Met Up With the Blokes

Met up and broke fast with some friends last night. But before that at about 2pm in the workplace, I just couldn't concentrate anyore and sms to an ax-colleague if the meeting that night would take place. Really, sometimes I just need an excuse to get out of the office 'on-the-dot' at 6pm. Plus the thought of lingering-on to do some work when the 'cock-up' happens at somebody's end can be bloody demotivating. It was a restless Friday, by my standards.

So I met up with some friends last night, broke fast with them at Zam Zam - that murtabak place opposite Sultan Mosque and later headed on to Samar for some drinks. Ish!... but not before we stopped by and did our Maghrib. I was hesitant at first but gave in for I thought I could have a perfect month of 'Terawih' or night prayers. Good grief... it's getting harder and harder to do this and my nonchalance is not helping at all. But you know what? I'm glad I met up with them. Some I've not seen for months.

We didn't order any food at Samar, choosing instead to order some drinks from its interesting menu and demonstrating a plebeian good time fooling around with the exotic names of the drinks.

This is the back of the menu. I just felt like placing the coca-cola can with it. You can provide the subtext on your own.

I had a Karkadeh - a refreshing concoction of tea with petals of Egyptian hibiscus [that's what it says in the menu, I'm not making this up, lol] and a separate sweetener.

A friend had a Granitas - description, a favourite from the Andalusia in the hot summer months. Granitas when it arrived looked really good, with its blended ice in soft pink and layered milk to give that ice-slurpy look. However I'm going to stop here because after drinking a bit of it, I dubbed the drink 'air kanak-kanak' or child's drink.

Two friends had the Kamaradeen. Hailing from Syria, Kamaradeen is a refreshing belnded apricot nector, especially popular in the fasting month Ramadan throughout the Arab world. Right, I had a go at it, and I thought it tasted like a $6.00 asam juice, lol. It's really good, but as the night wore on, I joked that it tasted like 'air tuala' - water wrung from a wet towel. Haha! That was blurted out partly in revenge for unsuccessfully grilling me who M was. Sorry guys :P

Another friend had the Habib Falastin. From Palestine, the Land of Milk and Honey. I thought this was really good because I couldn't quite pin down the taste of honey, and that it had a more almond subtle to it. Or was that the aftertaste from Kamaradeen? I'm not quite sure. Anyways, Habib Falastine's ambiguous reaction on my tastebuds made me come to the personal conclusion that it was the second best drink of the four. Here's the line up.

From right to left: Habib Falastin, Kamaradeen, Granitas and my favourite [I'm biased cos, I ordered this], Karkadeh. The white ceramic bottle was the sweetener for Karkadeh.


The ornate Moroccan lamps casting swirls of shadow directly up from our table. This is just a one precious detail in Samar. Overall I think this place has a great ambience. I'd probably come again.

p.s. pics courtesy of Z's Ericson or was it Samsung? My O2 Mini doesn't take good night pictures.