Perspectives I

The Redirection
By Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker

Saturday 03 March 2007 Issue

Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

A Strategic Shift

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The "redirection," as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims...

February 23, 2007
Beirut, Lebanon

A Real Review of a Surreal Experience: Copas Restaurant, Brummana, Mount Lebanon

A couple of friends and I headed to Copas in Brummana, across from the Manhattan's for a hot wine and wild boar roast... The formula was simple, 25$ eat all you can eat, drink all you can drink. Sounds fair...

I arrived at about 9:15 ahead of my friends and ahead of most people in the joint, the place was almost empty. By the time my friends got there some 10 minutes later it was still relatively empty... So we ordered as people started arriving. A while later the food was here and the boar was not bad at all... Relatively small portions but hey, it's eat all you can. After we were done we were nowhere close to being satiated so we ordered another portion as we sipped our hot wine... By then the place was packed. About 45 minutes later we called the waiter to enquire about our food and he said he'll go find out.

About 15 minutes later, he comes back only to announce that there was no wild boar left and that they were sorry. Now don't mistake this review for a squabble about food or money, it's a review about the way NOT to treat your clients. We replied that that was not our problem but rather theirs and that they had to figure out a way to fix it to which they gave us the exact same answer: there is no boar left and they're sorry.

So we asked to speak with someone with a double digit IQ. A few minutes later the "maitre d" shows up and starts sweet talking one of my friends (who happens to be a girl whom he knows from before). And the basic transcript of the conversation was: hayeteh why didn't you tell me that you weren't served?" to which she replied that we did ask the waiter about the food. So another 10 to 15 minutes later, my two friends who happen to be girls are served with a plate of what seems to be wild boar whereas I (a guy) am served absolutely nothing. Kudos on the macho act...

However after looking at what they were served they soon found out that it was nothing but boar FAT without a shred of meat, the kind of parts a jackal wouldn't eat off a rotting carcass. By now they didn't even bother to heat the wine at all and we were served cold wine which tasted like grapejuice. Again we complain, so they offer to replace with a meal, which they picked, quesadillas, a plate of quesadillas for three famished people...

The final explanation, and i shit you not, was that there was no boar left because the high class people (that is my translation of el ness el mrattabin) were served ahead: the conclusion is, better prospective customers (ie the old males with cigars and their herds of cows that were too old even back when the music they're dancing to today was released; TWENTY YEARS AGO and dressed like they're 60 going on 16 with clothes from mango or zara you'd swear are for girls too young for you to date at the age of 25) are reserved preferential treatment, followed by women (that would be the girls I was with) followed by young men: that would be me...

In the end I was so pissed I left, and later found out that we each paid 25$, "and that the quesadillas and bear" were on the house. What puzzles me the most is the amount of crap we got while getting reservations, given that they "needed to know EXACTLY how many people were coming" to calculate how many wild boars they were going to get, in the end the place was packed, and they got just one wild boar...

The worst thing about the typical lebanese ripoff is not the ripoff or the embarrassment of having to squabble over a service you paid for, or the fact that it is so much a reflection of what life has come to be in this country over the past 30 some years and a bitter reminder that you, the people will always come last.

The very worst thing about the typical Lebanese ripoff is that even if you're the biggest idiot on the face of this earth, it's still insulting to your intelligence...

Copas, don't go there, even if you're the biggest idiot on the face of the earth...

review by phoenix

tags: copas, brummana, restaurant, lebanon, bad service, wild boar, preferential treatment, ripoff, hot wine, quesadillas, grape juice, lebanese, reservations

-finkployd- Restaurant Reviews on BloggingBeirut.com

In watching this Video >>> Click to Recall

Charlotte from Canada, a reader of BloggingBeirut, came to make this statement:

I really love this blog. Keep up the excellent job. I am aligned with the opposition and applaud the efforts of the lebanese people that have been camped out. However, what I don't like to see and I am sure it can be helped............(from the video) all the garbage or litter on the streets left behind. I think that the ground of lebanon should be kept clean. Why can't they set up places for people to put their litter and encourage this. I really dont understand how one would want to throw dirt on their country. There is enough corrupt government in lebanon..............why do we have to litter tooo? Anyone help me out here.

Would anyone care to answer Charelotte's Question?


I, for the life of me, haven't been able to make sense of the poor and the rich alike, discarding their Almaza bottles, their Bliss House papers, their Uncle Deek cups wherever they happen to be at the end of the meal/drink.
3al Raouche, 3al Marina, 3al trotoire, bil hadeeka, bil hirish, bil bahar...

Oh, and those who throw garbage out of their car windows....???


to reminisce - previously on BloggingBeirut





-finkployd- PLEASE EXPLAIN to BloggingBeirut.com

a wise man recently told me

"ma fi common ground, fi common space" - LOTR

in explaining how we should overcome our differences as Lebanese

-finkployd-

seems like every time we the Lebanese, loosen up & stretch our legs, in readying for a leap into the 'happy' & 'prosperous' zone of holidays or festivities [summer? christmas?] we slam straight into a wall - not unlike Wile E. Coyote



and not unlike the Road Runner cartoons,
the reasons for disaster are physics defying, logic twisting, absurdities.

here, a photo captured on Gemmayze Street:

a Mini dressed up for the Christmas Holidays...
...and with things as they are, it sure as hell will be a mini Christmas :(

ironic isn't it


photo taken on Saturday 9 December, 2006 in Gemmayze, Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon

-finkployd- all rights reserved to BloggingBeirut.com