adventures at lunch and other random things

today's lunch started off as it normally does, with the guys and i piling into marcus' car and heading to the villagio food court. i don't know how, but it was quickly decided that instead i should try some arab food and they were going to take me to their favourite restaurant coincidentally in my neighbourhood. a quick u-turn and we were on our way. i was feeling confident after my first experience, but when we pulled up to this:

i began to have my doubts. you walked into a small room with a counter with food on display and men behind it, sort of cafeteria style and ordered your food:

they had a bunch of soups, stews and arabic pasta (who even knew that existed?!) but as you can see, all the trays were stacked and it wasn't clear how they were being kept hot or cold. i decided to avoid the meat and went with stuffed peppers. you gave the man your order, he prepared the dish in front of you, but instead of handing it to you, he put it through a window to the right. you then walked through a door and got sat like at a regular restaurant. a waiter came and took your drink order and then retrieved  your food from the window ledge and brought it over.

i always liked cat's and these sadly did not measure up :(

just after my peppers came, a waiter brought my coworker's fish:

say hi to tp!

 and i quickly lost my appetite. the plates were rearranged so that thing was staring at me with his toothy mouth open and he STANK. ew! so much for lunch!

i did have a can of coke with my peppers. want to see an arabic can?

unlike the coke at mcdonald's, this tastes like home :) and check out the pull tab, it comes up and off instead of going into the can. also a random thing i have noticed at arabic restaurants (not the american chains) is that they put a kleenex at your spot instead of a napkin and leave a box at the end of the table. luckily i haven't spilled!

just for fun, here's a shot i took on the way back to the office:

this is the street my office is on and those crazy street lamps were put in for the asian games, held in qatar in 2006. the flags you see hanging is the qatari flag, produced and hung by my company for the upcoming national day.