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

But perhaps we missed a trick. The staff were friendly and obliging and might well have turned on the A/C had we asked. They were certainly willing to bring us a whole extra dish of sauce for free, and otherwise left us in peace to enjoy our meal. 

And enjoy it we did. For starters, the balady salad (5LE) was made up of thickly cut vegetables with a light, tasty dressing, but was somewhat upstaged by the truly delicious baba ghanough (5LE). Creamy, with big chunks of aubergine, we were so enamoured by it that we considered ordering a second helping, but were distracted by the arrival of the meat moussaka (10 LE) and shawerma fatta (20LE) instead.

The moussaka was met with mixed reviews, with grainy mincemeat and a sweetness to the sauce which didn’t altogether fit. The fatta was a somewhat safer bet; a wholesome, generous portion of moist rice, bread, and salty but flavoursome meat.

Tout Express offers all the normal juices and cocktails (9LE), as well as some guilt-inducing milkshakes (11LE), blended with artery-clogging chocolate confectionary. A bizarre addition to these staples comes in the form of a collection of ‘health drinks’ (4.50LE-13LE).

The good people at Tout Express have thrown anything and everything into the blender to cater to your woes and ills. This includes fig, grenadine, doum fruit and, slightly more worryingly: parsley, water cress, and viagra. They all come with an explanation of their intended health benefits; the ‘Cape Gooseberry Juice’ claims to ‘reduce your blood sugar by 40%’, whilst the ‘Viagra Juice’ advertises itself simply as a ‘general stimulant’.

We ordered the parsley juice (9LE) out of perverse curiosity, and were pleasantly surprised. The parsley had been blended with bananas to form probably the best parsley-based beverage we had yet enjoyed in Cairo. Make of that accolade what you will.

There are plenty of weird and wonderful things to love about Tout Express. The reasonably-priced food alone is enough to recommend this quirky little establishment, just in case its choice of smoothie ingredients are less than convincing.