Cairo restaurants - the short short version

I thought I'd post an email I sent to a friend vising Cairo recently. Just in case you guys are heading to Cairo and think you're heading for a foodie paradise.

So the one sentence answer to the question "where's the great food in Cairo?" is this:
You've come to the wrong city.

Put bluntly, Cairo is not one of the food capitals of the world. You're not going to find bevies of great restaurants, nor are you going to find even one world-class place. What I can do is give you a list of my favorites and a quick synopsis of them.

The "high" cuisine here is Lebanese, not Egyptian. There are lots of good Lebanese places in Cairo - almost every hotel has one - but not a lot of great Egyptian places.

My favorite restaurant in Cairo is called Taboula, in Garden City. I confess that a lot of my liking is due to its location about 5 minutes walking from my house. But the food is spot-on Lebanese, and the atmosphere is very Orientalist. They fill up fast, though, so I'd recommend calling ahead (by at least a day) to get a table. 2792-5261.

Two other fantastic Lebanese restaurants are Sabaya (the Semiramis Intercontinental, Garden City 2795-7171) and Sequoiya (very northern end of Zamalak, right on the river, I don't have the number). Sequoiya is always very busy so it's worth trying to get a reservation; you shouldn't have any trouble at Sabaya with getting a table. Sequoiya is very chic and they're touchy about their dress code, so make sure you dress nicely.

So far the best Egyptian restaurant I've been to is Abou El Sid in Zamalek. 2380-5050. If you're only one or two people you can walk in, but otherwise make a reservation. If you want to try molokhiyya, this is a good place to do it, it's less slimy than most other places. And delicious. Also a great place to smoke a shisha in an "Orientalist fantasy" type place.

The Four Seasons in Garden City has some very lovely but very pricey places. Spice is their Chinese restaurant (2791-6888) and the food is very good. The Italian restaurant there - Bella - is fantastic; I think I had my most skillfully-made meal in Cairo there. The menu is divided into traditional and innovative, so you can take your pick.

The revolving restaurant in the Grand Hyatt (2365-1234) is extremely expensive, and most of what you're paying for is the view. The chef has obviously had some training in French/Continental food, but I enjoyed myself more at the Four Seasons Italian restaurant. If you want to see the view but don't want to buy dinner, you can go to the lounge which is underneath the restaurant. I take guests up there without buying anything and nobody bothers me.

The last high-end place I'll mention is the Bird Cage at the Semiramis (2795-7171). The decor in this Thai restaurant is beautiful and the service efficient (NOT common in Cairo). Best of all, at lunch they have a fixed-price bento box. You end up with about 6 courses for LE 150. Very pricey by Cairene standards, but worth the $30.

At the other end of the spectrum, you've basically got cheap Egyptian food.

Koshari is, to me, the quintessential Egyptian food. It's definitely not good for you - macaroni, vermicelli, and rice with lentils, deep-fried onions, and a spicy tomato vinegar sauce. Most koshari places only sell one thing - koshari - in 3 sizes, small, medium, and large. I always get a small, which runs me LE 3 (about 60 cents US). My favorite koshari place, At-Tahrir, is near Midan al-Tahrir and the Egyptian museum. But they're all basically the same, and you can recognize them by the huge silver tureens in the front windows.

Also near Tahrir Square is an Egyptian tourist restaurant called Felfela and its sister take-out place. The full restaurant is on Shara Hoda Shaarawi street, off the square down Talaat Harb. The decor is bizarre (you'll know you're in the right place because there's a dried shark near the bathrooms) and the service is erratic, but the food is reliable and a nice cross-section of Egyptian food. The take-out place is around the corner toward Midan al-Tahrir on the south side of Talaat Harb; you'll recognize it by the huge pictures on the wall outside. There's an English menu outside too. You go inside, push through to the guy at the register and tell him what you want. He gives you a few receipts completely written in Arabic, which you take to one of 3 places. The shawerma guy is easy to figure out, but if you order anything else, look at the pictures above the counters for what you ordered before you get in line. My favorite thing here is the "sandiwichet mixt" which has fuul (beans) and taameya (falafel) and eggplant and french fries with lettuce, tomato, onions and tahine. Delicious, and costs about 40 cents US. The shawerma is quite good too.

You can also pop into any of the bazillion small sandwich shops and get some taameya and fuul sandwiches for almost nothing. You'll recognize them by a guy frying something in oil in the front of the shop. I also recommend the homemade potato chips, which are delicious - but definitely not good for you. Try to get them to hand you the taameya straight out of the oil. You'll burn your fingers, but man, I can't think of anything else in this city that tastes better.