The view from my table on the alleyway outside Hussein's Restaurant

“Ahhmaaayyzing”, Hussein exclaimed, with the unmistakably deep, throaty voice of a well-practised smoker. As he said it, the said smoke bellowing from his nostrils as if they were the windows of a house on fire.

Having only taken up the art of shisha a few days before, I was amazed how he managed it, my own efforts being limited to sporadic puffs of the apple & melon flavoured smoke. Sitting on the alleyway watching the world go past, we both laughed heartily at his imitation of an extremely attractive Canadian woman who, several nights before had enthusiastically endorsed his cooking.

‘Probably the Best Restaurant in the World’ read a dog-eared computer printout sellotaped to the shutter of the restaurant, and I was inclined to agree. Bashar, in his various guises of president and war hero looked down on us from a pair of portraits hung over the door, along a further printout declaring that “No milk rocks like our milk shakes”. This place was a positive well of Earthly wisdom, and with the shisha (or perhaps lack of oxygen to the brain) kicking in, an ideal vantage point from which to contemplate the day.

The first time I’d eaten at Hussein’s a few days before, I was sure I was going to get hepatitis. A group of us had been guided there by the recommendation of a guy at our hotel, and once lured in by Hussein’s considerable charm and irresistible personality (both crucial skills for any Syrian businessman), none of us could walk away. Come what may, we would deal with the hepatitis. We all sat there, around a table looking nervously at one another, as the food began.

I hesitate to call Husseins’ joint a restaurant, because to do so takes a fair bit of imagination. The whole place consists of a small room of about 10 x 15 metres, perched on a side street in a part of Damascus that specialises in computer repairs. At one end of the room is the kitchen, consisting of a cooker, oven, and mountains of jars and various fruits and vegetables. At the other end, a table which seven or eight people can squeeze around if they’re reasonably friendly with one another and prepared to be eye balled by the goldfish tank which adds gravitas to the corner of the room. Across two-thirds of the doorway is a giant window chiller that may or may not work in all manner of concoctions, sauces, marinades and coatings can be found that Hussein has prepared earlier. There is an upstairs, with enough seating for six more people, but you have to climb a ladder to reach it.

It looks like the kind of place where people catch horrible diseases, but, stopping short of unthinkable scenarios involving chocolate, it’s about as intimate as dining experiences come.

Hussein, as it turns out, is a proper chef. For many years he worked at what sounds like a pretty nice hotel in Switzerland, training under the instruction of a French chef who habitually burned him with hot oil if a anything short of perfection was achieved in the kitchen. And, abuse in the kitchen aside, he had been trained well- damn that man can cook. Aside from a small whiteboard announcing ‘Hussein Specials’, indicating what he fancies cooking that night, Hussein can rustle you up just about anything you ask, while you watch from within the corner of the restaurant.

And on this particular evening, 4 courses in, he was in a particular mood to entertain myself and the guys from the hostel. Sitting down opposite us as we ate, periodically complimenting him on his genuinely good food, he would periodically pause for a second. His eyes would light up: “How does stuffed aubergines sound?” he would suggest, followed by Mexican chicken, Turkish kebab, pasta, milkshakes, watermelon and plates of fresh fruit along with anything else we might be able to manage. As we made suggestions, he came up with ideas and tested new dishes. It was less like a restaurant, and more like having your own personal chef.

As he cooked, we talked. In the Middle East, he maintained, it was impossible to do anything without being born into money. Hard work could get you so far, he argued, but never enough to rule the roost. More important than money though, were women- without them, he said, money was worthless, and happiness unobtainable. I listened to the chef attentively.

On the issue of the US, his views were clear. Syria’s own president had changed since since the last American president of any merit. Bashar al Assad, who, we were told, hardly ever sleeps, had spent the past 8 years working hard to open the country up and move it forward, and with America, he would be no different.

Bush was crazy, he told me, in a matter of fact tone, making shooting gestures all over the room. All he wanted was war, and so it was impossible to deal with him. Did Syrian people want war? Did American people? He was sure not.

“Obama or McCain?” I asked, expecting (I admit) to hear an Obama endorsement. According to Hussein, though, it didn’t matter. “Once this Bush is gone, America’s new president and our new President agree, Syria and America can be friends again and everything will be good”, he pronounced confidently. I haven’t yet met a Syrian who wants anything other than a close relationship with the US, and Hussein was no different.

Following my mammoth meal, and with people in the alleyway starting to settle down to beers and Shisha, Hussein invited me to join him. Sitting there, eating slices of apple and passing the shisha back and forth every so often, I felt genuinely relaxed for the first time since leaving England.

Europe and the Middle East, he concluded, were basically the same place. Unlike the Far East, Africa and the Americas, which had only entered into our histories relatively recently, Europe and the Middle East had been intertwined since the beginning of civilization. Our armies had swept across each other’s lands since before the Romans, with trade and knowledge exchanged over the centuries since then. Every cathedral in Europe, he reminded me, owed its existence to events here in Damascus. Enthusiastically, he remarked that monuments built by Italian Romans could be found in the centre of Syria, and Arab ruins in Southern France and Spain.

A couple of hours later, the red coals on the shisha had started to die down. I got up, thanked Hussein, and asked how much I owed him. He paused for a second, tallying it all up. My wallet was open, andwould have gone home quite happy having paid whatever he had asked. “450, I think”, he replied. I gave him a 500 Syrian note, about GBP 5.50. Shaking his hand, promising to come again, I departed for my hotel, thinking that this guy was just about right.