Lunch @ La Plage

Spent the morning and early afternoon setting up our meeting room in the penthouse. Met Carol Hanna, who I've been emailing for years, and Hala Akiki, two of our gracious and patient hosts from LB/Beirut who are tasked with shepherding our group around and taking care of us. It's a thankless task to babysit tourists. Especially creative directors. They're a breed unto themselves... But Carol and Hala are all smiles and with many hands on deck, the work went fast...

Halfway through the morning Bechara Mouzannar showed up, the CCO of Leo Burnett in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). I've had the pleasure of spending time with Bechara in cities all over the world and he's a connoisseur of culture like no one else I know. He's been lobbying to get us to Beirut for years, and from the sound of it, he's laid out a pretty compelling itinerary for our stay here. When we finished up work, he whisked me, Rosalie, and Anja Radulovic (Leo Burnett's creative director from our Belgrade office) to a waterfront lunch at La Plage, just a few hundred meters down the coast from the Phoenicia... This restaurant has nice little private patio attached to it for people who want to lay out by the pool... Great spot. 

We ate a delicious lunch of meze (moutabel, hummus, fatoush salad, & much more) along with fresh fish and a sublime desert of beautiful fruit. Here are some pics… Maybe I'll get some pictures from Anja to add, as she took much better photographs than I did...

These orange fruits are called nèfle (or Medlar in English), and they were sublime...