Bahrain part 1: The weddings

convention center pre wedding set up

I catered two weddings in Bahrain.  Both were royal weddings, one Bahraini and one was Saudi Arabian.  I was working in Lebanon for a restaurant and hospitality company at the time.  They had 3 restaurants, 1 nightclub and a catering company; I was the head of the sushi/Japanese department.  I was sent to Bahrain along with the operations manager, another chef for traditional Middle Eastern food, the wedding coordinator, some cooks and no sushi assistants for me….!  The wedding parties were going to be huge; the first wedding was 600 people for a family member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia.  The second wedding was for 700 people for a Bahraini prince’s nephew.  And all sushi was to be prepared by myself, I felt a catastrophe forming in the humidity around Bahrain.  We were put up by the company at the Gulf Hotel, a really nice 5 star hotel in the center of the city.  The entrance to the hotel was impressive, a massive ceiling with an even larger chandelier of crystal.  To this day I have never seen a larger chandelier in real life.  The other chef, operations manager and I shared a 4-bedroom apartment in the hotel for the week of our stay.  It was pretty nice, but I was so busy during my week there that I barely took advantage of the apartment. 

My biggest concern for the week was how I was going to make sushi for 1300 people by myself.  Its not that the only food was going to be sushi, there was going to be PLENTY of traditional dishes, but regardless everyone knows how fast sushi can go when its made live in a buffet and its free.  Before I had a real panic attack, I got a saving grace.  It was the Japanese restaurant in the hotel.  The chef was away on holiday and the hotel gave me free use of the facilities and the staff!!  I was so relieved to have a sushi restaurant area to use; it was seriously a godsend.  I can’t imagine having to prepare all the sushi alone in the kitchen with all the other literally hundreds of dishes being prepared by the other chefs. 

Well needless to say, I got it done.  The rice cooked, fish sliced and rolls rolled.  I had to make most of the rolls a couple hours in advance for each wedding since it was a live sushi station within the buffet an I needed ready platters to set out to start.  The first wedding was outside in a huge tent.  Actually it was a few tents, but the food tent was the only one anyone was allowed to see.  There were tons of wait staff all women and all wearing these silver tutu style dresses with matching cropped jackets.  I spoke to one of the girls throughout the night and she told me everyone were maids for the Saudi sheikha (the sheikh’s wife).  I asked her how much she made a month in salary, she told me $400 usd.  She sends every penny of that home, saving a little for phone cards to call home.  It’s a normal scenario in the Middle East.   In Islamic weddings men and women are kept separate.  Only women were aloud to be in the tent, thus the live sushi from me.  Room for the monstrosity of a wedding was incredible.  White and pink gauze not to mention candles galore and glitter to boot!!  The food alone would have fed a village and the jewelry the women wore could have solved the economic problems in Sudan easily.  Even small girls wore diamond tiaras and drooping diamond earrings.  No dress cost under $12,000 but the women seemed to be busting out of the gowns, usually made for the human hangers we call models.  For the food there were whole roasted lambs and chicken, bowls of hummus, plates of kabobs and kibbeh.  Countless different salads like Lebanese fattoush and tabouli and other numerous side dishes like baba ganoush and foul medamas.  Deserts were amazing as well, some traditional and a colossal 10-tiered wedding cake that covered its own table.  It was decorated with ornate flowers and pearls, cake-boss eat your heart out!  All in all there were probably 200 different dishes spread out on about 7 long tables.  I felt slightly bashful that I had stressed about my measly sushi, it looked so small compared to the rest of the feast…  In an Arabic wedding, the bride and groom sit in a room with all the women where there is a rotation of songs, dancing with juice breaks scattered throughout and one food break.  Then back to more dancing, songs and juice late into the night.  The women came flooding in and the tent turned into a madhouse.   The women seemed starving and barged into the food-filled room.  It was as if it was each and everyone’s last meal!  I thought they would start bursting out of their ill-fitting couture evening gowns!!  They stuffed their heavily made up faces, re-teased their rather big hair and left in a matter of 20 minutes.  It was a chiffon and taffeta whirlwind, all by candlelight.  It was almost surreal.  The second wedding was inside a convention hall and to be honest was very, very much the same.  The décor was a bit different; the colors were baby blue with silver and the women servers wore a baby blue version of the same uniform from the other wedding.  It made me wonder if that was the fashion, or if they used the same uniform maker.  The Bahraini wedding was larger but seemed not to have as much money put into it.  I think it was the decor or the location of the event.  The room didn’t look as dressed up not as many flowers, gauze or candles.   Or maybe this family just had slightly better taste; I’m still not sure to this day.  The night went pretty much the same as the first wedding, a blur of couture and diamonds came whirling in, leaving empty plates and a picked through buffet I its wake.  It was something to experience.  Even today I do not know what to think of those two nights, should I be in awe or disgusted?  Which are you?  I really can’t make judgments on another’s culture, but it makes you think when you see some people with so much while you know others have so little.

*personal photo