Al Bandar

Tonight we ate at Al Bandar restaurant. Restaurants around here are different, there's no host/hostess to seat you. It's more like find an empty table and flag down a server. The food was good. We had Homos Bil Tahini (Hummus), Baba Ghannouj (dad has said that word about 10 times already Rosemary... I'm still keeping count), and I had Kabab Khashkash.

This was about 10pm and the Souq was still filled with people. All around us were tables of people, most smoking hookahs like they were oxygen tanks. I'm surprised that someone hasn't put one on wheels and walked around with it. I wish I was kidding but all these people had the pipe in one hand (like the man in the background) and just kept it in their mouth. Inhaled through the mouth, exhale through the nose is the most effective way of smoking a hookah, you never have to let go.

After dinner we decided to try Turkish coffee. It has all this hype and we wanted to know if it was as good as it's supposed to be. After a while they brought out a small tray with two small cups on it with a small container of coffee. The first sip was not what I expected. I felt like I was taking a shot. It was strong and had some spices in it. After a second and third sip I decided it was absolutely delicious.

Now you can't drink all of the coffee because at the bottom are the ground that sink to the bottom. It's like liquid crack. I felt like I needed a needle or spoon and lighter to finish off the coffee. I know my brother-in-law, Joe, would have licked the cup clean. He would have been ready with needle in hand to inject it in his veins.