Fast Food, Cairo

Kushwari is a mixture of rice, pasta and pulses served with a sprinkling of crispy fried onion and a dollop of a spicy tomato sauce and then dressed to taste with hot chilli oil and lemon juice, and is simply one of the great dishes of the world.
I know it doesn't sound that exciting but it tastes great and after a bowl you feel thoroughly fed. Moreover you stay feeling fed for a while. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated onions and lentils and made pasta. I know the tomatoes come from the Americas, but I got a real feeling that this was the sort of stuff you'd be lunching on if you had a long afternoon of pyramid-building ahead of you. All for a couple of Egyptian pounds.

There are kushwari diners everywhere: they can be recognised by the vast bowls of the main ingredients.

Favorite Dish: If I just feel like lunch, a small bowl will do me.
If I'm hungry I could do a large.

That's about the choice in a Kushwari diner, although they generally also have a fridge full of canned drinks. Me, I'm off for a carrot juice at the doubtless adjacent juice bar.

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I liked Mo'men as far as fast food goes. It's a local franchise company with over 50 establishments around the Cairo area. They've now expanded into Bahrain. They have a very extensive sandwich menu with items that are very Americanized. Chicken sandwich's, Philly Cheese Steak (I was surprised when I saw this one and impressed) Grilled chicken salad, Chicken tenders, and Chicken or Beef Shawerma, FF's and Pepsi. A couple of seafood sandwich's, potato salad and coleslaw. I felt like I was at home in Virginia. Good quality ingredients, service was prompt and very friendly. I also liked the fact that they had ice for the drinks, and even let us take some home with us.

Favorite Dish: I had the Beef Shawerma with the FF's and soda. It was decent, better than going to Micky D's.

i hate to be negative but i just want to say..so that others dont need to go thru the same thing.
it might have been only a one time thing, maybe not... i guess i will never know cos im defently not going back.

GAD is a restaurant chain in egypt they have different Gads in different locations all over cairo... iv been to a few- really nice.

but then we went to GAD on street 26 july in down town- really not nice at all.

first of all we had to wait heaps of time before we got served... we called them several times. then, once we placed our orders we also asked the table to be wiped of... witch didnt happen until we asked 2 more times. then finally the waiter gave it a quick wipe. once the potato chips arrived they were cold and soggy then the pasta arrived...also cold and really terrible. then we were waiting for our main means for almost 45 minutes (this is a fast food restaurant) we had to remind them...i think they forgot about us...haha. then they said ok "ready in 5 minutes" we waited 30 minutes and still no food... i was so hungry i was ready to stand up and leave. dont know why, but we ended up staying. IT WAS NOT WORTH THE WAIT. we had orderd pizza... witch was probebly yeasterdays. hard and not juicy at all... NOT GOOD NOT GOOD AAAAT ALLL!

i am not normally a negative person and take things as they come but i want ppl to see the good in egypt so pls dont go to this perticular GAD there is heaps of much better!

enjoy.....

We had been told that all the KFC's in Egypt were run by deaf people so we wanted to go along once while in Egypt to see if that was true. And sure enough it was! We visited KFC in Cairo (this one was just behind the Pharoahs Hotel) and we were greeted by a lovely deaf Egyptian guy... We had to choose all our food by pointing to the menu... Surely enough the food tasted like KFC in any other country too!!

Favorite Dish: We tried a Mega Matafy Combo meal for 16 LE (A$1 = 4.5 LE)...

The night before I left for Egypt for a year I ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I remember thinking to myself that I would not eat it again for a year. HA! There is a KFC in almost every section of Cairo (and every other city). I know that people will ask, "Why go all the way to Egypt to eat fast food?" The answer is that sometimes you just miss familiar food. I ate more fast food in Egypt than I did in the US. And get this! Mcdonald's delivers! This is great when one is craving a vanilla milk shake at 2 am.

Hints: The prices for food at most 'western' fast food places is the same as you would find in America. For example, if a Big Mac costs 2 dollars in the USA, it will cost 2 x (exchange rate say, for example 6:1) = 12 Egyptian pounds. Fast food is NOT a 'deal' in Egypt when compared to the local 'fast food'. And since the local 'fast food' is something most of us consider to be 'exotic' it makes it all the more interesting. You can get a falaffel gyro for a couple Egyptian pounds, a big container of Kushari for less than 2 pounds, a chicken shawarma for (well I forget exactly but say less than 6 pounds) and the like. The 'western' fast food is considered a 'treat' at an 'expensive' restaurant.

Here is a list of 'western' fast food places in Cairo that I remember:

Mcdonald's
Hardees
Arby's
Pizza Hut/Domino's
Subway
Many chinese restaurants
Papa Johns (I think)
Kenny Roger's Roasters
Baskin Robbins
Chilli's (ok not fast food)
House of Donuts
TGIFs
Wimpys

Favorite Dish: McDonalds, the vanilla milkshake cuz I was sure it was pastuerized.
Arbys Deluxe Potato with BEEF bits (not pork like in the USA yay!) and loaded with sour cream which is hard to find in a supermarket.

If you can not live with out fast food, there are lot of "McDonald's", "Pizza Hut", "KFC"... in Cairo. We stopped in Pizza "Hut" 'cause we didn't have time to go anywhere else. Pizza coasts about 25 Egyptian Pounds (7 E.P. = 1 Euro).

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) not really a fave one.. but check out the menu.

Favorite Dish: Dinner Set: 3 pieces of chicken, 1 kebuli rice (oily rice), 1 coleslaw, 1 fruit, 1 bread and 1 large coke.
That was just too big for me!

I'm not a great lover of McDonalds, but....
Everything was so dirty in Cairo that the only place that I felt confident to eat there was Mc Donalds. You allready know it (unless you are Marvin the marcian). I'm sure there are better places, but this was what I had on hand...
clean. and it was so hard to find anywhere else....

Favorite Dish: you can imagine.....