The Heart of Doha – Disney Does Doha?
“No, it’s not DOHALAND!” I snapped at my friend. ‘It’s called the ‘Heart of Doha’ project.”
We were exploring the project in it’s first phase, the destruction phase, which is turning old haunts into several circles of hell – shopping hell, driving hell, parking hell, disorientation hell. And just as we were inching our way into a new diversion, I saw the big sign describing the future this funky area of Doha and telling us to go to ‘Dohaland.com.’
Oops. I apologized profusely and she very humbly pretended not to be gleeful that she was right and I was wrong. Well, actually, we are both right. It is both ‘Dohaland’ and ‘The Heart of Doha,’ but I shouldn’t have snapped at her over something so inconsequential. Blame it on the rain . . . umm . . . .err . . . the traffic.
Dohaland. I’m sorry, it sort of cracks me up. It’s just like Disney – JungleLand, FutureLand, etc.
I remember when the Suq al Waqif project first started, how outraged I felt, and how delighted I am to go down there now, where the shop-keepers have electricity that is reliable, even air-conditioning wafting out into the corridors, the appearance of ancient woven mats shading the twisting cobblestone street which no longer reaches out and grabs your heels, or changes levels unexpectedly. How can you be a successful curmudgeon when it turns out so positively? Even if it is a little bit Disney-does-Doha, it is so attractive!
What I love about what has been accomplished so far is how it has enhanced the experience for everyone. If you go down into the souks, you see more people. You used to see only a few westerners, now you see all kinds, even tourists, even your neighbors; you see every nationality down in the souks now, and people are actually buying things, not just killing time. There is a great variety of shops and restaurants, and even if the parking spots are tiny, there is parking.
Have you visited the website yet? Dohaland.com? I love the vision, although in one shot with people in suits crossing the streets, I want to shout “Hurry! Hurry! Or you’ll get run over!”
Here is what it is going to look like – and you can go to the Dohaland website and get a great big full screen map:
And here is what it looks like now:
These machines are like huge dentist’s drills, with points that pound down into the hard-packed Qatar soil to break it up so that foundations can be built:
It’s not unlike house-cleaning. When you pull everything out of the closets, out from under the beds, the drawers, those piles of things in the corner, for a while everything looks worse than it did before you started. Slowly, slowly, you create areas of organization and calm amidst the chaos, and slowly, slowly those areas expand, join, until the chaos is eliminated, you know where things are, and your living area is a calm and peaceful and organized oasis. I hope I get to see that day in Doha.
Update: Dohaland AKA Heart of Doha is now known as Musherib
Mermaid Fabric
One of the things my friend and I were seeking on our Souk Quest was mermaid fabric. My friend has a grand daughter who loves to be The Little Mermaid, and I knew that the exact right fabric existed in the souk, I had seen it and didn’t have any excuse to buy it.
We found it. It is perfect – sea green, and shiny scales:
Doha is full of wonderful fabrics for dress-up.
Where Al Rayyan Used to Begin
Leaving the Suq al Waqif, we got a shock – where you could once go straight ahead onto Al Rayyan, you can’t!
There is a left turn, a shaky bridge, and then you can go right to access Al Rayyan. It all appears temporary, and when the fix is accomplished, it will probably be a better intersection.
But this is Doha. When you think you know the route, suddenly, and often without notice, your traffic pattern makes a sudden change. The temporary diversion may last for weeks, or months, or . . .
I’m a map person, I remember once discovering that the road I intended to take, the road on the map, wasn’t there yet! In Doha, a map is only an overview, it is not reality based, the roads you see may or may not be open. In the end, I am sure there is going to be a smooth traffic pattern, but oh, in the meantime!
This is a relatively small change, with a relatively easy fix.
The Majliss in Doha
When we lived in Doha the last time, we often brought people to The Majliss. Most Americans had never been there, never knew it was there. It is off Al Sadd – if you are going from C Ring to D Ring, you turn right at the Kentucky Fried Chicken and stay on the slip road that goes in front of the stores. At the second possible right, you turn right, and you will see the Royal Tandoor on your left, and The Majliss on your right.
There two really great things about The Majliss. First, the food is really, really good. Second, they have a bunch of individual rooms where you can sit on the floor, majliss style, with cushions and a big, low table. Some rooms are small, some are large enough for maybe 12 – 14 people.
They also have booths, some that have curtains you can pull if you need privacy, like if you are a woman wearing niqab and you want to eat without people seeing your face. They also have booths without curtains, and a more open area where mostly just men eat.
There was a time when soldiers would come here from Iraq, and you could sort of check them out like library books to take out for dinner, or to the malls, or to your house. We often took them to the Majliss, and it always blew them away, it was such a great experience. The Majliss is also where we took our son and his wife when they first came to visit us in Doha. We have so many happy memories at The Majliss.
This time, it was our visiting Kuwait friends, and since we all know what it is like to sit in a Majliss, and we all have older knees and hips, we chose to sit in a booth. Here is what is cool – our Kuwait friends loved it as much as our American friends do.
This was our first time back at the Majliss since our return to Doha. We worried that it had changed, deteriorated, that the food would not be so good as we remembered. We had a happy surprise – it is the same, but even better. 🙂
I have to admit, one reason I love the Majliss is because they have Mohammara, made of walnuts and chilis and other good stuff. This one was really good, a little spicy!
And oh, the fresh, hot bread . . .
Now, I am embarrassed to tell you, when our main dinners came, I forgot to take photos until late . . . so this is where the delicious Majliss hammour used to be – my very particular and discerning Kuwaiti friend ate every bite!
And here is what is left of my Shrimp machboos, before we gobbled the rest of it all up:
And the kabob, just before it disappeared entirely!
We were all so full, we didn’t even have room to order the creme caramel, which always comes swimming in caramel, yummmm. We had Turkish coffee and rolled ourselves out the door – stuffed!
Prices are reasonable, it is a great place for good local food at reasonable prices – the Michelin red “R” in Doha.
Suq al Waqif Bird Market
As we were heading into the Suq al Waqif for breakfast Saturday morning (Yes! Several of the restaurants are open for breakfast!) we saw a man and his son, both carrying falcons.
AdventureMan joked that they are hired by the administrators to walk around adding local color. We scoffed. Maybe someday, but for right now, these are still real people, with their own falcons. We know because our Kuwaiti visitor stopped them and asked about the falcons. They were so sweet and so delighted to tell us about their birds, and to allow us to photograph them:
There was also a lively bird auction going on:
What we love about the renovated market is that it is still a true market, where real people by daily items for use.
Grossing out the World
I admit it. I failed. I only got 5 out of 11. See how you can do:
http://www.fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf Dining Out in the World
Tests your knowledge of eating etiquette around the world. 🙂
Crab Cakes in Doha
We wanted to have a light dinner at home to welcome our house guests, and then take them on a night-tour of Doha. I remembered the wonderful Crab Cakes my friend and her daughter made in Seattle, and I was determined to have . . . well, I knew it wouldn’t be the same, but something LIKE those crab cakes.
So I found the best crab I could buy in Doha, and made up the crab cakes. Wrong crab. Wrong breading – I couldn’t find any panko (I know there is panko in Doha, I just know it, but I couldn’t find it when I was looking for it!) so I whirled up some lime Tostito chips in the food processor and used those.
They were actually pretty good, when I first made them. Not the same, not Pacific Northwest Dungeness Crab, but not bad.
This is four cans of crab meat – you can find the recipe for Crab Cakes by clicking on the blue type; I already printed it back in August or September.
The crushed tostitos weren’t bad for breading, but you only use a little, on the outside, to help them firm up for cooking:
I served them with Plum Sauce, which also wasn’t as good as the fresh home-made plum sauce my friend’s daughter made:
They were OK. If I didn’t know what Pacific Northwest Crab tasted like, fresh out of the ocean and steamed right away, I probably would have thought they were pretty good. I’m not going to make them again here.
Karabaa in Transition
This post is for my friends not here, friends who often accompanied me on trips to Karabaa and all the funky magical shops we would find there. I dropped off the towels at the Mumtaz Tailor to be embroidered, English on one end, Arabic on the other, and while the devastation is no longer so gut-wrenchingly stunning as it was – I guess I am becoming desensitized – I can also see changes.
A lot of the rubble has been carted away. So it makes me wonder, is this what The Pearl is being built on? Is rubble from the old Suq al Waqif and these old buildings along Musherib and Karabaa going to the sea to become reclaimed land? If so, isn’t this going to boggle the minds of archaeologists a couple thousand years from now who are going to find all this stuff jumbled together and try to figure it out?
Yes, yes, it’s true, my mind does wander into trivial areas . . .
From the old parking lot, looking towards Karabaa where the honey man used to be:
To help you know what you are looking at – remember the sign that shows people how to park? It’s still standing – so far 🙂
I wanted you to be able to see just how high the pile of rubble is:
All the rubble that was The Garden is now gone, as if it never was:
OK, now, in the midst of all this noise and demolition, the rubble and the trucks and bulldozers, there is this oasis of serenity. I often see old men sitting outside on those old fashioned built-in-plaster seating areas, or on the bench. Inside, it looks like it might even be a home for old indigents, but sort of palatial, very green, and well kept up. Is there anyone who can tell me what this is?
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In my book club last year, one of the themes that continued to arise as we read books from many cultures was how we are perceived by the people we hire to help us in our homes. In The White Tiger, a Man Booker Award Winner, the main character lucks into a job working for a family as a driver. We see the people for whom he works from the inside, their sweet acts and all their flaws. We see how callous they can be, and, ultimately, how the driver takes his revenge and becomes his own boss. (Not one of my favorite books, but then again, I’m still thinking about it a year later, so there is something to be said for it.)
In Half of a Yellow Sun we saw an entirely different relationship (in a book I totally loved, BTW) between employer and employee, but it shared with White Tiger the aspect of employer as seen from the eyes of an employee inside the house who sees the family and all its interactions intimately.
The Help, a surprise best seller, does the same to 1960’s era Mississippi. A recent graduate from Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) starts interviewing the maids from local households, any maid that will talk to her. At first, no one will talk with her, but after traumatizing racial clashes, one by one, they share their stories. Just interviewing the maids, just the maids sharing their stories, is enough to bring on serious consequences.
First, the book is riveting. I have a million things I really REALLY need to be doing, and I can’t stop reading. There is something about peeking into your neighbors house, seeing how they behave when they think no one is looking, that appeals to the voyeur in each of us.
Second, these women are taking serious risks. I am on the edge of my chair with each reading, hoping nothing bad happens to them.
Third, there is something that makes you squirm, it is the old “wee giftie” that shows us the worst in ourselves as others might see us; our own hypocrisies, our condescensions, our patronizing acts, how cruel our charitable acts can appear through the eyes of others, and how callous we are in the end towards those who take care of us every day.
It has rocketed onto the best seller list, now the #6 best selling book on Amazon.
If your book club is looking for a book to read that will get you talking and keep you talking for a long time, this is one of the best.
If you have hired help in the house, I double-dog-dare-you to read this book. (OOps, sometimes the little Alaska girl in me pops back out!) Fair warning, though, once you start, you won’t want to put it down.
LOL Cats Really Made Me Laugh
I was such a bad mother. Here’s the problem. Life doesn’t come with instructions. You get faced with new situations, you just have to do the best you can. You might think your parents know a lot, but we are just like you – sometimes we are over our heads.
The first time we moved to Florida, our cats got fleas. The whole house got fleas! We had to give the cats flea-shampoos and we had to flea-proof the house.
Here’s where I was a bad mother. I made our son shampoo the cats. We did it as a team, but he was the one who had to stand in the shower and do the actual shampooing. I was the one who caught the second cat and held her while he shampooed the first cat (it was a walk-in shower with a door that shut, so once inside, the cat couldn’t get out) and then I towel-dried the totally-freaked-out cat while my son shampooed the second cat, etc.
My son – my hero. There is a part of me that still feels guilty for making him to the shampooing. It’s because we didn’t have the chain mail:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
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