Restaurant review: East looks west Gamal Nkrumah chances upon a classical Korean with an intriguing Italian name One of the many delights of living in Maadi is the profusion of Korean restaurants and their easy accessibility. In Cairo, Maadi is oft-touted as the promised land of luxury -- an oasis of indulgence. Maadi is a sleepy suburb no more. There are streets in the Digla district with back-street London-like Chinese takeaways. Great and luminous crimson Chinese lanterns hang outside and Chinese families sip jasmine tea after a mouthwatering meal inside. The San Marino pub and restaurant's specialty is Korean and Chinese cuisine, in that order. Monday through Saturday, they have special lunches which include soup of the day, spring rolls and steamed rice. Kung Pao fish is my first choice, but you can opt for Kung Pao chicken, beef barbecue, cuttlefish and prawns and a surprisingly wide variety of pork dishes. They do not eat off a silver platter. San Marino's shark fin soup is quite simply divine. Their dumplings are among the most delicious in town. Ma Po's bean curd is out of this world, and so are the stewed prawns doused with bean curd. And, the appallingly named calf leg soup is actually a pretty tasty broth. The waiters move methodologically in response to orders. The proprietor glides across the San Marino and nods good evening with an unnerving deadpan bow. I peep into the pub, almost full with its noise level at a mellow din. The buzz of conversation is vivacious and fervid and occasionally an inebriated diner warbles a discordant falsetto that sets off an outburst of wild laughter. San Marino is impossibly difficult to find. If you are lucky enough to get there, it will surely exceed your wildest dreams. The basic menu is varied and consists of some 70 items -- invariably irresistible edibles. Then there is the family menu with reasonably priced delectable combinations of Chinese all- time favourites: chop suey, sa si mi, bean curd and seafood galore. I imagined waiters wandering about in padded cotton peasant jackets and pigtails. And, waitresses in oriental tea gowns whispering sweet nothings in Italian. Chinoiserie is closely associated with the Italian and French fashion lexicon. And, Marco Polo is a name inextricably intertwined with the Far East. So what if my favourite Korean restaurant is unabashedly called San Marino? The waiter soon arrived with a tray piled high with tiny side dishes of pickled and stir fried: Napa cabbage, daikon, spinach, cucumber and best of all scrumptious sweet potato. However, if you are searching for authentic Korean delicacies, you are hard pressed to find them at San Marino. The restaurant caters primarily to Westerners and Egyptians eager to sample a taste of Korea albeit in a tactfully mild and self-deprecating fashion. Kimchi, the fermented spicy vegetable dishes, are a delight at San Marino. Fresh and impeccably presented, they constitute a feast for both eye and palate. And, on the menu is motley of banchan side dishes, succulent, savoury, tart and sweet. Korean cuisine is replete with delicacies drenched in Doenjang, fermented soya bean paste, Gochujang red chili paste, sesame, ginger and garlic and countless otherworldly secrets. A precious few are found at San Marino. Sweet potatoes were introduced to Korea from the New World some 400 years ago, a crop that grew in soils and on terrain previously unused in Korea -- and instantly became a popular feature of Korean cuisine. At San Marino we nibbled on a delectable sweet potato side dish. Pork is prominent on the San Marino menu. However, don't expect to find anything risqué. Cheju island, a gem off Korea's southern coast, is where pigs are traditionally raised in pens constructed around elevated privies which hold no less pungent a fodder than human excrement. The feces-fed swine are themselves devoured as a delicacy known as Ddong dwaeji in Korea. But this, thankfully, was not on the menu. Another exotic delicacy, gaejang-guk, or dog meat stew, which is supposed to balance body heat in summer, will also not be featured on the San Marino menu anytime soon. But then who cares about dog meat if they can have beef in the blackest Jiang Bao sauce? Alas, San Marino -- the best kept Maadi secret -- has yet to make a loud case. San Marino Restaurant & pub 29 Road 263, New Maadi Tel: 2519 2451 Dinner for three: LE350
