Ramadan Speakeasy

So far this Ramadan has been easier than last Ramadan – mostly because we have some experience under out belt.

First for work, I have learned that Ramadan is a great time to work on projects for DC (a city not celebrating Ramadan) and it is a good time to schedule meetings with Christians here. Jordan is about 6% Christian and one can typically tell a person’s religion by their last name – so for me this month I will meet with lots of Khourys, Hananias and Fakhourys.

For weekends, we now know which restaurants are open during Ramadan, including one of our favorites: Books@Cafe. A small number of restaurants are allowed to be open during Ramadan but they can’t look open. On Friday, we had Books@Cafe’s famous Friday breakfast – it is enormous and Dan and I split one - $9 (the price went up recently) gets you toast, an omelette, pancakes, mankeesh (a cheese filled pastry like a calzone), fruit salad, juice and coffee. When we arrived at the restaurant, all of the blinds were drawn and the two balconies were closed but if you walked into their courtyard, there was a small sign (in English) on the door saying they were open. It felt like going to a speakeasy – they can’t advertise they are open, they have to be subtle about it (last year there was a protest over McDonalds which had gotten government permission to run its delivery service), and we don’t think they can serve alcohol.