Scurvy Dogs

Sunday night we attended a going away surprise party for an aquaintance at the US embassy, a good friend of Carrie’s. Not to be all dramatic, but I’m not sure if I should use his real name here, so I’ll call him “Frank.” We were to meet Carrie at a place at the bottom of Monot at 8 o’clock and head up to the restaurant together. The bar we were meeting at is called Cocktails and Dreams, a name which had secured a place in my bottomless memory for useless facts as the name of the bar Tom Cruise opens at the end of the movie Cocktail. Guests were supposed to arrive at the party itself, at an Italian place called Pinnochio’s, at 8:30pm so that the guest of honor could be properly surprised at 9pm.

And then a funny thing happened: it rained. This might not seem especially exciting or noteworthy (especially to those of you in New York who’ve “enjoyed” a downpour for like 8 straight days), but it has never rained more than a few drops in the 5 months that we’ve been here. It was kind of making us crazy and we thought we’d be euphoric at the first real rain. Instead, it was a pain in the ass. Beirut does a fair number of things well, but sidewalks and stormdrains are not two of these things.

To make a long story short, a crowded car-ride, some running through the rain, and many text-messages and closed/powerless establishments later and we ended up about a block from where we started at a place just off Monot (next to a bar called Che…man do they love their Che here) called Scallywags. Our party was large, maybe 10 people at this point with the intention of swelling to a total of 25, and the venue was small (my apologies to the couple that was there when we arrived, whose romantic dinner we certainly ruined). Scallywags had no power, but Carrie was able to call the owner/head chef, who assured us they could cook and accomodate 25, even without electricity. I thought it was funky and cool and–in addition to it being the guest of honor’s favorite restaurant–we were there and not outside in the downpour. Several of the Lebanese in our number had other ideas of changing venues because of the power issue. The most laughable suggestion was Chili’s…when Carrie politely pointed out to them that Frank was returning to the US, so maybe going to a US chain wasn’t the best idea, it was clear that that hadn’t occurred to anybody.

The main issue was, oddly, the lack of electricity. Rather than finding the cozy, candlelit bistro romantic, one of our party said, “It’s not nice…it reminds us of the war.” My first thought at this was, surely your electricity has gone out at least once since the war. Ours sometimes goes out 4 times in one day. To her immense credit, Carrie’s subtle blend of psychological tactics resulted in us staying put. Richard, the owner/head chef, was already coming in especially for us on his night off.

Ironically, when Frank and his girlfriend finally walked up, he didn’t want to go in, claiming it looked “too dark and packed.” Also ironically, Carrie was “blamed” for this near miss.

But a good time was had by all. Richard was a fantastic (or I should say fabulous) host and a generally interesting fellow. The place served a Lebanese wine I’d never had before. The food was a delicious, fixed-menu experience:

Richard: “I don’t cook to your tastes, I cook to my tastes. I just need to know if anybody’s allergic to anything.”
Someone: “As long as there’s no bees in it, I think I’m ok.”

We will definitely return to that place. It seems like a good time was had by all and that Frank enjoyed his send-off.

As an added bonus, I was pleasantly interrupted twice with phonecalls from my brother. He was calling me back to discuss some travel and wedding details. It’s always great to hear a voice from home.

And so I draw to the close of another perfect “blog” entry…a bunch of wordy, fat paragraphs about going out to dinner.

[ Pics courtesy of Carrie. The first is Richard holding court. Frank is hiding behind his girlfriend. The second is me registering my approval, much to Amy’s boredom. ]