Review of Taste Lebanon - A Culinary Journey Across Lebanon

Wednesday 22^nd September 2010

Events: Travel to Lebanon, first dinner in Beirut

My dad dropped me off at the Milton Keynes coach station at 09:00, where I got a coach to Heathrow.

It was an interesting journey – I was sat right at the front of the coach so I had a nice view out of the windscreen. A lady got on with her son and wanted to buy a ticket – the driver gave her the ticket, but moaned as he did so saying that she should have pre-ordered and that she was holding everyone up. The driver was polite but also looked very grumpy.

While driving, I noticed that the coach’s speedometer was broken – we certainly weren’t doing the indicated 100mph in a 30mph limit! On the motorway, the coach driver had a few ‘issues’ with other drivers. 3 times he tutted, wound down his driver-side window, stuck his arm out and shook it at other drivers. He didn’t raise his voice, but the girl sitting to my right (behind the driver) and I looked at each other with amazement that he would do this. Little did I know that this was a sign of things to come on the roads in Lebanon! Once we stopped at Heathrow, the girl to my right got out with me and asked me directions to the connecting bus terminal – because the driver wasn’t very ‘approachable’ lol.

I didn’t have any problems navigating my way through Heathrow to the departure gate. The only issue I had when travelling out was on the airplane when I put a bottle of water between my legs so I could use both hands to put my bag in the overhead locker. I inadvertently squeezed the bottle, the cap came off and I squirted water all over a passenger – oops! Luckily he was English and had a good sense of humour!

On arrival in Lebanon, I made it to the border control guard, who went through every page on my passport (twice), checking for an Israel stamp (I have never been to Israel). Then after that I was immediately greeted by a soldier who was randomly checking passports – and he checked mine again. Luckily he didn’t think I was too dodgy, so he let me into the country.

After I had dealt with all that, I met Beth who was patiently waiting for me at the arrivals area. She actually spotted me first, so it was nice to see that she recognised me from when we met at Food Blogger Connect last October!

We walked over to the short term parking area where Chris (Beth’s husband) had been circling around in the car. Beth’s friend Rosie was also in the car as she was visiting. We all then headed into the centre of Beirut (Downtown) for dinner. The restaurant was busy so we booked a table and were told to return in 30 minutes. So we walked around Downtown for a bit before sitting down for the meal. The centre of Downtown Beirut was completely rebuilt after the war ended in 2006, so it is very modern and is immediately surrounded by a strange mixture of old and new buildings (and even has roman ruins scattered around the city!) – I haven’t seen anything quite like it anywhere else in the world.

Then we returned to the restaurant. This was my first real taste of Lebanese food in Lebanon (the Capital no less!). I had previously only had Lebanese food at the Food Blogger Connect event which Beth hosted in October 2009, so I was very excited. Beth went about ordering a mezza (a collection of dishes) and a locally produced red wine. They also instructed me on how to eat the Lebanese way – which is mainly:

• Use Arabic bread to scoop up food and dips
• Don’t bother putting a lot of food onto your dish, instead take a little at a time and keep re-visiting the places on table frequently
• Take your time – a mezza can last hours and usually involves several dishes and 2-3 courses. Eating in Lebanon is like a marathon, not a sprint!

My first impressions of the Lebanese food were very good – which was a relief because I would be eating a lot of it over the next week!

After dinner, we then dropped Rosie off at her hotel and waved goodbye to her (it was the last time we would see her), then drove to my hotel, the Hollywood Inn in Jounieh; which was about 20 minutes away.

The drive there was very interesting. There were hundreds of billboards; it was like the Las Vegas Strip, only that it went on for miles! This was also my first experience of Lebanese driving – which is the worst that I have seen anywhere in the world (the grumpy coach driver that took me to Heathrow would have a breakdown if he ever drove in Lebanon!).

Thursday 23^rd September

Events: Jeita caves, shopping and walking around Downtown Beirut, dinner at Beth’s house

The tour wasn’t due to start until the evening, so I had the day to myself. I decided to explore Lebanon. I started by getting a taxi to the Jeita caves. There are 2 caves – you walk through the upper one and ride on a boat within the lower one. Both caves are amazing – incredibly large (tall, deep and wide) and full of stalagmites and stalactites (made of stone). The only downside is that they ban you from taking photographs, which is a shame as it really was an amazing sight.

After that, I walked around Downtown where I visited the 2^nd largest Virgin Megastore in the world (the largest is in London), a large mosque, bought some t-shirts in the modern Souk’s (indoor shopping area), had a mango cooler (and free WiFi in Costa Coffee), then returned back at my hotel.

Later that evening, Beth’s brother Eli picked me up from my hotel and drove me to their parents house, where Beth had prepared a fantastic meal (which included Arabic bread, chicken, stuffed aubergines and hummus) using produce from their family farm. I hadn’t gotten the hang of the ‘eat it slowly’ rule yet – possibly because the food was so nice, I wanted to eat as much as I could!

Friday 24^th September

Events: Sea-fishing on a boat, Chez Maguy restaurant, Byblos

This was the first dull day of the tour and it started with Beth and Chris picking me up from my hotel and driving to a small fishing village where we met ‘Freddy of Lebanon’ – who is a fun character (if he threatens to kill you, don’t take it personally, just smile!).

Freddy’s dad jumped onto a moped and went and got some freshly squeezed lemon juice for us to drink, as well as some breadsticks. We then dunked the breadsticks into the lemon drink (which soaked up the lemon juice) before eating them. Biting into them released the lemon juice, like biting into a sponge – it was so nice and something that I will definitely be doing back home!

Then we walked to the fishing boat, taking photographs of the old village (very picturesque) as we went along.

The original plan was for us to fish for small fish near the coast, but as the sea was really calm, we decided to go fishing for Tuna! Freddy set the boat’s auto-pilot to a position 6 miles out to sea and put some rods on the back of the boat. We were out for a few hours, but despite Freddy’s best efforts, calm sea, fish-sonar and Beth almost getting smacked in the face with a spinner as Freddy pulled it out of the water, we didn’t get a bite – not even a nibble; probably because the sea was too warm (tuna like cold water). Still it was nice to have a relaxed day to start the tour.

We then headed back to the marina and jumped into the car for a quick trip to Chez Maguy. This restaurant was located right on the coastline but only accessible via a labyrinth of narrow roads, within an old village – fortunately Beth knew how to get there (and out again!). The restaurant looked like it was home-made and had been extended again and again... which gave it ‘character’. We were sitting outside, overlooking a beach where people were swimming, fishing and having fun. Apparently the restaurant is quite famous and has been in the press quite a lot. The owner (Maguy) showed us a few press cuttings.

The food on the menu is whatever has been caught and gathered recently. So the fish mezze included a whole octopus. I hadn’t had octopus served whole before (only within battered rings) so it was nice to see it presented whole on the table – plus it tasted good. Plus I had not eaten the heads of fish before, but Beth said it was normal to eat the heads in Lebanon and showed me how to do it – I followed, eating the whole head (including eyes, brain, teeth, etc.) – it was actually nice and crunchy like a Doritos crisp! In fact the only part of the (pre-gutted) fish we didn’t eat was the spine!

For dessert we jumped back into the car and headed to a small bakery for a traditional nutty/pastry based dessert called Mouwaraka. Unfortunately this was closed (closed at 2pm), so instead we travelled to Byblos which was founded at around 5,000BC and is believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. We looked around, took some photographs and then found a nice restaurant for cocktails, ice-cream and a perfect sunset.

Saturday 25^th September

Events: Farmers market, Le Chef, ice cream, fruit cocktail, Armenian restaurant, rooftop bar

We went to a farmers market which was an initiative to being all of the cultures and religions within Lebanon to 1 place, to sell food – and I have to say it worked really well. They also had a strong promotion of selling organic food, which I liked. So in essence, in 1 location there was an ordinary looking farmers market, where you could find all sorts of interesting, organic, fresh produce, as well as a stools that sold several different flavours of honey, pottery and other items. Beth bought some nibbles – one I particularly liked was a small pastry filled with spinach – it was so fresh that its flavour filled your mouth as soon as you bit into it!

For lunch we went to Le Chef which is a nice restaurant which makes Tibikh (home cooked) style food. Beth ordered us a mezza style lunch, which included their signature dish which had chicken, rice, and crispy Arabic bread – this was nice as it had good flavour and a mixture of textures. There is also a ‘thing’ that they do there, but I won’t spoil the surprise by talking about it here, you will have to visit it for yourself! We also had Dolma which is a very popular dish in Lebanon, they are spinach leaves stuffed with vegetables.

Although I was full, I always have room for dessert, so Beth took us to a really small shop (by which I mean only just big enough to house a couple of freezers, a desk and a few customers) which is staffed by a husband and wife (who had owned the shop for 60 years) and their son. We entered the shop and each ordered 2 scoops of ice-cream, which they scooped into plastic cups. I am a big fan of ice-cream (I am probably Ben and Jerry’s biggest customer in Milton Keynes) – and I have to tell you that this ice-cream was superb! The consistency was really good (i.e. thick and sticky) and the flavour just hit my taste-buds as soon as it went in my mouth. The owners could see that we loved the ice-cream and their faces lit up – they didn’t speak English but Beth translated for us and it was clear that they were very passionate about their ice-cream and were delighted that Beth had bought this strange guy from England all the way over to their little shop. I loved this place!

After that we drove to another location for a drink. On the way there we got held up in traffic – lots of people in and on top of cars, waving political flags. So it took a while to get to the bar, but once we did, I had a nice, fresh fruit cocktail, with a good dollop of cream on top – perfect!

Then we drove back to my hotel, getting stuck in yet more traffic on the way there. But that was okay, all the beeping of horns, manic driving and flag waving was so absurd it was actually kind of fun to be in the middle of. I got back to my hotel room at 5pm to find 3 maids in there tidying up (no, I wasn’t THAT messy!). So I sat in there while they did their thing, lifting my feet when they wanted to sweep the floor, etc.

That evening, Beth and Chris picked me up again and we are out at an Armenian bistro style restaurant called Seza, which was a family run restaurant, 3 months old and was situated in someone’s living room. I hadn’t eaten Armenian food before, so this was exciting. The food here was very different to the rest of the food that I had tasted on the rest of the tour, it was generally more spicy and had a fuller flavour – we all thought it was amazing! One dish that I really liked was Basterma which is thin slices of beef, highly spiced with an Armenian influence. The decor of the room we were in added to the ambiance and the waiting staff were dressed in non-typical uniform, with hats, but they looked good and were very professional. This was certainly one of my favourite dining experiences of the whole tour.

After this we went to a bar which was based on the roof of a 7 storey building. The rooftop was packed with people and was a great experience. It was here that I learned that Lebanon is one of the top places in the world for plastic surgery and it is from this point on when I started obsessively looking at peoples noses! It was really nice to meet some of Beth’s cousins, who helped me identify some people who had plastic surgery. It seems that partying/socialising is part of the norm in Lebanon and that going out 2-3 times a week is normal (in Milton Keynes the bars and clubs are usually empty on all nights apart from Saturday).

After a few drinks here (unfortunately no dance-floor – so I didn’t get a chance to show off my dance skills, or lack thereof) we jumped in a taxi and headed back to my hotel. We observed many people (somewhat intoxicated) stagger straight out of the bar and into their cars.

Sunday 26^th September

Events: Mountains, food shopping, mezza under an orange marquee, hunting, sleeping

We jumped into the car and headed for Beth’s family house in the mountains near Baskinta.

On the way we stopped off for some supplies. The first stop was at a butchers in a village in the mountains. I was a little surprised to see sheep’s testicles hanging up – and even more surprised when Beth said calmly ‘we will be eating those later’ – and she meant it. I think she was more surprised when I pulled a funny face (a shocked/queasy look) and she looked at me like it wasn’t normal to eat testicles. Well for this English guy it wasn’t – I hadn’t eaten sheep’s testicles before. I also saw the butcher make minced meat with pure, good quality meat – nothing added (as we often get in the UK).

Then we stopped off at a mini-supermarket for some ‘ordinary’ supplies. I was impressed to see that this (quite large) shop had everything a supermarket in the city centre would have.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere Beth had suddenly got hold of some breakfast – a Lahm B'ajeen which is an Arabian style pizza with lamb topping and a yoghurt drink which at first tasted a little bitter, but the more I drank, the more I became accustomed to it – and it went perfectly with the Shifla. In fact, the yoghurt drink was a lot like the plain flavour of Yop.

We continued our drive through the mountains (great scenery) to the house, passing through Wadi Jamajim ‘the Valley of Skulls’ which despite its name, was a really nice road. Pretty soon we had arrived and were greeted by Beth’s father and brother (Tony and Eli – who I had met before at their town house). Eli was sat peeling runner beans and Tony was organising things. I looked around the house – the ground floor was finished and the first floor had yet to be worked on. There was a large vegetable garden, filled with lines of vegetables (I tried some peas which were delicious), complete with a hired hand gathering produce which would be used by the family and the excess (of which there was lots) would be sold.

As well as the garden, there was also some farmland, which also had lots of fruit and vegetables planted. I had seen earlier in the week that Beth’s family knew how to cook, but here I saw and learned that her family also knew how to farm. I on the other hand only mostly know how to eat – at least I thought I did, as on this tour I would be trying a lot of new foods that I haven’t been offered before in England! There was also a large, bright orange marquee, with a large table, surrounded by some comfortable sofas and chairs, which would be where we and other guests would be eating.

Upon arrival, Beth went into the kitchen and immediately started to cook and prepare the food and Chris prepared the barbeques. I helped out by chopping a lot of potatoes into thinly sliced chips. I hadn’t made chips before so this was new to me (not exactly rocket science I know, but it was a new experience) – I went through sooo many potatoes that my knife skills are really good now! Beth’s dad was impressed – he even asked if Beth had taught me how to chop them this way because I was doing it how his family does it (that was a real compliment!).

A number of other guests started to arrive, including one who spoke French. Beth let on that I spoke a little French so the guest started to talk to me in French and despite actually being really bad and never conversing in it, I think I actually did quite well (if only for 30 seconds!).

For the next few hours I watched Beth prepare a variety of dishes – all from scratch. Chris did a good job barbequing the meat – not a job I would have wanted to do in the 30C heat! The only crisis that occurred in the kitchen was when Beth used an old, fragile pottery dish when pounding the Toum (garlic sauce) – this broke the dish (much to the amusement of her brother Eli). She then proceeded to hide it (before her father found it) and promised to replace it with a similar one soon!

The kitchen was a hive of activity all afternoon. As well as Beth cooking lots of dishes (for 16 people), a man who owned a local sandwich shop came in and gave us a demonstration on how to cook sheep’s testicles. First we ate some raw, then he cooked them in neutral olive oil (not extra virgin as that has a low boiling point and creates smoke too soon). He explained how they should be cooked until the point where you no longer see any blood, plus every time you cook a new batch, you should replace the oil in the pan. He also emphasised how food should be smelt first and then tasted – smell is an important part of cooking and eating. Then I tasted some cooked testicles – and they were very nice, they had a soft texture and quite a clean, light taste.

I remained in the kitchen all afternoon, watching Beth cook, asking questions and tasting all of the dishes as she made them, as well as nibbling on food! It took about 4-5 hours to cook everything, but once it was all ready we joined everyone under the marquee and proceeded to try everything. It was all really tasty and everyone was impressed. It was good to see the young children enjoying everything on offer (including vegetables). Obviously the children were mad about the chips and finished them all off – they obviously appreciated my chip-chopping skills!

Besides the food being fantastic, the location was great – sat in a ludicrously orange marquee, in the middle of farmland, on a mountain in 30C heat (although the temperature was actually very pleasant in the shade of the marquee and in the house) and the company was very good. People kept switching between Arabic (which is a nice language to listen to – and see how people interact, e.g. family will affectionately shout at each other), English as well as a little French and Russian!

After dinner Chris asked if I would like to go hunting for larks with shotguns. I am a keen target shooter (with pistols and rifles) and have shot shotguns before, but I had never hunted; so I jumped at the chance to give it a go! We took a shotgun from Beth’s father and one of the guests lent me his shotgun, then we walked for about half a kilometre to a nice tree-line position. We could hear the larks and saw the occasional one in the distance, but didn’t see any near us; so we moved to another location and waited patiently for 20 minutes – still nothing! It was quickly getting dark so we started to walk back to the house, when we saw a sparrow fly in a sort of figure of eight about 15 metres above our heads – I shot at it and narrowly missed (but I scared it!). Then I shot with my 2nd barrel and just missed again (I think I was leading too far ahead – I had only shot clays before, which go fast and in a straight line) and it flew off before Chris could have a go at it. Then I saw a bird perched in a tree about 20 metres away. I loaded up both barrels, shot at it and BANG – one shot, one kill and I saw it drop to the ground. We walked over to it only to discover that it was not a sparrow, but an owl! Not quite what I had intended as we couldn’t eat it, but at least another animal would be getting an easy dinner that night!

As it was now quite dark (apart from moonlight), we headed back to the house (easily seen by the bright orange marquee), looking out for snakes along the way (fortunately we didn’t see any). Back at the house, everyone was still having a good time (with plenty of food left!). The 2 children (about 3-4 years old) were full of energy and playing with everyone (mostly pillow fighting and jumping on people) for hours.

After all the guests had gone home, we made a decision to sleep in the house that night and travel back in the morning. So we sat under the marquee until about 1am and also walked down the road to get a good view of the valleys at night and also do some stargazing before going to bed. At 04:10 someone got up and went to the toilet. Someone else said “Are you okay” and the other person said “shhhh” loudly. If I wasn’t already awake at this point, the loud “shhhh” may have woken me up lol. I guess I’m a light sleeper (or just a big kid and excited about staying in a small house in the mountains), so I didn’t get any more sleep, but we got up at around 08:00 anyway and strangely enough I didn’t really feel too tired.

Monday 27^th September

Events: Family farm, cheese breakfast, dinner in the mountains, Kebbeh Nayye

Monday was to be a far more relaxing day. We woke up and jumped into the cars and headed down the mountain to their family farm. The farm building hadn’t been used in a long time (they are going to do it up), but I was impressed how they had a satellite dish for TV (being a geek I like how they have their priorities right!). They also had a large Cadillac in the driveway – which Beth used to drive! I wouldn’t want to drive a car like that around narrow mountain roads... We then drove to my hotel where I got dropped off so I could freshen up and grab a quick breakfast there. Beth and Chris then drove to their house to get changed. An hour later they picked me up and we drove to our next location – to another place in the mountains.

On our way there, we stopped off at a sweet shop, where we tried a breakfast which was a typical bread and cheese breakfast which was really nice. After 5 minutes there we got back in the car. While driving, we saw some fantastic rock formations in the mountains – the rocks were not layered horizontally, but horizontally with a large curve. Also in the rock were a large number of caves where holy people used to live and pray.

We arrived at our destination which was a really nice picnic area with a big tree, a small building which was essentially just a kitchen, another building for sleeping and a 3^rd building for lounging around. The 3 buildings were all being developed and not yet finished. There was also farmland and 2 donkeys. We also saw a herd of goats go by, as well as 2 groups of people hunting larks with shotguns. There were around 12 of us in total, including a lady who is quite famous for Kebbeh Nayye - which actually I wasn’t so keen on as they didn’t really taste of much and were quite dry (although this may have been a personal preference), however I liked her as she had a fun personality and was obviously very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about cooking. Beth did a great job translating what she (and the others) were saying into English. Everyone was really welcoming and one of the people who owned the place even came up to me and said I should treat it as if it were my home – wonderful people! They were all eager to make me try all of the different foods (which was quite tough considering the amount of food I had eaten over the past few days), but I gave it my best shot as it was all so delicious (I especially liked the small sausages). One of the men gave me Arak which is a traditional Lebanese alcoholic drink that as Chris says ‘cleans the pallet’. It is a clear liquid that when mixed with water, turns into a pure white liquid – it looks like milk, contains 50-65% alcohol, made mainly from grapes and has an aniseed flavour. The previous night I had a shot of this so I was expecting a shot again – but he gave me a large glass full!

After a really relaxing day there, I was dropped off at my hotel. As I am an Internet addict, I walked to Costa (just 200m from the hotel) for their free WiFi (and also a Mango Cooler and strawberry cake).

Tuesday 28^th September

Events: Cheese factory, bread factory, big stone, Sfiha Baalbeckiye, Baalbak, Ksara vineyard, spice shop, restaurant

We set off early for a long drive to Baalbak. On the way we stopped off at a cheese shop that Beth had been to before – it was just a small shop at the side of a long road, so I don’t know how she found it originally; but it turned out be really interesting. We tried a Lebanese style sandwich, which was basically a wrap with cheese in it – very nice! Then we had a toasted sandwich, containing another cheese (also very nice!). Finally we tried a dessert which was made of a soft cheese, mixed with honey. I had not had a dessert like this before – but it was a great combination of flavours as it didn’t taste too cheesy, but more of a creamy taste with a perfect accompaniment of honey. It was sweet without being sickly.

Beth got chatting with the staff in the shop and learned that the cheese factory was just 500m down the road, so she asked if we could have a tour of it. 5 minutes later the owner was in the restaurant and talking to us about it – he was really happy to show us around. Interestingly, he had spent 5 years in Yorkshire (doing a masters degree, learning about cheese production) so his English was very good. After a quick chat in the shop, we followed him to the factory.

The dairy factory was empty as the goats were milked early in the morning, but he showed us around the cheese factory which was very small but interesting. The man was really enthusiastic and thrilled that we wanted to look around (he obviously doesn’t get many foreign visitors pop in like this). He was really proud of his produce, explaining that everything was organic – which resulted in produce with a shorter shelf-life, but far better taste, far more healthy and was better for the environment. There were a number of vats (now empty) and a number of cheeses in large plastic bowls, at different states of resting. We sampled some different cheeses – some were salted, some were not and were talked through the whole process. If I remember correctly, they produce 18 different types of cheese, which is amazing considering the size of the place.

The cheese that they are most proud of is a cheese called Shankleesh which looks like a large Scotch egg – it is a round ball of soft cheese, with a hardened brown coating. The cheese (and coating) has 13 different spices, the outer coating is added and the cheese is then left to dry in the sun. The outer coating keeps the cheese moist and also ensures a longer shelf life. He broke one open for us to try so we delved right in – and it was delicious. I hadn’t eaten a cheese quite like it before – you bite into it and your mouth fills with spices, which you can still taste minutes after eating it! In fact the cheese is so good, he sells it to the Syrian monarchy!

We waved goodbye and headed off down the road. After a few minutes Beth screamed something along the lines of “Stop – do a U’ey”. She had spotted a small bread making factory at the side of the road. So we turned around, parked up and invited ourselves into the shop, armed with our cameras. Inside the small factory were about 5 men, working hard, making Arabic bread. They were amazed that 3 tourists would stop and want to take photographs of them – we made their day! They were more than happy to pose for us as we took photos and video’s them at work.

On the road again and we arrived at our next destination – which was a bit of a strange one. It was the site of the largest stone in the world. Still in its quarry, weighing around 1,000 tons; it was destined by the Romans to be the podium of the Jupiter Temple which was never completed. Right by it was a tourist shop, run by a man who opposed the destruction of this stone in 1992.

After a brief stop there, we stopped off at a small cafe where they made a form of minced pie called Sfiha Baalbeckiye. These are small pies with minced lamb inside. I liked these a lot – which was a good thing as they made us so many of them! Again they were very accommodating and loved us taking photographs of them. Watching them being made was interesting, as they did everything from scratch. The meat (as usual in Lebanon) was minced using pure lamb (around 90% red meat and 10% fat to keep it moist) – no added ingredients.

I could have stayed there all day, eating; but there was more to see so we jumped into the car and made it the rest of the way to Baalbek which is near Jordan. Baalbek is truly amazing. I have visited many historical sites all over the world, but none on the sheer scale of this one – it is huge. Plus everything is well maintained (untouched). I’ll let you read the Wikipedia article on Baalbek as that can explain it better than I can. I’ll just say that you have to go there sometime to experience it.

Our next stop was the Ksara vineyard. We had a tour round, which started with a video presentation (which was quite interesting and not too long). Then we were taken through the caves where the barrels of wine were kept and told about the wine process. The caves were really nice and well presented. After this, we were taken to a large bar area where we sampled 4 wines – a white, 2 reds and a dessert wine.

Back on the road again and Beth directed us to a spice shop, where she went around with the shop assistant, telling which spices to bag for me. The assistant was laughing as I was getting 250g’s of spices, the locals would get far larger quantities. I think if I had gotten large quantities of various coloured powders in my bag, I would have had problems getting back through Heathrow airport! I also picked up some nuts and dates (both of which are really nice).

After this, we went to a really posh restaurant in Beirut. In the entrance was a lady who was dressed up, making Arabic bread. Inside, the restaurant looked really nice and had an abundance of waiters. Beth ordered for us – which may have been a mistake as I think she has a mean streak. The usual items that arrived at the table were there, as well as some things that I hadn’t tried before, such as sheep brains and birds. Not wanting to look like a softie, I delved into the sheep brains, the texture of which wasn’t quite as I thought it would be (thankfully it was actually better!) – quite soft with a subtle flavour, not unpleasant at all. Next up were the small birds which were gutted with their heads removed. The birds tasted okay but the real ‘niceness’ of that dish was the source – which was quite rich in flavour, yum! We had fish which were well cooked – and as at Chez Maguy, Beth ‘encouraged’ me to eat the heads, which were once again good (quite crispy). The rest of the food was similar to what we had on meals. The only problem we had was that we had ordered too much food! But this was resolved by Beth calling her father who came over (straight from work) with a friend to help us eat everything – but even then, we still couldn’t quite manage it!

Wednesday 29^th September

Events: Bakery, Coca-Cola, Tripoli, old Souk, sweet shop, spicy fish, cable car, walk

Our first visit was to the bakery where we tried to go on Friday. The bakery is owned and run by 3 sisters who have run it for over 15 years.

It is located on the edge of a village – somewhere not very easy to get to, yet even at 10.30am, it was quite busy with a constant stream of customers (some of whom brought their own home-made toppings in jars for the bakers to add to breads and pizzas).

The first thing we tried was a Manakish (which is a flat dough) with Za’atar as the topping. This was really nice and Beth said that it is given to children (with extra poppy seeds) before exams or studying because the poppy seeds are supposed to help increase oxygen delivery to the brain and help with memory retention.

Then Beth asked them to make us a traditional dish called Mouwaraka, which was a thin, layered pastry (stretched out like a small tube) containing a variety of nuts. Served warm, it was amazing – and very filling. An ideal breakfast! Watching them make it was fun – not at all how I expected they would do it.

• First of all, they put the pastry (which was very elastic) through a rolling machine to flatten it. They did the 2-3 times.
• Then a layer of the nut mixture was added.
• Then, starting from the middle of the pastry a small hole was made and the pastry was rolled back towards the outer edge, making a sort of 360 degree sausage about 4cm in diameter.
• This was then rolled out until the outer edge was reached and it resembled a small bicycle inner tube.
• She then put it onto a tray and shaped it so that it looked like string and not a circle.
• It was then brushed with egg white to make it go crispy and golden in colour
• It was then in the oven for around 7 minutes before being cut into bite-size pieces
• Then the 3 of us gobbled it up!

With our bellies full once again, we jumped into the car and made our way along the coast (which was a nice drive). After a few minutes, it was Chris this time who decided to spontaneously ‘do a U’ey’. He had spotted a small, rustic looking Coca-Cola ‘shed’ – actually it was a very small shop selling drinks and sweets, so we got out and took some photos of that.

Next we drove to the ruins of an old citadel which can be seen from the main road. As we drove up to it, we noticed old style lanterns by the side of the mountain road that we were on, so we decided to follow them to see where they led. After a number of twists and turns, heading straight up the side of the rock face, we approached upon a really picturesque wedding venue! We got out and wondered around. There were a few people working there who greeted us and offered to show us around, including in the bride and groom house (which by the clothes and luggage in there, looked to be in use, although vacated for the day!).

Our next stop was Tripoli which is an old market town, full of buzz. We made our way through some narrow streets and alleyways to a small cafe where we had a local dish called Foul Medama, which is made up of fava beans in olive oil and garlic with a hint of lemon. The locals laughed at us for not being able to finish it – but they didn’t know that we had already eaten that morning!

Just around the corner was an old, traditional souk. We walked down the alleyway, looking at all the stools (shops) on either side of us. They were mostly filled with small market traders:

• Lots of shops selling fruit and fresh vegetable produce
• Some butchers with a single cow – when they have used up this cow, they get another
• Some shops that were butchering chickens.
• One TV repair shop!
• Clothes shops
• Shoe shops
• Jewellery shops
• etc.

It was really fun and interesting to walk along and take in the sights and sounds.

After all the hustle and bustle of the Souk, we went to Rafaat al hallab which is a 7 storey sweet shop/factory where we were shown around by 2 staff (the manager of franchise and the manager of export). The ground floor houses a nice cafe area and the shop area, while the other floors are where the sweets and cakes are made.

It was really interesting to see how the sweets and cakes were being made. Many of the sweets are based on a thin pastry (often 20 layers thick), a variety of nuts and soaked in syrup – a great combination that I was quickly becoming addicted to over the week! As we walked around and were shown the production process, we were offered a few samples (I couldn’t say no). My favourite was a Baklawa that was covered in a layer of thick chocolate.

As well as sweets, they made some western style cakes (e.g. birthday cakes). These could be ordered with simple customisation (e.g. names inscribed in icing), 1 day in advance and could be fully customised if ordered 6 days in advance. They weren’t too expensive either. Unfortunately I don’t think a large cake would have survived the flight home!

At the end of the tour of the shop, I bought an assorted box of sweets for my office (which quickly got eaten upon my return to work!).

Reluctantly leaving the sweet shop, we went to a small cafe that sold a spicy fish mixture in a wrap. We ate this while sitting by the side of a port, watching around 10 men bait-fishing (fishing for small fish).

This was officially the end of the Taste Lebanon tour, except for a final dinner which (because I planned for some additional days in Lebanon and I was the only person on the tour) would be on Friday night. So that evening Beth and Chris dropped me off at a cable car attraction, just outside of Beirut.

The cable car took about 10 minutes to reach the top. It was a really nice ride and offered excellent views of the surrounding area and coastline as I went up into the mountain (about 1,800 metres up). Once at the top, there are a few fast-food restaurants and a good viewing platform. To get right to the top you can either walk, or you can go in a second tram like thing, which takes you up about another 20 metres – I took the tram (well was on holiday, so was meant to be taking things easy!).

From the top, the views were really good and there were not many people.

Also at the top was a cafe (which looked quite nice, but I didn’t visit as I had been eating all day!), a church, a shop and a large tower/statue that you could walk up – along an outer-spiral staircase (worth it for an even better view!).

After looking around for a while, I headed back down to the bottom, then walked along a road (which went parallel to the beach) into the centre of a nearby town. It was a loooong way and I walked for around 2 hours (there and back), but it was a nice walk and was nice to see the small shops, bars and restaurants.

Then I stopped off at a small port, where I watched the sunset, people swimming, personal watercraft and some nice boats. After that, I returned to my hotel, freshened up, watched Starship Troopers 3 (very cheesy but funny), then spent 2 hours in Costa (2 Mango Coolers, a strawberry cake, free WiFi and a chat with one of the staff there).

Thursday 30^th September

Events: Museum, Hard Rock Cafe, art gallery

I walked for 20 minutes to a hologram gallery, but it was closed (although the signs said it should be open). Never-mind, I got into a taxi and went to the Sursock museum, only to find that this was also closed, hmm...

So I went to the National Museum of Beirut. The museum was quite good – I started with a video which explained how the artefacts had been preserved during the recent war and how the museum itself (which had suffered damage in the war) had been restored. The pieces in the museum were nicely presented and well maintained – it was good to walk around.

After that, I headed towards the coast. I walked for over an hour before giving up (it was a lot further than I’d thought!) and getting a taxi (which overcharged me – taxi drivers in Lebanon seem to overcharge tourists around $10-$15). The taxi driver only spoke Arabic – and I don’t know any Arabic. Luckily his other passenger spoke some French, so in my best schoolboy French (“Je voudrais un cafe pres de la mer”) I was able to explain to him that I wanted to go to a cafe by the sea – and then told the driver (who looked a bit bewildered that I wanted to go to ‘any’ cafe) – but in the end he took me to a restaurant by the sea. The restaurant was near the Hard Rock Cafe – and I couldn’t resist going in there and buying a Hard Rock Cafe ‘Beirut’ t-shirt (not many people in the UK will have one of those!).

Then I went upstairs and had a strawberry milkshake and a chocolate fudge cake (neither of which were very nice and the service was really slow, despite the restaurant being virtually empty). After taking my order, the waiter went to the kitchen – only to come back a couple of minutes later to tell me that the chef said that the chocolate fudge cake that I had ordered was too big for 1 person, so I should order the smaller one. ‘Pah’ I thought, but I ordered the smaller one anyway – which when it came out I was glad I did, as it was actually pretty big (and I was only just able to finish it!).

After that, I did some more walking and found myself (purely by accident) outside Le Chef – which was a welcome sight. I decided to walk up a long flight of steps near it and stumbled upon a small art gallery with around 20 paintings and a few sculptures/objects. So I wondered in and the man in there (who spoke very little English) was really pleased to see me – excited in fact! He proceeded to point things out to me. Once I had looked around, I SMS’d Chris who called me a taxi, who collected me and took me back to my hotel.

Friday 1^st October

Events: Private museum, belly dancing

I got up at 08:00, grabbed some breakfast and got a taxi from the Hollywood Inn to the Duroy Hotel. The taxi driver didn't know where it was, so he stopped several times for directions. Check-in for the Duroy wasn't until 14:00 (it was about 10:30) so I left my bags with them and walked to Downtown Beirut. It was about 4km’s but a nice walk – passing by lots of small shops and through a few districts.

Once in Downtown I couldn’t find the private museum that I wanted to go to, so I asked a few people. 2 of the people I asked didn’t know it, but offered to help me. They were sitting on a bench, but got up and walked with me to find the museum – that was so nice of them! Even better, one of them was studying food and nutrition so she was interested in the ‘Taste Lebanon’ food tour that I was on. We found the museum within 10 minutes (which was good as we were walking in the 32C heat!). It was a private museum but still fairly big, plus it had some expensive things in it, such as the 2nd largest diamond in the world and the world’s most expensive bra (quite a mix of items). I was a bit perplexed because there seemed to be very little security (just glass and video cameras), just 1 girl at reception and I was the only customer.

After that, I went to Costa for Mango Cooler drink and blueberry cheesecake (and yes – free WiFi).

Then I looked around a bit before quickly deciding that it was too hot, so I went to the Raffinato Italian cafe/restaurant for a kiwi smoothie and 3 scoops of ice-cream.

Before the long walk back to the hotel (being stopped twice by soldiers on the way back – I think I looked a bit dodgy to them as I was using Google Maps on my mobile phone to navigate back).

That night, Beth and Chris picked me up from the hotel for the final dinner of the Taste Lebanon tour. Neither Beth or Chris had been there before, so when we got to the hotel and there were valet parking attends outside, Chris wanted to park and let them take the car, but Beth urged him to keep driving – to find a car park so we didn’t have to pay someone just to park the car. Unfortunately the car parks were blocked by barriers, so we stopped the car in front of one, got out and walked 10m back to the hotel entrance, handing the car keys to a parking attendant who then had to walk to the car. I thought this was really funny and Beth looked at me with a determined look on her face and said “I know my country!”.

We entered the hotel and wow – it was really impressive. We walked up to a lift and an old man walked out of it, looking quite ‘shell-shocked’. This perplexed (and amused) us for a second. Then we stepped into the lift, at which point Beth let out a scream, jumped back, turned around and closed her eyes – now I know why the old man looked that way, obviously both he and Beth didn’t like heights very much and the lift was outward facing with glass sides! Chris and I thought this was very amusing!

The lift quickly went down to the required floor and we all jumped out (Beth first) into a large room, full of diners, tables, dance floor, small band and a black ceiling with lots of pin-lights – it all looked very impressive.

We sat down (right next to the dance floor) and Beth set about ordering the food. First came the cold mezza, which had the basterma I had tasted before, except this time it had a deeper, darker flavour (slightly unusual, but very nice). We also had a hot mezza and then a selection of fruit. The whole meal was really nice – one of the best meals that we had over the whole time I was there.

While dining, we were treated to music and dancing – the style of it was all a bit weird to be honest, but really, really fun. I’ll explain:

At the start of the night there was 80’s and 90’s British and American music played from a CD – which we heard roll over to track one at least once!

Then the live band started playing, later a live singer (Arabic) joined them (sounded good, but no idea what she was singing about, although Beth did her best to give us the gist of it). After a short time, members of the audience got up and started joining. They were mostly elderly Germans who were trying their best to replicate the Lebanese dance – and failing. Some of the band members must have thought it was hilarious as they were grinning and laughing as they played!

Then a video was played on the four projectors that were positioned around the room. I wasn’t paying too much attention but it was a video that featured a young, slim, fit, well dressed belly dancer – so when the video stopped, the music started and there was a fat, old woman on the dance-floor I was a bit dismayed, but only for a second! Of course she wasn’t the belly dancer! The actual belly dancer got onto the stage and started shaking her stuff.

She was really good and did three sets. The first set was traditional belly dancing, the second set was more ‘fun’ – she used a walking stick and got members of the audience involved. Beth beckoned her over to me to get up and dance – naturally I did (and I was fantastic). The third set was traditional belly dancing to a slow song which Beth (who has learned belly dancing), says is harder and more technical than dancing to fast music.

Then after that excitement was another video – which none of us really understood, but it seemed to have something to do with a midget getting kidnapped...?!?! Then another singer appeared on stage to finish the evening.

Saturday 2^nd October

Events: Walk along the coastal path, supermarket, reading with a cat

This was my last full day in Lebanon, so with nothing planned I decided to take things easy. I left my hotel room at 12:00 and took a walk along the coast. There were a lot of people fishing from the coastline into the sea.

I came across a Starbucks which was very welcome as it was a hot day, so I went into that and ordered a Mango Cooler and a blueberry cake (to compare them to the ones I had been eating at Costa!) – I determined that the Costa ones were better, plus Starbucks didn’t offer free WiFi.

I continued walking along the coast, then into Downtown. While there I looked in the supermarket (TSC Signature). It was amazing – it had 3-4 cafe areas where you could sit in and eat different types of food (including sushi, Lebanese and ‘world’ cuisine – all with chefs there to prepare fresh food), it had a section for locally farmed food, a really good cake section, very good meat, fish, cheese, fruit and olive sections – I haven’t seen a supermarket with as much quality choice as this before. In my excitement, I SMS’d Beth about it – and to my surprise she hadn’t seen it before! This kind of made my holiday – I had found a really good ‘food’ place in Beirut (practically on Beth’s doorstep) that she hadn’t discovered! Even more amazingly, she said that she would be over in 20 minutes to check it out! Pretty soon, she and Chris were there to look around. Beth was looking at EVERYTHING and comparing prices of things (which she knew off by heart) with her usual supermarket – this made me chuckle and made Chris a bit worried as he was thinking about how much Beth would be spending in there later, hehe.

Once we had finished there, they offered to let me hang out at their house. However they both seemed very busy (Beth was preparing food for 60 people – and I know that I would have ended up eating all the delicious food as she made it), so I declined. Instead I found a nice trendy area with a bench in the shade and a friendly cat. So I sat and read my book (which I had been meaning to read all holiday!) and played with the cat for a couple of hours before heading back to the hotel.

Once back at the hotel, I enquired about a taxi from the hotel to the airport the following morning. The taxi driver wanted to charge me $40, so I called Alliance Taxis, they couldn't understand me when I said or spelt 'Duroy Hotel', so I SMS’d Beth who called them on my behalf and booked a taxi for me.

Sunday 3^rd October

Events: Return home

I got up at 05:15, checked out of the hotel, jumped into the taxi at 05:30 and headed to the airport. With virtually no queues I made it all the way through to the departure gate (picking up some Lebanese sweets and nuts on the way), then made it home safe and sound. To my surprise my parents even remembered to pick me up this time (they got the date wrong when I got back from Italy last October!). Of course it was just 13C, dark skies and raining – I truly was back in England!

Overall:

Wow – what an amazing experience!!!

We did so much – far more than I had expected.

The whole tour was centred around food, but wasn’t limited to that as we went to a lot of really nice locations, met some great, interesting people and just generally had a great time.

Beth is really knowledgeable. She really knows how to create great recipes (as evidenced on her blog), what recipes consist of and a lot about ingredients. She grew up learning to farm (and milk cows), is really involved with the online food community – even hosting food blogging conferences in the UK. On top of that, Beth grew up in Lebanon (and then later the USA and UK), so she knows Lebanon really well and has a lot of good contacts there. In fact on the tour I was on, we met some of her new contacts, plus she was making new contacts throughout the tour – she was constantly handing out business cards and getting a lot of interest from people.

Lebanon is a fantastic place to visit – there is a lot to see and do and the mixture of cultures work well together. It has a stigma of still being a dangerous place to visit, but once you are there you realise that it really isn’t – certainly not any of the areas that we travelled to. I would have enjoyed visiting Lebanon by myself, but far more so as part of an organised tour where I was shown around by someone who has lived there, knows the best places to go to (and which places to avoid) and can translate for you between English and Arabic.

The people were friendly – as I mentioned above, one man randomly came up to me in the street and said “welcome”. The people we went to visit were all really friendly, when we went into shops or factories (even when uninvited), the people there were really happy to see us and let us take photographs. Even when I was walking around on my own, people were happy to give me directions (even if they didn’t speak English) and one couple even walked me to a museum!

So in short, I would really recommend the Taste Lebanon tour to anyone. If you are a true foodie you will find it fascinating – and you will try some foods that you haven’t had before. If (like me) you are interested in food, but are far from an expert in it, you will still thoroughly enjoy the tour, try new things and will learn the Lebanese culture of growing and eating food. Plus everyone will really enjoy the experience of being in Lebanon and seeing and trying new things! Plus (importantly), it didn’t feel like a typical tour, instead it felt like I was being shown around by 2 friends (Beth and Chris) who always put my interests first and wanted to make sure I had a good time – nothing was too much trouble for them!

Check out the Taste Lebanon site for details and availability of their next tour and book yourself on it (and if you do go, please bring me back some sweets!).

More Photographs:

• http://picasaweb.google.com/TechboyUK/TasteLebanonFoodTour02#
• http://picasaweb.google.com/TechboyUK/TasteLebanonFoodTour#

Additional Afterthoughts:

Things you will hear often while on the Taste Lebanon tour:

• Yum! Delicious! Fantastic! Mmm!!! etc. – when eating
• Do a U’ey – Beth telling the driver (in this case Chris) to turn the car around
• Beeping – of car horns
• Beeping of car horn, followed by someone shouting “Taxi” – taxi drivers, always trying to get your attention
• Call to prayer over loudspeakers – 5 times a day
• Welcome, you’re welcome, you are very welcome, you are most welcome – every time you say thank you to a Lebanese person
• Names of food (in Arabic) – that I can’t pronounce or remember!
• “Eli-iiiiiii” – Beth’s brother gets treated like Anthony in The Royle Family
• Laughing – lots of it!

My observations on Lebanese driving:

• Street lights are often switched off (to save power)
• People generally drive with headlights on full-beam
• People usually don’t bother with indicators (in fact you look a bit silly if you use them)
• Road markings are just a guideline – if you can fit 3 or 4 lanes on a dual carriageway then do it
• One way roads can become 2 way if no-one is looking
• Traffic lights are more of a guide than a rule
• It is okay to do a left hand turn, cutting across 2 lanes of traffic
• It is okay to stop in the middle of the road (holding up everyone behind you) if you need to ask someone for directions or have a chat
• Your car doesn’t need to be road-worthy (e.g. bumpers, indicators, straight wheels, etc. are all optional – you just need a working horn)
• Beeping of the horn is mandatory – when overtaking (on the left or right), to let people know you are there, when pulling out of junctions, when saying hello, when saying ‘you idiot’, etc.
• The correct driving position should be left hand at 12 O’clock on the steering wheel and right hand on the (automatic) gear lever. Or left hand out the window (used for indicating) and right hand at 12 O’clock on the steering wheel
• Rubbing of paint and a few scratches does not constitute a ‘crash’, so don’t bother stopping
• Ignore all Zebra and Pelican crossings, cars always have right of way
• As a pedestrian, to cross the road just walk in front of the cars and wave your hands – the cars will ‘generally’ stop
• It is perfectly acceptable to drink and drive
• It is normal to not leave any space whatsoever between you and the person in front of you (or to the left and right of you for that matter!)