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

There’s a perilous trend that’s in danger
of breaching our healthy lifestyles and slim, trim, sexy figures. The heat of
Cairo, its wild drivers and genera lack of decent pavements make taking a break
from work and strolling down to get your lunch a chore.

Sankawicht is a new purveyor of sandwiches
and platter-meals that will deliver to anywhere in Cairo out of one of its
three kitchens located in Dokki, Maadi and Heliopolis.

Calling 16676 will take you to the
Sankawicht call centre and put you through to the very helpful and super-polite
staff. In an attempt to save time for your impending subsequent orders, they
take your name, number and detailed address for future reference. From there, your order is beamed to the
closest of the three kitchens.

Each Sankawicht option comes in three forms;
a sandwich, a combo or platter. Ordering a combo will add a packet of French
fries and a can of soft-drink with your sandwich. The platter provides you with
a serving of basmati rice, vegetables and bread rolls.

After a hard day’s work at the Cairo 360
office, we chose to sample these ‘sankawichtat’ for a much deserved lunch. On
name alone, we had to go for the coco jumbo; grilled chicken slices, mushroom,
mozzarella fondue, pickles and mayonnaise. With so many ingredients mashed into
one sandwich, the coco jumbo is the big mess we hoped it would be. The chicken
could have done with some more seasoning, but the cheese was gooey and
delicious, and we all know that everything tastes better with mayonnaise. Had
the food come sooner, we suspect that the fries would have been pretty good.
They tasted as good as say, McDonalds fries, but were a little bit soggy and
cold when they arrived.

We also went for the shamrookh in platter
form. Grilled shrimp came in a plastic serving tray that had three separate
compartments; a small one that held a disappointingly small portion of shrimp,
a large serving of rice and a decent amount of vegetables (actually just peas
and carrots).

The rice was pretty diabolical. It reminded
one Cairo 360 taste-tester of her bleak attempts at rice-cooking as a student.  It was dry and tasteless, and had to be
drowned in the tartar sauce that came for the shrimp.

We also tried the mazagangy, which is only
available in platter form. Two sticks of kofta, two chicken pieces 2 sish
tawouk pieces and 1 hot dog sounds like a lot, but the pieces were all rather
small. Although the various meats were made well and tasted ok , they lacked
seasoning and the hotdog tasted a little bit funky.

For these kind of price, fast-food lovers
can readily get a a similar meal from Hardee’s, Cook Door et al, and Sankawicht
offers little to encourage us to choose them over our more established and
reliable favourites.