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

When it comes to ‘gourmet street food’, there are few that can argue that the trend is beginning to outstay its welcome – there’s nothing unique about it anymore. That hasn’t, however, stopped Sojo’s from introducing their own twist on sausage.

Offering everything from curry-infused Indian sausage and Greek sausage, to Merguez sausage and Lebanese sausage smothered with pomegranate sauce, Sojo’s is a small wooden booth located inside Zamalek’s Club 33. The booth has 4 high chairs and 2 tables which suits the casual theme of the place.

All of the sausage flavours are in a display with tiny flags of the country of the flavoured sausage, and they all cost 15LE each; alternatively, you can go with Sojo’s combo, which consists of 2 wraps , cheesy grilled potato and a soft drink for 42LE.

We kicked things off with a Spanish chorizo, bringing together the chilli and garlic flavoured sausage with pepper, onion and cheddar cheese sauce, all wrapped in an outstanding saj bread. The chorizo was bursting with flavours on its own, but was a bit chewy, while cheese sauce was overpowering the delicious flavours of the chorizo because of its thin size.

We continued our Euro trip to Italy with a Soroma wrap; Italian sausage, bell pepper, onion, cheese sauce and basil mayo. The sausage itself was bland in taste, the pepper and onion weren’t grilled as promised and even though the basil mayo was fantastic, it didn’t work at all with the cheese sauce.

Going back to Egypt, we ordered the Sowawshi. Expecting a hawawshi shaped sausage as promised on the menu, what we received was just another wrap – but this was our favourite of the bunch. The perfectly spiced sausage was complimented with diced onion, tomato, pickles and tehina   and showed that simplicity is the key to their homemade sausages.

We also tried cheesy potato wedges– grilled wedges topped with cheese sauce and big pieces of green chilli pepper as a side. Unfortunately, they too suffered from the cheese sauce, while the chilli pepper needed to be smaller.

All in all, the best word to describe our experience at Sojo’s is ‘fun’. The staff were very helpful, the prices are reasonable and we really love the concept. But it wasn’t without fault; the thin size of the sausage meant there was too much bread with each wrap and maybe introducing an option of serving their sausages in a hot dog bun would make more sense. Overall, though, the quality of sausage is fantastic – but they need to believe more in their flavours and depend less on the cheese sauce.