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

You know those times when you daydream about taking a one-day trip to Alexandria so you can feel like a tourist and take a walk down the beach while eating Gelati Azza? Well, we had one of those moments and actually did it, but with one target in our sights: Alban Swisra – a supermarket-turned-eatery that is on everyone’s Must-Do Things in Alexandria list.

Located on Port Said Street, the small shop specialises in melted cheese dishes that incorporate everything from sausage and kofta, shrimp and fried chicken – or even all of them in one dish. The two-floor venue shop is tight and dark with very limited seating; there’s nothing remarkable about the space.

A meal at Alban Swisra is best enjoyed when sharing, so we opted for fries (25LE), Eggs with Pastrami (28LE), Sausage (25LE) and Fried Cheese (34LE) and it all arrived alongside thin, tall fino bread in no time. The bread was soft and fresh but we didn’t feel like it was the best choice for taghmees and the food is too heavy to make sandwiches with.

The cheese mixture used in all of the dishes is made by dairy shops from across the road and is very rich, creamy and heavy – but not stretchy like many might assume. No #CheesePull for us.

With the fries dish, although the fries were very crispy and cooked well, it was all very heavy and salty, while the portion is quite small for 25LE. The same goes for the sausage dish; it was very heavy dish that was small in portion, despite bursting with spices and flavours.

However, we were surprised by how the cheese worked perfectly with the eggs and pastrami. The eggs toned down the richness and saltiness of the cheese, and the sautéed pastrami just added its sharp, intense flavours perfectly.

Meanwhile, the fried cheese came in form of mini bites of super salty fried cheese used as a topping for the cheese mixture which didn’t make much sense. Despite that, we loved the addition of green peppers to the cheese mixture which could be the answer to kind of giving the unremarkable mixture more depth of flavours without going too overboard.

Alban Swiss=ra has been on a bucket list and although the review doesn’t seem overly positive, we had no regret starting our day at Alexandria with it. The key to enjoying eating there is to not have particularly high expectations; the food is fun to share with friends – just don’t expect to be wowed.