Restaurant review: Just say no Injy El-Kashef hides among the fish Any devoted reader of this column already knows the facts about Eid Al-Adha and this non-lamb-eating reviewer: it is agony. Without much ado this year, and without even trying to negotiate with pleading family members beseeching me, yet again, to "just try" this "totally unlamb-like piece of lamb" (yeah right!), I said I would meet them for dessert when all signs of lamb had been neatly wiped off, and all the plates in which they had eaten washed with extensive soap and boiling water. As for me, I am having fish. So off I went to a highly recommended fish restaurant in Nasr City by the name of Asmak Bahari. Of course the interior design has nothing impressive about it, but any decent fish eater will tell you that this is the last indicator of quality in such instances. As long as it is clean, as long as a fresh (I repeat, fresh) fishy smell wafts through the air, as long as the fish is buried under heaps of ice rather than posing daintily on a few ice cubes, chances are the food will be excellent. It is a question of philosophy -- right at the doorstep it is easy to tell who cares for form, and who cares for content. Asmak Bahari totally prioritises the latter. My friend and I ordered an obscene amount of food, in an attempt to distract ourselves from the frustrations of life. And so we chose an arous fish (seabass), to be grilled with bran; a quarter kilo of fried calamari; three quarters of a kilo of shrimps, half of which was to be grilled and the other half cooked with tomatoes, green peppers and onions. And, based on recommendations so enthusiastic we could not even consider ignoring, we also order the Seafood Soup which brands the restaurant its popularity. No words will ever describe what we ate. It contained all the delicious edible sea creatures one would like to see floating in one's soup. There were shrimps aplenty, fish bites, calamari slithers, clams and crab meat, all so harmoniously blending their delicate flavours and textures we did not want to see the bowl finish. Upon mentioning a certain acquaintance of the waiter's my friend and I immediately found the largest bowl of moloukhiya with shrimps landing on the table. The waiter proudly said we had to try it. I had heard of that shrimp moloukhiya before, but had never dared come anywhere near it, unable to imagine how cooking those two ingredients together could produce anything other than a nasty, overpowering, knock-out dish. Oh, how wrong I was! It actually proved extremely challenging to keep our spoons away from it, despite the embarrassing diversity of dishes already laying before us. The calamari and shrimps were both delectable, the former's savoury taste and harder consistency complementing the latter's sweet, juicy flesh wonderfully. We could not even go near the fish, however, having already reached for our top buttons under the table and undone them discreetly. We had been through a wonderful meal (which came to LE210 with salads and soft drinks), and past experience has taught us only too well the always unimaginable consequences of greed. Asmak Bahari, Makram Ebeid St, close to Al- Sallab, Nasr City
