Cultural Appreciations of the Palate

I’m attaching a pic of some of our team members in the lobby of the hotel. Tonight some of us ate at the Arabic restaurant for dinner and some of us ate at the steak house. Apparently the Western steakhouse had some pretty good rib-eye. The Arabic restaurant had a fantastic spread filled with beautifully crafted, creatively presented dishes.

I primarily ate the cold buffet of taboule salad and hummus. I had a couple of pieces of some kind of spicy chicken with a brick red colored sauce and then moved on to the dessert tables. The desserts lined both sides of the buffet area...the left side had various “western” type cakes, cheesecakes, pie, chocolate mousse, ice cream cake, etc. As I held my empty plate surveying the left side, I was strongly drawn to survey the right side before I dared to commit to a specific sweet concoction. Just as my eyes met the far end of the table, a young waiter walked out from the kitchen door and spotted my indecisiveness. Actually, I wasn’t being indecisive, simply surveying the surroundings before moving forward with a course of action. In any case, he came over and said I should try the desserts on the right side because they were the Arabic specialties. I obliged, of course, and took a spoonful of some creamy bread pudding filling up a stainless steel serving clamshell thingy. He then told me the name of the next dish I should try (a two-layered creamy custard with a white top layer and orange bottom layer) I put a modest spoonful on my small plate...then he identified the next donut-hole looking pastries, so I took one, then he recommended the last dish. Now this last dish was interesting...we had been discussing it at the dinner table and had described it as “the hairy one.” No, it did not have hair, but it did have some kind of phyllo dough thin spaghetti covering on the outside which was dusted with pistachio crumbs. I didn’t even know how to serve this so the young server took it upon himself to cut into it and spoon a large serving onto my already crowded plate. The bowl next to the dessert was filled with somewhat of a clear syrup, which I was told was sugar syrup. This was spooned onto the “hairy one” and my plate was full. They young server was pleased that he corralled me, an obvious westerner, onto the native side of the buffet where he could show off and take pride in his cultural delicacies. I, of course, obliged and enjoyed every last bit of it.

I do have to say, I am definitely not used to eating in a restaurant where so many of the women come in with their birqas. The fabrics are black, of course, but they are decorated with ornate embroidery and detailed edging. Just before we stood up to leave, five ladies sheathed in black were seated next to us. I was so curious how they would eat...would they remove the bottom part of the birqa to reveal mouths colored with lipstick? Would they maneuver their forks underneath the covering? How would they react to the 5 western men sitting next to them? Before I could take part in my social observations we pushed back our chairs and left. So, I’m still wondering...













Another neat observation within the hotel walls is the gorgeous hand-painted tiles accenting the walls and ceilings. They are just fantastically handcrafted. Here is a picture of some stunning 3-dimensional, blue and gold tiles located on the wall just outside of the elevator on the 8th floor.