Getting a bit Crabby by the Sea(Food)

Sunday 11th October 2009
Well, I'm here again. Actually I'm not sure what I'm going to write about tonight so bear with me if I drone on a bit while I'm thinking.

Ah yes! I forgot, last time, to tell you about one more good thing that happened last weekend. What was it? A very nice restaurant meal, that's what! And a SEAFOOD menu no less. Well, I'm not really one for seafood but I thought I'd give it a try when my teacher colleague suggested it. This is now a different teacher colleague to ones I have spent time in the past, but no matter there. Anyway, Thursday afternoons and evenings are, as I'm sure you know well by now, my food shopping and coffee drinking and sometimes meal-out eating times of the week. Well, here in Saudi Arabia I'm not so adventurous as I would be if I was back on familiar European soil so my choice of eateries and/or drinkeries is very limited to what I know only.

But that day was to be different. It was a seafood restaurant quite near the Tamimi's supermarket downtown in Khobar. Not NEARLY as hot as back in August so now is a good time to be venturing out and exploring such places more without getting dry-baked in the process.

In we went. A small restaurant with fish tank and I wondered straight away if these fish were for display or for dinner. Over came the menu and my colleague went over to check out the fish he wanted ….. NOT from the tank! Hmm yeah – on a second look the fish in THAT tank were goldfish and the like – NOT so edible. There seemed to be a freezer cabinet which people came to to choose their “fresh fish” selection. Not so fresh if it is frozen! But maybe close enough. He chose what he said was a sea bass. I did not go over being rather daunted by all the fish and seafood choices on the menu to begin with. Well OK OK there weren't pages and pages but was enough for me to pick through.

I really didn't know what to go for. First I thought of a chicken dish but then NO – this is a SEAFOOD restaurant so WHY am I being such a pleb and going for the easy option? SO FISH it was to be!

Seafood soup seemed to be the way to go. Quite what was in it I did not know but what the heck! First they brought over some nice crunchy bread-cracker type things. Not popodoms (spelling??) but similar. Very nice. Then the soup came.

Yeah …. hmm ….. when they said SEA FOOD soup they were not kidding. A large crab claw was hanging out the soup dish. Maybe it's just for appearance or for flavouring, I thought naively. Ohhhh noooo!! It was a REAL piece of crab – shell and all! But no crab eyes.

WHAT the hell do I do with THIS, I thought. Maybe it's not meant to be eaten. OH YES IT WAS! My eating colleague was tucking into his and was pulling the shell apart and getting the crab meat out from inside. Well, when I say crab shell I'm not talking about a big hard thing but a rather thin and breakable shell no doubt softened by cooking. Did they put that crab in that soup LIVE?? Doesn't bear thinking about, though I know certain dishes require it.

OK, maybe I could get away with just eating the soup liquid. Well, it was VERY hot, and I mean SPICEY! So I couldn't eat much of THAT. Back to the crab then. Well I struggled to get the shell off and yes, there WAS some crab meat inside though a very small amount and not with much taste. The plate under the bowl became the place to put bits of crab shell and crab claws on it which meant round the outside. All rather messy! Soon I decided that the “fight” was not worth it.

Well, this is why I don't eat much fish and seafood. I want to EAT my food, not FIGHT with it. Eating is meant to be a pleasure, not a BATTLEGROUND!

I had ordered seafood biryani and I feared another round in the ring with what was to come. Gloves on. But NO! Over it came. And what a JOY it was!

It was prawns (no shells) in an orange-red sauce. Rather a shallow dish but never mind. I took each prawn with care in case of shells or other hard bits. There was only one rogue one. But OHHHH – what a DELICIOUS dish it was! The taste was JUST as a good mild-to-medium curry should be – that blend of coconut with other spices that I have no idea what they are. A curry that doesn't burn your mouth off but invites you to the next mouthful with even more enthusiasm than the previous one. They also gave me a kind of naan bread (spelling again?) to go with it – not exactly naan bread as it wasn't quite as thick as that is, but really it was just a delicious flatbread or pitta bread kind of thing. Absolutely and totally freshly made and oh-so good that I was disappointed there was only one of them.

Just SOOOOO NICE! Wished that dish could've gone on for much longer. But, as ever, Prayer Time was approaching so we had to pay up and get into Tamimi's while we could.

Actually, another interesting thing here. Although this Tamimi's DOES close for Prayer Time, it actually DOESN'T close at all. All they do is take people off the cashiers' desks. So you can go in, you can do your shopping, you can walk around the supermarket. But what you CANNOT do is check out or get your fruit and veg weighed and priced AND you can't get any bread because the bread man is gone too. Oh, and no cheese either. Ahh, but the bread and cheese man and the man who weighs your fruit and veg are back before too long. So it is normal service with only a short inconvenience while Prayer Time begins. And by the time you're finished getting everything, checkouts are all open again.

I really like that supermarket. Not as overwhelmingly huge like Carrefour across the other end of town. And the cheese and bread is the best around. Well, hmmm …. Carrefour bread is pretty darn good too so I'll let 'em off there. But ONLY Tamimi's has Cheshire cheese and EVEN Wensleydale on a REALLY good day. A big fat WINNER in my book every time.

What else about them? Ah yes – water bottles. Now, Saudi Arabia has no idea what the word “recycling” means. However, in here you can buy these great big water bottles which hold, I think, 10 or 20 litres of water. This is MUCH MORE than anyone can use in one week – well maybe for people who cook a lot it might be a one-week supply but for me it's plenty. I'm into Week 2 with my bottle and still less than half empty. And the REALLY good thing is that once your bottle is empty, you just take it back for a refill. Well, when I say “refill”, I mean you get yourself a new, full bottle BUT they charge you LESS for it BECAUSE it IS a refill. So the FIRST time you buy this, you pay 17 Saudi riyals because it is a New Bottle. Every time you bring it back for a refill you only pay SEVEN RIYALS! And then, I suppose, right at the end when you've finished with the bottle for good, you simply return the bottle to the store. No throwing away is done on your part. Does the supermarket re-use these big empty bottles when you bring them back? HA!! THIS is the unknown bit, and for all I know they just chuck them in the trash can! But from MY point of view as consumer, it is DEFINITELY a deal worth having. And no – the full bottles are NOT so heavy. Just get em and then get them into the taxi and then at the other end get them into the lift and up you go to your room.

Some people might say, “Ohh NO! SUCH an inconvenience!”. I totally disagree. MUCH more inconvenient to continually buy the smaller 2-litre bottles or 5-litre bottles which you just use and throw away creating more rubbish. And now I have a little pump which I use which works better than trying to pick up such a huge bottle and try to pour it into a very small hole of, for example, the kettle or coffee maker.

Well well …. time is going on my friends and blogsters.

I haven't said anything about my teaching week or timetable. Well, not much too say other than what I've said before. I have a HUGE number of teaching hours per week – twenty-seven in all. The worst days are Sunday and Tuesday when I have six 50-minute lessons in a row with the same class. Oh, and do you remember that gate in the wall that was so rudely closed all those months ago? Well, now it's back open and for now this means I can go home for lunch even when I am teaching over there before AND after the lunchtime period.

But as you well know, such a “luxury” is sure not to last and I'm bound to be back cursing and swearing before too long.

What else before I close? Oh, I haven't yet started back at the gym. But I do take “fast walks” twice around the compound a few days a week. And from tomorrow I have vowed to do the twice-around walks every night. As before, I feel I HAVE TO do SOMETHING or else the weight will come in and STAY IN! No good! Oh, yes I will go to the gym too sometimes. But whatever I do, I want to feel that it IS going to have the desired effect to get the blood pumping and get me off my behind at least SOME of the day. Well, yes, teaching isn't a sit-down thing, but that's not exercise, is it?

Nothing yet to say about the classes or workload. This 21-hour a week class seem a passive bunch and, of course, no uniforms to contend with. But STILL those army idiots insist on coming in to give their little messages for everyone. Some things never change.

Ah yes. Yes, I HAVE seen the soldier boy morons that I had before. There's no avoiding them now – they are “legitimate students” now and are out of army uniform and into the green medical students gear that seems to be standard here.

And with that oxymoron (legitimate students) I feel it is time to go now. More on classes next time.