Restaurant review from 'the Boss'

Knowing that hygene conditions in Iraq could be disastrous, I packed a couple dozen energy bars (of course my version comes with chocolate). But the truth is that, if you have the money, there is good food everywhere, although everyone warns against eating anything that isn't thoroughly cooked. They also warn that even the best restaurants close at 5 p.m. for security reasons.

Dan and I found the Chicken Inn Restaurant, just about a block from our digs at the Palestine Hotel, back in 1999, and its barbecue makes it my food stop of choice in Baghdad. However, Candles restaurant, a more upscale place just around the corner from The Petra Hotel, where we now hang our hats, is a strong second choice, and its proximity to our hotel has kept us away from the Chicken Inn, which was photographer Paul Kitagaki's "Top Pick" when we came to Baghdad in 2002. I think Dan is now leaning toward Candles, too.

And speaking of hats, I had been looking for something to cover the increasingly red dome above my eyebrows since I arrived in Iraq, but I was having little luck and beginninng to think that only the women covered their heads. This morning, though, I hit paydirt. In a stall in a marketplace on the western outskirts of Baghdad I spotted a black baseball cap with the logo "Boss" emblazoned across the front.

Maybe now my head will stop burning and people will do what I tell them. Although, I may need to translate the logo first.