Tonight we were invited to a tasting at a new Egyptian restaurant in town. Of course, this invitation stems from the diplomat friend I made way back at the beginning of our stay here. I have never eaten Egyptian food, but it was…..AWESOME!! EXCELLENT!! I cannot say enough about it!

I am not sure what all I ate, but I do know that I HATE EGGPLANT in real life, but for some reason, the Egyptians have a magical way about them that cooks it just right. They had all kinds of spices and seasonings, meat, rice, bread things, grape leaves, sauces, and a whole bunch more. Every single thing was delicious. Even the desserts (and you should note that I am not much of a dessert person–that is not my favorite part of a meal…weird I know….). Oh, and they also had special juices, one that was made from cane juice and one that was a form of coconut milk, both super yummy!
There was a whole room full of diplomats from all kinds of countries–Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia….and then there were Mark and me. We were among two other non-embassy people. But everyone was nice and friendly and by the end of the night we had business cards and email addresses, and a feeling of regret that we had not met all these people before.

We really needed a fun night out like tonight. We are a little down on BG right now. We are tired of the same old food, the same old routine, the same grouchy storekeepers, etc. To have a meal that was so so so different in a room full of English-speaking professionals really was a treat. When we come back here–and you know we will since the business is here and bigger than ever–I plan on going to this place for sure. I will even make sure the newspaper does a good write up on the gig.

I am sorry I didn’t make more of an effort to hang out with my Egyptian friend more often. The year was just so crazy and we were here and then gone and then here and then gone again. But I know we will see him again when Mark has to come back for a week or two here to check on things. And we both vowed to make more of an effort to hang out with him, along with other people we met tonight.

And to top the evening off, we even got a cheesy little Cleopatra pen, which, oddly enough, we desperately needed. No one seemed to have a pen on them and we needed to exchange email addies with people. Leave it to Cleopatra to help out some Americans in trouble. hahahahaha!

Anyways, if you ever have the opportunity to eat Egyptian food or just hang out with Egyptian people, you should definitely do it!  Believe me, you won’t regret it! 🙂