Eating and Drinking, Cairo

Favorite thing: Umm Ali dates back to Ottoman Egypt and legend say that sultan stopped in a poor village looking for something to eat and the village's best cook, named Umm Ali, made something.

This is in fact light fluffy pastry bathed in sweet milk sprinkled with dried fruits and nuts.
It was my favorite.

Favorite thing: Small juice bars are everywhere in Cairo and should not be missed. They offer a variety of juices, either freshly juiced to order or in the case of out-of season fruits, made up from a sirop. My favorite, and popular with Cairenes too, is 'nus bi nus' (half and half), a mixture of orange and carrot. Another drink often to be found is made from sugar cane...as you might expect it is sweeter than sweet.

There's a system in many of them: you pay one person who then gives you a token which to hand over to the man actually responsible for producing your juice. Prices will generally be on display: generally between 1 and 5 LE ,depending on the fruit.

The cautious should disregard all the rubbish you hear about Cairo water ('and even keep sure you keep your mouth shut when showering'.....puh-lease). Yes they use tapwater. No you won't catch anything from it. It's well chlorinated. Not very nice to drink on it's own but perfectly potable.

Favorite thing: Me laisser happer par la vie trépidante du Caire, et la quitter régulièrement pour me rendre dans le Sinaï.

Fondest memory: Cairo is full of life, positive and negative energy, Cairo never sleep.
Le Caire est un concentré de vie en tout genre, une ville géante pleine de contraste, qui ne dort jamais.

Favorite thing: While we were in Egypt the Muslim community were in the middle of Ramadan. We had heard that it could cause problems with our tour or that we may not get to eat because of Ramadan but really we didn't have any problems at all because of it.

The locals did seem to go a bit crazy around 4:30 - 5:30 pm when they ALL seemed to be on the road travelling home or to where ever they would eat their "break-fast" but it didn't affect us too much. We also found a lot of locals eating in the streets and enjoying each others company. It was nice to see!

A couple of nights we also joined our tour guide (a local Egyptian) for his "break-fast" meal... :)

Favorite thing: It's not safe to drink from the tap. You can buy bottled mineral water, which is very much available everywhere in shops and hotels.

It cost about 6EP to 10 EP for one large bottle in hotels, and 1.5 EP to 2EP if you buy from shops.

The brands that i took were Nestle and Baraka.

Some of my tour mates boiled the mineral water but i didn't. It's not really necessary. But it really depends on your comfort level.

But one thing to be careful, check out the seal of the bottles and the cap, make sure it has not been opened yet. Esp with soft drinks glass bottles.

Favorite thing: Well you can’t go to Egypt and not at least try a shisha. Prices vary from LE6 to LE12 depending on where you are. We liked the apple one best. It is very nice to sit down with a drink after dinner and a shisha to wind down after a long day of sightseeing.

Fondest memory: I went to a sweets shop that sold arabic sweets. I asked the price and I was told that it'd be around 3USD. I assumed that is per piece (that would be the price here in the States). After I picked out a few sweets (harissa, baklawa), the total cost was less than 25 cents! It turned out the price was per kilogram!!!

Fondest memory: Their 'naan' like bread is simply delicious. Cooked in a domed-like oven, these puffy 'naan' goes extremely well with some Egytian curry.

Favorite thing: Smoking flavored tobacco from a water pipe while having some peppermint tea is very relaxing. it costs $1 or so.