La Salle a Manger

Lee, Mounir (the director of the SIT Program), and I had a good lunch today at a brand-new place right next to AMIDEAST called La Salle a Manger (3, rue Imam Sahmoum. Res: 71 793 283). It's got a nice menu with some French classics, including foie gras made in-house and boeuf bourguignon. The food is quite good, although it still needs a little bit of working on - the boeuf will be much better once they get their liquor license, for instance (their tiramisu could also benefit from a bit of rum). One of the chefs was an assistant chef at the venerable El Firma, which is one of my favorite places in Tunisia.

Overall, I was happy with the place. With one slight misstep on a weird hanging branches/blue light decorative element, it's very well put-together. I'd love to live in the house it's in. My understanding is that the owner is a young woman whose father is one of the most prominent radiologists in Tunis - we met both of them at the restaurant.

On Friday, I headed off to the embassy to see "Impressions of Tunisia," which was put on by the Embassy photo club. There were some genuinely good photos, and it was a good opportunity to knock back a Stella Artois and catch up with some people. After, Lee, Dorra (A Tunisian alumni of the old Plus Program), Clark (a lawyer at the African Development Bank) and I went to Chez Gerry in Salambo. It's located on the main drag connecting Carthage and La Goulette and offers some very good quality Italian food - the Osso Bucco was very tasty and a big portion of meat by Tunisian restaurant standards.

Saturday, I had lunch at La Mamma, which is down on Rue de Marseilles past Chez Nous and Al-Mazra. It's a fun little Italian place and has good quality food for reasonable prices - I had a good piece of veal alla piccata. After that, I went off to see "The Age of Revenge" - a student-produced play entirely in English at Le Centre Culturel de Tunis on Neuf Avril blvd. I was pleasantly surprised - the students, who are from the "Prepa" of the Ecole Normale Superieure put together a fun production about Hephaestus taking over Mt. Olympus from Zeus.

Also, some good news: I will be back in Minneapolis February 4th to the 14th. My organization (AIESEC) is paying for the ticket, so I'm taking them up on their offer. I just found out about the final dates yesterday, so I'm going to plan a few things and then pack up and get out of here for a bit. I'm thinking lots of movies, good food, and family.

Thalatha wa thalatheen

Last night I went out to the headquarters of the Tunisian telecom firm Tunisiana in Les Berges du Lac. My buddy Mehdi, who works for the company (one of two in Tunisia - the other being Tunisie Telecom), invited me out to watch Tunisia play Senegal in the African Cup of Nations. The game turned out to be kind of a bust - Tunisia ended up tying Senegal in a pretty lackluster performance - but I have a good story out of it.

So, Tunisiana had a raffle put on during the halftime. There were 200 numbers given out on small slips of paper. The prizes ranged from blenders to soccer jerseys and soccer balls. I picked up one number when the guy came around. Five minutes later, they came up to the front with the first prize - an Adidas jersey. And, lo and behold, my number was called first among a sea of Tunisians. There was a lot of laughing as I came up to the front for my Tunisian jersey...

After that, I headed over to Kiotori with Mehdi. It's the relatively new Japanese place in Lac. It's honestly not bad - totally average sushi. However, it's pricey - much more than you'd pay for average sushi in the states - and the portions are small. I'd recommend also the brochettes - it was all a lot like the Japanese places that are all over Paris in terms of the menu. You can get fixed menus with soup, salad and little kebabs, or with sushi or tempura. Most of them are between 20 and 30 TND. When you order sushi a la carte it comes as 4 pieces for 6-9 TND, or 8 for 16-20.

I've been trying a fair amount of Asian food lately. On Tuesday I went to "Thai Food" in Ennasr. It's not a bad place. The ambiance is sub-par - lots of plastic chairs (very un-Ennasr), but the food is very reasonably priced and totally OK, if far from spectacular. It's one of the few places you have if you want Asian food in Tunis (or in Tunisia...). The dumplings aren't bad - get them steamed.

Ojja

http://clockendkitchen.fc2web.com/tunis.htm

Ojja is one of my favorite dishes here in Tunisia. I love its simplicity and its ability to fill me up (an occasionally difficult task). I'd liken it to one of the best "bachelor" dishes - up there with scrambled eggs, spaghetti and tomato sauce, or rice and beans (bachelor meaning easy and filling food a guy can make with minimal culinary experience - discounting frozen burritos, of course).

Here's a couple of recipes to try:
Ojja Merguez (in French)
Ojja Merguez (In English)
Also, I should have posted this earlier - Cuisine of Tunisia.

The basic idea is the same - you need some garlic, a can of chopped tomatoes (or freshly chopped), olive oil, and egg. I'd also suggest some harissa, green pepper, spices, and either sausage or chevrettes - mini shrimp (my favorite type of Ojja). There's also Algerian Ojja Cervelle with brains, but I'm not brave enough to try it yet. Ojja's also quite similar to Shakshouka.

Everyone has their favorite Ojja place. I like the Ojja over by Passage - there's a good place on the West side of the park. Look for the long lines.

Be careful about are the undercooked eggs (as in Brik). For example, on Satuday night, Mehdi, Nizar and I went to a pretty rough and tumble part of Bab el Khadra for some very tasty Ojja Chevrettes. The eggs, as always were served less than fully cooked. The two Tunisians left them and I ate them. Luckily I came out OK that time, but you never know.

Also watch out for merguez. It's spiced sausage, and occasionally it can give people trouble. As a general rule, I never eat merguez, but I'll touch pretty much anything else.

Always do a quick survey of the restaurant if you're not sure about its cleanliness. I normally go to places that are recommended by people - I don't do a lot of random culinary exploring. Even nice suburbs such as Manar have restaurants that have problematic cleanliness records. In the States, I always check out the bathrooms of a place, and if they're not clean, it's a pretty good indicator of the restaurant in general. Here, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that...

Travel Mug Envy

Last week, I was sitting in a taxi during my morning commute when the taxi driver, who'd been silent the whole trip took a long look at my travel mug. After about five seconds, he pointed at it and started saying "coffee?" in Arabic... the conversation switched over to French about midway through.

"Yeah, you put coffee in it and close the lid"
"Where did you get this?"
"In America"
"Can you get this in Tunisia?"
"No"
"How much does it cost in Dinars?"
"Um, probably around 20 Dinars"
"Can you give it to me?"
"No, otherwise I'd have to drink bad coffee in the morning"
"When are you leaving Tunisia?"
"Um, June I think"
"OK, then in June I am going to call you and you are going to give me your American coffee cup. Can I have your number?"
"I don't have a cellphone" (blatant lie on my part)

Eventually, he wrote his number down on a piece of paper, with my promise to call him in June.

This is a big market Tunisia! Get on this, lots of Taxi drivers need something for their coffee and mint tea on the go!

On another note, travel mugs are very American. Just the idea of drinking your scalding hot beverage on the go is a very American phenomenon. However, even when my French friend was visiting me stateside, one of the items on her list was a good stainless steel travel mug. And that's the land of pausing for a coffee.

Various Travels

Ain Damous - a gorgeous beach 3km through the hills from Bizerte. Bring a 4wd vehicle or walk to get to this point.

Thuburbo Majus

Here's a photo album of my trip to Zaghouane, along with Thuburbo Majus and Bizerte.

Also, yesterday I made Teriyaki Chicken with my favorite bottled sauce. There was one very impressed Tunisian present. It's been a long time since good Asian food, and honestly, it's one of the biggest culinary things I miss. Back in the States, or even when I was in Paris (and found that amazing little Pho place right by Arts et Metiers that's only open for lunch), I eat Asian food at least twice a week. If you're considering a long jaunt in a foreign country, think about bringing along some sesame oil, curry powder, good teriyaki sauce, and soy sauce, it'll make your night.

Bruges Photos/Recap

I posted my Bruges photos on Facebook - you can find them here.

Also, I still need to post a handful - things have been kind of crazy around here lately. Last Wednesday was the Islamic New Year (aka: vacation day), so Mehdi and I hopped in his car and did some exploring. We went down to Zaghouane, Hammam Zriba and Thuburbo Majus - the last of which was a good Roman site. Zaghouane isn't high on the lists of places to stop, but the Roman Temple of Water is interesting and Mount Zaghouane (that's the name, right?) is impressive.

Otherwise, I've been just running around. Two weekends ago I braved the Boudoir in La Goulette and Odeon and Zinc in Gammarth. This weekend I stayed in Friday and watched basically the entire third season of the NBC version of The Office (which has been a nice break from the Eric Rohmer/Chris Marker kick I've been on lately). This was actually the first time I've seen it, and I liked it a lot - I fell in love with the BBC version back in college (I can say that now, right?) and was kind of worried about how the American version would hold up.

Saturday, I went to arguably the best pizza place in Tunis, Le Matador in Menzah 6. They do great wood-fired pizza and also tasty pasta and specials. After, one of the Serbian girls I know who studies Arabic here had a goodbye party (the first of two, with the next scheduled for the coming weekend...), and I got to see a lot of people I know - the young expat/AIESEC Tunisia community here is pretty small.

Sunday, I went out to Bizerte with some friends. We had a great lunch at Mehdi's place and spent most of the afternoon checking out some different places in the hills above the city. There's some really beautiful beaches, such as Ain Damous, and lots of great vantage points over the city and the water - I'll post some photos on that as well.

NGO Joke of the Day

Today Lee, Ann and I had a meeting with the head of the Tunisian American Association for Management Studies, which is an NGO that's undergone a drastic change over the past two years into a local social action NGO in Borj Louzir - a neighborhood not far from the white mansions of Soukra that is markedly more poor. Hopefully we'll be able to help out the organization.

Anyways, so the director of TAAMS was talking about their work after USAID pulled out of Tunisia in 1995 with the "Executive Service Corps." It's where American executives come over and offer professional insight, etc (I honestly know little about it). Lee gave a chuckle and said, "oh yeah, the 'Paunch Corps.'"

... I laughed.

Back in Tunis

Sorry for the huge delay in posting, but the combination of the holidays and not having reliable internet made it hard to stay on top of everything.

I am now back in Tunis - I got back last Friday afternoon and started work yesterday. I think the best way to recap is just do a quick overview now and then hopefully tomorrow post some photos and write more in-depth when I have the time.

Dec 19th was Eid al-Adha, or known more informally, Eid al-Kabir - the "big" Eid(the "little" Eid is right after Ramadan and doesn't involve the whole sheep thing). This, for the uninitiated is quite an experience (I definitely count myself in that category). The gist is that days or weeks before Tunisian families buy a sheep. They house the sheep at home and keep it under close watch (sheep stealing is big business - these sheeps can easily cost $200) until the day of Eid. On the morning of Eid al-Adha, the men in the family who know what they are doing slaughter the sheep by slitting its throat to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son... Isaac... for God. Afterwards, the animal is skinned, the head is cut off, and then it is cleaned and prepared for good eats. Lots of good eats. Maybe a little too much sheep, actually.

I spent Eid at Hichem's house. I opted out of the killing of the sheep and showed up after they had already hung up the skinned carcass and were starting to clean it. The mother cleaned out the intestines while one of the daughters cleaned up (photos to come). What's important in Aid is that no part of the animal goes to waste, so everything is kept and washed. That day, we ate sheep bbq. Lots of of it. I also had some liver and, well, I'm not going to say what else I ate. On the first day you also burn the sheep heads to remove the skin so that they can be eaten later (I opted out of that - although brains can be quite common, Ojja a la Cervelle is a common Algerian dish). Walking through Ibn Khaldoum, on every corner I saw big fires being started in metal drums for the heads.

At its core, Eid al-Kabeer is just a big barbeque. At first I was a bit squeamish about it, but then I gave myself a metaphorial kick in the rear. I eat meat. I love meat - so why should I remove myself from the process? Anyways, I'll write a bit more about it later.

The next day, the 20th, I headed off on a flight to Brussels on Tunisair. At the airport, I was picked up (reeling from too much smoke inhalation on Eid) by Bruno, a very close family friend. He drove me back to Bruges, where I spent the holidays based there in their house in central Bruges. It's a beautiful old 15th-century house on the canal, and unlike most of the houses owned by Belgians, it retains its old charm instead of being totally revamped and modern. Bruno lives there with his wife Ariane. She met my dad back in the 1960s when he was studying in Germany, and our families have kept in touch and seen each other quite often over the last 15 years or so.

This was my fourth time in Bruges, and it was amazing as always. The trick with a city like Bruges is to stay off the touristy beaten paths and walk around at night, or find off-hours during the day to go out and take photos, etc.

I spent Christmas outside of Watten, which is a town by Dunkirk in Northern France. Ariane's family has a country house there called "Bleue Maison." We drank good wine, ate foie gras from Chez Josephine in Paris and had an all-around good time. It was super-bourgeois and I really liked it - a change of pace from my chawarma sandwiches.

Back in Tunis, I celebrated New Years pretty low-key with a dinner at Restaurant Chez Nous and a bottle of Vieux Magon. Now, I'm back in the swing of things at work and working on getting furniture for my new place, which my friend Sarra has affectionately called "Baghdad." I think once we get it cleaned up it'll be a bit more hospitable.