Archive | September, 2010

Rotten meat at TSC Supermarket (City Mall)

Having TSC Dora (located inside City Mall) very close to my workplace, I got used to passing by it on my way back home to buy my groceries and take advantage of the crazy offers they do every now and then.

Few weeks ago I wanted to buy some entrecote steak, so I went there and just asked one of the butchers for what I wanted. He proceeded with picking one of the vacuum packages, opening it, and cutting the meat on one of the table, but just as he started working with the meat he grabbed a large portion of it, smelled its odor and directly threw away the whole package. I immediately concluded that the meat must have been rotten from the expression on his face, still I made sure to ask him as he approached the refrigerator to pick another package and he confirmed the meat was bad.


The meat refrigerator at TSC Dora

I disregarded what happened and said to myself it might happen anywhere… but I got really surprised when the same thing happened when he picked the second package and threw it away, and AGAIN with a third package! As he picked the fourth one, he opened it right in front of me, smelled it and said “This one is OK”, but I insisted to check its odor by myself, and turned out it was really ok. I was a bit hesitant about continuing to buy the meat, but then just told him to proceed and give me 2 Kilos. Note that the packages were all refrigerated and had the very same color.

Few days ago, I went to get some rib cutlets, and that’s when I got shocked. As usual after getting my order, the butcher proceeded to pick one of the packages and went to his table. He opened the bag, and this time directly smelled the meat and threw it away!!! He approached the refrigerator and picked another package without giving me any explanation, so I just called him and told him to disregard my order. I wasn’t ready to risk my health again!

The first time it happened I just assumed it might be a bad coincidence, but turned out it’s a recurring thing at TSC! And by observing how the butchers were behaving, it seemed like they’re very used to encountering rotten meat while working.

And I’m not the only one who’s complaining about it, I did a quick search on Google for reviews on the meat at TSC, and found that the same thing happened to Samer almost 2 years ago. The funniest thing about his experience was when the customer service personnel told him he’s ready to cook the meat and eat it as a proof that it doesn’t cause any harm!

Needless to say this is so wrong on all levels, and I hope the people in charge at TSC can read this post or Samer’s to implement the necessary controls on their meat before making it to the shelves for people to buy.

My experience probably poses the issue of food safety in Lebanon in general and not at TSC only. I happened to be one of their regular customers, but the same thing might be happening at Spinney’s, Le Charcutier Aoun, Abi Khalil, COOP… or any other place! Which is scary indeed…

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Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2010/09/26)

This roundup is probably the richest one so far with 17 new links!

I have lately been receiving several e-mail from bloggers thinking I’m ignoring their blogs, truth is that I have never and will never do it, but chances might be that I am not subscribed to your RSS feed yet (and I usually use my  Google Reader to come up with the roundups). So if you think your blog should be included in the weekly roundup, just let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

See you next week!

Driving in Lebanon

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Derriere

I took the below photo while having a walk around Beirut Souks. Seriously, why would anyone want  to call his store “Derriere”? (Equivalent to “butt” in English) Imagine “طيز” being hanged above some place in Beirut, it would be something eh!

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Huge fire somewhere around Dekweneh/Sin El Fil

I just took these two photos from my workplace for what looks like a huge fire in the area of Dekweneh or Sin El Fil. I’ve checked news sites and so far no one mentioned anything… I hope it’s nothing serious.

Update:

A tweep (@jackoppy81) just mentioned it’s a fire at a plastic factory near Bassoul-Hneine, and the civil defense are working on putting it down.

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You don’t see this everyday

I was going through the Pool Cafe menu at Grand Hills Broummana when I couldn’t but notice that one of the appetizers platters was highly priced at 1,575,000 L.L! (around $1,050)

The platter turned out to be 50 grams of Beluga Caviar, the wold’s most expensive type of caviar (God bless Google who knows everything!), which currently retails here for ~$9,300 per kilogram.

According to Google, the lighter the color of this caviar, the more expensive it is. The most expensive is called “Almas” (means Diamond in Arabic) because of its white appearance, which is extremely rare and comes from Iran.

So, now you know where to treat yourself with a luxury appetizer in Lebanon that costs a bit more than a month worth of salary for a fresh graduate engineer!

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Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2010/09/19)

9 New links for this week’s roundup.

See you next week!

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Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project – Beirut

I was one of the people who were invited to the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project launch party at B018 two days ago.

Their campaign is pretty cool, it consists of exchanging nightlife habits between 14 participating cities including Beirut, and the whole process will take place on Facebook where the residents of each of the 14 cities will be putting their ideas into a virtual crate about what makes the nightlife in their city unique.

On October 22nd, a list of the participating cities and their partner cities will be published along with the most popular idea for each location. For example, if the winning idea from Beirut turned to be “arriving in full make up, high consumption of Vodka RedBull, and lot’s of fireworks”, then Beirut’s partner city will have to party according to this idea and vice versa on November 27th, when the nightlife exchange will be happening. And it doesn’t end here, by providing your idea you’ll be getting the chance to win a ticket to go party at Beirut’s partner city!

To participate, all you have to do is to log into Smirnoff’s page on Facebook, become a fan and start submitting your ideas.

Let’s just hope we don’t end up pairing with South Africa, I’m pretty sure we will then have to party with Vuvuzela’s!! 😀

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Dar Al Mousawwer – House of Photographers

A photography house called “Dar Al Mousawwer” has recently opened in a two story building in Clemenceau (Beirut as an initiative by an NGO called Zakira.

The first floor of the house is an under construction coffee shop, while the second has several rooms for workshops, studio, gallery space, development room.

As per the people behind it, the place has been made for people to rents cameras (and there are hundreds of them) and photography equipments, in addition to studio space and development rooms.

Definitely worth a visit if you’re into photography!

I would like to thank Ayman Itani from OnOffBeirut for providing all the details and photos about this photography house.

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Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2010/09/12)

11 New links for this week roundup.

See you next week!

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Hamra Festival

Last night marked the start of Hamra festival lasting till Sunday featuring a lot of live performances across three stages near Vero Moda, Jack & Jones, and Starbucks.

The festival started on Friday at 5:45PM with a street parade that lasted till 7:30PM, but unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get there before 9:30PM which explains why I only got back with a couple of snapshots! You may check Sietske’s and Rawad’s blog posts who were there and took cool photos of the event.

What was remarkable though during the walk I took is the number of people who got furious at the street blocks, so a lot of them took the liberty to just move them away and invaded the festival premises with their cars. The photo below shows one of them, a taxi driver.

The program for today and tomorrow is loaded with live acts starting 5PM till midnight, so make sure to be there!

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