Welcome!

Welcome to our new fans from Malaysia and Croatia!  Hope you're enjoying the blog.  We look forward to your input!

La Pomme Patisserie

I wish I could give praise and high marks to La Pomme.  I walked into the 6 October location and immediately felt I had found my pastry home.  The displays were beautiful.  Attendants stood waiting for our requests.  There was an air of formality, suggesting the experience would be professionally handled, and rewarding.


What happened could not be further from my first impression.


Ahmed dove in, requesting samples of konafa, basbousa, baklawa. and so on.  As I browsed the visually beautiful desserts, he called me over to hand feed me, as is our custom.  I was a little surprised that nothing tasted great.  Everything was okay, but certainly nothing special.


When I buy desserts, I like to try a sampling of a lot.  I like variety.  I'm used to having many choices, so why limit myself to a kilo of one item?  I approached the petit four counter, and Ahmed asked on my behalf each of the flavors.  I selected five or six, each different.  The attendant seemed annoyed.  I didn't know why.  Ahmed told me that Egyptians typically buy a lot of one item.  I guess any deviation from the norm caused irritation to La Pomme's staff.


We wanted to get a few more things, so we approached the mounds of cookies (or biscuits, depending where you're from) and asked to try a few.  This is where I'll let Ahmed take over:

Ahmed: "I wanted Becky to try the kahk covered in powdered sugar.  I brought the kahk to her mouth for her to take a bite.  The crumbly kahk fell off the corners of her mouth, and she suddenly realized she had bitten more off than she could chew.  Her initial reaction was to let out a sigh through her nose, as her mouth was busy, of course.  That resulted in the powdered sugar flying off the rest of the kahk in my hand, in one big ball of powdered sugar, creating an airborne mess. Her second reaction was to burst right open with a huge laugh, blowing a mouthful of crumbs that complemented the airborne sugar ball by sending ballistic missiles of crumbled kahk in all directions.  As they landed on the carpet, Becky was stomping her feet, laughing.  The vendor gave her a dirty look of contempt and appeared to stereotype her as the loud American girl who is careless and rude."  

What can I say?  Kahk crumbles like none other.  I cupped my hand under my mouth, attempting to catch the crumbs, but kahk is kahk.  The only neat way to eat is to eat it whole (I know that now).  I blew through my nose, like, uh oh... and when powdered sugar blew, I lost it.  I laughed while keeping my lips pursed, which made the brrrrp sound, blowing crumbs now.  I couldn't help it, I laughed even more, and yes, I do tend to stomp a foot when I'm laughing hard.  Mashed the crumbs right into their expensive rugs.  I looked up, expecting a small smile, empathizing with my embarrassment, but La Pomme's attendant was in no way amused.  He looked at me as if I was a cockroach crawling over the beautiful pastry displays.  


There are many patisseries in Cairo.  La Pomme won't see me again (not that they'd care).

• Location: Remote part of 6 October, inconvenient parking.  Ladies will have to walk in front of tire and paint shops, which are staffed by men only
• Atmosphere/Vibe: Stuffy, pretentious, but pretty displays
• Service:  This was my first visit to La Pomme, and also my last.  If we had been treated respectfully, I would have returned to try other items
• Menu Choices: Varied.  Oriental sweets, bosomat (bread sticks), petit fours and cakes
• Value: Of course higher prices than Hyper One, but definitely not worth whatever we paid (tried to forget the experience soon after it happened)
• Quality of Food: Eh.  It's typical Egyptian pastry.  I've had better basbousa from Metro
• Bathrooms: N/A
• Check/Goodbye: They seemed happy to be rid of us.  The first cashier at the rear of the store, a young girl, was the only one who smiled
• Ease of opening doors: No problem getting in, but almost walked through a plate glass wall thinking it was the exit

Central Mehwar
Beyond Hosary Square
6th October, Giza

Tel: 02-38352962, 02-38352961, 02-38352968
No website found, but items can be ordered through otlob.com

Tel:

Delivery (all areas): 16131 Other Branches: 18 El Mosalamany St. El Manyal, Cairo Tel: 02-23651636 56 Makram Ebeid St. Nasr City, Cairo Tel: 02-22741403 23 Rd. 106, Hadayek El Maadi Maadi, Cairo Tel: 02-25252959 3 B El Tharwa El Maadneya St., Hadaeq El Ahram El Haram, Giza Tel: 02-39744205, 02-39808233, 018-6002226 386 Faisal St. Faisal, Giza Tel: 02-35836711, 02-35824747 519 Giza Sq. Giza, Giza Tel: 02-35725663, 02-35697905 238 A Sudan St. Mohandeseen, Giza Tel: 02-33450238

Crave

A friend, who is a new Zamalek resident, and I grabbed a bite at Crave after a few hours of frenzied shopping at the European Union Christmas Bazaar, held at the Conrad Hotel.  The Bazaar was a charity event to benefit some Austrian projects, but it was also a rare opportunity to stock up on non-Egyptian wines.  Some Portuguese cheese for Ahmed, a keychain for myself, glass figurines for the kids and much, much alcohol.

My friend had visited Crave with co-workers before and liked it.  We walked in at noon and were the only customers.  I greeted the waiter in Arabic (even if my accent isn't perfect, it really does seem to be appreciated that I try) and asked if they were serving food then.  We had our choice of seats, and lucky for me, my friend knew of a cozy area in the window, two sofas tucked away, overwhelmed with pillows.  Perfect.

We perused the menu, which was eclectic and appealing.  It's not often that I need to contemplate what to order when I dine out in Egypt, but I vacillated a bit between a smart grilled chicken breast with sauteed vegetables (which was listed as a low-calorie option - suspect) and the chicken MCM, a fried breast covered in mozzarella and fried mushrooms.  My decision was made when I spotted the date tulip dessert.  Grilled chicken it would be!

Pizzas, pasta, beef and ravioli dishes are varied and plenty.  Appetizers are a good bet, as there were several offerings that would be ideal to share as a group.  Konafa - it's not just for dessert anymore.  Shrimp konafa was a surprising addition, and would have been a must try if not for my shellfish allergy.

My friend got the chicken stir fry, which was heavily sauced (too much for her taste), and was accompanied by fried rice.  My grilled chicken breasts were perfectly cooked - moist with appetizing grill marks.  The sauteed vegetables were a bit on the oily side (hence the "low calorie" tag seeming suspect), but were well seasoned.  They were the typical Egyptian veggies - okra, carrots and mushrooms.

We lingered over lunch for what seemed to be just a few hours, and ordered the inevitable dessert - date tulip.  The "tulip" was a shallow formed, crispy sort of cookie filled with hot agua (date sauce), halved dates, probably some cinnamon which made it come alive, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Yum.  The waiter tried to remove the plate while one more bite remained, and we quickly shot him down.  When we finished, we contemplated asking for bread to mop up the remaining sauce.

The restaurant filled and turned over patrons a few times while we dined, yet we hardly noticed.  We left at six o'clock, spending a full six hours comfortably at Crave, and although we occupied a space that would easily hold six or more, we were never rushed out.

Dinner for two, several sodas, a latte and a shared dessert: LE 210

• Location - Typical side street in Zamalek
  
• Vibe/Atmosphere - Slightly upscale, but unpretentious.  Comfortable, good place for a date.
• Service - Not bad, not exceptional, but they did let us hang out for six hours!
• Menu Choices - Varied and interesting.  I'll go back to try something else.
• Value - Large portions and fairly priced.
• Quality - Very good.
• Restrooms - Not accessible for disabled folks, and a bit of a hike to get to.
• Check/Good Bye - Unceremonious

22A Sharia Taha Hussein, Zamalek
Across from Embassy of Oman
Tel.: +202 736 3870 / 736 9619
Fax: +202 736 9190
No website found


Other Branches
Maadi: 30 Road 213, Degla, New Maadi Tel.: +202 519 8443
Heliopolis: Tivoli Dome Food Court, Omar Ibn El Khattab St., Almaza Sq. Tel.: 02-24153260