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FORK PLAY May 18, 2010
The Lion Purrs. Meatball Shop Peeve. Scenes from Tunisia.
Dear Friends and Family,
The Lion opened in an old Village hangout with such a roar I figured it might be months before I could ever get a  prime-time table. But the friend we planned to join Friday night dropped by the Ninth Street spot in person (admittedly adorable and charming - and clever). When the guardian of the datebook discovered that they were both born in Singapore, he could not refuse and wrote her in for 7:30.
Not exactly my idea of an adult dinner hour but I reminded myself I was still in jet lag from almost three weeks in Tunisia and I figured I'd go with the flow. (Yes, the bright red and white borders today are the colors of Tunisia's flag). That's how we came to discover The Lion's gorgeous two-story domed skylight back room aglow in shimmering light. To know what I ate and if it's worth scheming to get a table, click here.
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Sass and Meatballs
A friend writes that she's discovered a new tweak on dining-out insults at the Meatball Shop: "The meatballs were great, the risotto fabulous and worth the trip, despite the noise level. Then, in the middle of dinner, we were chatting when the hostess asked the three of us to move from our adjoining seats at the communal table to three totally separated seats because she had to seat some newcomers together." There was a shocked silence at the big table. My friend refused. Now she's sworn off meatballs.
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Scenes from Tunisia
Do they call it Tunisia because they love tuna so much? Or is it called tuna because it's the number one staple of Tunisia? Just wondering. I am a fool for tuna salad myself - it could be the mayo. I have a hopeless mayonnaise addiction. But canned Tunisian tuna steeped in good olive oil with a dab of fiery hot harissa is a revelation. Tuna is also an essential crowning something called Tunisian salad. That might be chopped tomatoes and cucumber or cabbage with olives and parsley, a healthy  starter our Tunisian friends seem to eat every day, sometimes twice a day.
I fell in love with ojja, a soft scramble of eggs, tomato sauce and fresh tomatoes. It sounded so strange I refused to order it at first but when I did, it became a habit.
Our guide Akram Khelifa read my mind when he took us to Chez Khairi, a noisy little lunchtime joint near the Tunis souk that first day. We shared typical Tunisian salad starters and a remarkable soup that still haunts me. (Akram, who teaches Kerouac's On the Road to his American literature classes in his dual life as a professor, quickly became more than a guide.) One of our last nights in Tunis was spent in his home with his friends, eating his wife Doria's splendid prawns and beef with spring peas.
And how quickly overcooked fish and chicken made me, cous cous-lover, wary of ordering cous cous. Well, cous cous is not exactly the most refreshing fare in the one o'clock blast of desert heat. Steven discovered spaghetti with lamb, ubiquitous on menus both upscale and modest. Twice I had to have ice cream on a stick and Lazhar, our devoted and enterprising driver, made it his task to find a Nestle cold box that was actually working.
We stopped at the ancient "ksar" near Matmara in the south where George Lucas shot Star Wars. These strange buildings made me think of Indian reservations near Tahoe. Some of these small oval clay-colored triplexes are still occupied; others were only used to store grain. Steven caught this man climbing the narrow stairway carved into the stone. At Sangho Hotel in Tatouine French schoolboys pushed each other into the swimming pool and most other guests ate from the usual hotel buffet while chef Aoun Abdelitf, in his tall pleated toque, served us marvelous  lamb-stuffed bread, soft and yeasty, followed by chunks of juicy lamb cooked in an amphora jar.
It was Steven who decided we must go to Tunisia. We've been to Morocco three or four times with the mythic hospitality of Robert Berger as host of La Mamounia and we loved it. I'd been three times before I teamed up with the Road Food Warrior, exploring Morocco by car down to the edge of the Sahara desert. I imagined Tunisia would be a sleepier Morocco, less evolved, with villages frozen in amber. "Mr. Tunisia," Jerry Sorkin of TunisUSA, agreed to organize a trek with cars and guides that would cover mountains and beaches, desert, cities,  small villages and ruins "even more thrilling than Sicily's." Our trip would include grand spa resorts, the newest boutique inns, farm house stays, and stops where a chef planned a tasting of local dishes but, alas, too many unsatisfying hotel buffets.
We are not really archeological fans, I complained, when I saw how many sites were included on our itinerary. But then Akram spun the tale that linked the Phoenician monuments of Carthage to Tunisia's long lineage. I felt vibrations of history standing on Roman mosaics in what had been a rich invader's bathroom. I imagined lions ripping God-knows-whom apart sitting on a step in the Third Century Roman amphitheater in El Jem. The magnificence  of these particular relics made me realize I'm not such a archeologophobe after all.
And then there was the annual Jewish Festival in a small synagogue on the Island of Djerba, a wild, uninhibited frenzy with believers and non-believers, mostly women, writing wishes - for husbands, for babies, for cures - on raw eggs and "planting" them in the temple. The next day we visited the communal bakery where a Muslim baker tends the fire on Saturday for Jewish neighbors observing the Sabbath. And the Jewish homes, whitewashed, often with drawings of fish or candelabra in blue, are clearly marked by the traditional mezuzah holding a small scared scroll. Side by side with their Muslim neighbors.
Tunisia was not at all what I expected.
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Photographs of The Lion's pork chop, a fine chicken cous cous at Dar Chennoufi farm house, lunch with our guide Akram at Chez Khaiki in Tunis, Cheuf Aoum with a basket of marvelous breds at Hotel Sangho, a man climbing the stairs of a house in the Ksar, a Berber woman, and the fish auction in the Houmt Souk on Djerba Island may not be used without permission from Steven Richter
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| Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2010.
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