Friday Lunch with AdventureMan at Assaba

After all these years, we know each other so well.

“Where are we going to eat today?” he asks as we leave church.

“It’s your turn to choose” I tell him.

“No, no, it’s your turn,” he insists, “I chose Ruby Woo’s last Thursday night.”

“No. You didn’t. I did,” I tell him, and remind him that I also chose another place later in the week, but it was a place that he really likes.

What he wants me to do is to throw out my idea and then he shoots it down. Sometimes I throw out three ideas, and he shoots them all down!

“What are you in the mood for, what kind of food?” I ask him. Usually he doesn’t like a lot of meat, so I am surprised, really surprised, when he says Lebanese. When we lived in Kuwait, he almost never chose Lebanese except for Tanureen, where they had such good fish.

“Yeh, but now there is no good Lebanese restaurant near where I work,” he replies, “and I am missing Lebanese food.”

I know just the place. My two pool buddies took me to lunch there back in January when I visited. I THINK I know how to get there, and, as it turns out, I do! (It’s always a disaster trying to find a place when your husband is really, really hungry.) It’s called Assaba, and it is like entering a different world. They’ve taken a very humdrum building, and re-facaded and decorated the ground level and one flight up to resemble a Lebanese Village. It is a lot of fun.

We ordered mostly mezze (appetizers) and an order of shish taouk to share. (Shish taouk is boneless chicken pieces that have been marinated in lemon juice and a little garlic and yoghurt, for those who don’t know about it. It is delicious, and often served with a mighty garlic – mayonnaise. )

We agreed that the very very best dish of all was the Mohammara, a dish made of finely chopped walnuts, red peppers and a few other things. (Mishary, on Some Contrast, printed a great recipe.)

We had hummous with something that tasted a little like liver, and baba ghanoush, and meatless chickpea moussaka:

And this is how the shish taouk looks when it arrives, with hot bread to keep it warm:

It was a magnificent meal. We ate too much. It was just so pleasant, sitting there, great food, beautiful surroundings, us all relaxed after church and mellow. AdventureMan came back from washing his hands all excited – “You’ve got to go use the Ladies Room! See if they have a beaten copper sink! I want one of those!”

I did, and this is what it looks like:

I think we might have to take another trip to Damascus, and bring it back with us. Do you know what a designer in the US would charge us for a sink like that?? We can go, find a sink, spend time in a city we love and come back for what the cost of the sink would be in the US.

I want the door:

I think I had better have it made here!

Here is the shower he wants, from Robin’s House at Nkwali Camp, in Zambia:

Even Friday lunch with AdventureMan is an adventure. 🙂