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

After
shopping in Mohandiseen, it is always nice to sit back with a cup of coffee and
have a little snack before setting off to spend even more money. With shops
like Max Mara and Bang and Olufsen around the Shooting Club area, this is not
too difficult to do. Retro is located just off of Mecca Street on Soliman Abaza Street and can be
easily found with its brown exterior and neon purple lights.

Right at
the entrance is a nice seating area with cushioned couches. However, the
couches seemed to be permanently reserved at the time of this reviewer’s visit.
The rest of the interior is pretty retro; that is if we can already refer to
the early nineties as retro. The whole interior is a bit sombre with its dark
wooden tables and chairs and the very dim lighting, which makes it quite
difficult to read the menu.

The
drinks menu at Retro is quite extensive with a zillion different fruit
cocktails. Apart from the standard combinations, there are some odd options as
well. One is the avocado fable (21LE), a mixture of avocado juice, nuts, honey
and vanilla ice cream. It all sounded so weird that we weren’t brave enough to
actually give it a try. Retro also seems to be fanatical about carrots: the list
includes apple carrot juice (20LE), a plain carrot juice with ginger root
(19LE) or the glow in the dark (20LE), which is a mix of carrot juice and orange
juice.

This
reviewer opted for a regular cappuccino (16LE) and the raspberry rush (23LE),
which is a combination of raspberry juice, banana and milk. The cappuccino was
actually really good, although the foam should have been a bit firmer. The
raspberry rush was very heavy and filling, but don’t order it if you’re having a big meal; as the combination of ingredients is almost a meal on its own.

The food menu includes items like pastas starting at 35LE for an aglio olio
– pretty expensive if you ask us – as well as sandwiches for 34LE and above,
salads for 37LE and above, and main dishes like fillet mignon (89LE) and piccata
mushroom (61LE).

This
reviewer opted for the Morrocan burger (45LE), which was served in ciabatta bread
with cucumbers underneath the patty, and a pink sauce with cheese on top.
According to the menu, this sauce was a special Morrocan sauce, but it tasted
like regular cocktail sauce to us. The burger was very big and therefore
difficult to eat. The meat had a noticeable cinnamon flavour to it, and the
combination of all these different flavours simply did not work and made it hard for us to even finish the burger. We did enjoy the potato wedges that came on the side, though.
These were baked with rosemary and with some added salt they were quite tasty.

Overall,
Retro is very expensive compared to the quality of food and drinks. Also,
the venue generally lacks atmosphere and could use some refurbishment. However, if you fancy avocado concoctions and carrot juice mixes; try Retro.