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

Foul we Ta3meya only offers its food in
sandwiches or in boxes to take away; no plated foul for example as you would
find at a foul cart. The menu offers the typical foul and falafel dishes with all the
trimmings, though there are a few standout dishes like the mushroom omelette
and the stuffed falafels. Unfortunately, neither was available at the time of
this reviewer’s visit. Foul is offered with normal corn oil, with spicy oil or
with egg.

Apart from falafels, you can also opt for
fried potatoes and aubergine, baba ghanough, shakshouka and egg with basterma. Prices
of the sandwiches are between 1.50LE and 3LE, and you can mix and match the
fillings for 4LE. You can also grab
yourself a small boxed side of salad for 1.50LE or 3LE for the big one.  

We tried a mousa’aa sandwich, which
consisted of fried aubergine and spicy tomato sauce. We couldn’t actually
finish it on account of how spicy the sauce was, and the aubergines
weren’t particularly great.

We weren’t too impressed with the egg and
basterma sandwich either. It was far too oily, which is a surprise considering that
most sandwich shops would normally use Egyptian ghee. In fact, it was so oily that
it leaked out onto the bread and got our hands all greasy.

This is actually an example of the
restaurant’s main problem. Aesthetically, it’s a lovely, laidback place to eat
in, and the fact that it’s located in Zamalek is great – especially since Zamalek has no other similar
foul and falafel place that we know of. However, the food still hasn’t been
perfected and doesn’t live up to the standards set by the venue’s appearance.

It almost feels like the owners have focused on blending the
restaurant into its affluent Zamalek setting at the expense of the quality of
the food.