Word: westing
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...During more than a week in Iran, I interviewed as many people who admired Ahmadinejad as were appalled by him. On election day at the Hossein Ershad Mosque in north Tehran, I spoke with Ismail Askari, the head of the taxi drivers' union in the city of Malard, just west of Tehran. He was a Mousavi supporter, but he admitted, "Most of the people in my cab have been happy with the present government...
...ultimate journalistic cliché to quote a cabdriver, I can't resist this one: on the Saturday before the election, I attended a large and metaphoric Mousavi rally - someone had cut the electricity, so the candidate couldn't speak - in the city of Kharaj, about an hour west of Tehran. The cabbie who drove us back to Tehran said his parents were divided on the election. "My mother supports Mousavi, and my father supports Ahmadinejad," he said. "I was uncertain until I saw them debate. Ahmadinejad seemed stronger. I don't think I would want Mousavi negotiating with other governments...
When chef Donald Berger opened his first restaurant in Hanoi six years ago, he chose the unlikely district of West Lake (or, in Vietnamese, Tay Ho). Except for rows of dog-meat restaurants, the area didn't offer much in the way of dining - certainly not of the international variety that foreign residents and travelers were starting to seek out. "There was nothing here," says Berger. "People said I was a moron." But today, West Lake is home to cafés, bars and high-end restaurants - among them top names that have relocated from the chic French Quarter...
...cramped, but fans will find the bordello red curtains, shisha-smoking rooms and irreverent menu essentially unchanged. Another French Quarter landmark forced to close was the perennially popular Emperor. The owners recently opened a fresh venture, the Mandarin, tel: (84-4) 3719 1168, on the banks of West Lake. Though the new venue lacks the imperial dining ambiance of the original, patrons can still sample some of the old Emperor's signature dishes...
...delightful addition to West Lake is the Love Chocolate Café, tel: (84-4) 2243 2120, plugging a gap in the market for decadent Western desserts, heart-shaped cookies, cayenne-pepper-espresso brownies and the like. But perhaps the most telling opening - in terms of the area's newfound cachet - is that of the Intercontinental West Lake, tel: (84-4) 6270 8888. The hotel has three smart restaurants - a French bistro, an Italian restaurant and one that serves Vietnamese-Chinese cuisine - as well as a bar set on its own island in the lake. Only the prices are hard...