We had a little trip out today, which means we went out of Maadi both days this weekend!
On Friday we were out for brunch with the Prebs and Flossie and her Andy. Not that we needed much of an excuse to have a brunch, but it was meant to be a belated birthday brunch. I managed five courses which is well below my usual average.
First course was salads and dips (while we were waiting for Flossie and Andy to arrive). Second course was warm mezze which was really delicious. Next time I think I'll skip the cold salads (especially as I wasn't eating smoked salmon or cheese at the moment) and so two plates of this. They had a really good minced meat baklava, great samousak and moussaka. I also had something I'd not had before which was a layer of rice, a layer of cooked chicken breast bits and then a layer of white sauce. Pretty tasty and sort of like a left-over turkey dinner meal! Next I had some of the Thai green chicken curry which I had been warned was very hot. It was good and maybe I could have had a larger serving. My last 'main' dish was some of the braised beef which Scotty had been going on about all day (he'd had two servings already!) along with vegetarian lasagna which was also very nice. We had dessert envy when we saw someone with a large chocolate bomb, but in the end I didn't go for that, but went for a chocolate cup, a small tartlet of apple crumble and a creme brule. All were very good (the creme brulee was far better than the 'parmesan creme brule that I'd had as a starter which was just a bit odd, and the apple crumble was pretty tasty and sweet), but by this point I was feeling very full. I wanted to have room for a crepe, but knew it wasn't really possible without dire consequences.
We left the buffet at about half four, but we were in no rush to leave as the weather outside was pretty miserable (for Cairo, of course). The wind had been lashing away all afternoon and it was drizzling and cold. We took a taxi back to Maadi with the Prebbles and all vowed that now we had eaten that much there was no need to leave the house, or even the couch, for the rest of the day.
(We did actually end up leaving the flat to go shopping at about 8pm as they say it is always a good idea to go food shopping when you aren't hungry... and we really were not hungry! We ended up buying cereal and popcorn and then going to the Prebbles to eat it - not really sure how that happened!)
So on to Saturday (today) and after yesterday's excursion this should have been a day of 'apartment time', especially as the weather hadn't changed too drastically. However I wanted to try and get out to the Khan and take some photos for someone in the UK who wants photos of staircases (and apparently there are two prime examples of staircases in Islamic Cairo). We check on a map where we were going and decided that rather than getting a taxi to the place we were going to (which we were not very familiar with), we would get a taxi to the place we were very familiar with and then walk. This turned out well and it was a really nice walk north of Midan Hussein towards Bab al Nasr. On our way we took some photos for the new website project. The streets were really nice and quiet as it was only just noon.
When we got to Bab al Nasr we found that it was being renovated and the outside stair access looked pretty good. This was a good sign, but the bad sign was the positioning of the port-a-cabin in front of the stairs. This to us was a strong indication that they might have the Gate renovated, but they didn't want anyone visiting it just yet. Some boys running a near-by stall showed us how you could squeeze past the cabin or jump over the low wall, but we decided that we would wait another month until it looked a bit more open.
Our walk back to the heart of the Khan took us on the road parallel to Sharia Muezziz. We'd never been along here before and it was a really lovely walk. The street was being renovated as Muezziz had been and so long stretches were dug up (up to 1m below street level) to lay pipes, then other areas were being prepared for new flagstones. One block had also been renovated into traditionally fronted workshop spaces. We kept straight and managed to find our way back into the Khan proper (via our favourite 'electronic weighing scales' district) and then into a taxi back home.
The trip didn't take us too long all in all. On one hand we didn't achieve very much as we were unable to get into the Gate to see the stairs properly and we only took a few photos for the website project. But on the other hand it was good to get out and remind ourselves how easy it is to get into an interesting part of town, how nice it is to explore and how much we enjoy it!
On Friday we were out for brunch with the Prebs and Flossie and her Andy. Not that we needed much of an excuse to have a brunch, but it was meant to be a belated birthday brunch. I managed five courses which is well below my usual average.
First course was salads and dips (while we were waiting for Flossie and Andy to arrive). Second course was warm mezze which was really delicious. Next time I think I'll skip the cold salads (especially as I wasn't eating smoked salmon or cheese at the moment) and so two plates of this. They had a really good minced meat baklava, great samousak and moussaka. I also had something I'd not had before which was a layer of rice, a layer of cooked chicken breast bits and then a layer of white sauce. Pretty tasty and sort of like a left-over turkey dinner meal! Next I had some of the Thai green chicken curry which I had been warned was very hot. It was good and maybe I could have had a larger serving. My last 'main' dish was some of the braised beef which Scotty had been going on about all day (he'd had two servings already!) along with vegetarian lasagna which was also very nice. We had dessert envy when we saw someone with a large chocolate bomb, but in the end I didn't go for that, but went for a chocolate cup, a small tartlet of apple crumble and a creme brule. All were very good (the creme brulee was far better than the 'parmesan creme brule that I'd had as a starter which was just a bit odd, and the apple crumble was pretty tasty and sweet), but by this point I was feeling very full. I wanted to have room for a crepe, but knew it wasn't really possible without dire consequences.
We left the buffet at about half four, but we were in no rush to leave as the weather outside was pretty miserable (for Cairo, of course). The wind had been lashing away all afternoon and it was drizzling and cold. We took a taxi back to Maadi with the Prebbles and all vowed that now we had eaten that much there was no need to leave the house, or even the couch, for the rest of the day.
(We did actually end up leaving the flat to go shopping at about 8pm as they say it is always a good idea to go food shopping when you aren't hungry... and we really were not hungry! We ended up buying cereal and popcorn and then going to the Prebbles to eat it - not really sure how that happened!)
So on to Saturday (today) and after yesterday's excursion this should have been a day of 'apartment time', especially as the weather hadn't changed too drastically. However I wanted to try and get out to the Khan and take some photos for someone in the UK who wants photos of staircases (and apparently there are two prime examples of staircases in Islamic Cairo). We check on a map where we were going and decided that rather than getting a taxi to the place we were going to (which we were not very familiar with), we would get a taxi to the place we were very familiar with and then walk. This turned out well and it was a really nice walk north of Midan Hussein towards Bab al Nasr. On our way we took some photos for the new website project. The streets were really nice and quiet as it was only just noon.
When we got to Bab al Nasr we found that it was being renovated and the outside stair access looked pretty good. This was a good sign, but the bad sign was the positioning of the port-a-cabin in front of the stairs. This to us was a strong indication that they might have the Gate renovated, but they didn't want anyone visiting it just yet. Some boys running a near-by stall showed us how you could squeeze past the cabin or jump over the low wall, but we decided that we would wait another month until it looked a bit more open.
Our walk back to the heart of the Khan took us on the road parallel to Sharia Muezziz. We'd never been along here before and it was a really lovely walk. The street was being renovated as Muezziz had been and so long stretches were dug up (up to 1m below street level) to lay pipes, then other areas were being prepared for new flagstones. One block had also been renovated into traditionally fronted workshop spaces. We kept straight and managed to find our way back into the Khan proper (via our favourite 'electronic weighing scales' district) and then into a taxi back home.
The trip didn't take us too long all in all. On one hand we didn't achieve very much as we were unable to get into the Gate to see the stairs properly and we only took a few photos for the website project. But on the other hand it was good to get out and remind ourselves how easy it is to get into an interesting part of town, how nice it is to explore and how much we enjoy it!
1 comment:
If you go again, you can access the really cool staircase inside the bab el futuh through the mosque to the left of the gate (inside the ancient wall). The muezzin there is very friendly and helpful. It's a little scary and precarious, but awesome.
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