Restaurants; on eating or taking out food in Maadi

When we first got to Cairo, we were overwhelmed by the presence of all the American restaurants. Since we hadn't lived in the United States for well over 10 years, it was quite an exciting and exotic treat for us to try Hardees, KFC, Papa John's and Cinnabon again. Now that we've been here for a while though, we've gone through most of them, as well as quite a few local restaurants, and I feel confident enough to give you my European-American perspective on the eating or taking out possibilities here in Maadi.

I should add that we have a budget constraint when it comes to... well, just about anything, so we tend to seek out not only really good food, but also cheap. Although we don't mind paying a lot for food on occasion, it then certainly has to be worth it.

Italian food, pizza and pasta
When we're all really hungry and we want pizza we know is good, cheap and we want it fast, we call Papa John's. They come within 1/2 hour, and the BBQ Chicken or Hawaiian pizzas are always a sure thing in our family. For local Italian food in general, we prefer Vittorio's over La Rosa. The green salad at La Rosa is big and very nice, but their pizzas and pastas are not at all European style, and in our experience not always very fresh. We have several American friends here though that all praise La Rosa, so it's certainly a matter of taste. We prefer Vittorio's pizzas, and August loves their lasagna. Although I didn't like their risotto (it had too much white pepper in it) the mushrooms in garlic are good as is their funny looking garlic bread. I've seen people have wine at Vittorio's but I've never ordered it myself. Maison Thomas' pizzas are all right, but way overpriced.

Fast food; burgers, sandwiches and such
If we want something really fast, we'll go on www.otlob.com and order McDonald's. They usually deliver to our house within 25 minutes and hence the food is still hot and fresh. In the evening we might even just call and order sundaes or milk shakes for dessert. Hardees' curly fries are good, but last time we ordered from them it took them well over an hour to get us our food, counteracting the whole purpose of ordering fast food! KFC is reliable and tasty, but it's the worst thing you can order calorie-wise so we try to stay away from it as much as possible. We've had Quizznos on Road 9, and although nothing spectacular, their sandwiches are good and reasonably priced.

General restaurants
We've eaten at the Green Mill and ordered from them several times now - we've had nachos, soups, sandwiches and other treats, and have never been impressed. The other night we went to Crave, a newly opened restaurant close to the Green Mill. My friend Mr. Four had told me that this is what he imagined a European chic restaurant was like, and the interior of the restaurant, other American friends' reviews and the restaurant menu told us that this indeed was a restaurant created for an American/Egyptian audience with an aspiration of appearing European. Although it was nothing like anything we had seen in Europe (the French would rather die than serve Snickers cheese cake, and the Belgians would have fainted at the appearance of the fries), I though the food was all right. In general it seems that steak is a sure thing to order at Crave. The Cesar salad was also great, and the chocolate volcano dessert was good. We've eaten at Lucille's on road 9, as well as Mediterraneo, and the atmosphere was very nice at both places - it seems to attract Americans - but we were never impressed by the food.

Chinese and Asian food
A lot of our American friends here like Gaya, and granted their children's noodles are only 10 EGP and I like the little extra sauces and relishes they serve with everything, but the food is not really to our taste. We prefer the Shanghai Family Restaurant which makes wonderful five-spiced beef, great spring rolls, tasty sweet & sour chicken, awesome Kun Pao chicken and nice vegetables. A few times the boys & I have gone for soup during lunch hours, and it's always very cheap and good. Both Gaya and the Shanghai serve beer. A couple of weeks ago we tried two new places: WEN which was absolutely awful! The food tasted stale and/or like nothing, and everything turned out to be more expensive than our 6 months old menu had indicated. We also ordered food from our friends' favorite Thai place (I will have to ask her to give me the exact name of the restaurant), and it was good; we had all kinds of different dishes; chicken, duck, spring rolls, vegetables, and everything was tasty, but a bit too expensive for us. Next we are going to try Peking. I've heard a lot of people like it.

Bread, desserts and baked goods
We have yet to find a great bakery here in Maadi, but for a wonderful breakfast treat we will order bagels from Jared's Bagels the night before, and they're always delivered on the minute we requested them, fresh and tasty! I love the onion bagels with blueberry cream cheese filling. The times we called to order the same day, whatever we wanted was not available, so we usually make sure we place our orders the day before. Cinnabon is well... Cinnabon. With my calorie count in mind, the real challenge there is trying not to order from them! We sometimes go to Fino's Bakery because it's so close by, and their baguettes are all right but everything is expensive, and the supposedly European bread just doesn't taste like anything we've ever had in Europe. Neither the bagels nor the cinnamon buns are good, the doughnuts are dry and their cheesecake when we had that tasted stale.

Indian food
I'm not an Indian food fanatic myself but Courtney really enjoys it so we've ordered from both Bukhara and the Maharaja, whereof he prefers the former over the latter.

Egyptian food
For kochery we'll go to Arzak at the Grand Mall where there's also a nice salad bar. We've had food from Abou El Sid, and although nothing overwhelming, everything was nice and fresh; a good restaurant in which to expose visiting family and friends to the Egyptian cuisine. After half a year here in Egypt, my husband & I concluded the other night that in general, Egypt is not exactly a great food country. We enjoy the fresh fruit and vegetables, but their local dishes are just not very interesting. We still have some time to explore this further though, and will not let it go entirely quite yet.

I will add to this list and amend it as we keep exploring. I would also be happy to hear about your experiences with any of these or other restaurants in Maadi, so please post a comment!