This evening, for the first time in probably about a year (the last time I ate there, I developed dysentery the following day), I went for dinner in the atrium at the 'Sheraton'. Although filled with smoke and men, it really is somewhat special. A little like a huge gazebo, it sits in the garden; a glassed-in octagonal structure with a skylight, a traditional place for drinking tea and coffee from an antique silver and pottery service (not that it is used for anything more than decoration), and waiters carrying carrying around buckets of coal to add to diner's nargile. To one side of the dining area is a table displaying a row of seven huge shiny silver chafing dishes, dishes that only come out on Thursday - because Thursday is pacha day! Each of the dishes contains part of today's specialty.
The truth is that although the picture above is labelled 'pacha', the dish doesn't really look like that. First there is a deep dish that is filled with the contents of the first two chafing dishes... lamb's brain served in the half-skull (but it doesn't have any teeth or eyes showing as above - the whole thing is whitish) and soft flat bread soaked in broth. Then a second plate is loaded with one item from each of the other chafing dishes, stomach and intestines stuffed with rice, tongue, foot and one other unrecognizable part of the lamb. I personally couldn't stomach this although my dining companion desperately wanted me to. However, the truth is that while I ate my grilled chicken, I felt just a little wimpy because beside our table was a party of five little girls. The youngest two of these girls were greedily licking their fingers and running back to the chef to have yet another stomach placed on their pacha plates. Perhaps if I was born in Iraqi Kurdistan (among other places) I wouldn't find the idea of offal so horrifyingly awful.
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