Yep, dem Bahrainis are pretty pissed off at us Lebos…

First: They cancelled all direct flights
Second: They are denying entrance to all Lebanese Nationals
Third: The Bahraini government advised all its citizens to leave Lebanon
And fourth: They cut off all telecommunication ties! (I just found this out!)

You can’t call Bahrain from Lebanon, and vice versa

Yep… dem Bahrainis are pretty pissed off

Sarkis Mansour is putting the final touches to an encyclopedia he has been writing for 44 years now. He has been collecting pictures and documents since 1967.

I am not still sure what record he wants to break, the oldest hand-written encyclopedia? Is there such a thing? [Link]

I’m sure the guy shat his pants when the car hit the railing!

Footage shot in the 1950s showing daily village life, the loocal market and country views. Taken from the Huntley Film Archives. [YouTube]

I have a feeling there will be lots of parts concerning Jounieh and other cities’ incompetence because it’s getting worse every day. After posting about the public intoxicated park they are planning [Part1], I hereby present you the most stupidly engineered roundabout worldwide, a roundabout that I believe will soon enter the Guinness book of records.

Here’s how a normal roundabout should look like.

And here’s how it was designed and implemented.

Pure Genius Ain’t it? As a result of that, cars getting stuck are going the wrong way since there are almost two lanes there thereby causing more traffic.

Taken from the Huntley Film Archives [YouTube]

I mean seriously?! [YouTube]

via Anti Racism Movement

A seven-year-old girl in Germany got more than she bargained for when she opened the toilet seat to find an escaped boa constrictor staring back at her, police say. [Link]

And to make things worse, the boa dissapeared before the animal rescue department came to collect it.

Maybe we should go back to the Turkish bathroom, nothing’s gonna surprise us there! [Photo]

Whenever I am in Lebanon I like going up towards Faraya and having lunch at Al Arzal. The past few times I’ve been there though the food wasn’t as good and the fact that they don’t have tabbouleh which I’ve suddenly fallen in love with after 30 years of hating it meant I needed to find a new place. I wanted to try Al Balad in Faqra but they close during the winter so we decided to find a new place. After asking some friends we were pointed towards a place called Jalsat in Mayrouba. When we got there it turned out to be a place that serves burgers and sandwiches, a place which actually would be cool to pass by after a day of skiing but not a place we felt like having our Sunday lunch. So we headed towards our “Plan B”, a place called Mat3am Al Mawasem. Supposedly the place had amazing food but when we got there we were turned off by the very plain and boring interior seating area. It was basically a large hall with white marble floor and cream colored walls filled with white plastic tables and chairs. They might have good food but with no view and a boring interior we decided to pass on this place. Finally we headed to another place that was also in Mayrouba called Cave Al Siwan.

The restaurant is located next to a small river stream and looked like a large stone hut. We spoke to the guy at the door and he told us they didn’t have any room inside but they had room in the “maghara” which was across the street on a ground floor of an apartment building. I figured since the place was very popular and since they couldn’t expand the restaurant due to the way its built and located, they just purchased the floor across the street and turned it into a disconnected extension. After a bit of “na7na jayeen awal mara oo 7abeen na3od jouwa” nagging the guy magically found us a free table to sit at.

Once I walked into the place I just loved it. The walls and ceiling were covered in stone with goat skin hung up randomly on the walls. It just looked very weird and I wanted something that was weird and out of the ordinary. Our table had a basic mezza laid out before we even sat down, thats because you pay per person and you eat everything they have. As soon as we sat down and started eating they started adding more and more items to the table like raw meat, hot french fries, tabbouleh, fattoosh, makanek, stomachs, pigeon eggs, shrimps and more and they kept adding stuff without removing any dishes so you ended up with plates piled up on top of other plates and you just ended up with a table literally covered with layers of delicious food. We gave our waiter a LL20,000 tip to hook us up and I ended up getting a bucket of ice filled with Almaza beer compared to the single bottle I was getting before the tip. It was just amazing, over-indulgence at its best.

[YouTube]

I am really not a fan of Arabic music, I actually hate it but the stuff they were playing was different from the usual and I found it actually pretty weird, I swear if you watch the video above which I recorded it sounds like an Arabized version of the Trololo song. People were really kicking it and it was like 2PM in the afternoon! That combination of darkness because there were no windows and the unlimited supply of Arak probably had something to do with that.

The food was pretty good. I thought the tabbouleh had too much na3na3 (mint) but that was actually my only complaint. Price wise it was around $30 per person. I am not sure if that’s a lot or normal since I don’t live in Lebanon but for the amount of food and the atmosphere I thought that was very reasonable. Finding the place isn’t that hard, if you’re on the road to Faraya, once you see the Mayrouba sign take a left and head into Mayrouba, you should then start spotting signs taking you to Cave Al Siwan. In the gallery below you should find a map that was on the back of their business card plus a phone number. I would highly recommend you reserve before you get there.

Would I go back again? Yes I would since I had a great time and I loved everything about the place. Keep in mind though that I was under the heavy influence of alcohol that day and so my judgement could have been affected.

There appears to be some good news regarding the kidnapped Estonian tourists [Link] in the Beqaa. Special Army & ISF Units are closing in on their location and apparently have found out where they are being held.

According to news agency AFP, Lebanese security forces have identified their location and are being guided there by non-Lebanese individuals.

Let us hope that the tourists and our security forces get out of this mess safely.

The blog Beirut/NTSC posted some very sad news yesterday, it turns out the Gandour “Tarboush” (AKA Rass al 3abed) is actually not a Gandour or Lebanese creation, but it’s actually copied from a Swiss company! They copied everything, the chocolate idea, the branding of it and even the name!

The original name of the Swiss chocolate was “Têtes de nègre” which translates to “Negro heads” in English and “Rass al 3abed” in Arabic. Back in 1992 “Têtes de nègre” was renamed to “Tête au Choco” or “Swiss Chocolate Whips” while in Lebanon Gandour just recently renamed it from “Rass al 3abed” to “Tarboush”.

I thought this was very disappointing since Lebanese generally regard “Rass al 3abed” as our very own product. As a commentator (bodywotwat) on Beirut/NTSC highlighted, this isn’t the only idea Gandour have copied, here are more products:

Safari is inspired from Lion Bar
Pik-One is inspired from KitKat
Pik-One Big is inspired from KitKat Chunky
Queen is inspired from Prince Lu
Hawaii is inspired from Bounty
Tofiluk is inspired from Twix
XL’Z is inspired from M&M’s
Gandour Gum is inspired from Chiclets

Check out Beirut/NTSC’s post [Here]

Update: It seems there is a possibility that Ras al 3abed was actually created in the 1930′s… once I find out more about this will post another update.

If it wasn’t for M3amal el Kahraba bil Zou2 …

I got the following email from a reader:

i was walking with a girlfriend of mine in the streets of Monot less than a month ago around 5 pm when i saw Frida (a restaurant i have heard about from many sources) so i decided to go inside to take a look at the menu and the place. There was a menu outside so I read it and continued my walk.

As we walked out of Frida, I saw Roomers (a restaurant i had read about). When I read about Roomers, the concept got my attention and i said to myself that I’d like to try it sometime. That’s why I decided to know a bit more about it. Outside was a menu that wasn’t very clear nor readable; my friend and I were trying to read it when a person came from behind us and asked us very politely to come in to the restaurant and check it out. So we did. In the restaurant, some cleaning and setting up the place were going on (because they open only at night apparently). We were walking around the place a bit and liking it because the decor was very well done. The guy who asked us to come in said: “did u see our menu?”. we answered: ” we tried to but the menu outside isn’t very clear”. so he gave us a menu and went into another room in the restaurant. While checking the menu out and saying that we must come try it, a new guy comes along and says: “please bta3touna d2i2a? 3enna sheghel”. I said: “menfell ya3ne?”. He said: “eh please, 3enna sheghel w ana l owner hon”. I said: ” bas l shabb allna nfout netfarraj 3al ma7al”. He asked: ” ayya shabb?” . A guy who was standing there during the whole thing said: “el chef”. The owner said: ” ah el chef! eh bas ana l owner hon w 3enna sheghel”. So we put the menu down, thanked him and left. We couldn’t even say anything because we were extremely shocked; shocked that a restaurant owner would talk so impolitely to potential clients!!

Anyway i thought that telling you this story might be an act “yfeshelle khel2e” cz u might understand what it feels like, being a restaurant fan too.

If the owner or restaurant would like to respond to the above [Contact Us]

I had posted some 3 months ago about the Jounieh memorial I spotted on the highway [Link]. Today I confirmed it was indeed a Pieta in memory of someone who died on this highway.

I wonder if he was trying to cross the highway when this happened or if it was a car accident. You would have to be out of your mind to try and cross this highway during the day.