Yesterday at Chicken Company, a man said I was a cross between Mr. Magoo and Pat Morita, of The Karate Kid fame. If I’m not compared to a freshly perforated corpse, I’m complimented. Chowing out with his hijabed wife and mewing toddler, dude was perfectly groomed, with each black hair impossibly sculpted.
What can I tell you, I love fried chicken, so Chicken Company is the best restaurant in the world. “EAT CHICKEN CO AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW,” blares an English diktat on its wall. Don’t be fooled by its formica, fast-food harshness, or the polyester outfits of its associates, this is fine dining, sez moi.
Eating cheap fried chicken on a bridge under a slight drizzle in New Orleans has to be one of my most satisfying memories. Travel worn, I was a mess.
Granted, Chicken Company’s rice, roll and french fries are rather blasé, but, doggone it, perfection must always be tempered, tinted or farted upon by at least a smear of crap, to remind us we’re still on earth.
Draped along the Mediterranean, Beirut is a legendary city with Roman, Crusader and Ottoman ruins, French colonial buildings and dozens of bars with history, thus character, so I should be elated, but I’m in a serious funk, man, because this elegant place is so sadistically degraded. The last time I felt this way was in Kiev in 2016, because Ukraine, too, was going through war and economic collapse.
There are too many beggars here. Men, women, old, young, some trailing kids or lugging a baby, they are all neatly dressed, thus still dignified. Most know only one English phrase, “one thousand,” meaning 66 cents at the official rate, but just 15 cents in purchasing value. The cheapest sandwich costs 4,000.
After I had already given a woman several thousands, she hounded me for two more blocks, tugging my arm at times, until I gave a bit more. Today’s Beirut reminds me of Saigon two decades ago.
Wandering around, boys under ten try to sell stems of flowers. Teenaged boys offer shoeshines with a soft-spoken “please” in English. Old men and women push facial tissues to cars at intersections. Near the bus and van terminal, I walked by a little girl sitting by herself, on cardboard. On a leafy median strip facing a hospital, I encountered a black African mother, with two kids, relaxing on stacked mattresses, their home.
Even the well-heeled are being squeezed. With capital controls, only so much can be withdrawn each week. Since this causes all sorts of problems, some have vented their rage on banks. Earlier this year, dozens in Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli were torched, so now, many banks are boarded up, with just a door slot, or even steel plated. These flat surfaces only invite more angry graffiti, and look at this smashed ATM, with red paint splattered on it. The handsome central bank is defaced with black curses, some quite high up, which means the vandal had to climb on its steel grills, perhaps. Its two surveillance cameras failed to deter.
Armed with assault rifles, soldiers guard government buildings, embassies and even some banks, mosques and churches. They man roadblocks. Armored vehicles are casually parked at certain corners. After a while, you hardly notice the concrete barriers, concrete sentry boxes, concrete pill boxes, anti-tank barriers, boom barriers and razor barb wire, for they’re just part of this urbanscape, along with the trendy cafes and hipster bars. Steel, concrete or plastic barriers are arrayed in front of buildings or stores to shoo away car bombs.
At the Al-Omari Grand Mosque, I stared at a pushed-in window, with its aluminum frame concave, its glasses broken, and several of its wooden panels, with their cool, modernist slits, simply blown away. Before it was converted into a mosque in 1291, this was a church built by Crusaders in the 11th century.
The port explosion four months ago damaged thousands of homes and businesses, including 165 hotels, with most still not reopened. At the five-star Le Gray, there’s a large banner, “STANDING STRONG / TOGETHER WE SHALL RISE AGAIN / SEE YOU SOON.” Most nearby luxury shops are shuttered. Entire streets are barricaded by razor wire-topped concrete slabs, to keep out looters. The misleadingly-named Beirut Souks shopping center is a ghost town. The poorest can’t even replace their blasted doors.
In all of Lebanon, there was just one Vietnamese restaurant, Le Hanoi, so I called, just to make sure it was still open, but all I heard was recorded piano music.
Days later, I found myself walking in that direction, so why not, I kept going, even under a slackening hailstorm. Drenched, I was finally at that address, but Le Hanoi was still awol, so I called again. Presto, a man answered!
“Are you open today, brother?” I said in Vietnamese.
“Yes, we are.”
Wonderful! I beamed. “I’m standing right at the corner, but I don’t see your restaurant.”
Oddly, he said nothing for several seconds. When I heard a man’s voice again, I repeated, “I’m at the corner, brother, but I don’t see your restaurant.”
“Wrong number,” this second man said in English.
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
So eager to inhale a bowl of pho, I had mistaken spoken Arabic for Vietnamese! I’m seriously losing it. After my phone mishap, I did manage to find what’s left of Le Hanoi. Empty, stripped, darkened and unlocked, it’s dead.
Le Hanoi was on the edge of Gemmayzeh, a trendy, cosmopolitan and Christian neighborhood just east of Martyrs’ Square and the former Green Line. Walking down Gouraud, you’ll pass Swiss Butter, Mitsu-ya, Sandwiched, The Plub and Electric Bing Sutt, etc., all reopened and lively in the evening. Sacré Coeur College and St Anthony Catholic Church bookend this commercial strip.
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