Aswan Restaurants

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Most of the restaurants and cafes line up the corniche al Nil. Sometimes they are hidden a little below the edge near the water, so you have to go down the stairs. Since I was staying at the corniche itslelf, I passed by several restaurants, cafe and shisha joints along the way. The McDonalds and KFC also are both along this promenade, and so are the other local favorites like EMY and Aswan Moon.

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I checked out at the Memnon Hotel on my last day and will be taking the train to Luxor. But since there was no late check-out at the hotel, I decided to take the taxi about 2 hours before my train at 3:00pm and headed to the train station. Beside the station is a pizza joint called Biti Pizza.

I will be hungry in a couple of hours so I decided to take my lunch. I ordered the tick pan pizza ala-italian, a choice of 4 toppings I think. Medium-sized but I was not able to finish it, I felt full after eating 3/4's of the pizza. I dunno but I suddenly realized it's supposed to be for 2 persons?

Delicious but slightly expensive in local standard -- at EGP38 only for the pizza, drinks not included.

The waiter was friendly and I burnt my time there for more than an hour as the weather is hot and the resto is airconditioned. I dined on the 2nd floor, just I think 4 tables. They also do home deliveries.

Favorite Dish: pizza what else?

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Walking along the Nile corniche, you'll get to discover many restaurants that you won't discover if you won't.

The McDonald's in Aswan is located on the other end of KFC. If you're facing the Nile river, and KFC is on your left, McDonald's is on the right end, right after a garden. It is in a very nice building and on the edge of the east bank with a panoramic view of the river and you can even see the desert hill where the tombs of the nobles are.

Several big ships/ferries are anchored near the deck of McDo. What's so interesting about the McDo aside of course from the amazing view is the staff, they're incredibly nice, courteous and ever friendly. This suddenly reminded me of the totally opposite reception I got from the McDo in HK in Mongkok area I think where the staff are the rudest MD staff I've ever encountered -- no offense to them but that was my experience, and happened so many years back, am sure the rude staff are gone...hopefully.

Even if you're not a huge fan of fastfood or american fastfood -- just go there, order a soft icecream, sit at the veranda/deck and enjoy the view. The place is also very clean.

Believe me, the staff are so amusingly nice...nicest bunch of McDo crew ever!

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After tasting the stuffed pigeon at the AlMasry Restaurant the previous day, and eating koshary, I started gnawing for something within my comfort zone, so I walked along the cornische nile street and found a KFC few meters from the entrance of the Firyal Garden.

Went down the steps, and inside the joint. There are dining inside but I found dining at the tables outside more enjoyable as it is overlooking the Nilve river and beyond. Although there are about 3 cats around not even waiting for your leftover who keeps on trying to jump on top of your dining table!

Full meal costs around EGP35... do I have to describe the food? it's KFC!

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I walked to the street near the souq/market and ask one guy standing outside the arch-gate of the souq where the Al Masry Restaurant is and he pointed it to me which is not far from there.

The restaurant outside is nice and when I get in, it's not that big of a place, maybe 8 tables or so, but there are big tables that could hold 6 seaters. Simple inside, white table cloth and good plates and cutleries. Strangely, there was only one person dining, so when the guy left, I was the only one -- maybe it was a bit early in the evening?

The waiter gave me the menu and since I've heard about the pigeon which I haven't tried eating in my whole life so I orderd the Stuffed Pigeon set meal. The staff are nice.

He gave me first the salad of fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and the flat-rounded pitta bread. Then came the lentil soup which is actually good, the humus dip, and just few minutes the stuffed pigeon along with a vegetable sauce dip, and rice. The preparation and the pigeon itself looked really good (see pic). But basically the pigeon was enlarged by the stuff-ings of rice, not much of meat, and I don't know how to eat a pigeon so I didn't get much of the meat, I just eat the rice stuffing. And so I did not enjoy it much, besides, I don't really enjoy the taste of the pigeon, maybe it really taste like that but, well, no I won't eat pigeon again.

Just for the experience, yeah I would recommend ordering the pigeon.

There are other set meals for the same price in Al Masry restaurant like the grilled pigeon, stuffed chicken, kebab & kofta (I should have ordered this).

The set meals costs EGP47 excluding drinks. I finished my dinner with a hot cup of karkadeh (hibiscus tea) at EGP5.

The front of the restaurant is a narrow passage to get inside and a sign which says "Koshary" so maybe that's the name of the place. From the Memnon Hotel where I was staying this is the first place I took a meal as I was really hungry when I arrived and I don't want to go around anymore hunting for a place to eat. It is a minute walk from Memnon Hotel and the guys working there are friendly that I ended up giving the chocolates in my bag to this little boy (about 12 y/o) serving there. Infront of this Koshary is also a shawarma and kibda sandwich place.

The restaurant serves primarily koshary, but there are some other stuff like pasta. I took my quick meals maybe 3 times in this place.

Koshary is not a full meal but it could be for light eaters, considered as Egyptian's national meal so it's very popular and available in many places everywhere in the country. It is served in a small bowl and it's a mix of rice, chickpeas, macaroni and lentils garnished on top with fried garlic and onion, tomato sauce, and I think some other spices which I cannot figure out.

This dish would best suit vegetarians and vegans. Tastes good.

I always pay EGP7 in this palce for the Koshary and a bottle of water, whereas the Shawarma in front of the Koshary resto costs EGP10, Kibda (or beef liver sandwich) is EGP5.

Favorite Dish: Koshary of course.

The Asswan Panorama is one of several restaurants along the waterfront as I recall. The window table that we had peered across the river, although we did eat at night and actually saw little of the water from our table. Even so, the Nubian service and food was really great. It was in fact at this restaurant that the unique Nubian style culture finally came through to me. Besides the tall black Muslim man who was our waiter, the food was served in a way that was generally more sophisticated than the usual Arabic grub from northern Egypt. The restaurant serves fresh fruit juices when in season, herb drinks, and both bedouin and bishareen coffee. The menu also features chicken, pigeon, hamburgers, vegetarian food, and Asswanese Tagen. The price for the entire meal was under $10- but worth a lot more by my standards.

Favorite Dish: We had fresh water fish kabobs from Lake Nasser that was charcoal grilled. What I really remember was the Bishareen Coffee after the meal. The coffee was served at the table in a unique leather covered ceramic bottles, over a wooden incense holder that provided additional exotic aromas. The rich black coffee was then poured into small Arabic style cups. I liked this so much that I later found in town a place where to buy the coffee bottle and wooden holder.

Since we were on a 3-day cruise, we ate several meals on our cruise ship. I imagine the buffets on the cruise ships are fairly similar. Ours had an excellent, very friendly staff.

Breakfast was great and the juice was free, but we had to pay separately for drinks during lunch and dinner.

The bottled water was the same price as you could find in the cities, so many times we went ahead and purchased water here for our day of travel.

The food wasn't quite as good as I've had on an ocean cruise, but there were usually several tasty dishes and plenty to fill you up. I was rather disappointed with their desserts, because there wasn't any chocolate in any of them! :)

Favorite Dish: There were many tasty selections, but they didn't have labels, so many times I wasn't totally sure what I was eating :)

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Karkady (Hibiscus Tea) is made from dried Hibiscus Flower. You can drink Karkady hot or cold. The tea is a rich dark red color, the tea has a tangy smooth taste, like Cranberry Juice. It is usually sweetened with sugar. Karkady can be found in any cafe or coffee shop or cafe in Egypt.

*NOTE: Some people have had problems when consuming Karkady. Has been known to be used as a remedy to lower high blood pressure. If you have problems pertaining to low blood pressure, it may be best not to drink Karkady.

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Chef Khalil is an amazing seafood restaurant that is tight on space but long on taste. It doesn't look like much from the outside and even when you walk in it's small, tables are close together and the refrigerator - and fish tank - are fully visible so you can choose your meal yourself. But prices are very reasonable, service is fast and friendly, the fish is extremely tasty with decent sized portions and it's always hopping with tourists and locals alike.

You can sit downstairs or climb the stairs for more privacy and space.

All in all, an awesome find and a place I plan to visit many times in the future. My group of 8 friends had high praise for all their meal choices and we all had something different.

Favorite Dish: I tried the Market Mix or Grill Mix or Sample Plate. At any rate, it was a plate of different seafood. It came with rice and salad on the side. Delicious and very filling.