Restaurant review: Park view Closer to heaven than we ever thought possible A top cleric has just urged the nation to eat locusts so as to alleviate rural havoc. As a culinary columnist, I agree. We all know what our insect-free diet has done to the nation�s teeth, health, and balance of payments. Locusts, I am told, are high in vitamin A and the red strain that visited us recently is apparently high in iron. What worries me is sustainability. There is no knowing when the locusts would come again. And once you change the nation�s diet, there is no going back. Look at what happened once our rural classes moved to towns. Many forgot how to mix wheat with corn and barley to make bread. As a result, demand on wheat soared and the bread subsidies turned into a hot potato. Now imagine a future where locusts are in short supply. What would happen? The masses would get grumpy and our very busy Interior Ministry would have another headache to deal with: locust riots. So, for the sake of national harmony, let�s do this right. All you need to breed locusts is a well-aired piece of land covered with a sturdy net, says Kwago Ngomo, a visiting professor at LSE. So, between here and the next locust offensive, let�s do a pilot test or two on locust breeding, first for local consumption, then perhaps for export. The red locusts, Ngomo assures me, can be a base for a particularly pungent sauce that, if marketed aggressively, may replace ketchup and chilli sauce as the food condiment of choice along the entire US west coast. Think of that! We�re in paradise. I am with the Intellectual, the Brunette, the Designer, and some visiting Berliners at the new Al-Azhar Park, enjoying the uninterrupted view of cloudy skies over Cairo in a cold and windy afternoon. The view is breathtaking. The minarets of the Citadel and the mosques of Rifaei and Sultan Hussein seem closer than they really are and almost at eye level. "We could be visitors in another city," one of my local companions says, admiring the verdant stretch of the immaculately landscaped park, an incredible feat of wizardry the Agha Khan specialists brought to life atop what used to be a sprawling garbage dump. Alain le Notre is a great place to have dessert, one of the best in Cairo perhaps, and some friends claim it can cook. The day we patronise it, at the veranda of the top floor of a faux Mameluk mansion at the Al-Azhar Park, is not its day. The coffee is weak or tepid, the food generally indifferent, and the service painfully, if not painstakingly, slow. We take it all in our stride, as tourists do, for we feel so privileged to be alive, happy to be here. Even the dilapidated homes of the nearby Batniya look scenic against the majestic backdrop of Cairo�s sheer energy ó now at bay, silhouetted, silenced. My salad nicoise is minimalist to a fault, no boiled vegetable in sight, just a blob of tuna and sliced boiled eggs served on a bed of lettuce. The tuna wrap turns out to be tuna ensconced in a tough bread coating without a hint of the spicy taste we�ve been promised. The Greek salad comes rolling from the side of a big bun, as if to symbolise the demise of Hellenism. The Brunette�s is the only praise I hear from around the table; she likes her mushroom crepe. The dessert is brilliant as expected. The formidable is a chocolate cake topped with ice cream and swimming in a sea of chocolate sauce. The mille feuilles with strawberries gets unanimous applause. Alain le Notre, Al-Azhar Park, is open 11am to 1am. The park gate is on Salah Salem, half a kilometre from Al-Azhar Street as you head towards the Citadel. The park fees of LE5 (LE10 for foreigners) are deductible from the food bill except on weekends. Lunch for nine, LE550. By Nabil Shawkat
