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

Though
most of Downtown Mall in the Cairo suburb of Fifth Settlement is empty and
deserted, the mall has a boulevard of busy and bustling terrace restaurants; none more so than Olives

It’s the terrace that does the trick for Olives as the restaurant’s interior is very
small and can’t hold that many guests. The wooden chairs were comfortable and
despite the terrace being totally full when we arrived, we were presented with
the menu promptly. After scrolling through the menu for a while, we opted for
the shrimp konafa (38.50LE), the baked salmon (68.85LE), a beef bacon burger
(32.85LE) and beef fillet with blue cheese sauce (59.85LE).

Our
anticipations were quickly dampened when the waiter informed us that the blue
cheese sauce was unavailable; so we shifted to pepper sauce instead. After
waiting for approximately twenty minutes the waiter came to inform us that the
shrimp konafa were sold out too; so once again we changed our order to the halloumi
salad with orange and mint (24.85LE). About five minutes later, we were
surprised when our main courses were already presented to us.

The beef
fillet arrived in a large portion with a generous serving of sauce and mashed
potatoes on the side. The fillet was served medium as we had requested it and
very tender. However, the meat was a bit tasteless and could have used some
more seasoning during the cooking process. The accompanying pepper sauce had a
bit too much of the green peppers.

The beef burger was a bit dry and the patty
was smaller than the not-so-fresh bun. It also lacked sauce and was served
lukewarm. The salmon came with a generous amount of sweet-tasting sauce that
didn’t mix that well with the salmon’s strong flavour.

After
finishing our main courses, our starter dish was finally served. Though the ruccola
salad was nice, it could have done with less mint dressing. On the other hand, the halloumi cheese  was delicious; yet it had so many powerful flavours that the
dish was ultimately overpowering.

The
staff are bundled up with funny red hats and a bit too busy to be attentive, though
they weren’t unfriendly at the time of ourvisit. Although we
found the food to be rather lacklustre, we’d probably come back to Olives to cool
down with a drink and a shisha (20LE) while watching everybody pass by.