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

Burger places are becoming a dime a dozen, especially with the burger craze Cairo has been going through in the past couple of years. Each venue has to offer something to make the people want to come back; and it’s this that Sliders lacked at the time of our visit.

With an open kitchen and three benches, Sliders is mostly a takeaway venue with optional seating if required. It’s tucked away deep inside Maadi’s side streets over an interesting souvenir and gift shop called Teepee.

After taking our seats on one of the benches, we ordered almost everything on the menu; the first to arrive were the Double Burger with cheese (42 LE) and the Wicked Double Burger (46 LE), with Fries (8LE) on the side.

All coming in a wooden tray, the burgers were wrapped and the fries in a cup. The fries were well seasoned with a certain crispiness to them and were sprinkled with some spices to give them an extra kick. Meanwhile, while the burgers had a fresh, homemade taste to them, there was nothing special about them; the two-patty Double Burger was topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and sauce, while the Wicked Burger was the same, but with the addition of some caramelised onions, and both needed much more sauce.

Coming about ten minutes later were the Regular Crispy chicken (25LE), and Buffalo Crispy Chicken (25LE), with a side of Cheese Fries (14LE) and Mac N Cheese (18LE).

The Mac N’ Cheese was served as fried balls of the pasta, but there was too much egg used in the breading, which was obvious in the flavour, while the balls needed more cheese.  On the other hand the cheese fries were excellent, with great spices and seasoning on the fries; it was enhanced even further with gooey cheese melted on top.

As for the regular and buffalo crispy chicken, they were almost the same with the only difference being that the buffalo was a bit spicy. The problem was that both were very oily and that the oil was absorbed by the breading making it soggy.

Our final two orders the BBQ Pulled Beef Sandwich (32LE) and the Hot Dog (18LE). Unfortunately, the pulled beef wasn’t rested for long enough, which caused all the meat’s juices soaked the bread so much that it fell apart in our hands. Despite this, it had a great BBQ taste to it with an interesting addition of some fries inside the sandwich. Covered with melted cheese and topped with some sweet coleslaw, the hotdog was the most flavourful of the sandwiches with the lovely contrast of savoury and sweet in every bite.

Finally, for dessert, we opted for the French Toast in both the Galaxy and Kinder (18LE each) options. They each came as two French toast sandwiches filled with the chocolate filling and sprinkled with powdered sugar on top. The toast had a satisfyingly crunchy crust with a tender interior, giving a tasty backdrop to the gooey sweet melted chocolate.

In the end, there were just too many hiccups at the time of our visit to believe that Sliders can be anything more than just another burger place. Sliders need to offer something truly unique or they will end up being forgotten, especially with a cut-throat competition of burger and sandwich places opening every other week.