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

Whoever thought
that post revolution Egypt wasn’t a good place to open up a new business has
been proven wrong by all young entrepreneurs out there starting up new ventures. In Zamalek, there has been a tremendous increase in food and beverage venues.
One of the latest to open is On Toast on the intersection of Marashly Street
and Taha Hussein Street.

On Toast’s best
asset is easily its covered terrace.  The
wooden chairs are comfy and the view isn’t too bad either. Inside there is an
open kitchen where you can see the chef at work. The venue has just four tables
and is therefore more appropriate for take away and small groups.

We started off with
a strawberry smoothie (17LE) while browsing through the menu. Despite it being 6PM
we opted for the On Toast breakfast (35LE), as well as a croque monsieur (28LE)
and a shrimp cocktail (35LE). The strawberry smoothie was excellent and was
served in a pottery vase, which not only looks very funky but it also keeps the
smoothie colder for longer.

We chose scrambled eggs for our breakfast and
they came with salmon, sausages, mushrooms and of course toast. The portion of salmon was quite generous and the eggs were well prepared. We had some issues
with the sausages though since they were overly spiced; taking away any real taste
and the mushrooms were immensely sour for some reason.

The sour flavours didn’t
stop there since the shrimp cocktail too had a sour sauce. The sandwiches came in
three huge chunks and were generous on the shrimp, however it was really too
sour and the taste of the shrimp disappeared in the overwhelming sour bomb. The
croque monsieur fared better, however. Thankfully the cheese was grated but
unfortunately it wasn’t fully melted, this was probably due to the abundance of
cheese. If On Toast would take off some cheese it would be the perfect croque
monsieur.

The best part of
our meal came in the end when we indulged in the pain perdu (26LE). Pain perdu,
also known as French toast, is basically toast soaked in milk and cinnamon
after which it gets fried. On Toast serves it with caramelized apples or bananas,
where we preferred the latter to the former. Overall it was a delicious dessert
that will definitely have us returning to On Toast.