Lucille's, Cairo

Lucille's Burgers
Take Away & Delivery
40 Road 9
Maadi

2378 1530
2378 7975

Time Magazine, wrote an article on Lucille's entitled The World's Best Burger is in Egypt

I have eaten here many times when I was in the mood for some American food in Maadi (which isn't too often, as I prefer the spicier offerings at Bua Khao or Gaya) and their food hasalways been good.

Lucilles has a cosy atmosphere conducive to its home style cooking. Recently they have become completely non-smoking, so its a real pleasure to enjoy a meal without the aromas being suffocated with cigarette smoke.

The in-restaurant menu has a lot of Tex-Mex items including Corn bread and chilli con carne, tortillas, fajitas and other items too are available.

I do love the chilli con carne that they serve with the corn bread, butter and onions on the side. My other favourite is their egg salad sandwiches served with fries. You can ask for brown bread sandwiches and it seems to me that their bread is baked in store.

Most aerated drinks and the Iced Teas (Lemon & Raspberry) come with free refills when dining in.

The place is quite often filled with teenagers, so it feels young and peppy at times.

They offer a seperate Breakfast Menu which also includes waffles, biscuits, french toast and pancakes apart from the regular omelettes. Not too many places in Cairo can give you these options. Breakfast is served till 11:30am daily and all day on Friday and Saturday.

The Delivery Menu is a slightly abridged version of the Restaurant menu and I think they have another facility a little further down the road that actually caters the delivery menu. If you visit the main restaurant, you cna have anything from the menu packed for a take away.

Almost everything on the menu is cooked from scratch by their kitchen staff. They even grind their own burger meat, so you can be assured that the ingredients in your meal are healthy and flavorful.

A great option, if you are craving diner style food in Cairo.

Pictures of the food are visible on Lucille's MySpace Profile

Sports Cafe, Cairo

Sports Cafe
37, El Batal Ahmed Abdel Aziz St.
Mohandaseen
3345 8425/8426/8427

We had heard that this is THE place to go to, to grab a bite while a football match is on, but hadn't managed to catch a match here yet.

Today, it was on our way and we really wanted a coffee, so we decided to make a stop.

The first look inside the Cafe, did not inspire any confidence. It looked tacky and run down. But having heard good reviews, we decided to curb our instinct to turn around and actually brave it.

The interiors were all in red and yellow with seats at the same height as the tables, so it is not the most comfortable of seatings but Its worth a visit.

Their coffee was much better than many of the versions we have had at coffee shop chains around the city. We tried the Cafe Latte (10.95) and Cappuccino (12.95), both of which were very good.

Their Maradona Sandwich was highly recommended but it wasn't available. Oh yeah, most food is named after footballers. We settled for a Zidan Delight - hot dog with sausage and peppers (16.95) and a Zinger Burger (23.95) - this was really huge, twice the size of something at say Hardees.

Food is a mix of American & Mexican influenced cafe food.

The good thing is that there are no extra charges added to your bill. The prices you see in the menu including service charge and taxes. The only other place in Cairo that I have seen this is at Lucilles in Maadi.

Food and drink was better than average. Ambience wasn't too great, but it can be ignored. This looks like a place that students wanting to watch a game would hang out at. Maybe I should return when a big match is in progress :)

Rainforest Cafe, Cairo

Rainforest Cafe
City Stars, 5th Floor, Phase 1
Nasr City
Cairo

Rainforest Cafe is an American theme restaurant that has recently opened a branch here in Cairo. As the name suggests, the interiors are done up in the style of a rainforest with robotic animals. Cairenes would be familiar with this concept as Planet Africa has had 2 branches in the city since ages. But in my opinion the Rain Forest Cafe is much better in terms of experience, food, service and entertainment for young kids.

We visited the restaurant with friends and their 8 year old son, who thoroughly enjoyed himself right from the atmosphere and decor, to the giant aquariums, the thunderstorms at half an hour intervals, the complementary coloring books they gave him and his kids hot dog meal (20LE)

The property is huge spread over 2 floors, so seating is rarely a problem.

There is a wide variety of drinks, even the Ice Tea (14LE) comes in multiple flavors. Alcohol isnt served, so all the cocktails are actually mocktails. The banana pina colada was 19LE and the mosquito mojito and lemon juice were also 14 LE. I quite enjoyed my mojito and found it very refreshing. Large Bottle of water is 9LE.

The kid had his mini hot dogs for 20LE. 2 good sized hot dogs and plenty of fries which was too large for him. Even the kids meals are huge portions.

The cobb salad was 55LE. The fish and chips at 64 was a little too oily (think Chicken crispers oily at Chillis) for my taste, but my husband quite enjoyed it. The Amazon beef fillet (93) was excellent quality meat. I had the Maya's mixed grill which at 119LE is a bit expensive but it comes with 3 different types of meat and in really large portions, so it can be easily shared by 2.

They had a very interesting looking dessert called "the volcano" We were too stuffed from our main course to even attemot dessert, but maybe next time....

There is a merchandise shop at the entrance which could be quite a challenging expedition with demanding kids. Fortunately the little boy in our group did not fall in this category and we managed to emerge unscathed.

Its a wonderful place to take your kids. although the place is large there is only one entry/exit and the staff at that point are very careful that unattended kids aren't allowed to cross that point. I have heard mothers with younger kids say that the experience was overwhelming for the little ones. 6-7+ seems a good age to take them in.

Read an article about the opening of the cafe on Business Today Egypt

Crocodile Grill

Crocodile Grill
City Stars
2 Aly Rashad St.
Star Capital 1
P. O. Box 5112 Heliopolis West
Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt. 11771

Pretty Extensive menu. You can take a look of some parts of it on their website http://crocodilegrill.com/

Although City Stars is supposed to be a completely "No Smoking" Zone, visitors have been showing casual disregard for this for a couple of months now. So I for one was very glad when the restaurant had segregated a section for the non smokers to enjoy their meal without the constant stench of cigarette smoke.

I just ordered the appetiser platter & a Bottomless Iced Tea. As you can see from the picture below, the platter is more than enough for an entire meal for 2 people.


Onion Rings, Spring Rolls, Nachos, Chicken wings, chicken tenders, Mozarella sticks & a choice of 3 dipping sauces - honey mustard, barbeque & a cream cheese mix.

The chicken tenders were amazing. I prefer the wings at Chilli's. The Onion Rings were just right. Crispy on the outside & sweet on the inside. I think the Platter was about 55LE.

Staff was very friendly. Friendliness is their Motto. (Yes, its a stated motto. Its written all over the place)

The Ice Tea was the bottomless variety for about 10LE. They have lots of Burgers, Sea Food & other fried stuff on the menu.

The desserts in the display case looked yummy but I did not have any space left for anything sweet.

What makes them stand apart from the other American Chains in Cairo - Chilli's Fuddruckers etc ? they have a large menu of drinks (non alcoholic) & milk shakes brewed on site. Next time I'm going for the drinks & the dessers only.

The World's Best Hamburger Is in Egypt

The World's Best Hamburger Is in Egypt
Scott Macleod/Cairo

Having spent a lot of my journalistic life in Cairo, I'm fond of Egyptian food. The garlic-spiced mashed fava bean dish called ful medames, for instance, which we eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My teenage daughter repudiated McDonald's after seeing Supersize Me, so when she's out with her friends, they go to a local hangout known for its kushari, a spicy mix of macaroni, rice, chick peas and lentils........

For the rest of the article, click on this link The World's Best Hamburger Is in Egypt

Fuddruckers, Cairo

Tried out Fuddruckers today. They did serve up pretty good burgers in the States. But they weren't as yummy here.

What was good was the excellent salad bar. Each main order gets a complementary - single trip to the salad bar. There were quite a few varieties & they were all quite yummy.

Ordered a Burger - double classic works (40LE) & some chicken wings(27LE - large). I did prefer the Chillis wings infinitely more. & the burger was low on spice & flavors. But I do like me food with a lot of flavour. Not chilli, but flavour. This was a little bland for my taste. Husband did enjoy the food though. So I guess its a personal preference as usual. Soup was 6LE & a bottomless pepsi was 9LE.

The salads were so filling, that the main course was almost completely left over. We hardly touched the food. Take a look.