1. Kalha is an amazing Palestinian restaurant in Sharjah, close to Al Majaz park in the Al Buhaira neighborhood. My Arabic teacher recommended the place enthusiastically, and for good reason. After several meetings on Wednesday, I took the bus to Sharjah city specifically to find Kalha. It took some wandering, in part because I'm too cheap to spring for taxis and generally rely on the bus and my feet, and in part because Kalha is tucked into the ground floor of a nondescript office building...but I managed to find the place. Their three specialties seem to be the foul, hummus, and chicken mussekhan. You can order foul (fava beans) sixteen different ways--it's like Cincinnati style chili! Lebanese style, or with garlic, or with mint, or with parsley, or with cumin, and on and on. Anyway, I didn't get the foul (this time). The chicken mussekhan is a chicken wrapped in pita bread and served with foul and hummus and is really more for a group, or at least a dinner, and I was just there for a relatively light lunch.
So I got a falafel sandwich, the second best I've had (after the place along the sea in Saida), served on flat bread right from the forn with lot of shredded cabbage, tomato, and tahini). You've got to love that the falafel sandwich is almost always the cheapest thing on a menu. And, of course, the hummus. Mozna my Arabic teacher said she stopped making hummus because she'd rather just get it from Kalha. That's fair. This is the freshest hummus you've ever tasted. They use a lot of lemon and it's almost sweet. Also, they serve it with much olive oil on top and their olive oil is straight-up green. You can drink it with a straw. I pretty much killed a meant-to-be-shared bowl of the stuff (so much for a light lunch). Luckily, I had a long walk to my bus stop afterward.
2. After class yesterday, I took the metro into Dubai, mainly to wander, and because I wanted to do a lot of research and writing this weekend so I thought I'd get the wanderlust out of my system leading into my Friday/Saturday. Can I first say that the Metro on Thursday evenings is absolutely crazy? When passing over roadways, I was amazed at all the traffic below, because it felt like the whole world was on that Metro. Commuters, emiratis, tourists, students, kids going home from school, pregnant women, entire Metro cars full of uniformed flight attendants headed toward the airport...as we'd approach a major stop like Burj Khalifa or Mall of the Emirates, I'd think okay, surely a bunch of people are going to get off, but a handful would get off and another two dozen people would get on.
I ended up going to the marina area, which is a nice place to wander along the gulf, watch the fancy boats, and soak up sun without as big a crowd as most of Dubai. I got some reading done outdoors and spent about three hours just walking (walking's becoming like an addiction--not sure what I'm going to do when it gets too hot--which is imminent!). I found one of the burger joints which serves camel burgers and sampled one. Not bad, though I'm not in a huge hurry to go back. The place has a horrible name--Best Burgers Forever--and a Western-cheesy decor, though eating outside where you can watch fishermen on the marina and wave at passing yachts is pretty cool. They make a good bar burger (nice fresh bun, good veggies on it, etc), and the camel meat has a lean taste, like a buffalo burger. I'd opt out of the mayo-based special sauce next time and ask if they have some good mustard. Overall, pretty good and worth it just for the novelty, but with Iranian, Iraqi, and Afghani joints all over the place, BBF isn't essential fare.
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