The New York Times goes Beirut bonkers

Beirut dining experiences usually begin with mezze, an array of appetizers. Abd el Wahab is a top destination for mezze. By SETH SHERWOOD

ON a balmy Middle Eastern night, our feast was rolling along fabulously on the outdoor roof terrace of Abd el Wahab, a vaulted and marbled Beirut gastropalace, when a flock of birds made a sudden appearance.

They came not from the sky but on a large plate, served by a suited, poker-faced waiter. Their blackened headless carcasses, each barely palm-sized, were soaked in a dark sauce that gave off a tangy aroma. Through wisps of sweet chicha smoke exhaled by boisterous groups at nearby tables, my Lebanese companions explained that the birds are traditionally eaten whole. I was dubious. Hesitantly, I popped one in my mouth. Tiny bones cracked like toothpicks. In a quick burst, succulent meat mingled with the sweet-sour basting sauce. It was sublime. A miniature Hitchcockian menace had been transformed into an unexpected gastronomic gem. “What kind of birds are they?” I asked the waiter.

“Small birds,” he said.

Such moments are blissfully common in Lebanon…

via Choice Tables – In Beirut, Raw Materials Meet Magic – NYTimes.com.

And so this article in the New York Times continues, with the writer, the evocatively blandly appelled Seth Sherwood, (it conjures up someone wearing a flannel shirt and living in Minnesota, but it turns out instead ‘Seth’ wears flannel shirts, lives in New York and travels on food junkets to ‘reveal remote corners almost no westerners visit‘ like Belgrade, Serbia {pah!}) anyway, here he is in all his flannel-shirted pomp in the New York Times, rhapsodically describing a visit to one of Beirut’s better, and more colourful upscale restaurants.

Anyway he’s bang to rights, such moments are blissfully common in Lebanon. Despite the lament of Lady Cochrane for her lost garden city, (when I suggested there were pockets of the old Beirut left she corrected me by saying no, there were only elements), there are daily reminders of why this country, so battered and bludgeoned by two centuries of war and epic mismanagement, of why it was once known as a land of milk and honey. And that’s even if you’re not the kind of writer apt to describe a small bird as a ‘miniature Hitchcockian menace’. (His waiter was quite right. They were the small bird kind of small birds that were served at his table.)

But this is to be somewhat curmudgeonly, perhaps I’m just sated with all the rich food and lavish hospitality of the last few days. All in all it’s a rattling good description of a memorable meal in Beirut. Bon appetite.