PRIDE Travel Blog

hetero friendly™…. because expert advice should not be limited to just Fabulous people!

Archive for category Middle East

Beirut is reborn as a glitzy playground for tourists

Jan 22

Posted by Marc, Owner & CEO in Do, Middle East, See, TripClips | No Comments

By Veronica Gould Stoddart, USA TODAY
BEIRUT — On a mild Tuesday evening in downtown Beirut, the city’s young and beautiful are bellying up to the hottest night spot, the bohemian Gemmayzeh neighborhood. Model-chic Beiruti women, sporting skinny pants, stiletto boots and cascading tresses, cluster in groups or with dates inside the hip bars, pubs and restaurants that line this milder Middle East version of Bourbon Street.

Not far away, in the Old World-style Albergo boutique hotel, visiting Michelin-starred chefs from France are dishing out meals for a sold-out crowd that takes Beirut’s sophisticated dining scene for granted.

PHOTO GALLERY: Beirut bounces back

During the summer, the trendy flock to swank rooftop clubs — Noir, Sky Bar or White Bar, where Champagne bottle service can run $10,000 — to dance till dawn.

Call it Sex and the City meets South Beach.

Beirut’s sizzling nightlife, from gritty to glam, helped drive a record tourism year in 2009. Overcoming a reputation as a Middle East trouble spot, Lebanon welcomed nearly 2 million visitors last year, a 39% increase over 2008. It was the No. 1 destination for tourism growth in the world, according to the World Tourism Organization.

‘Joie de vivre’ draws Arabs, Westerners

“Lebanon is back,” Nada Sardouk, Lebanon’s tourism director general, told the Middle East news agency AMEInfo.com in December. “We’ve had 80% to 90% hotel occupancy this year. But it’s more than about just numbers. … It’s about the joie de vivre.” Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: Beirut, Beyruth, Beyruthe, Current, Lebanon, Rebirth, Update

A Culinary Revival in Istanbul — The city’s Ottoman restaurants rediscover a legendary cuisine with cosmopolitan roots

Jan 8

Posted by Marc, Owner & CEO in *Hot*, Asia, Eat, Europe, Middle East, TripClips | 6 Comments

By J.S. MARCUS – Wall Street Journal

Istanbul

[OTTOMAN1]
Photo: Tugra, in the Ciragan Palace Kempinski hotel (Kerem Uzel for The Wall Street Journal)

Elegant restaurants along the Bosphorus prepare fish beautifully and plainly, in a Mediterranean style similar to that of Italy or Greece. In Beyoglu, Istanbul’s nightlife hub, tables are cluttered with tavern food in tapas-like portions. It’s all delicious, of course—and a little familiar.

But when you encounter a delicate rice pilaf flavored with clarified butter, or a perfect slice of baklava, the dozens of pastry layers dissolving one by one on the tongue, it’s a reminder that Istanbul is home to another cuisine, one as complicated and sophisticated as contemporary Turkish food is simple and sustaining.

The cuisine of the Ottomans, whose empire once stretched from Baghdad to Budapest, was perfected in Istanbul in the 15th and 16th centuries in the kitchens of Topkapi Palace, home of the sultans for 400 years. Ottoman control of the spice trade was at its peak, and the cuisine’s hallmark is its deft mixing of sweet and savory flavors. Today, dishes such as delicately stuffed Black Sea mackerel and sea bass flavored with mastic, an aromatic resin usually reserved for desserts, are appearing on menus at some of the best restaurants. A chef in the classical Ottoman period might have devoted his whole working life to one dish; modern-day chefs have special training and often base their interpretations on archival research.

The cuisine’s revival comes as many people in Istanbul are becoming more interested in their Ottoman heritage. The flowering of Ottoman restaurants is among the most visible results. Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: cuisine, culinary Istanbul, culinary Turkey, food, good places to eat, great food, Istanbul, ottoman, Turkey

Top Ten HotSpots for High Tea — A Global Tour

Dec 14

Posted by Marc, Owner & CEO in *Hot*, Africa, Asia, Eat, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, TripClips | No Comments

From :

SINGAPORE – Fancy a cuppa? From highbrow salons to highland plantations, the world’s best places to have tea.

1. London, England

Ladies, don your gowns; gents, start pressing your ties. Afternoon tea at the Ritz is a splendid formal affair: silver pots and fine china chink at 4 p.m. sharp under the vaulted glass and chandeliers of the Palm Court. It’s not cheap, but you’ll be in good company — this venerable hotel has served exotic infusions to everyone from King Edward VII to Charlie Chaplin. If the budget won’t stretch, try alternative institutions: the organization Classic Cafes champions the formica-countered greasy spoons of the 1950s, a dwindling number of which are still serving brews in vintage surrounds. Tie not required.

2. Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia/Central Asia
Nonstop, the epic Moscow-Beijing train journey takes over six days. The best way to spend them is befriending your carriage mates — Russian businesspeople, Mongolian traders, Buddhist monks. Each car has a samovar, a hot-water urn where you can top up your mug to ward off the Siberian chill. Samovars are more than kettles: entrenched in Russian society, they’re made for communal drinking. The local saying ‘to have a sit by the samovar’ means to talk leisurely over endless cups of tea. Fill your flask — and those of your new-found friends — and watch Europe roll into Asia.

Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: afternoon tea, afternoon tea recommendations, best afternoon tea, best high tea, best places for tea, best tea, cream tea, formal tea, High tea, high tea recommendations, tea