Restaurant Review: Queen's island I admired the mosaics and felt sorry for red tape Our e-government is at it again, reforming as if there is no tomorrow. First it was the customs duties, then it was the taxing system. Then it's banking, real estate, education, and taxis. In a few months, I am told, we'll all have air-conditioned taxis with bilingual drivers charging us the exact fare. The only problem, we will never be able to get into these taxis, for man-high metal barriers are getting installed everywhere, thanks to a DCC (Decorate Cairo Committee) with designers who should be working in Guantanamo rather than wasting their time on us. We now re-tile our squares every six months on average. Not even Paris gets retiled that often, but then what do the French know? How can you trust people who let their women go about in flowing scarves but then take offence when we tell them that the right way to wear a scarf is around the head, which every man and woman living in the desert knows is true? Forget the French. They may have invented the turtle neck (I am not really sure they did, but it certainly looks like it), but what do they know about the nuances of landscape design? When it comes to sidewalk tiling, Egypt is a world leader. The Pyramid builders would have covered their work all in ceramics had they lived in our time. The Sphinx would have been done, scarved-head to clinched-paw, in bright mosaics. Colour is the essence of life. The Cairo planners know it, but I am not sure the e-government does. One of the things the e-government wants to do is abolish red tape. Its argument, presented by our trio of economic reformers, is that less red tape means more investment. Now, wait a bit! What is the colour of investment? Investment is grey, like Cairo skies. Investment is soulless. Investment is made of portfolios and numbing numbers. But red tape is made of one-on- one communication. Red tape provides a personal touch in citizen-official relationship. Red tape leads to people having tea together and smoking cigarettes and helping each other in time of need. Now, heartless, wireless e-government, can't you just leave us this one last, pre-constitutional change, relic? I am in a city with colour, watching cotton-like clouds breaking to offer a fleeting view of deep blue sky. I am looking for a flat in Alexandria. My place in downtown Cairo is becoming harder to reach with every passing day thanks to our Guantanamo-inspired planners. So, I am going to seek refuge in a city with good sidewalks and fish restaurants. After a session of flat- hunting, I settle with two Alexandrines in a place I have never been to before, in a small street in Bahari (west Alexandria) that should be re-named the fish- promenade. A dozen fish restaurants are all packed within a block or two. Geziret Al-Maleka (queen's island) is a three-floor affair with a large yard in the middle. On the side of the yard are counters where fish is displayed, bread is baked, and even some cow parts are hanging for non- fish eaters. The salads are a tsunami of colour and taste. Then the soup comes, in glasses, like an ordinary drink. The soup is made of mussels (displayed alive and writhing at the entrance), spiced to perfection. The cutlets of dark fish (not sword fish but similar in taste) that they grilled for us are so fresh you can identify the muscles of the fish -- delicious and reminiscent of ritual sacrifice. Red mullets, grey mullets, and a few crabs just for fun. The service is fast, and you end up asking them to please slow down a bit, as food piles high on the table. Geziret Al-Maleka (queen's island), (03) 483 1243, 46 Safar Street, Ras Al-Teen, Alexandria, offers splendid seafood in nouveaux Pharaonic ambiance, complete with pillars, ceramics and brightly-coloured mosaics. Open 10am-5am. Alcohol not available. Dinner for three, LE180. By Nabil Shawkat
