Today has been a walking day and preparation day. I explored the Maryleborne area, then wandered along New Bond, Regents streets into Leister Square, where I bought tix to Smaller, a three-woman performance tonight at the Lyric Theater, fourth row £25. Bought a Vodafone SIM card for my phone and got it set up, and stumbled onto Longacre St, home of the famous Stamfords map store. I dallied there for an hour and bought my Coast2Coast walking maps and a few for Dartmoor and Cornwall area.
Taking dinner at the Souk Restaurant (Moroccan) outside Leicester Square by Mousetrap's theatre turned out to be an adventure. It's a dimly lit place, with sharp incense burning and two rooms--one at the street front and one a bit deeper in. The tables are large silver trays set on stands at knee height (read: potentially tippy and awkward to negotiate) and surrounded by cushions and low poofs to sit on. Each table is set with a large bottle of water and two glasses and candle. Colorful rugs overlap to cover the floor, sometimes bunching up to catch an unawares foot. Moroccan music plays over a speaker system.
The hostess led me to the back corner, where five other patrons were seated--two women drinking wine and just digging into their food, and three middle-aged blokes in a corner who were just ready to order.
The space was crowded with cushions and tables, and I edged in beside my table to flop with little grace onto a booth-like row of cushions. They were draped in slip covers that needed constant adjusting.
The menu here has a goatskin cover that still wears its fur. I didn't know whether to pet it or read it. I opted for both. For supper, I chose a stew of lamb, prunes (finding out the yikes-bite-too-hard-way that they're unpitted), golden raisins, apples, and almonds served with couscous and a huge silver pot of mint tea. During the meal, I eavesdropped on the three men, who swapped celery and prunes from each others' chicken and lamb plates, and bantered about women, food, grade school experiences, and actors.Halfway through my meal, the cook came into our little alcove on a mission to get through the door that was virtually inaccessible for the cushions and tables clustered here. With a long-legged reach, sneakered feet, and a "'Scuse me, 'scuse me, sorry" he stepped broadly over the cushions and nearly on top of one of the nearest of the three men, opened the door, and descended into a basement. A few minutes later, he emerged with six large, plastic-wrapped styro-trays of meat stacked under his right arm and clambored his way back over the cushions and guests, again muttering, "'Scuse me, 'scuse me, sorry." John Cleese in Fawlty Towers couldn't have done it better.
As I paid my bill, a two-foot tall glass unit arrived at the men's table nearby, smoking from the top and snaking a 3-foot long tube.
"What is that?" I asked, leaning with interest as the one called Steve, whom the cook had climbed over, pulled the ceramic end of the tubing toward himself.
"A shisha pipe," he said in a difficult to follow Irish-based accent. "Also called a hubble bubble."
A hubble bubble? Surely I hadn't heard that right. Images of the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland came to mind. "How does it work?"
He pointed to the tower of glass and its various bowls and bulges. "Not sure, really. There's water at the bottom here, and it's drawn up as steam through here, where the tobacco is--it's a resin, actually, not like a cigarette tobacco--and the top here is very hot--don't touch that. It's glowing coals, that is." He put his hand above it, and I did the same to feel the heat of the burning ring at the top."And how do you do it?"
"Like that bloke in America, Bill Clinton," Steve joked. "No, he didn't inhale, did he?" He offered me a puff, and I surprised myself by saying, "Yes, thanks, but after you've tried it first. You ordered it. Show me."
He took a deep inhale. "Tastes like bubblegum."
"Yeah, right," we all laughed.
Another fella tried a puff and put the tube from his mouth with a grimace. "Foul."
I took an inhale deep enough to make the pipe gurgle from the base. This drew praise from the others. "You made it bubble. That's good."
The flavor was slightly sweet, not tobacco-ey as I expected. Yes, and slightly like bubblegum, or, as Steve pronounced it, "booblegoom." I found out later from Norman that the tobacco resin is soaked in honey and something else I can't remember. I'd already had a very sweet meal, so I didn't taste as much as I might have from the pipe, but smoke blew out of my nose as if I were a baby dragon.
They offered me some more ("Oh, you know you want to" said the one who had proclaimed the stuff foul), but as I was already running late for the theater in waiting for my bill to come, I declined with thanks. The tobacco's sweet flavor recurred several times on my way to the performance, accompanied by a hint of headiness. Such is the lightweight that I am with this kind of stuff, even after a full meal.
