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

It’s no secret that social media has a large effect on our lives and with new restaurants opening almost every other week, they usually tend to try to become relevant or unique with a special item that spreads all over social media, making the public flock to try it out and add it to their own Instagram collection. However, that raises the question; if something looks that good does it taste good as well?

Overlooking the hallway leading to IKEA, The Molten boasts both an outdoor and indoor area at New Cairo’s Cairo Festival City. Brown and beige are the order of the day, dominating most of the furniture, the walls and panels with a couple of golden clad barrels of molten chocolate near the pillars.

After taking a seat outside, we opted for the Cheese Beef Rolls (46LE), which came as three rolls of beef stuffed with even more cheese and bell peppers and topped with cheese shavings and gravy, alongside poached potatoes topped with pesto sauce.

Unfortunately, the beef was dry and overcooked, crumbling almost immediately after slicing into it, while the cheese and sauce were a bit overwhelming in flavour making it hard to get a feel of the actual dish.The potatoes were also overcooked, offering little in termsofflavour due to lack of seasoning.

Moving on to our main dishes, we opted for the Beef Fillet Tenderloin (145LE), The Molten Chicken Pasta (64LE) and the interesting sounding Red Bun Burger (72LE).

Coming with a side of French fries and mashed potatoes, the fillet– though juicy and well-seasoned – was undercooked as it came medium rather than well-done as we requested, while the beef itself wasn’t particularly special.

As for the mashed potatoes, they had a lumpy texture with a barely seasoned taste to them, thoughthey were slightly better once we poured some of the mushroom sauce that accompanied the dish. On the other hand, the fries weren’t special and, once again, had little to no seasoning.

The Molten Chicken Pasta and Red Bun Burger had one thing in common and that was that they both get an extra topping of molten cheese straight from a melting block of cheese. However, the cheese itself was a bit too salty and dominated over any other flavour in both dishes rather than enhancing them.

With a side of fries similar to the fillet’s and slices of cucumbers and tomatoes, the Red Bun Burger was a regular burger sitting on a bed of lettuce and slices of tomatoes, while topped with a slice of cheese,with even more cheese from the molten cheese block, all while wrapped in a red bun.

Purely for aesthetic more than taste, the red bun didn’t taste any different to a regular one. The burger itself also failed to impress,being overwhelmingly spiced and, in the end, forgettable.

A mix of pesto, pasta, white sauce and poached chicken, topped with cheese shavings and the extra blob of molten cheese, the molten chicken pasta didn’t offer much in regard to flavour either.

The pasta didn’t fare well, either; served in a white and pesto sauces with poached chicken and topped with cheese shavings and an extra blob of molten cheese, it also didn’t offer much in flavour. The chicken was slightly undercooked and had no seasoning whatsoever, the sauce was watered down so had little to no taste to it and the pasta was over cooked making them soggy and mushy.The only real flavour came from the salty cheese,which started to return to its solid state quicker than you’d think.

Finally, for dessert, we opted for the Molten White Chocolate Cake (75 LE), which came as light brown cake with a yellowish hue, with a scoop of chocolate ice cream on the side. As we sliced into the cake the molten ‘white chocolate’ oozed out with hints of strawberry sauce. The cake itself was fine with nice sweet accents of white chocolate, but the sauce tasted more like custard rather than white chocolate.

Unfortunately our experience at The Molten wasn’t the best; while the gimmick of having molten food is a great hook, the execution of the food wasn’t up to par with its presentation proving, the point that something that might look good doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes good.