12/16/2009
Flying to the northeast corner of the continent of Africa into Egypt we had to be curious what we would be eating for next two weeks. Because it would be almost impossible for us to recognize anything that may be on a menu, we usually ate buffet style at every meal. Our first Egyptian meal was a full buffet with several courses at the rather upscale Cleopatra Restaurant in Cairo. We came in not really knowing what we were getting into. While there were several options for us to choose from much of the food was unrecognizable to us. A lot of the first several days were trying a little big of everything until we began to able to identify our choices more clearly. The staples in the Egyptian diet seem to be rice and a lot, a lot, a lot of bread options, and the choices of differently cooked veil (baby cow), chicken, and fish at every meal. Just about everyone went in with an open mind trying some of every thing. There were several cold salads and some fruit and vegetables to choose from, nothing like say potato salad that we are so familiar with here. Moving down the line, with a roll or any other type of carb of course, there were the hot foods. These dishes were more like beans as well as other cooked vegetable entrees and some pasta. Next in line we were able to have meat choices of some type of local fish, chicken, and veil; which in the states is baby lamb instead of baby cow like over seas. The dishes were all different but most were kind of bland (I think most of us were thinking things would be more spicy), and almost more about texture than taste sometimes. There is no ketchup or ranch dressing or BBQ sauce, so to make up for any lost taste... salt and pepper it was. After the main courses we hit up the fully stocked dessert bar that included a ton of different cakes, cookies, flan, chocolate moose and some more fruit- the dessert... usually the best part. Overall the food at the restaurant and the whole trip was pretty decent, kind of monotonous at times though. But as long as we went in unbiased we were able to not starve on vacation and instead enjoy some of the local culture.
Posted at 9:41 PM by Elyse Quarterman