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

Restaurants have the ability of making their visitors feel like they’re in a totally different location via decor rand setting to set a certain tone for the evening along with its chosen culinary style.

With an esthetic coming straight out of The Great Gatsby movie, Boulevard boasts a classic twentieth century design – favouring the 1940’s – with wood covering almost everything from the furniture to the walls; it was cosy with a sense of class in Point 90 Mall, New Cairo.

Boulevard offers a mostly European cuisine, ranging from pasta and pizza from Italy, to a Veal Schnitzel house special from Germany, and has something for everyone.

We opted for the Tex-Mex fries (40LE) accompanied by the Trio platter (61LE) as a start after looking into the extravagant menu, and even though restaurant was almost empty – aside from a table or two – the plates arrived fashionably late.

Coming on a sizzling skillet, the Tex-Mex fries came covered with minced beef and cheese, topped with slices of jalapenos.  Unfortunately, they were a bit disappointing as the fries seemed like the off-the-shelf kind – even though it said house cut fries in the menu – and were made very thin and bland.

Unusually seasoned, the beef had a gamey flavour, topped by a mix of mozzarella and pecorino cheese which worked well with each other, but not with the rest of the other ingredients of the dish.

The Trio platter, meanwhile, had a mix of mozzarella rolls, chicken strips and fish fingers alongside three different sauces; marinara, honey mustard and thousand island. The nugget-sized chicken strips were well seasoned with a crunchy exterior contrasted by a tender interior and were the best thing about the platter. Though breaded nicely, the Mozzarella rolls had an unpleasant aftertaste which seemed like it wasn’t fresh, while the fish fingers had a satisfying crispy shell, but fell flat as they were too salty and felt like a fish out of water – pun not intended – compared to the other elements in the dish.

For our main course, we decided to get the house special, Veal Schnitzel (112LE), alongside the Beef with mixed cheese sauce (121 LE) and the Cheese Burger (51 LE), washing them down with Watermelon (28LE) and Mango (30LE) smoothies,  as well as the interestingly named Strawberry Ago Go (30LE).

Moving on to the beef with mixed cheese sauce, we opted for white rice and some fries as sides. The rice was Egyptian white rice which was nicely cooked, but bland, almost flavourless and poorly presented. The beef, on the other hand, was great, with an earthy aftertaste which worked well with the mixed cheese sauce, which was gooey and creamy.

Coming as one huge piece, the veal schnitzel was served with lemon sauce boat some fries. Despite being given the option of choosing our sides with the previous dish, the fries were mandatory and were similar to the ones in the Tex-Mex fries – unseasoned and bland – while the schnitzel was oily, which made it heavy and didn’t work with the lemon sauce at all, which led to another disappointing dish.

Finally, the cheese burger; the bread was fresh, though much bigger than the patty itself, which tasted more like eastern sausage than a burger due to its unusual seasoning which – again – disappointed us, covered with melted cheddar cheese.

As for the drinks, the watermelon smoothie, though refreshing, tasted watered down compared to the smooth mango smoothie, which had a rich flavour and thick texture; however, the Strawberry Ago Go, which had a mix of strawberry and banana, was  had too much milk and the banana flavour overpowered almost everything else.

Hoping to satisfy our sweet tooth, we opted for the Raspberry-white choco cookie dough (46 LE) which came in a bowl filled with hot chocolate chip cookie dough topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, some white chocolate pieces and raspberry syrup.

The cookie was gooey and was enhanced with the smoothness of the vanilla ice-cream and the contrasting sourness of the raspberry syrup, turning it a well-rounded dessert, which had us savouring every bite – a sweet end to a mixed evening.

In the end we were disappointed as Boulevard has many aspects that going for it, like a great concept, a well thought-out menu and a comfortable venue; however the less than average execution and lack of communication within an already inattentive staff, were a recipe of issues that are dragging the restaurant to a worrying direction.