It was the first day of 2018, and as usual we started the New Year by putting on brand new underwear after our morning shower. We started out fresh, in every sense of the word.
I was feeling much better in the morning, and we were craving some coffee to start the day, so we walked down the road, past an empty Tahrir Square, and found a Cilantro Café. This was a chain restaurant in Cairo – there had been one inside our previous hotel in Cairo – and they served simple food with their coffees. We made a small breakfast out of a cheese panini sandwich, and just lounged in the mainly empty café. At one point a customer came down the stairs from the second floor and passed us as he left, and he was white like me – a rare thing to see in Cairo. He nodded at me as he walked by and said, “It’s good to see another pale face!” I nodded back but didn’t really have an appropriate response to that.
We spent most of the morning lounging at the café and the hotel. Kuniko had stayed up late (later than me) for New Year’s and so she took a nap, I did some reading and wrote in my journal, and we took things slow.
In the late afternoon we decided to walk all the way to Zamalek, the island in the Nile River, and try again to go to the elusive Abou El Sid restaurant. This was our third try to visit – and the third time was indeed a charm. By now we were crossing busy streets effortlessly, not even noticing all the honking horns and stepping easily over broken sidewalks and trash on the street. We spent about thirty minutes walking to Zamalek, and found Abou El Sid still with the front door closed. This time we had the courage to walk up and open it, and stepped into the dark room inside.
I really liked the atmosphere of Abou El Sid in Zamalek. The place had an old feel, with a classic bar, waiters in formal suits, and ancient chandeliers illuminating old artwork advertising alcohol brands long forgotten. I spent some time walking around the restaurant taking pictures of the décor, and the waiters joked around with me by posing in front of furniture and insisting on selfies together.
We ordered several dishes to cross off some items and finish off our “to-eat” list for the trip. Kuniko ordered the roasted rabbit with molokhia sauce. Molokhia sauce turned out to be a green sauce, made with a leafy green that had the consistency of okra – thick and almost sticky. The sauce itself was slightly spicy and filling in a vegetarian sort of way. As usual the rabbit was a little bony, but with great flavor, and combining it with the sauce was the way to go. I ordered the chicken served over rice with a walnut sauce. The chef had ground up walnuts into a cream sauce that was rich and decadent. The chicken was well-spiced and layered over rice so that you could enjoy every drop of the sauce. This also felt like comfort food, and according to the staff it was a very old Egyptian recipe that they had “brought back to life”. For dessert we had an “oriental pancake”, which consisted of layers of phyllo dough formed into a sort of pizza crust topped with dried fruits, nuts and a sweet honey glaze. There were also on the side two kinds of honey and a big chunk of butter if you wanted to make it even more hardcore. Of course we made the hardcore version, because we’re on vacation.
After dinner we strolled all the way back to our hotel, following a slightly different path. This time we walked back along the bank of the Nile River, using walkways filled with young couples walking hand in hand, vendors selling grilled corn, and colorful graffiti on the walls. The view was nice, too – with Zamalek island on the other side of the river, and Cairo Tower standing out alone in the central park. We kept the pace slow and enjoyed the walk – I think we both could feel the end of the trip coming and it was hard to keep thoughts of going back to work out of our heads.
Back at the hotel we cracked open our bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate. I had slept through New Year’s so we were a day late, but it was nice to open up the bottle and catch up. I wasn’t a big fan of the bubbles, but it is hard to complain – I was surprised to even have the option of drinking any kind of sparkling wine in Cairo, let alone Egyptian sparkling wine.
This was a nice relaxing day, but tomorrow we’ll be checking out and traveling back to Japan. It was good to get our rest while we could.
