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

After spending the best part of half an hour getting lost in the maze of Rehab City, we eventually came across Donetta’s bright pink and white shop-come-stall, hidden amidst a small scale fun fair for kids in the ‘Lilac’ area.   

As the name suggests, Donetta specialises in freshly made, mini doughnuts available in several different sugary flavours including chocolate, kiwi, strawberry, blueberry, sugar and more. Boxes of 3, 6, 12 and 24 doughnuts (12LE-59LE) can be put together, whilst combo meals include variations of six doughnuts, corn dogs, fries and a drink (21LE-39LE). Snacks can also be purchased individually such as corn dogs (10LE), French fries (8LE) or hotdogs (10LE), along with Cappy juice (5LE), sodas (5LE) and mineral water (4LE).  

Once we’d contemplated our choices, we decided on one ‘Combo 2’; six doughnuts, a corn dog, fries and a can of soda (39LE) in addition to ‘Combo 3’ which is basically the same, just without any doughnuts. With both meals we switched the corn dogs for hotdogs without any fuss. Instead of sitting and having a shisha from the neighbouring café we decided to stand and wait for what we assumed would be fast food.

Although they were cute and covered in plenty of sauce, the mini doughnuts – some not completely round – didn’t look the prettiest. The tiny doughnuts were dunked hurriedly, in and out of the sauce pots, before being placed side by side into a long, skinny, pink-and-white take-away box.    

Reserving judgement, we tried each and every one of the doughnuts before they had time to cool. Every sauce was delicious, gooey, sweet and full of scrumptious additives, with the slight exception of the cinnamon sugar, which was still good, just sporting more cinnamon powder than sugar.