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

Located in what you might call the
reception area of Dandy Mall, Pascucci is no more than a neat cluster of chairs
and tables surrounding a small work station. If you can bear to put up with the
noise of shoppers around you, you might just be able to lose yourself in the
comfy chairs and dark wood surroundings.  

The menu is crammed with creative
variations of coffee and tea, and the occasional pretentious name. The vanilla
pas-ciok (18.75LE) is a glass of hot chocolate with a whipped cream, vanilla
and meringue topping.  The hot chocolate
itself is strong and ever-so-slightly bitter, and is the closest thing in taste
to the thick and pure Torino-style hot chocolate that this reviewer could only
find in Il Caffe di Roma in Fifth Settlement. The topping was
creamy and sweet, and so the two tastes will either strike the perfect balance
for you or collapse into a messy flavour. 
Other variations of the pas-ciok include the confuso; cream, caramel
syrup and crushed amaretti biscuits make up the topping.

Although we initially wanted to order a
classic, simple and plain latté (22.95LE), our will was broken by the
enthusiastic waiter’s insistence that we try it with hazelnut syrup (extra
5.25LE).  The latté was served in a tall
glass with the hazelnut syrup sitting perfectly undisturbed at the bottom,
ready for stirring. Though the coffee itself was weaker than this reviewer
would like it to be, the hazelnut syrup added a subtle but noticeable flavour.

Lastly, the fraspuccio caramel (28.95LE) is
one of Pascucci’s cold concoctions, and adds milk, cream and caramel sauce to
the equation. The result is a rather bland but inoffensive treat that also
comes in pistachio and mango flavours among others. 

The centrally located working station has a
dark display case of desserts. From the limited range, we sampled the chocolate
cake and the date tart (21.93LE) each. Dates aren’t exactly the most glamorous
of fruits, but we still expected something better than the tart we got. In a
blind taste test there’s no way this reviewer would have been able to identify
the sweet but bland topping as dates, and the tasteless base only worsened
matters. The chocolate cake on the other hand was much more appeasing. Although
it was a little too dry and spongy in the centre, the chocolate and icing on
top were sweet and full of full-on teeth-decaying flavour.

Had Dandy Mall not been full of cafés, this
reviewer might have said that Cairo needs more of these small convenience-cafés
for people who want to sit down, drink and then leave with minimum fuss. However,
the truth is that this is a very pedestrian spot to grab a coffee, and we can’t
think of any reason to choose it over neighbouring competitors.