Resturant review: Good old days By Gamal Nkrumah "Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils." -- William Shakespeare in King Henry V With heads still reeling from New Year revels, and the extraordinary coincidence of Christian and Muslim festivities, Cairo's spirits were soaring high over the weekend. And, what better place to head for a taste of the authentic Egyptian cuisine than Le Pacha's Ayam Zaman -- or the good old days. The restaurant, formerly called Le Tarbouche -- the distinctive headgear of the moneyed and learned classes of yesteryear -- occupies the bedroom of the original owner of the floating palace. The grand bedroom- turned-restaurant is situated at the prow and commands spectacular Nile views. The ambiance, at once both cosy and regal, oozes old world charm. Ayam Zaman is as good a place as any to gorge on meaty Egyptian delicacies, especially on a festive occasion. Indeed, this is an unusual year for Egypt insofar as the Coptic Christian Christmas, which falls on 7 January, and the Muslim Eid Al-Adha coincide. Both feasts are marked by the consumption of great quantities of meat. The Copts, after 40 days of fasting in which the consumption of all animal products save fish is strictly prohibited, have their first taste of meat after the Christmas midnight mass. And, many Muslims devour their freshly slaughtered meat just after the early morning Eid prayers. They spend at least the next couple of days feasting on meat. Meanwhile, at the stroke of midnight, Copts break their fast with a light broth and perhaps a tasty morsel of veal broiled over charcoal. The apéritif is usually followed by stuffed vine leaves, with a filling of rice and a generous measure of minced meat. The vine leaves are moistened with fat and cooked in traditional ghee or butter. Grilled liver is a popular side dish, but the main dish -- if there is still room at 1-2am -- is fatta, a potpourri of rice, traditional brown bread, garlic, vinegar, tomatoes and meat. It is, to say the least, an exceptionally filling and highly satisfying dish. Christmas Day is for feasting -- meat galore; stuffed pigeon, duck or goose are optional. The pigeon is stuffed with either fereek (cracked wheat) or rice and baked in the oven. The duck and goose are usually roasted. Among the Muslims of Egypt, meat is a prerequisite in Eid Al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. Once the animals are ritually slaughtered, the liver is quickly removed from the carcass, grilled and eaten at breakfast. For lunch, fatta is invariably the main dish. So off I went with a couple of foreign friends to the "Good Old Days", the splendid floating palace anchored off the tree-lined Saray Al-Gezira Boulevard in Zamalek. We were ushered in by smiling Nubian waiters in quaint wine Orientalist costumes. The menu was mouth-watering. The food on offer, reassuringly familiar traditional Egyptian, was exotic enough for my foreign friends. We avoided what sounded to them somewhat outlandish, such as the fatta with plump ankles -- a popular Egyptian delicacy, and opted instead for fatta with lamb. It was cooked to perfection. But before the fatta, we had soup for starters. My friend had lentil, creamy with a rich orange colour denoting that lots of grated carrots were thrown in as it was simmering slowly in the cooking pot. The lentil soup was nicely garnished with parsley and croutons. My other friend and I went for the akawi, or oxtail soup, instead. The rich broth was delicately flavoured with the tender meat melting in the mouth like butter. "It's delectable," my friend said, sipping it. I nodded in agreement, savouring every mouthful. For appetisers, we ordered fried aubergines drenched in garlic and chili. We also tried the traditional and very Egyptian bean-based, coriander-and- dill-saturated paste bissara, a dish that is said to date back to ancient Egyptian days. Bissara is a perfect vegetarian condiment to our meaty dishes. Another ancient Egyptian delicacy is molokheya, better known in the West as Jew's mallow and the country's national dish. While the ancients prepared their beloved slimy and garlicky green soup with duck, we opted for rabbit instead. Even more gooey was the bamia -- lady's fingers -- a stew with more chunky morsels of meat. Alas, we had no room for desert. Ayam Zaman Le Pacha Nile Boat Zamalek Tel: 735 6730
