Jehadist Musings I: Whining and Dining in Amman

Brother Jehad (his real name, as he needs all the fame he can get) visited us from the UK. It was my duty to entertain him. So, while I don't normally frequent restaurants, this was business, and it was my responsibility to keep him well fed and happy.

Before I start my review, I should tell you that I grew up spoiled: my mother and ex-wife were good cooks, and restaurants aren't worth it to me unless they're so good that they're memorable.

The first day, Jehad wanted to eat Italian, so I had my adviser on culinary matters find me a restaurant and ask them my two standard questions: where do you get your meat from and do you serve alcohol? She suggested Casareccio, who said that their meat is all from Amman's Abattoirs, and is in fact, local meat. (These two statements are not synonymous since imported animals are also butchered in Amman's Abattoirs.) When she asked them if they served alcohol, they said, "No, unfortunately."

We headed to the Abdoun Circle after asr and sat at our reserved table. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and reservations were apparently not necessary, as the place was relatively quiet. The table had a basket of room-temperature, factory-made, preservative-filled, overly-sweet Italian bread slices on it along with some tasty olives, and high quality olive oil with thyme. We were hungry and the food took a while to arrive, so we finished the basket and got a refill. Jehad ordered lasagna, a chicken caesar salad, and fries. I ordered a, "prime beef fillet", medium rare, with butter sauce and some grilled vegetables. For drinks, I ordered mango juice while Jehad ordered a strawberry shake. They forgot to bring the drinks until I requested them again after we were done eating. The steak was definitely not prime beef. I don't think they even know what prime beef is. In fact, I don't think there are beef cattle in Jordan. I have always suspected they just butcher unwanted male dairy calves. (However, I have no hard proof for this assumption.) The steak was also a bit on the dry side, though the butter sauce helped soften it up. The baked potato was good, but they didn't ask me what I wanted on it, so it arrived with a bunch of sour cream. The waiter was polite enough to ask me if I wanted another potato after he saw me scooping away the sour cream in disdain. He probably thought I was some sort of a back country hick, as when I rhetorically asked him, "What's this?" he told me, "Sour cream" and then followed up quickly with, "Labneh." I guess it's standard practice to douse baked potatoes with sour cream, but personally, I only ever use dairy butter or olive oil. The next day, I told my culinary adviser that I was less than pleased by the Casareccio. She asked Jehad what he thought and he liked it. First of all, he's a guest so he's probably too polite to say otherwise, and secondly, he's British: anything better than lukewarm shepherd's pie is probably exotic by his standards. The bill was around 35 JD, including a small tip. I got a follow-up call from Casareccio to make sure that everything was to my taste. What was I supposed to tell them? I quickly brushed it off with the generic, "Alhamdulillah, thank you"-type answer.

After dinner, we went to the latifiyya in K-Town, prayed isha, and then headed out for sweets at Zalatimo. I accidentally went to Al-Wadees instead at first. It would have probably been a better choice. While Al-Wadees doesn't have the atmosphere or selection of Zalatimo, the quality of the actual cakes is remarkable. After a bit of navigating, we ended up at Zalatimo in Shmeisani. Jehad ordered the Tutti Frutti ice cream and a strawberry milkshake. I ordered a chocolate brownie with fudge sauce, whipped cream, and ice cream and a mint espresso topped with whipped cream as a drink. The brownie was good, but not remarkably so. The same goes for the fudge sauce, which was not heated. The, "whipped cream" was, of course, chemical garbage that probably didn't have any dairy in it at all. The ice cream was generic-tasting ice milk at best. We also ordered a large bottle of water, which took longer than expected to arrive. They charged 16.84. I was so put off by the bad quality and high price that I didn't tip them. Atmosphere might be something that space exploration experts worry about. For me, it's the quality of the food first, followed by the price tag, followed by the service.

The next day we had a potluck lunch at work. Jehad wanted to see Qasid, so we dropped by in the late afternoon. There were a bunch of soldiers hanging around the entrance. We went upstairs and saw the immaculate Qasid premises. Someone I knew told me that Prince Ghazi had dropped by and he was now at Islamica Magazine in a meeting. There were a couple soldiers outside of Islamica's offices. I asked them if I could greet the prince and told them to search me if they wanted to. One of them looked at the other, who tried to muster up a tough-guy look and told me, "Wait over there." (Jordanians aren't very good at being mean.) We waited a while between Qasid and Islamica until I got some urgent phone calls from work, so I headed back into the office. Alhamdulillah, the fire at work got put out, and we head out for K-Town to dance with the dervishes after maghrib. We then set out to feed our faces.

We headed out to Gene's Grill inside Safeway at the Seventh Circle. I parked the car at a Porsche dealership. Jehad and I wondered if my 1985 Cressida would invoke the envious eye of those around us, but hey, sometimes you just can't hide what you have. I asked a waiter about the steaks and where the meat came from. "China" was his answer. I asked if he meant that it was imported as meat or if Chinese animals were slaughtered in Amman. He said it was the former. I told him that someone told me before their steaks were from Australia. (They also told me that they were imported as live cattle and butchered in Amman.) He said he could get me Chinese or Australian beef, as I wished. They used to also carry American beef, but no longer did. I asked him if the Australian beef was imported as meat or as live animals, and again, he confirmed the former. I asked him if the same was true regarding the buffet, and he replied in the affirmative. I thanked him and we left.

We drove back to Jabri on Gardens' Street. After confirming that their meat was all local, we ordered: Jehad had fried chicken and a had the mansaf meal. While Jabri is certainly not a place to take VIP's, the food is clean, good, and cheap. The sauce that they make their mansaf with tastes genuine and doesn't upset my stomach. Their meat is reasonably good. The meals and drinks were 10.40 in total. Talk about good, cheap food!

After dinner, we drove back to the Abdoun Circle to check out sweets at Gerards. Jehad ordered three scoops of ice cream. In order to be able to compare apples with apples, I ordered the brownie fudge sundae. The brownies were stacked in a pile like stationery or auto parts. They looked like the same brownies that I had at Zalatimo. I imagine that they are produced and packaged in some great, big brownie factory and distributed throughout Jordan. The fudge sauce was good, and the whipped cream was real, alhamdulillah. However, the ice cream was mediocre-tasting ice milk. The crushed nuts were crunchy. I ended up paying 5.50. It would appear that in Jordan, quality and price are inversely proportional.

I would definitely go to Jabri and Gerard's again. I would definitely avoid Casareccio and Zalatimo going forward. However, if you are ever in British Columbia and want to have a spiritual experience with a hot fudge brownie with ice cream and whipped cream, go to White Spot.

The best steak I've had in Jordan is at Reem Al-Bawadi's sister restaurant: Al-Waha. Make sure to get it grilled, and not with some sauce. In fact, Reem Al-Bawadi's and Al-Waha's grilling is particularly good, much better than that of Alia restaurant in Sports City. However, the mansaf I ordered from Reem Al-Bawadi once was rather sorry. Since when did Egyptians know how to make mansaf anyways?