Upon arriving in Cairo, we only knew one thing: we had to eat ful. Ful is Egypt's national dish, made out of fava beans. I know ful from Israel, as a hummus topping that I usually avoid. But in Egypt, ful replaces hummus as the condiment (meal) of choice and I didn't know how I would handle it. I was skeptical.
A trick I've learned: when arriving in a foreign country, the best person to ask for the best local fare is... your taxi driver. Every taxi driver has his own opinion, but he usually knows what's best. For a full day, every taxi driver we asked about ful told us the same thing: felfela.
As luck has it, Felfela was just down the street from our hostel. It appeared to be a chain; say, a local Egyptian McDonalds for the fava bean lovers. We knew we had been misguided, apparently no taxi driver thinks Americans can handle the real deal, the down and dirty of ful. But we wanted to try it anyway.
The menu was loaded. Shawarma, ful, falafel, koshari... all the local goodies. And the best part: nothing for over two pounds, an equivalent of less than 50 cents! Oh baby, let's splurge.
You order the food up front and then wait for your meal to pop out of this tiny window. We went at lunch time, so there was a long long line, but we still didn't have to wait more than a few minutes for our food.
First things first: When traveling, it's crucial to try the local specialties. This is Koshari, a staple of Egyptian street food. It consists of pasta, rice, lentils, chickpeas and fried onions, all covered in tomato sauce. Mix, mix, mix and you have a great combination. I specifically loved (and wanted more of) the lentils and fried onions, and would have liked a little less pasta, but it was still a flawless combination. And filling! Definitely more than just a side dish.
I also ordered the mix sandwich, which contained ful, eggplant and falafel. Perfect for me! Falafel in Egypt (also called Ta'amiya) is made out of fava beans, different than the chickpea based Israeli balls. The debate was heated between Egypt and Israeli falafel, but I personally think that these fava falafel were so much better! They were bigger and crunchier and green inside. I loved them. Plus, the whole sandwich tasted so much fresher than an Israeli falafel sandwich, where you end up feeling sick from fried-ness for days afterwards. (But you always end up coming back for more... grrr) The eggplant salad tricked me into thinking I was eating healthy. I couldn't really taste the ful, but it didn't matter, because Felfele is not about ful. It's about fast, good, Egyptian food. 
A success! Especially the koshari. We ended up going back to Felfela the next day too, even though it was just a fast food chain. I mean, come on, everyone's doing it.
1 comment:
Oh man, great post, all these memories. Acher sa3a, with my faltering but formerly great Arabic, is going to mean 'last hour.' My first Cairo meal was at felfella too! Were you in wust-al-balad, downtown? Then it would have been the same felfella. Also, it's not that good, and not just in a snobby way. But I'm glad you enjoyed ful so much. I could never really get my head around whether or not it was healthy, though I assume it isn't. And you're right that ta3miya is GREAT, though the ful/ta3miya place right across from my apt was so good that I'm burned out from life. Also you're right that you eat more when everything costs $.40. It feels great. What I'm not burned out on is koshari - there's really not much variety of ta3miya, and some weird variations of ful (Alexandrian, Luxor-ian, like you said), but Koshari is a whole world of variety. Some have fried onions on top, some have spicy tomato sauces, some have lemon juice for acid/citrus, and some are straight up poor people food with macaroni, rice, and not much more. Now that's healthy.
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