A new restaurant

We went with some other ex-pats (one family, two couples) to a new restaurant here in town tonight. No, you don't understand. We went to a.new.restaurant. in.our.town. *Not* a common occurrence. Well, there was when Burger King opened, and Pizza Hut remodeled a while back (we also have Popeye's, but that's it). No, we're not suffering too much in the fast food department (unless you count not having Taco Bell, which we do count and do consider suffering). It's just that it's A) unhealthy and B) expensive (maybe 1 1/2 x's what you'd pay in the US).

It's one of the things that's very different about where we lived in the West Bank and here. There, the town was more isolated/self-contained. Therefore, you had pretty much everything you could want/need from furniture to restaurants. Here, with the capital only an hour's drive away, if you want a nice restaurant or a wide selection of furniture, you go there. The furniture example has been changing for a while now, and you can find so much more than when we first moved here. Hopefully, the restaurant situation tide will turn, too.

So, this new restaurant is called Saj Wok. Roughly translated: "kebob wok," maybe? "Saj" is related to the grilled meat that they do here, which may or may not be on a skewer. It's an attempt to introduce a new concept but relate it to a familiar one. Familiar is necessary around here. So, they have huge woks, which they light on fire and then cook the meat in (the fire in the pan itself is gone before they put the meat in; I guess this is to superheat it?).

The meat is all chicken, but you choose different flavors of sandwiches, and they wrap them in a bread very much like a large tortilla. The end result is kind of like a chicken burrito. They have Mexican, Indian, Barbeque (as in grilled, not the sauce flavor, much to ML's disappointment), Spicy, and Chinese. I tried all but the spicy. ML was coughing and choking as he ate it. If it had that effect on him, I'm not touching it. I liked the Chinese, the Indian, and the Mexican. They had a variation of veggies (i.e. the Chinese had cabbage, like an egg roll) and each had its own sauce/spices. MS and Z had mexican. MS came back for seconds, so he apparently liked it. JW & MA had Indian, and JW came back for seconds. MA later, though, asked to come back to the restaurant again, so I think she enjoyed hers, as well, but may just have been too distracted to ask for more.

We ordered a *ton* (a "wejhba" or "meal" of each kind, which was two good sized "burritos" each), so we have leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, even, which is always nice.

Bottom line: it would be a good option for an in-town date night (we usually drive to the capital, but occasionally are just not feeling like the trek or would rather save gas money), and we might take the kids occasionally. We could probably put it as one of their options for Mommy/Daddy dates.