A House in Damascus - Before the Fall Page 10

  He arrived back with a menu and several recommendations about the best dishes in the city. I settled for grilled lamb and a fatoush, the signal dish for me as to the real quality of a restaurant. It is a salad that features crisped-up chunks of the previous day's flat bread, along with all the fresh leaves and tomatoes and onions and olives that make Arab salads so remarkable. A great fatoush is one of the prime culinary experiences, so this was a little test.

  "Very good choice, sir. Would you like something to drink, a beer or a glass of wine, or a bottle of each?"

  I looked up to see the smile broaden even more, genuinely.

  Not a bottle of wine, I think! Perhaps a glass?

  "Very good, sir, very responsible!"

  This guy had a sense of humour that got bigger and better the more I visited the restaurant.

  We settled on a Lebanese light red that came out with the sparkling water and, soon, the lamb and fatoush. He might have exaggerated, but only ever so slightly because the dishes matched anything else I had encountered in the city to that point, and few if any surpassed it later.

  By now we were chatting in between him attending to his other tables and instructing his waiters. Like others he was intrigued to find I had a house in the Old City, and that produced a complimentary glass of the drinkable red. Another free glass followed when he learned I was there to help improve the university system because, like most Syrians, he believed in the power of education to transform lives and help the country "re-enter" the world. Universities were very important, he thought, and "Arabia" had a long history of higher learning that was well due for restoration.

  "You are most welcome in Syria. But you are alone? You have a family?"

  Yes, but all over the world at present.

  "Well, you have a home here at Elissar anytime."

  I visited frequently after that.

  The famous Jabri was literally a few steps up the lane from the house. In fact, that lane demonstrated the nature of the Old City restaurant business and, oddly, why it was so safe eating in all those restaurants. A least twice a day the narrow laneway would be jammed, two or three tiny trucks parked outside the restaurants with their drivers and assistants helped by restaurant staff to unload boxes and boxes of fresh produce: lettuce of all shapes and shades, eggplant, onions, carrots and all the rest, fruit of all descriptions along with all the meats and yoghurts and sweets. These places had so many customers that the food never had a chance to go bad, the turnover was so fast.

  The house in which Jabri now sits has been in the lane since the late eighteenth century, according to the sign outside, and it has a commanding presence. First there is the "door within a door", like those at the main gates of many Oxbridge colleges, but on smaller scale. There is a larger door set into the building, but entrance is through a smaller one set inside that frame, causing most people to duck or go through sideways. A nondescript passageway turns sharply right into another one after a few steps, then the building opens out. The dark passageway yields to light streaming through windows and skylights to create an airy, weightless feeling accentuated by a very high roof. Around the edges, smaller dining rooms are hidden away, some up stairs and all behind doors.

  The real revelation was the main dining area that was very large, yet always crowded. The noise of innumerable conversations floated up towards the ceiling and circulated, along with smoke from several hubble bubbles. The bubbling sounds from those pipes added to the ambient noise, while the sweetened tobacco gave further texture to the all-pervading food smells. In the middle was the obligatory fountain, a really beautiful one gurgling clear, cooling water into the large surrounding trough. As in all other restaurants, tables by the fountain were at a premium, because to be there was to be at the centre of attention. It was the quintessential "Arabian" scene that might have been depicted by any one of many visiting artists and travellers over the past three to five hundred years.

  First time up the food was fabulous, even when sampled in a limited way—the one big drawback to being a lone traveller is that in restaurants there is no-one with whom to share a bigger number of dishes. The falafel (deep-fried chick pea and/or fava bean patty) was excellent. In these days of multiculturalism, places like Australia and elsewhere have come to experience the name of new dishes, but not always their true nature: think of, say, "curry" in the United Kingdom and "Chinese" in Australia. It is possible to get the real thing but, for the most part, that real thing is not on offer in Soho or any Australian country town. Among the more famous depictions of some of this is John Birmingham's book, He Died With A Falafel In His Hand, the title referring to a dead junkie found in a share house.28 I have often thought that sounded more like a shawarma than a falafel, with the shawarma itself in some locations, like Australia, often being more technically a kebab (skewered meat cooked over open flames). Given all that, it is always a delight to encounter the genuine article, and the falafel at Jabri was definitely that.

  Truth be known, though, Jabri was good for only a couple of visits, despite it being so near the house. By now, it was a tourist place both for international and domestic travellers. Large groups took it over, and the management knew it had a lot of one-off traffic. It was busy, so waiters could be brusque to the point of being rude, orders were handled carelessly, prices higher than elsewhere, and the quality could and did vary considerably. It was a wonderful experience, once, but never went on the "to be visited constantly" list because, simply, there were better options.

  Haretna was definitely one of those. All the guidebooks described it as being "behind the police station in Bab Touma". Well, that was true, to a point, but it was hard to find at first. If you could locate the police station—there are usually gun-carrying policemen outside, a bit of a giveaway—then a nearby set of steps led up into then along a lane until it met a T junction. A left turn followed quickly by a right led into another lane. That then headed towards a sharp left hand turn at the Zaetona Hotel, marked simply by a brass plaque on the wall beside the obligatory innocuous door. A little further along, on the right a long wall funnelled down towards a crossing point for two laneways. In that wall, a tiny door gave access to Haretna ("our community" is one interpretation). This was different from most other restaurants in that it was low ceilinged, just two floors high, and unusually long and wide.

  It was the pick of the "guide book restaurants". The food and service was excellent, prices reasonable, the atmosphere excellent and the crowd always entertaining. It had the best fatoush in all of Damascus, let alone the Old City. It was a "must visit" place, if only for the sheer variety of people to be seen there. A group of Orthodox priests from nearby churches and monasteries might be in to celebrate an occasion. They might be seated next to a gang of young women, scarfed but heavily made-up and all smoking the nargileh. Young couples would be there sharing private time, groups of men socialising or talking business or both. Family groups would be celebrating a special moment or just enjoying a family outing. People of all sorts would be playing backgammon with noticeable gusto and flair, tourists "in the know" absorbing the atmosphere and writing their logs, or Skyping home to show friends and family just how amazingly different this Syria was from the reported one. Through all this the neatly dressed, well trained and super efficient waiters scooted about carrying impossibly loaded trays bearing food and drink.

  Haretna was also the natural home of The Beautiful People. One fortuitous evening, four of us arrived for dinner and were shown upstairs—definitely the place to be. We were seated next to a table full of the most stunning-looking young women and men. One of the latter, it transpired, was a rising star in the local political and governmental scene (I thought a lot about him through 2011-12—what was he up to, and how had he fared?). They were dressed impeccably, groomed immaculately, and delightfully expansive. A birthday was being celebrated, and they wanted to include us. When it transpired we were there working to improve Syrian higher education they became even more friendly, appreciative to
the point of serving us birthday cake.

  "Thank you for coming to help Syria. Higher education is important for our future."

  Part of the reason we were upstairs was because a large tourist group had been seated below. The management had laid on a Whirling Dervish demonstration to entertain these visitors. Colin Thubron has an evocative account of seeing such a group back during his much earlier trip to Syria, at a time when the Dervishes had to be secretive because they were outlawed.29 Those days are gone and the Dervishes now are more of a tourist attraction—a poor value restaurant just around from the house featured them nightly. This one at Haretna, though, was modernised. When the music started, The Beautiful People rushed us over to the balcony so we could get a good view of "one of the highlights of Syria" as they explained. The lights dimmed, a Dervish came on stage, and in a postmodern moment it transpired he was electrified, covered in coloured lights blinking on and off. As his whirling routine sped up, the stage was transformed into a series of swooping coloured lines, the speed of his turning blurring the lights. It was sensationally spectacular.

  We retreated to the table, finished the wine, still stunned from the performance and one of our number, in Damascus for some time by then but about to leave, declared it the most spectacular evening she had experienced there.

  Similar places, if less spectacular, abounded throughout the Old City, and it became a mission to find them. La Guitare, off Straight Street near the Oriental Hotel and at the side of the Greek Catholic Patriarchate Church, was a nice place to sit outside with a beer and a couple of appetisers late in the afternoon. The Opaline was strangely isolated in the southern Muslim Quarter, a signpost for it high on the wall of an inauspicious looking laneway running off from Souk Medhat Pasha, just opposite the entrance into Souk Al Bezuriye. The alleyway looks uninviting, but about two hundred metres in a big square-looking, cream-coloured building loomed up on the right. Inside, it was a pleasant, light and airy place in which to take some food and a beer. It was a Druze place, but the menu presented the normal range of excellent Arabic food. Zeus, small but beautifully done out in precise Damascene style, was on Al Quedaya in the Christian Quarter, the second main walk-through lane from Straight Street up to Bab Touma.

  Leila's was renowned, near the house and overlooking the Umayyad mosque, a spectacular venue at night when the weather permitted because the view from tables on the upstairs terrace was right along the southern wall of the Mosque. It was not a place to go for the food, because that was not the best around, but one trip was mandatory for that view alone. Even so, it seemed sacrilegious now to be drinking beer and wine while taking in that view. The management decided increasing tourist numbers meant alcohol must be served. Once again, that action seemed vastly out of line with the stern, intolerant and hardline image of Syria cast so often abroad.

  Aside from these and other enticing restaurants, the Old City was replete with snacks and drinks outlets. Just at the start of Bab Touma Street, at the police station end and on the right before Hammam al-Bakri lane, there was a glass-fronted, wood fired oven place. It was dominated by the oven, attendants sweating as they worked and coped with the constant stream of patrons. Trays in the window were stacked with choices: meat-filled pastries, different breads, mini-pizzas and other local delights costing a maximum of a dollar. Point to one of those, and an assistant would scoop it up, then heat it in the oven for a minute of two before retrieving it to be placed in a paper bag. For the record, though, it was likely from there that one of my few serious stomach ailments arrived. Diagonally across the street was one of the innumerable biscuit shops to be found throughout the city, its highlight the huge bags of varied biscuits. The Al Khair restaurant and hotel on Straight Street near Bab Sharqi was excellent for a beer or coffee while accessing the free wifi. The Ecological Café beside the Citadel had a peaceful terrace looking over the gardens, and served the best minted lemon in Damascus, along with basic snacks like haloumi cheese in the local flat bread toasted. The café at the Roman Arch on Straight Street did good coffee and juices as well as fruit.

  One consequence of this good food abundance was that the kitchen in the house remained unused. It was actually cheaper and easier to go out and eat than to buy food in and prepare it at home. The food outside was a magnet not only for its own sake but also for the enriching social experiences it offered. Why eat badly and expensively at home when all that awaited outside? The kitchen was thus consigned to providing only boring Western alternatives to breakfast, like cornflakes, housing all the olives (which I came to love in Syria after a lifetime's disdain and there is a story, allegedly, that only those who eat olives can learn Arabic—maybe there is hope yet) and other standby snacks, and on the ready to produce a version of coffee that could replicate, at least to some degree, that prepared in the restaurants and coffee shops outside.

  In all those outside places, though, it was easy to see why Damascus has attracted and entranced so many people over the centuries. In almost all of them the visitor was given honoured attention, and the service was supreme. The food was invariably good, the atmosphere even better, and the friendliness of the locals noticeable. This was a place with a tradition, and wanted to share that with others.

  Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

  ~

  In many ways, Syria and Damascus has always run on bread, so one of the city's great emblems remains the bread shop.

  There is a lovely example in an alley just off the bottom of Al Amin Street in the Old City, around from the first boutique hotel. It is stuck behind a row of shops, and at the corner of two converging and tight laneways so there is inevitably a confusion of traffic, pedestrians, hand carts, bicycles and stray animals. Add to that a lorry loaded high with sacks of flour brought in to keep up with the voracious demand for bread, and the congestion is complete. The building is squat, made out of unpainted breeze block. A few poles protrude from its front wall about two thirds the way up, so tarpaulins can be hoisted either at the height of summer or in a vain attempt to keep out the later rain. Men and boys queue at one tiny window, women and girls at another. The respective queues tail back several metres, adding chaos to confusion. Almost all that can be seen of the workers behind the windows are their hands, distributing piles of the warm sometimes hot round, flat breads straight from the oven, the staple food in this part of the world. Nearby, customers use the available metal racks to help organise their purchases, because most buy a lot. The breads are sorted into orderly piles, which the new owners walk away balancing in hands and on arms or, even now, in traditional style on the head. Throughout the less "modern" areas of the city, people might still be seen walking along with what at first glance look like a floppy hat designed to keep out the sun—it is fresh bread being carried home.

  That scene was repeated all over the city and, as with anything else, citizens frequented their local and/or favourite haunt, stories abounding as to where the "best" product may be found. There was a good one just outside the Old City, over in the Qanawat market and conveniently near all the cheese, olive, and meat shops. It, too, was tiny with barely room enough inside for the man who distributed the breads, reaching back behind him to grab the next supplies delivered by the bakers toiling away in the recesses. It had to have been a million degrees in there during summer, and not much less at other times. A small crowd thronged the miniscule window, arms and hands disappearing inside in an effort to gain ascendancy over other customers. Bicycles, cars and horse-drawn carts skirted the bustling patrons. This went on for most of the morning. People arrived bearing their other food purchases, looking now to add the final piece to the jigsaw that would be lunch or dinner, or just an in-between snack. Others would buy the bread first, then head off to construct the meal around it.

  There was a more peaceful outlet back in the Old City, just around from the crumbling Dadha Palace and on a main walking route that eventually led through to Bab Sharqi. Tiny lanes ran off this walkway near the shop, some short and heading for
dead-ends, others winding off into a mysterious distance with old, often decrepit buildings, as always, seeming to touch each other at the top as they leaned in from each side. There were no other food shops near this baker, this was the genuine community article serving only the residents who lived nearby, and those from further afield who had learned of its reputation. Next to it, set into a wall, a beautiful drinking fountain was built in the customary soft, creamy sandstone, and was draped in vines colouring off now in the late autumn. Unlike other bakeries, the selling window here extended across the entire front of the building, so that customers could get easy access as well as chat to their neighbours, all the while looking right back into the traditional oven producing all those wonderful sights and smells. There was no hurry here, with always time for a chat either with the vendor or a fellow customer. A steady string of breads came from the baker's paddle, buyers carrying them off into all those tiny lanes and alleys.

  Along the Old City's Quemariye, the main walk through from Bab Touma to the Umayyad Mosque, there was a perfect demonstration of bread's significance in this culture. Half way up a little rise in a broader part of the street there was an old, low wooden building with a step up to the selling window. A small oven, a traditional rather than modern gas-fired one, blazed away in the darkened interior. It produced little other than the smaller seeded breads, rather than the bigger, flat khobz. This was because right next door stood a just as small but very well known ful and hommus outlet. A few battered round metal tables and chairs sprawled about its step landing. The hungry could sit down there and along came the dishes as well as the breads, and the snack was ready.