Posted by kampunghouse on March 22, 2009
March marks the end of what has been an extremely hot summer in Melbourne, and the city traditionally farewells the scorching season with a festival celebrating water, called the Moomba Festival. It’s quite different from conventional notions of ‘celebration’ where tonnes of the stuff would be carelessly used in lush abundance, such as the tomato-throwing parade in Spain. No, with a water storage level hovering at a mere 30%, the Moomba festival has taken on more serious themes like water conservation and the importance of using less and less.
Rain is such a rarity in Melbourne that everytime there’s a downpour, it’ll be on the 6 o’clock news headlines. “Melbourne awash with rain”, “Welcome shower for drought-stricken Melburnians” blurts out the newscasters with undisguised tones of joy. Because there’s not much you can do with water that’s not there, the water activities in the Moomba festival is mainly limited to water skiing type shows on the river Yarra that snakes through the city. The other drawcards are mostly wholesome family fun activities such as fun fairs, rides and a parade along the city’s main thoroughfare which is more community-minded than spectacular.


This year in an effort to make the festival more appealing to the younger crowds, a concert was held showcasing, we are led to believe, Australia’s hottest acts. I guess I blame myself for being naïve enough into thinking that a free concert could be any good. Having said that, many in the crowd appear to genuinely enjoy themselves, so it could be either they’re drunk or it just wasn’t my kind of music.
In early February a large slice of Victoria was ravaged by bushfires on a day where the mercury reached 45.6°C. It was a horrible day in the city where the strong winds made you feel like a giant hairdryer was being used to blow the Earth. I can’t imagine how it must’ve felt for the communities that were affected by the fierce fires. Many lives were lost and towns and houses completely ruined.

A huge concert was organised a few weeks later to build up funds for the fire relief effort. The photo above shows the weather on that day. How ironic that it ended up being the wettest day of the year so far. Weather-wise, Victoria is a most baffling place.

Melbourne has this lingering image as a wet, rainy city. This reputation is actually undeserved considering it now receives less rainfall than cities like Brisbane or Sydney which has often been seen as the sunny cities of Australia. I suspect the culprits behind this fraud are Melburnians themselves, who wish to cling on to Melbourne’s image as the most European of Australia’s cities by evoking memories of dark grey clouds and suited up city workers sheltering under uniform black umbrellas. In any case, it was a relief to experience some dark comforting gloominess once in a while. The bright blue sky and sunkissed earth thing was starting to bring me down.
Posted in Melbourne | Tagged: Black Saturday, bushfires, Melbourne, Moomba festival, Victoria | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kampunghouse on March 18, 2009
The Old City of Damascus is essentially a tangled network of alleyways criss-crossing and snaking through buildings patched up and conjured through centuries of trade and human settlement. This medieval city feels more like a village that has completely outgrown itself, with no planning or consideration for later, modern inventions such as the private automobile. This makes it the perfect city for the wandering pedestrian, with no cars in sight and all those narrow cobblestone alleyways to get lost in.

The authorities have done a rather remarkable feat naming and putting street signs for the myriad lanes that sew the entire city together, although the sheer number of lanes jutting out from the main thoroughfares renders the effort a token gesture at best, and a lost cause at worst. My Lonely Planet guidebook, in the interest of being thorough, provides a map of the Old City but is smart enough to advise visitors to disregard it, and instead walk straight in and lose yourself amidst the chaos. You’ll eventually find a way out.
The great thing about all that walking is that it works up an appetite, and Syria is a great place for the frugal visitor to hear his stomach grumble. Food is extremely cheap and Syrian food, like most Mediterranean cuisine, is not as confronting as say, the more exotic fare of the East.

It’s hard to pass off a helping of shwarma, the Arabic equivalent to the Turkish kebab, with the addition of gherkins and mayo. However, a full meal will slow my walk and discourage me from further munching, and that’s not cool. No, what I want is something leaning towards a snack, and thankfully there are plenty of stalls specialising in munchies. Most of them can be found in the left alleyway jutting out from the main thoroughfare of Souk al-Hamidiyya, just before the Roman colonnades that form the entrance to the Grand Umayyad Mosque. Here, among shops selling Qurans and touristy keychains and decorative glass beads are stalls selling pies with olive paste stuffing, meat and cheese, as well as the tasty lahmacun, a sort of pizza dish where spicy minced lamb is spread onto a thin dough and sprinkled with a squirt of lemon juice and chili powder.

There are also hole in the wall bakeries scattered throughout the Old City, selling buns which have the most wonderful texture – a delicately crunchy exterior that gives way to a soft centre. There is a croissant whose similarity with the well-known French is only in shape; the Syrian version is more bread than pastry, not at all flaky but much more filling, less decadent, more peasant. Complex carbohydrates are nice, but there’s nothing like a quick hit of sugar to get you going, so I often treated myself to a date bun, a long knotted bread filled with date paste, which is similar to the red bean paste of Asia in both colour and in the subtle flirting between sweet and savoury. The bun is shaped like a Bueno kinder bar, where you can tear off a piece to eat individually, although the expectation of course is to finish the whole thing eventually.
We always ended up buying lots of bread and sesame-topped buns from the bakery, and the breadman (is that what they’re called?), in true Syrian hospitality would offer complimentary pieces of pineapple jam tarts which simply…crumble in your mouth. I was instantly hooked. Is this true Syrian hospitality or a clever marketing ploy? I wasn’t sure.
Note: For a taste of the lahmacun and Arabic-style pies, head over to A1 bakery on Sydney Road Brunswick, where they’re crisped up to order in the traditional oven.
Posted in Food, Syria | Tagged: AI Bakery, Brunswick, bueno kinder, Damascus Old City, lahmacun, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, shwarma, Sydney Road, Syria | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kampunghouse on March 15, 2009
The Middle East’s greatest contribution to the culinary world and global happiness is arguably the baklava, along with its many wonderful variations. These tiny morsels of pleasure, made up of a dense, nutty centre surrounded by flaky phyllo pastry drenched in fragrant syrup, works as a pretty good antidote to ward off afternoon fatigue. Just as your body feels sapped of energy along comes this wonderdrug disguised as food to get you up and going again. I often use it to fight off depression because I very strongly feel that relying on anti-depressant tablets to cure sadness is a bit radical, and I’m a rather moderate person by nature.
Damascus is dotted with shops displaying row upon row of baklava, stacked onto each other to form a sort of pyramid to entice the passing pedestrian. I almost always fail to resist the temptation. The best thing about baklava is that they come in small, manageable pieces, which allows you to sample 3 or 4 or 7 at a time, lending the illusion of excessive consumption when in fact you haven’t eaten that much at all. Contrast this with one of those jumbo cakes in the glass displays of Italian restaurants on Melbourne’s Lygon Street that leaves you totally ashamed of your gluttony once you’ve wiped the last remaining whipped cream off your face.

Another popular destination for the sweet toothed is the venerable Bakdash, an ice-cream parlour with décor stuck in the 70s which has become something of a Damascene institution, and a must-stop for tourists ever since it was included in the Lonely Planet to-do list.
This is one place where you won’t be spoiled for choice because the sole drawcard is the milk-and-rosewater flavoured Arabic ice cream known as bouzat haleeb. It has a distinctly gummy texture, primarily due to the use of mastic gum, an aromatic resin commonly used in the Middle East. For 25 Syrian pounds (1 USD = 48 SYP) you get the equivalent of about 3 overly-generous scoops of Bakdash’s famous ice cream coated in pistachios and redolent of the exotic delights of Syria.

Note: If you’re in Melbourne and curious for a taste of bouzat haleeb, Balha’s dessert shop on Sydney Road Brunswick has a passable version, although the texture is not as gummy and the serving size considerably smaller.
Posted in Food, Syria | Tagged: Arabic ice cream, Bakdash, baklava, bouzat haleeb, Damascus, Syria | 1 Comment »