A lil bit of this, a lil bit of that

I wish Sepi wasn't taking a blogging hiatus right now. I think she would've been proud of me(?)

aqua angel, Daisy, Bizkette, and I were adventurous lil chicas last nite. On a curious urge, I suggested Cafe Mediterranean downtown. I had read an article about them serving up "sheesha" and the way they described it, it sounded a lot like the hookah Miss Sepi has been talking about and that I've seen on elimiDATE a couple of times. I later learned that sheesha is the Egyptian term for the hookah, same thing.

We ate like lil queens...it was crazy. First we had the mozza platter which was basically an appetizer sampler (always Daisy's order of choice, no matter where we are) and it came with some vine leaves, baba ghannoush, hummas, and falafel. I wasn't a big fan of the vine leaves, but I loved the baba ghanny. It's some sort of egplant dip. I adore eggplant.

I also had Matee tea. It's not Arabic (the theme of Cafe Mediterranean) at all so I was surprised. It's actually from Latin America, and it's this sludge of lots of grains and seeds or something. You just keep adding hot water to it and sipping it through a strainer/straw. Wasn't the most delicious thing in the world, but the waiter kept talking about how it's good for you, and I had heard that same thing from other sources so I gave it a try. Perhaps it's the long lost cure to cancer? One could only wish.

After all that crazy amounts of appetizers we had our entrees. I had a yearning for a falafel pita and hence that's what I had and so did Daisy. Bizkette had a Mediterranean pizza which had an amazing crust. aqua angel had this chicken dish, and for the life of me I can not remember the name, but it looked mighty good. Unfortunately, I can't eat meat on Fridays, but that just means I'll have to go back! Yes!

Despite our full full tummies, we had to order baklava for dessert. How could one not order baklava??? Mm mm mmmmm.

Best part of the night had to be the sheesha pipe. I'm still trying to gather information about whether or not it's bad for my health, but it went down so smooth it's easy to convince oneself that it's harmless. Upon Sepi's recommendation during a previous IM chat we ordered the mixed fruit. It was great. I loved the experience, kind of like a peace pipe sort of social thing. It gave us a reason to just sit down and take it easy, having lots of conversation and enjoying each others company as we all smoked the pipe. Although all my friends have tried smoking at one point or another (except for me), I consider Bizkette the only true smoker, whereas I am the only true non-smoker. But all of us enjoyed the sheesha/hookah tons.

And you know what else was kind of cool? The majority of the time, we were the only girls at the establishment, and yet noone was scuzzy about that. You have to love that.

I'm pretty sure we'll be back....a lil less eats (admittedly we kinda went buckwild on the food ordering) and a lot more smoke, and that's a quote from aqua angel.