Big Thumbs Up

Photos by the very wonderful Doug McKinlay of Lonely Planet fame amongst others, who will soon be showing an exhibition of some of his framed prints of Fes around the house in the near future

A special visitor knocked on the door this morning being one of the Mernissi sisters from whom I bought the house all of twenty (has it been that long) months ago. For those who are not aware the Mernissis are one of the famous Fassi families whose members include the renowned writer and strident feminist, lecturer Fatema Mernissi. I recently googled Mernissi and the first thirteen pages were all on Fatema!!

I digress, anyway one of the reasons for the sisters visit from her home in Spain was to see her old family home as she was born and brought up here so of course she was incredibly interested in what I had done to it. I like to think I have done a sympathetic restoration but now was the acid test. Her comment "Magnifique" was good enough for me, just wait till I have totally finished though. As with any renovation the finishing details can carry on for up to a year afterwards as you fine tune and then finer tune almost daily to reach the stage where you are 99 per cent happy. You will never be 100 per cent happy so dont even try, if you are then you must be Godlike!!

Ps Oh I nearly forgot the sushi review, took along Doug and Jane fresh from our morning horseriding experience where we had magnificent Arab/ Berber stallions, and can very cheerfully announce that Fes now has another fine dining experience. Authentic in all respects even down to the flat screen tvs which I am assured is a staple feature in Japan, and even the Moroccan waiting staff looked entirely fashionable in their dark Kimono garb.

And the food.....delicious from the miso soup, crunchy tempura through to the sushi and sashimi with stunning presentation from a menu the size of a Michener novel. Oh, that wasabi burn, I can still feel it so Domonic, if you are reading this from Tokyo, its time to come back mate now you wont feel homesick. Can also report that one of the trendy new cafes So Sweet is serving Eggs Benedict so your intrepid gorger took in brunch, leaving slightly disappointed (I usually am) at the thin dribble of semi Hollandaise on my fried (no no no) eggs. There should be at least a gallon of the foamy sabayon over two perfectly poached eggs, but at least there was ham and over a blueberry muffin which was a nice touch, very Maine (USA) like, which brought back some warm memories of when I lived there in the 90's in Camden and Boothbay Harbour.

So those scores again 10/10 for the Sushi experience, 5/10 for Eggs Benny, 9/10 for the Maine memory jogger.