manoushe, Jia Ching and I were eager for some new experiences in the old cities of Morocco. Escaping the cigarette clouds of the Hariri airport, our flight path first took us east to Doha´s international airport, or as we will always remember it: a no man´s land of extreme shopping and horrendous food.

Landing in Casablanca was bittersweet, we were finally off of the airplane but suddenly found ourselves stuck in a line at passport control that was simply, well, out of control. We waited. And waited. And waited. But the line never moved. Instead, new lines occassionally opened, and eventually we managed to jump directly to the front of a new line thanks to my impatience and ability to duck handrails.

So it seemed that the touristy tagline attributed to Morocco in every guidebook blurb we had read about the country was perhaps accurate: Morocco was apparently “untouched by time”…but not in the way the guidebooks suggest. We quickly realized that our feeble attempts to keep time, check the time, ask for the time, were totally pointless. In the train station all clocks were permanently set to noon. Unmoved by time. The train arrived forty minutes past schedule, but it did not seem to matter to anyone, and there was no record of the delay since there were no clocks that were actually showing the time.

From Casablanca, it took three air-conditionless train rides, two of which we foolishly booked in the even less air-conditioned conditions of second class, on the most humid and unseasonably hot (we were told) day of june to reach the seaside old city of Asilah. Trains were delayed without notice or explaination, stopped on station platforms or suddley arrested on the tracks, and cold water was difficult to come by. It took what seemed like forever. We tried to sleep but it was simply too hot. Finally, our destination was in sight as we pulled into the station at Asilah.

Arriving in Asilah we were immediately disoriented, though by now we were wise enough to know that we should expect only the unexpected. Herve, the french painter who owned the riad where we were staying, was not at the train station to meet us because we arrived much later than scheduled. Since there were no taxis to take us to the city and the bus left just as we decided we should probably get on it, we walked the 4km to the medina instead.

We were accompanied by Abdul, a friendly, “good muslim” local who had self-appointed himself as our walking guide to find Herve, claiming that he was not interested in ripping us off, only helping us to enjoy his city. Wavering between our dueling concerns of being either too naive or being too paranoid, neither Jia Ching nor I were entirely sure whether to trust Abdul. But we walked alongside him, making conversation in my broken arabic, Jia Chings broken spanish, and Abdul´s quite excellent english. As it turns out, he was a good guy. Telling us stories about how the US President who liked to play the saxaphone came to Asilah for vacation years ago, leading us to the stands where we were least likely to get ripped off for a bottle of water, asking directions along the way to lead us finally to Herve, who was waiting at the end of his street near the back wall of the medina for who knows how long! “Monya?!” He called out…we had arrived.

It took a few moments after realizing we had actually ended up in the place we had intended, though the road was long and hot and hardly according to plan, to rejoice at the fact that we were settled in a ridiculously adorable and beautiful medina that looked liked a little piece of greece had landed in Morocco. Whitewashed walls, blue doors, and golden sunshine. The ocean and a stunning sunset was visible from the roof terrace of Herve´s gorgeous courtyard home.

Asilah

Chez Herve

View from the terrace

Asilah streets

Taking pictures on the roof terrace

Herve and his wife Danielle, like a good deal of the medina residents, were Europeans and artists who had arrived in Asilah, dubbed it paradise, then bought and rennovated an old riyad, renting a room occassionaly to tourists as a bed and breakfast enterprise. Herve loved to talk, often mixing french and spanish, and Danielle, who only spoke french loved to interupt him so that we could move on. (I happened to like Herve´s paintings more than Jia Ching, and I used one of them as my icon for tumblr.)

Danielle and Herve

More details about our time in Asilah to come.

Jia Ching and I arrived in Beirut in mid-May to the shock of amazing weather. I’m used to the beginning of June in Lebanon when the air is so hot and sticky that it requires several showers a day to be bearable. A word to the wise then: go before June begins and enjoy the transition from spring into summer.

We spent three weeks in Lebanon, from May 18-June 12. In Beirut we stayed in my aunt and uncle’s lovely apartment in Raouche, just a block away from the famous pigeon rock and a convenient 20 minute walk to Ras Beirut. So much happened in three weeks and yet time slipped by quickly, more quickly than I expected. Our time there was marked by two grand occassions: one of my best friend’s (nathalie’s) wedding and the much hyped Lebanese elections.

More sights, tastes, and experiences were taken in during our time in Lebanon than I can possibly describe in several paragraphs…

The streets flooded with election billboards, from the controversial campaign posters of the Orange party to the larger than life sized cutouts of Nasrallah along the freeway.

Joyous time spent with old friends from around the world who converged with me at various moments in Beirut: Nathalie, Maha, Saamira, Sara, Nouha, Reem, Hiba, Besma, Faysal, Munir, Nick, Grace, Kamal… and a very special new friendship forged with Anna the ice cream queen from New York City.

Precious afternoons spent lunching with my Teita Mona (grandmother) and Jia Ching, watching them grow more familiar with and endearing towards each other during each successive meal and cup of turkish coffee.

To keep my further ramblings to a minimum, I am limiting myself to only the personal highlights of my time in Beirut. I will do my best to illustrate with photos in my successive posts:

- Our very first breakfast in beirut…in the wee let-lagged hours of the morning Jia Ching took his first magnificent bite of fresh manoushe, and sipped his first turkish coffee on the cornishe…heaven!

- Embarking on a bus trip with Maha & Nico to the Ksaara winery, Baalbek, Zahlee, and Anjaar. Especially watching the look of joy on Jia Ching’s face when he tasted Kibee Nayee for the first time during lunch, and visiting in person (and taking countless pictures of) Anjaar, a 9th century walled city built as a hunting retreat by the Umayyads, which I discussed in an undergraduate lecture I gave in the Fall semester!

Ksaara

Baalbek

Anjaar

- Spending an entire day walking through the city from Hamra to Achrefieh with Jia Ching, taking pictures and feeling like complete tourists.

- CATCHING THE BOUQUET AT NATO’S WEDDING!!!

- After a day spent strolling through the cedar forest of Arz AlBarouk, and the lush blooming rose gardens of Beiteddine castle, we shared the most delicious mezze atop the mountains of Lubnan, at Mir Amin: the FATOUSH and BATATA HARRA was out of this world!!

Arz Al Barouk

Beiteddine view

Spectacular Fatoush

- A spontaneous night out with Nadim and Jia Ching shaking our booties to live music in the cozy local restaurant Wilamiyeh Warde.

Live music at Warde

- Spending election night on the roof terrace in Achrefieh enjoying a feast of homecooked Chinese food with Anna, Elaine and company.

- Day spent with my family on a drive to the mountains, visiting the house that my mom spent the summers of her youth in Souq AlGharb…sadly, since the civil war the once beautiful home has been left as a relic of the destruction of tanks and shelling, now overgrown with weeds and barely visible from the roadside.

Souq Al Gharb

- Winning big money at pub trivia night at an Irish pub in Gemezeh! Three PhD students and a United Nations veteran…no one could touch us! Did I mention, we earned bonus points for my now famous reenactment of the diner scene from When Harry Met Sally…oh boy.

- An afternoon spent at sporting club beach that lasted until sunset.

Sunset at Sporting

- Dinner at Saamira’s house with her parents in Choueifat, after the her father took us on the grand tour of the local Druze and Christain villages. Hands down the best meal in Lebanon! Kefta baby!

Dinner at Saamira’s: kefta and almaza

That’s all from Beirut…I’ll post more photos on facebook when I get the chance.

PS most photo credit goes to Jia Ching :)

xx, Mona

hi all, i’m creating this site as an informal chronicle of the sights, tastes, and people i encounter while traveling. the moments i want to share with friends and family, and especially the stuff i don’t want to forget…so i’m writing it down in case i do.

i’m starting with my trip to beirut in may 2009…enjoy!

xx, mona