The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

The last three or four years have phased a lot people. They’ve also phased a lot of businesses and even drove some of them to bankruptcy. With that said, many restaurants have managed to survive, others even flourished, and with that we became interested in how that impacted the quality of food.

Already established and well known to the residents of Maadi, Burger Joint has been a long standing hotspot for many of the younger crowd with no clear nightlife options in Maadi.

What has made Burger Joint survive up until this point seems to be a mixture of its location and the simplicity of their food. The venue itself hasn’t changed much – if at all. It still has a small open side area with wooden benches that’s quite intolerable in the summer and not so bad in the winter.

So we opted for a Warman Burger (42.95LE) with an extra patty (11LE). We also got Wedges (10.50LE) and Onion Rings (13LE).

The Wedges were warm, thick cut, salty and as many of their customers already know, can replace the regular fries in your combo for no additional fee. The Onion Rings, thickly covered in batter, were tasty but, sadly, missing a crunchy factor.

The Warman Burger, topped with tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise, in addition to beef bacon, mushrooms, caramelized onions and sweet relish, was an interesting and particularly juicy experience.

While the bread and ingredients tasted fresh, unfortunately most of that juice was from the toppings and not the patty itself which was overcooked and almost slightly charred. We couldn’t help but notice that the patties weren’t the same as before, while burger joint was never the expert at perfect medium-well burgers, the overcooked and less tasty patties were a real let down from a Maadi classic.

We’re glad that Burger Joint is still around to fill the burger cravings we all have, but it’s sad to see the quality of the most important ingredient, the patty, fall back especially when strong competition is popping up around every corner. Could the location and connection to the Maadi community keep Burger Joint afloat?