R2RTo set the stage: Jordan is a Muslim country which means beer is hard to come by. Amman was in the middle of protesting increased gas prices so we stuck close to our hostel in downtown..which oddly is where all the protests were. Matt and I were at the same establishment, and this post is written from both of our perspectives. Find the truth where you will.
Matt
There I was! I had been lured into this questionable establishment, on the promise of beer and food. Little was I to know that this WAS the dinner adventure that Heather had promised. The clientele left much to be be desired, as they were all swarthy, hunched over their tables and had an evil glint to their eyes, like pimps thieves and record company executives!
Our arrival left my senses finely tuned. After a non-descript back alley reeking of the detritus of mankind, we ascended a rickety old staircase and arrived in a den of inequity complete with rolling clouds of smoke, dark mostly burned out light fixtures and some assorted 1960’s Ikea furniture loosely scattered around the place.
The furtive waiter sidled over and asked us gruffly “what do you want?” I looked around at the other gentleman in the place (most of whom seemed anything except gentleman) and ALL of them were quite openly smoking up with happy clouds of questionable smelling smoke wafting over their heads and a far away dull glazed look in their eyes.
I panicked as I perused the menu as not only were desserts first with appetizers last (apparently I was reading it backwards, except that is the right way to read things in this country) but I found NO BEER on the list. Well..there was one but it contained no alcohol. Every other page seemed to be flavours of “hubbly bubbly” that I was certainly not interested in ordering. I ordered a tea and prayed that it hadn’t been spiked with the contents of one of the bongs in use by everyone else.
At this point I was craving a pound of bacon or a pork loin or something else I would find familiar and comforting, but settled on a lamb kofta and an array of mezze’s. Fortunately the cook could not have been partaking of the bongs because the food that arrived seemed to be made by a five star chef. Never the less tucking into a great feed I was not hampered by the ambiance, clientele, or service staff. Delicious!
Heather
We asked the nice man at our hostel where we should go for a cheapish dinner where we could buy beer. The Jaffa Coffee House and Restaurant was suggested. Armed with our map we set off. The entrance was a bit hard to find, but once upstairs we were greeted by a lovely young man who showed us to our seats. The other customers were made up of locals and were fairly well dressed and seemed quite relaxed being in each other’s company. There were a spattering of woman without head coverings and a few other tourists. The furniture was kind of cool with some laid back couches and tables and chairs. Our table had some neat currency under the glass so we did some guess work to figure the countries it came from.
Although there was a great deal of smoke in the place it was easy to sit in because it wasn’t cigarette smoke. In the Middle East a Shisha, or Hubbly Bubbly is a common thing to smoke. It is commonly tobacco mixed with a sweet molasses of sorts and the smoker inhales through a water pipe which means the smoke is more vapour. These Shisha’s are quite fancy with cool hoses and inlayed silver connections. There was a waiter who’s only job is to walk around and re-stock the coals to ensure the Shisha doesn’t go out. A cultural experience indeed!
The waiter who gave us our menu was quite nice and spoke enough English to help us figure out that we were reading the menu backwards because in Arabic you read from right to left! He suggested a few options on the menu and we carefully picked out some mouth watering meals. The Mezze’s were particularly incredible with some of the best hummus I have ever tasted…and the bread! Mouth watering! Although beer wasn’t on the menu, the food, other customers and general ambiance made up for it and we had a fantastic night out in Amman.
