Venous

Lovely bakery in Korba on Baghdad street. Great selection of pastries for great prices. My favorites are the date cookies covered in sesame seeds and the cheese croissants. I have no idea why the name is spelt like this, it is something I'd expect to read in a hospital (venous: as in related to veins), I assume the intention was something different... Maybe a misspelling of Venus?? Goddess of love, because you will love their food??? No idea. Either way their baking is better than their spelling which is what really counts. :-)

Zooba

Egyptian traditional foods with a twist. Top trained certified chefs, funky decor, amazing taste, fresh ingredients. Serving kosherie, hawawshi, foul, tameya, beet and lentil salads, soups, fresh juice drinks, aish baladi coated bright green (spinach) and red (beet juice). Amaaaaazing. Give a hug to the manager Chef Zuzu who is one of the talents behind this establishment and who runs the rest of the staff like a close knit family. (Located in Zamalek)

Planet Africa

Just like the North American Rainforest Cafe chain, but with amazing grilled food. (Located in Heliopolis)

Ghalia Alia Mahmoud (Egypt's Rachel Ray)

Overnight television sensation Ghalia Mahmoud brings practical cooking advice, wit, humor and inspiration to millions of Egyptian home television viewers since this past Ramadan TV season.

How to feed a meal to a family of 15 on less than 10 dollars, words of encouragement for women, and the warm inviting smile typical of Egyptians, Ghalia has an inviting touch. She works in a modest kitchen modeled off of her own, using simple utensils and simple ingredients which every Egyptian can afford. Her producer sees her as a potential Oprah Winfrey.

Source: 25TV Facebook page

It is not exactly a story of from rags to riches however, as Ghalia's family budget even after her show and stardom is still less than $200 a month. Nevertheless, Ghalia has a deep richness which is typical of the majority of Egyptians that goes beyond buck, and her rise to celebrity status and popularity offer a great hope to many Egyptians, who hope to see a more egalitarian society on the horizon.

Source: CNN International Ed.: Inside Africa

Egyptian Salad

Egyptian salad usually has delicious vegetables, nice spices and vinegar dressing (including cumin plus a mix of spices you can buy in the grocery store called "mixed spice") and the bits of vegetables are usually cut up super small and yummy.

Eating out on the first day of Eid-ul-Fitr

After fasting from sunrise to sunset for an entire month, it is a wonderful feeling to wake up and go out and have breakfast or sit in a cafe during the day with friends and family!

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Koneifa

Koneifa is soooooooooo fabulous. And when it is mixed with a layer of eshta, it skyrockets right off the fabulousness chart.

Pistachios top off the rapturous perfection that is Koneifa with Esta

Basically, Koneifa is tiny bits of shredded phyllo dough baked and covered with gooey sugary love. It sort of reminds me of eating Shredded Wheat cereal - but only a whole lot more yummy and sinful for the waistline.

Maschi

Speaking of vegan delights,

Maschi is an amazing Egyptian dish. Basically maschi is a general term that applies to 

a variety of lovely rice&spice stuffed vegetables including zucchini, aubergine (which are are available in slim small sizes in both purple and white in Egypt), peppers, cabbage (like miniature cabbage rolls, with less tomato sauce), and rolled grape leaves. They are delicious, fabulously addictive, and great to take "on the go" for picnics or other travel. (Indeed, my sister-in-law always tells me that you can always identify Egyptian families at airports, because the mothers are the ones chasing after their children waving them down with the maschi they are trying to get them to eat). Maschi sometimes has meat in it (so watch out if you are vegetarian/vegan), though mostly I've seen it prepared without.

Fasting

Egyptians, when you combine Muslims and Christians together, probably have the world record for most days of fasting per year. According to the Encyclopedia Coptica, Coptic Christians alone fast 210 days a year. Wow. Talk about self-discipline.

Around 60 of those days Copts live on a vegan diet, and for the rest they may eat fish but refrain from other meat or animal products and similar to Muslims also refrain from eating food from sunrise to sunset (see Marie Henein's great article for some excellent recipes and info on veganism in the Coptic Church). The Coptic Church sees fasting and asceticism in a positive spiritual light, as an emulation of the life of Jesus (Matt. 4:2), and also of Moses and Elijah (Exod. 40:28; 1 Kings 19:8), and a sublimation to the glory of God and an expression of love.

As with the Coptic Christians, Muslims in Egypt view fasting in a highly positive sense. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. The time of fasting is not just about abstaining, but also about doing good deeds, increasing compassion and mercy for the suffering of others, developing self-control, and love of others and of God. "O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al-Muttaqun (the pious)."  [Soorah al-Baqarah (2):183] Muslims also fast outside of Ramadan as well, though it is not required of them unless they are making up for days lost during Ramadan (as in the case of travel for example, wherein they are exempt). Read this nice article on: "The fasting of Ramadan: A time for Thought, Action and Change!"

Iftar

Iftar is the meal that Muslims share with their friends and family during Ramadan as they are breaking their fast from sunrise to sunset. Everyone sits together in anticipation, and at the sound of the Magreb (sunset) adhan (or in Egypt - the cannon!) everyone begins to dine together, starting first with Khoshev, and then getting to the main course and afterwards sweets.

Dishes with Béchamel

When you hear the word béchamel, usually you think of a wafter thin sauce that lightly coats pasta. In Egypt - not so!

Béchamel in Egypt is THICK, maybe an inch or up to an inch and a half. It is so thick it does not coat the pasta, but sits broadly atop it, like a proud king regally sitting atop his thrown, crowned with a golden layer where the oven bakes it to fabulous perfection.

Béchamel can cover pasta, and in this case there is usually a layer of meat added, and occasionally a thin layer of tomato sauce as well (depending on how your family prefers it) and even sometimes a bit of cheese. It is also used in other dishes with ground beef, such as fried aubergine or fried zucchini (yum, yum and more yum). The most delicious dishes of "casserole" I've ever had.

Barbecued sweet potatoes

One word: Fabulous.

Uum Ali

Uum Ali, when well prepared, is one of the best - and more calorific - desserts you will ever feast on. Puff pastry, heavy cream, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, condensed milk all cooked to a golden crisp in the oven (think of the taste of marshmallows over the campfire, peeled back to reveal lots of other melt-in-your-mouth yummy stuff added inside that forms a sweet bread-pudding-like milky goodness)

The Story of Uum Ali, so I've been told, is quite interesting as well, a historic tale of a fight over ascension to the thrown in Egypt and a mother (Uum Ali, the Mother of Ali) desperate to secure her son's place, driven to murder another woman with a ShipShip (wooden sandal used for the baths).

I am not sure how this nasty story got associated with this heavenly dessert... :( but most certainly don't let that stop you from eating it!

McDelivery

In Egypt, you can have anything delivered to your doorstep. Fast food, pharmacy, full restaurants, bakeries, groceries, etc. I'm not a big fan of McDonald's, but I am a big fan of delivery. These cute little delivery trucks fill the roadways of Egypt. Considering the Cairo roadways - McDonald's on wheels gives new meaning to the phrase "fast food".





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Trendy Restaurants

Egypt (and by Egypt I mostly mean Cairo and Alexandria) has a large and growing selection of restaurants, cafes and night clubs. Great food, great atmosphere, and great company.  Cairo 360 is a great site to dig the latest reviews on where to go. Other sites to check out include Yallabina, CairoDining, and VirtualTourist.

Pigeon delicacies (Hamaam)

Pigeons have been a delicacy raised and eaten in Egypt since around 3000 BC. The below bird was served to me at my company iftar (breaking the fast) just the other night.

Garlic

Garlic, is a staple of the Egyptian diet. It figures prominently many famous Egyptian dishes, from moloheya to those spicy eggplant appetizers. They even have an entire fast food chain called "Tom & Basil" (Garlic and Onion). Mmmmm.

Rockin' dinner tables

In Egypt, there seems to be a trend among restaurants to have on the outdoor patios large wooden rocking chairs for the whole family to eat dinner on. A fun way to keep kids interested in sitting down at the dinner table. Nice romantic dinner or drinks for a new couple. Just fabulous way of making great use of Egypt's year-round wonderful outdoor weather.

Qatayef

Qatayef (pronouned in Egypt like aht-ei-f) is a crescent-shaped dessert specialty eaten during Ramadan. A yummy fried batter stuffed with cheese or a mixture of nuts, then coated in honey-syrup. It is a delicious treat to feast on after breaking one's fast. There are other more savory versions also, not coated with sugar, stuffed with white cheese mixtures or minced meat (something like a thick perogie, minus the potatoes and sour cream).

Qatayef, just waiting to be eaten, yum!

The nut mixture that is stuffed into the Qatayef

Dates

Dates are eaten all year in Egypt, however during Ramadan they take on special significance as they are used to break one's fast. Muslims believe that dates have special health benefits, this stems from the Quran. In one of the "Chapters" (Suras) of the Quran called Maryam (the Virgin Mary), there is a description of Mary experiencing the pangs of giving birth to Jesus. A voice calls out to her, "Do not grieve! Your Lord has placed a small stream at your feet. Shake the trunk of the palm towards you and fresh, ripe dates will drop down onto you. Eat and drink and delight your eyes…" (Qur'an, 19:23-26)

The health benefits of eating dates while pregnant have been proposed in other places as well, however the benefits of eating dates extend beyond pregnant women, reputed as a good way to lose weight, a laxative, good for the nervous system and fighting melancholy and stress, good for lowering cholesterol, a great source of dietary fibers and antioxidants, rich in iron, potassium and minerals like calcium, copper and magnesium, chock full of vitamins, and fabulously delicious to boot. (They make for really healthy ingredients in cookies and desserts, avoiding excessive use of sugars in cooking)