Eating out experiences in my youth.

Although I went to a few seaside cafés for an ice cream or a soft drink with my parents when I was young, I cannot ever remember going to a proper restaurant with them. In those days restaurants were for the rich or the French. The indigenous population rarely ate out.
During my teenage years, after independence, my two best friends and I sometimes went to some local food shacks where one could be fed and watered for the equivalent of a few pennies. Each one of those shacks specialised in one type of dish. Grills had an open barbecue by the entrance. One would be shown to a rickety table covered in plastic and seated on well-worn wooden benches.
Our favourite order between the three of us, was usually a couple of dozens grilled lamb skewers, a few spicy Merguez sausages and a big bottle of a soft drink that tasted like Dandelion and Burdock. The drink was served immediately accompanied by a basket of freshly cut French bread, a saucer of Harissa sauce and a bowl of finely chopped onion and parsley dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. The cook in charge of the cooking placed the grill and within seconds, the food shack and the entire street would be smothered with smoke. This acted as a call to all hungry passers-by, as no one within a kilometre radius would be immune to the aromas of grilled meats.
The meat came skewered on thin bamboo sticks. Tiny pieces of chargrilled lamb interspersed with melting slivers of fat that tasted delicious smothered with chilli sauce and onion relish. Grilled Merguez sausages oozing with paprika coloured fat. The memory of a simple feast that a whiff of barbecue smoke brings flooding back.
The bill was usually worked out by the number of used skewers left lying on the table.

Another favourite spot of mine in the same street, specialised in a dish we often enjoyed in winter; a spicy chickpea and cumin soup laced with Harissa and extra virgin olive oil.
A gigantic cauldron sat bubbling away by the front door. Same procedure. Plastic covered table. A piping-hot bowl of soup and the ubiquitous French stick arrived as soon as we sat down. In the days where takeaways had yet to be invented, my mother sometimes sent me over to that café, armed with a small milk churn, to buy a few portions of that delicious soup on cold, snowy days.
Going for a few meals like these, is a ritual that my childhood friends and I still partake in whenever I go back to my hometown to visit my dad. Sitting down to share a few mouthfuls of grilled meats or spicy soup always brings back memories of our simple teenage pleasures.

The same fast food places are still owned by the same families and seem to stand the test of time despite the introduction of new cuisines such as Italian pizzas and Middle Eastern Shawarma to Algerian eating out culture.