Cafes and Street Food

The staples from the Egyptian diet are broad (‘aish, that also means “existence”), fuul and taamiya. Bread, eaten with all of snacks and meals, comes either as pitta-type ‘aish shamsi (sun-elevated bread produced from white-colored flour) or ‘aish baladi (produced from coarse wholewheatflour).

Fuul (pronounced “fool”, fava bens) Is very cheap and could be prepared often. Steamed and mashed with tomato plants, onions and spices, the beans are known as fuul madammes, a dish frequently offered having a chopped steamed egg in the morning. An identical mixture stuffed into’ aish baladi constitutes the pitta-bread sandwiches offered in the pub.

Just like affordable is taamiya, sometimes known as falafel, deep-fried patties of eco-friendly beans combined with spices. Again, it’s offered in pitta-bread, frequently having a snatch of salad, pickles and tahina (a sauce produced from sesame paste, tahini), that you can get you have to pay the grand amount of E1 approximately.

Another cheao café perennial is makarona a clump of macaroni a part of a cake with minced lamb and tomato sauce inside. It’s rather bland but very filling. Similarly common is Kushari, a combination of noodles, grain, macaroni lentils and onions, inside a spicy tomato sauce (another sauce, made from garlic clove, is optional). It’s offered in small, medium and enormous portions (E3-5) in tiled fully stand up diners, also known as kushari.

More elaborate, and pricier, are fiteer, a mix between pizza and pancake, and costing E5-15 based on size and ingredients. Offered at café-like establishments referred to as fatatri, they contain flaky filo pastry stuffed either with white-colored cheese, peppers, mince, egg, onion and olives, or with raisins, jams, curds or simply a dusting of icing sugar.

Most sandwiches are small rolls having a minute part of basturma (pastrami) or cheese. Other favorite fillings include grilled liver (kibda) with spicy eco-friendly peppers and onions: small shrimps: and mokh (crumbed sheep’s brains).

A typical appetizer is torshi, a combination of pickled radishes, turnips, gherkins and carrots: luridly colored, it’s something of the acquired taste, much like pickled lemons, another favorite.

Lastly, there’s shawerma- slices of marinated lamb, stuffed into pitta bread or perhaps a roll and garnished with salad and tahina -some- what better than the same-searching doner kebabs offered abroad. A shawarma sandwich from the street stall may cost less than E 2, while a plate of shawerma inside a cheap diner costs around E5.