INDIAN RESTUARANTS IN SHARM-EL-SHEIKH

Sharm el sheikh, a Red sea resort town, on the list of the global party hoppers has some of the best Indian vegetarian food in Egypt. Unbelievable but true!

I ate at three Indian restaurants there and saw another two, which I could not try out. “Tandoori” on King of Bahrain Street and close to the PaschaSharm discotheque is an award winning restaurant. It is located in the courtyard of the Camel Hotel and the dining is al fresco with an open kitchen. Though I did not much care for the vegetarian food, my dining companions were very happy with the chicken curry that they had ordered. The quality of cottage cheese (known as “paneer” in India) is my yardstick for the quality of food at a restaurant and “Tandoori” was a huge disappointment in this respect. The paneer was like rubber and very hard to chew. Also the potato in the “aloo paratha” had gone stale.

“Rangoli”, the Indian restaurant at the Sofitel Hotel in Na’ama Bay is a posh restaurant with a lovely terrace seating. Here, the cottage cheese preparation is good. The mixed pakoras that we had ordered as starters is tasty too. The methi paratha (bread stuffed with fenugreek leaves) is absolutely divine. The vegetable biryani is mildly spiced and fragrant. They insist on advance reservations, especially if you want to enjoy your dinner on the terrace overlooking the Red Sea. However, the evening we dined at Rangoli, many tables were vacant. The maitre d’hotel was very helpful in guiding us as to the quantity that would be sufficient for our group. Considering that this Indian restaurant is part of the Sofitel Hotel, the prices are reasonable.

The restaurant that I liked the best is “India House” opposite the Buddha Bar. Managed by the same people who run the “Dragon House” in Maadi, Cairo, it has the best Indian vegetarian food that I have eaten in Egypt. The dal fry is so good that I could not have enough of it. The butter nan and the butter rotis are baked just right. My friends, who tried the fish curry loved it as they did the chicken masala. And I was really pleased with the butter paneer masala. Pieces of soft cottage cheese dunked in tomato-onion gravy. Yummm….delicious!

Saw a couple of other Indian restaurants like “Taj Mahal” and “Maharaja”. However, the drawback is that all these restaurants are closed for lunch and open only at around 6.30 p.m in the evening. Therefore, this limits the number of restaurants that one can try out during your stay.

LAST DAY OF RAMADAN AND NO FOOD

What is it with all the eateries in Egypt? For the last day of the holy month of Ramadan, we were in Marsa Matrouh. And most of the restaurants were closed. My friends’ desire to sample some local fish went unfulfilled. Even the international food chains like Pizza Hut, KFC and Chicken Tikka were closed. The reason being that the following day was Eid and everyone was busy with preparations for the big day that marks the culmination of the fasting month of Ramadan. There would be prayers to be offered early in the morning, new clothes to be bought, sweets to be made etc. The local eateries probably would be having some orders to be fulfilled for the next day and hence were closed for regular business. The sweet shops were of course doing brisk business.

After driving around the town for some time in search of dinner, we finally had burgers at Mc Donald’s-the only eatery that was open that night in Marsa Matrouh. It was a valuable lesson learnt -The day before Eid is probably not the best time to sample Egypt’s culinary delights!

FRUITS IN CAIRO

Me: "Ayza nuss kilo" ( I want half kilo)
Fruit Vendor: “ok” –he starts picking up some peaches and putting in a bag
Me: "Anaii" (I choose)
Fruit Vendor:"La" (no) -a bit rudely.

With a shake of my head and hand (here my limited arabic deserts me) , I say in English –“then I don’t want” and turn to leave…..and the vendor is not calling me back!

This story was repeated with all the three vendors that I tried to buy peaches from. I was quite surprised with this attitude-“were they not interested in selling the fruits-and if I am paying for the fruit, don’t I have a right to choose the ones that I want?" I was fuming at the cavalier attitude of the vendors and at the same time at a loss to understand their way of doing business. My Egyptian friend calmed me down and explained to me that this was the “normal” thing when buying fruits from the carts on the streets – there are some good fruits and some bad fruits and the vendor would pick up some of each for me and I must take the good and the bad. “But why should I pay for the bad?”, I argued. My friend just shrugged and said that this was the way things were done here, but also had a suggestion-I could “buy” the right to choose the fruit that I wanted by offering to pay a couple of pounds more.

So with this new-found wisdom, I am now ready to tackle the fruit vendors of Cairo!

Ordering food at home in Cairo-Otlob

For days when you don’t feel like cooking and you can’t even be bothered going out, otlob provides the best alternative-ordering food at home. And it is extremely easy to use-log onto www.otlob.com; register your self and voila! –you have access to the some of the best restaurants in town! All the menus are in English and even the support staff speak very good English. This service is primarily aimed at the English speaking expatriate community and is very convenient as it does away with the hassle of conversing in Arabic.

I have been using this service for some time now; there have been some minor hiccups at times-small differences in the total amount, sometimes a delay in the delivery-they ask for a minimum delivery time of 45 minutes.

However, last night, when I ordered on Otlob, I had a huge surprise-I had ordered from “Arabica”, a restaurant in Zamalek. My total bill on the Otlob site showed LE 51.5. But when the restaurant delivered the food to my house, their bill showed an amount of LE 84.5-a difference of more than LE 30 from the Otlob site. When I called up the restaurant, I was told that they had a new menu and the bill was according to this new menu-the menu on Otlob had the rates according to the old menu. There was nothing to do but pay up!

However, I did register a complaint on the Otlob website and they got back to me within an hour-the guy who called me up from Otlob offered profuse apologies and assured me that the complaint had been forwarded to the right persons within Otlob to ensure that such errors do not occur in the future. Had been quite upset with the mix-up but was happy to see the response of Otlob-they take the complaints seriously!

Full on Fuul

Over the last two days, I have had some really interesting and tasty vegetarian Egyptian food. Of course, I have had the ubiquitous fuul and ta'miya countless number of times. Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen all claim fuul and ta'miya to be “their” food; the preparation differs from country to country though.

Fuul is fava beans or broad beans that are boiled and then mashed with garlic, lemon, chilli powder and olive oil. At the Mohammed Ahmed outlet in Alexandria, you can choose from fuul with hummus, fuul Alexandria or fuul with fried eggs. The last one is my personal favourite and makes an extremely satisfying meal. Also the place has one of the crispiest ta'miya but beware!-You will not be able to stop once you have had one!. For the uninitiated ta'miya is boiled and deep fried fava beans patties. In Lebanon, it is referred to as felafel and chick peas are used instead of fava beans.

Hummus is chick peas blended with tahina, lemon juice and garlic and tastes absolutely divine; especially when it has generous amounts of olive oil drizzled on it. We had a completely different version of the hummus from a street side vendor at the Suez Canal. He prepared it by pouring boiling water over the boiled chick peas and then stirred in chili powder, lemon juice and tomatoes. He was very generous with the chilli powder, thinking that we are IndiansJ. It is guaranteed to thoroughly cleanse your system!

After having crossed to the east bank of the Suez canal at Qantara, we came across an eatery by the name of Nanoos. It is a very unassuming place but has the best baba ghanoug in Egypt!. The place is your equivalent to an Indian dhaba, the bread served here is soft and is just plonked on the tableJ. Just avoid the last bread and you should be fine. Also, the place serves a dish called “atts”-have googled but have not been able to come up with anything on it. It is like lentil soup with spaghetti thrown in and lightly spiced. I was told that Nanoos gets it just right-. I loved it and had two bowls of it. Here I have written the name as it is pronounced; will update you on this dish if am able to get any further information.

And the icing on the cake is that all the above are vegetarian!