Saturday was a day of experimentation for June-chan and me. Not only did we try coconut custard pie for the very first time (and loved it), but we also smoked a hookah. We knew it would be an evening filled with giggles once we walked in the door of a recently opened Egyptian restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, south of Santa Monica Boulevard. Sitting on the front stoop was a waiter with a mohawk. He didn't serve our table, but a non-mohawked waiter who was rather cute with his conventionally shorned locks did. I wasn't entirely sure what one packed in a two-foot-high hookah to smoke. It wasn't conventional tobacco. Surmising from the strawberry and grape flavors that swirled in my mouth after puffing on the long pipe fitted with a hygienic plastic tip, I guessed that the house special that our waiter recommended was a blend of strawberry and grape leaves or a paste mixed with the essence of those fruits. The blend was compressed in a bell-shaped metal container wrapped with perforated aluminum foil. The bell vessel was then snapped on the top of the hookah and warmed with three pieces of charcoal. The heat from the charcoals burned the "tobacco" which June-chan and I smoked. The flavors were so sweet that we skipped dessert. We also felt a little lightheaded but not totally baked. The predominantly Middle Eastern patrons in the restaurant must have thought we were some crazy Asian tourists because we kept snapping pictures of ourselves on our cell phones. June-chan even videotaped me adeptly smoking the hookah on her Razr in case anyone doubted that I knew how to blow smoke rings. The best part about the surreal night was that it didn't end at the hookah restaurant. June-chan and I met two friends in Hollywood and boogied the hookah high off to Tones on Tails' "Go!" and other fabulously catchy dance tracks.
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