Now, let's take a little side tangent to discuss the concept of "good restaurants" and how the definition of such varies based on your age and interests. "Good" to me and John would currently include Lebanese or Vegetarian Indian. "Good" to Hank means noodles or fried chicken. But here I also have to praise the kids for being excellent sports--they are trying news things with no complaint, and some of those new things are very foreign looking and smelling as well as rather spicy. The kids have exceeded all my expectations in terms of culinary adventure.
However, this does nothing to simplify an answer to this simple question:
Where should we go eat?
Add in the fact that we are all starving and that this city is FULL of restaurants, and we have a significant decision-making impairment.
To give you any further indication, the one in Doha is located at "Cholesterol Intersection," a major city intersection crowded with such American favorites as Arby's and DQ and Pizza Hut. These and MTV and E-TV are our "cultural ambassadors" in the Middle East--they are the businesses and faces that represent America to these folks. Is it any wonder that we have an image problem? It's like gastrointestinal terrorism.
Speaking of gastrointestinal...I had to find some bridge to cross...One thing you cannot find here is good broccoli. The broccoli in the grocery stores is frozen and relatively expensive. Since good fresh broccoli is common year-round in the US, this is something I miss. I could always go to Sam's and get a big ol' bag (3 pounds?) of fresh broccoli crown pieces for something like $5. Often, I would just steam or roast the whole bag. Like a good apple (which are plentiful here), good broccoli can improve any dinner.The Ponderosa did not have broccoli. Or green beans. Or spinach. Or anything freshly steamed for that matter.
But it did have fried cauliflower. Yes, the primary way you see cauliflower here is deep fried. It's actually quite tasty, but can't you just see that sheen of grease on the photo?Along with the fried cauliflower, which Festus and Doc assure me is NOT a staple at old-west ponderosas in Dodge City, we had veggie samosa, which you can see on the left. Again, these were tasty but...well...to be consumed only in small quantity.
The dinner was as you would imagine in a smaller-scale Golden Corral in the Middle East. Some small spotting of vegetables (see the cucumbers on Hannah's plate) along with copious amounts of cafeteria-style spaghetti, lasagna, mac and cheese, chicken wings, chicken nuggets, and other rather horrifying things. I wanted to take a picture of the buffet but couldn't because any pictures in public are a little risky in terms of offending someone.
And they had a soft-serve ice cream machine, which swirled together chocolate and vanilla. It, of course, was a big hit. On a good note, the place was bustling, full of families from many different cultures. There were lots of precious little kiddos, with wide, open faces and smiles. An odd juxtaposition of the world's people gathered around the grease trough.
I'm still on the lookout for good fresh steamed broccoli.
we have samosas here, too! love that deep-fried goodness! (except i've seen them spelled "samoosas", "sabsas", and "sambosas"... not sure if that's an zambian thing or what.)
ReplyDeleteps- project ranch has been put on hold until tomorrow. our internet is out and i couldn't access the recipe last night.
We see all of those spellings here, too, without any (as of yet to us foreigners) clear/consistent indication of why. Then again, we also see signs that say things like "Apartment for RANT," so we could be looking at the result of phonetic spelling. :)
ReplyDeleteI recently completely round two of Project Ranch. Round 1 was (1) too runny and (2) impeded by bad buttermilk substitution. Round 2 was better but too much lemon juice. I can't wait to hear about yours!