Restaurant review: Springtime burgers Nothing says spring like the sweet aroma of fried beef. Who could dare call a robin mellifluous after hearing a sizzling fajita? What chance do strawberries and mangoes stand against a steaming burger being masticated in your mouth as its scalding grease dribbles down your chin? Narcissus and daffodils, with all their hybrids and bastards, may be in full bloom but the only scent worth dying for is the one where charcoal meets steak, a rarer form of pollination. Such is the wisdom of real men, mensch, or namely our friends who've started to lunch regularly at Spectra. So Regalteo and I trek to Mohandessin café to sample the revamped Tex-Mex menu. Irwin Shaw once described with heart-rending wistfulness the girls in their summer dresses. No such luck here as we stare down a sea of veiled heads and truncated sexualities clucking away loudly like a pack of frenzied hens. We slip into a booth. The walls are decorated with colour-drained posters of Parisian cafés of the 1930s, a time when everyone seemed elegantly depressed. In sharp contrast the crowd here is young and noisy, and preening is a given. The entrance is a garden catwalk where you can showcase your package to half the restaurant. And while the veil remains, in my estimate, the proudest and most dignified form of sublimation, nobody's above pheromones this time of year. A cutie eyeballs Regalteo. She strolls up and down the catwalk, makes a call, then gives him another once-over. "We're on," chimes Regalteo. No good can come of this. We dip decent nachos into thick sour cream and an anemic salsa and pace ourselves with the extra-crispy onion rings as he lays out the plan, of which I hear nothing. The music is way too loud; all you can hear is yourself, and barely. He shall pass the girl, now seated inside with a male partner, a note. I bury my embarrassment in the menu and start to catch a whiff of an incestuous relationship with Coffee Roastery. From the dark wood and shaded lights of the décor to the food selections -- a fundamental base of grilled meats, sautéed vegetables and potatoes, with the occasional side of shrimps, and the compulsory side menu of predictable pasta choices -- everything seems familiar, even the shameful things they do with Oreo cookies. Regalteo shows me the key to her heart, which reads, "luv ur style ;)", followed by his cell digits. No good can come, none at all. The waiters arrive with the meals, their faces locked into forced smiles, gushing cockiness. The weasel assigned to our table never asked how I wanted my steak cooked, which arrived bland and dry, he just extended the distance between me and his back. The supple fajita lacked salt, and the inoffensive but heavy enchiladas would still probably incur the wrath of the most tolerant of Mexicans. Ironically, the chicken Caesar salad was the prime contender to induce a cardiac arrest. The only real prize was the burger, a melt-in-your-mouth home- made beef patty, which alone made the dining experience worthwhile. I ask the weasel about the Roastery connection and he mumbles something unintelligible, beckons the manager, changes his mind, and then giggles profusely. Cutie gets up to go to the ladies. "It's your cue," I tell Regalteo. He shakes his head admonishingly. "Real men, mensch, stand their ground," he informs my nonplused face as he ogles a patron in her third trimester digging into a replica of my steak. He pontificates about pregnancy being the most feminine and sexiest form the female body can take. I remind him of the fetish sites designed for his perverse purposes but he tears happily into his burger, shrugs nonchalantly, and stares at the patron some more. "This is it," his eyes beam with a special light, "the true spirit of spring: life, birth, hope, beef..." Spectra: restaurant and café. 14 Abdel-Hamid Lotfy St, Mohandessin. (off Al-Batal Ahmed Abdel-Aziz St) Tel: +2 748 5831, 761 3654. Opening Hours: 8am--1pm (last order) daily Dinner for two: LE100. By Waleed Marzouk
