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

There’s a constant back and forth with restaurants in Cairo; some choose a prime location, and others choose prime food. Rarely do you find both, especially when importing ingredients is not only expensive, but requires special licensing.

The newest contender falls into the prime location category. Located on a corner spot in Maadi, Scalini boasts a comfortable outdoor seating area, decent shisha and a menu that is dominated by, but not exclusive to, Italian cuisine.

The restaurant has nothing even remotely related to Italian décor, however; instead it usesa brown and beige colour scheme across tiling, plastic tables and chairs.  Already popular amongst football fans, the restaurant can get very crowded on match nights but is generally comfortable on a normal night.

A waiter escorted us to an empty table and handed us menus that offered all the regular options of starters, salads and main courses, but also included breakfast and bakery items.

We opted for a Mexican Salad (32.5LE), Beef Stroganoff (75.5LE) and a Steak & Cheese with Mushroom sandwich (33.5LE).

While serving time was average, the sitting outside in the summer may prove to be a bit much. Keep that in mind if you’re going in the day.

The Mexican Salad arrived first, supposedly containing fried chicken, mixed cheese, corn, red beans, lettuce and bell peppers. What we received was cucumbers, tomatoes, olives and white cheese with fried chicken and a side of Thousand Island dressing. We’re unsure if this was a mix-up in the kitchen or if they were missing some ingredients, but either way, the flavours didn’t blend, and the salad wasn’t very good.

Next came the Beef Stroganoff main course and the Steak & Cheese sandwich. The Stroganoff comes with your choice of two sides; we opted for sautéed vegetables and mashed potatoes. We had previously never seen pickled cucumbers floating around this dish, but there’s a first time for everything no?

While the portion was big, the flavour just wasn’t refined enough. The meat, along with the gravy, tasted bland at best. Even the sautéed vegetables had more flavour than the meat, while the mashed potatoes were nice and creamy.

The Steak & Cheese sandwich was a disaster. The meat was bland, the mozzarella cheese was dry, there were hardly any mushrooms and, although the menu doesn’t say so, there were plenty of olives and bell peppers. To top it all off, the sandwich was cold and just downright unappealing.

All in all the experience was poor. While the staff was swift and friendly in seating us and taking our orders, and the venue itself is a decent atmosphere for drinks and a shisha, the food was a major disappointment.