Restaurant review: Divining divinity The night wasn't getting any younger, but we were just starting The only thing that theologians and scientists agree upon is that the world makes sense. Nothing is wasted, everything comes back. You throw in matter, you get back energy. You throw in a good deed you get points back, belatedly perhaps, but surely. It's all like the mileage on frequent travellers scheme -- someone, somewhere, is keeping score. In a world that makes sense, a chain of cause and effect is in motion, and you are part of it. So, when bad things happen, you have to feel bad about them, to feel good. The worse you feel, the better you feel. Bombing in Russia, my fault. Police brutality and allegations of torture, definitely my fault. Our national football team can barely take on the Bulgarian street sweepers varsity, time to go for a jog. The government listens only erratically to our squeaky, pint-sized opposition, time to buy vitamins and a hearing aid. I rarely see the Owls, for they start their day when I am ending mine. But finally we're sitting together at a sandwich eatery off mediaeval Cairo, a place that springs to life at about 9pm and don't ask me when it closes. One of the Owls slips on his tongue and tells the owner I am reviewing the place. In retaliation, I interview the owner, in slow motion. "Continuity is the secret," says the 56 year old Abdel-Aziz Mustafa Hamzah, aka Zizo, creator of the 30-year-old establishment that carries his name. "I love Egypt," he volunteers and I nod in patriotic consent. "It's all about competition. If you want to stay on top: continuity." Zizo started out in Tawfiqiya in the 1960s, a helper in a small eatery, then moved on to a tiny place opposite Bab Al-Futuh, where he still works to this day, every single day, with his three college-educated kids by his side, continuity. He makes the pickles himself, buys the sausages from a factory in Alexandria called Kwana, goes to bed at 8am, wakes up at 1.30pm, and wants to beat the big American franchises at their own game. Continuity, he insists. I return to my table 45 minutes later. Salads arrive, with excellent French fries and brilliant home-made pickles. I get the breaded brains, which taste scientific, bordering on prescient. The chicken livers come dripping with a complex mustard-based topping. The sausages taste local, soft and supple. For the grand finale, we get the sakalans (play on excellence) special, which is a riotous concoction of sweets -- sesame cake, honey, and marmalade -- topped with cream. The mosque across the road belongs to the sixth of the Fatimid rulers, Al-Hakim bi Amr Allah, a real eccentric if ever there was one. He once had all the honey in Cairo thrown down the river, banned shoemakers from making footwear for women so that the latter would stay at home, and prohibited the consumption of mulukhiya. He also destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (built in 333 on the site of a temple for Aphrodite), setting in motion the Crusades. You cannot question his motives, not in front of his followers who declared him divine. In 921, aged 36, he went up the Muqattam hills to meditate, and never came back. Only his donkey was found later by state dignitaries. Until recently, a sect of his followers (the Druze, now flaming leftists) kept a donkey tied up all the time atop a mountain in Lebanon, waiting for Al-Hakim to return and make us all happy once more. During the Fatimid era (969-1171), fanaticism and sectarian war were rampant in these areas: Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine. Now, that's continuity. Zizo, (02) 5926530, 1 Midan Bab Al- Futuh, off the northern gate of Islamic Cairo, is open 9pm to 6am. Sidewalk seating. Great view of the old city walls, built by Armenian artisans in the early 11th century. Dinner for six, LE60 By Nabil Shawkat
