This makes a colourful palette, does it not?
Undoubtedly the cuisines of the Middle East have to be one of the most colourful ones in the world. Yes, it is true, every country has their distinctive flavors, and thereby their distinctive palette, but it is difficult to ignore the fact that the foods of this region make for a cheerful (and naturally colored) sight on any plate.
It's all in the spices, I should say.
But it could also well be that, other than pork, they do have plenty of meats in the form of beef, chicken, mutton, lamb and fish served alongside a boggling array of very colourful vegetables, root vegetables and greens, which then all add to the array of colors.
Why, even their soup- their lentil soup- seen here with a heart shaped drawn upon its surface, is a bright, lively looking saffron orange!
We were at this place in the Arab Street enclave on what I think must have been Valentine's Day. It was a late hour by the time we got there, and although I wouldn't have minded what we ate- Persian, Lebanese, Moroccan or Turkish- I was hungry- this was the place we finally settled upon..
It didn't take us long to peruse the menu- we knew what we wanted- and so we ordered a bowl of lentil soup to share, and a platter of kebabs that had lamb, chicken and fish.
If there's one thing about eating kebabs, it is that the meal encourages cordial conversation, generates lots of laughter and grants you a game of "Guess the Food".
Because the fish doesn't look like fish, the chicken doesn't look like chicken, and the lamb doesn't look like lamb. There're no chunks of fish in front of you that you can easily tell, nor is there a piece of chicken leg or chicken breast, and there's nothing that looks like lamb either.
You just have to eat whatever and figure out what it is you are eating.
Or you can ask the waiter.
But we decided not to, so what we did was to cut off the tip of each kebab and try to taste which was which. The darkest looking one was lamb- that wasn't hard- but we spent some time trying to determine if the yellow looking one was fish, or chicken.
I said fish. "Fish is lighter colored than chicken! You see the meat inside? It's whiter!"
My dining companion said chicken. "No lah. This other one is orange and they always do fish kebabs until this color! Remember (this place) where we had fish kebabs and they were all orange?"
So we sliced off some more, tasted some more, rolled it around our tongues for the texture, and finally figured it out.
Turns out my dining companion was right.
The yellow colored one was chicken.
The saffron colored one was fish.
Now we know.
The meats went well with the sauce, which, by the way, is not Thousand Island salad cream but rather, a modified sort of Thousand Island mixed with a bit of spice and a little something else, but it tasted good, and we liked it so much we asked for more.
All in all, I loved the experience. There's something charming about having a bowl of lentil soup in the cool of the day, a very solid meal of three different kinds of meats that you can have a tasting game with, refresh yourself with lots of cool lettuce , green peppers and tomatoes thereafter, whilst soaking in the cultural vibes of the area as you lounge against bright silky cushions on a surprisingly comfortable wooden bench, amidst the distinctive sapphire blue décor of the cafe.