Blaze: Stylish Shisha Café & Restaurant in Heliopolis

Restaurants

Blaze

- 16/10/2012

Blaze: Stylish Shisha Café & Restaurant in Heliopolis

49 El Nozha Street
Burgers
01224915274
11am-2am -

reviewed by

Jessica Noble

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Blaze: Stylish Shisha Café & Restaurant in Heliopolis

Architecturally unusual but attractive, with a large, imposing entrance, Blaze immediately strikes you as being a bit different from all the other shisha places in Heliopolis. As we approached the venue on a Friday night, we became aware of the large groups of teenagers crammed around tables and were hit by clouds of shisha smoke. We were greeted at the entryway and given the choice of indoors or outdoors seating – although we couldn’t see where they would fit us if had we chosen outdoors. We were guided indoors and eventually seated at the last available table for two; this place is clearly a very popular nightspot for the younger generation at the weekends.

Despite the busyness of the place, the waiter quickly brought us menus and asked if we would like a drink. He informed us that because Blaze is still relatively new, the drinks menu had not been printed yet. However, he assured us that they had anything and everything; we tested out this bold statement and ordered fresh lemon juice (18LE) and a diet Sprite (10LE).

The food menu offers a wide variety of different food and caters for just about every taste. After lengthy examination, we ordered cream of chicken soup (17LE) to start and lemon butter chicken (52LE) and the Blaze mix (60LE) for mains. The mix is actually supposed to be shared as a starter and includes fried chicken tenders, stuffed potato skins, spring rolls and chicken wings. On this occasion, there were no potato skins – we’re guessing they must have sold out – and they were replaced by our choice of mozzarella sticks.

Having just enough time to conclude that the lemon juice was both fresh and brilliantly tangy, our chicken soup arrived, followed by the Blaze mix. The chicken soup was ideal; thick, creamy and fresh with real chunks of chicken. Only halfway through enjoying our amazing soup, the lemon butter chicken arrived at our table. We managed to squeeze the dish onto our small, already-full table but this lack of time coordination led us to rush the soup to avoid our main going cold.

Each item in the Blaze mix had its own unique taste; the substituted mozzarella sticks were nice – although not as nice as some we’ve previously tasted – and the spring rolls – which were filled with spinach, black beans, vegetables and cheese – tasted predominantly of spinach and cheese. The chicken tenders were our favourite; fresh, golden and perfectly crispy. Lastly, the chicken wings were, unfortunately, extremely spicy; so spicy in fact, that we couldn’t finish them.

The lemon butter chicken tasted exactly as the name suggests; the sauce was lemony and buttery and the chicken portion was fairly generous. In the description of the dish, it claims to come with ‘a splash’ of balsamic vinegar; however, in our opinion, the splashing was more like an attempt at drowning the meat.

When we came to order dessert, we were informed, again, that they did not yet have a dessert menu to show but we were offered the only thing available; a slice of Mars chocolate cheesecake (25LE). This didn’t phase us much as we often like to indulge in something sweet for afters. The large slice came with pieces of Mars Bar in the soft centre, which made the cake worth eating but, other than that, we felt like there wasn’t much else to shout about.

Despite our eyes stinging from the shisha smoke and having to compete with the conversation volumes, Blaze is up to date with its modern, fresh décor and we can imagine it being a lovely, relaxed place to go for a decent meal on the less busy weekdays.