Restaurant review: The secret d'cuisine It's all about garlic, olive oil and spices, Jailan Halawi finds out Have you ever been on a strict diet for months, after which you proudly feel the change of shape in all your clothes, when everybody, to your delight, tells you how obviously you've lost some weight and that IT SHOWS!!!!! Then suddenly a twist of fate takes you somewhere where your biggest challenge becomes not how to avoid certain delicacies that bids your diet farewell, but rather how to stop your palates from longing for more and more of the many delights laying out there, tempting you mercilessly to savour. When the only thing that stops you from eating more is this bugging bloat in your tummy, not of a flaw in the recipe of what you've eaten but more of a cry of alarm that there is no more room for anything except a bit of air. That's not comedy; that's my experience at the Olive Restaurant in the InterContinental's Palace at the spectacular Port Ghalib Resort in Marsa Alam of the enchanting Red Sea. There, food is a unique sensation. And regardless of the kind of dish you are sampling or cuisine the International daily Open Buffet has to offer, the chef and his team seem adamant to cater it all to your delight. Of course, to convince myself that I was still on the right track of my "fictitious" diet, I would start, and end each meal with a very healthy dish of salad that holds all sorts of fresh garden greens. Yet again the salad buffet is not only about green salad. There is this spiced to perfection combination of Egyptian, Italian and French appetisers that you can sample endlessly before, during and after your main course, or shall I say, main courses. Whether it is meat, chicken, sea food, pasta, vegetables or even rice, it is stressfully delicious. Among the diversity of the barbecued menu, kofta remains my favourite and of course the number one delight, whole fish... simply enticing. For a long time I believed molokheya my mom's style was the only one I will ever appreciate, but then again, I could not resist the palatable one cooked on shrimp stock filled with baby shrimp displayed as a soup by the superb cook of the house. The seafood tagin of calamari and shrimp and fish Alexandria-style with a bit of saffron rice can genuinely take your breath away begging for a bigger tummy. Shall I talk about the veal mushroom-sauce and the sheesh-tawook or let us move to dessert? Any room for dessert? Yes. As huge as the salad and main courses buffet of the Olive Restaurant is the humongous dessert section as if challenging your palates, defyingly to resist. Umm Ali remains my heart breaker dessert with its legacy of being the dish called after the lady who proudly got rid of her husband's second wife -- who happened to be Old Egypt's only female president, Queen Shagarit El-Dorr. Of course, I don't think of the late queen in apathy nor in venom, but rather in admiration. The lady Umm Ali managed to produce a delectable seduction of palates in her own festive mood of revenge. And as simple as it might seem, being made of philo, milk, sugar and nuts, Umm Ali can be very tricky and in fact is one of those desserts that can either make or break the reputation of the toughest Chef d'cuisine. That again was cooked to perfection. After four days of eating exquisitely delicious almost flawless food I had to meet the chef and ask him what is the secret of this perfection. "Love", replied Executive Chef Emad Moussa, who inspires his team to deliver the best each day as much as they wish themselves to be served. But there is definitely another secret behind such succulent grilled food beside being passionate about cooking, and that Moussa explains, lies in the wonder of the marinating sauce he prepares of garlic, olive oil and spices, whose ingredients "can only be sensed" rather than explained. The good news is, that all and any of what you eat there will neither leave you with heartburn nor an after taste and smell of garlic. That remains the secret of the cuisine. Olive Restaurant InterContinental, Port Ghalib Resort
