Budget & Tips
While access to traditional neighbourhood cafés is unregulated in large cities, many of the more upscale cafés practice a "minimum charge" policy, often set at 50 LE, encouraging consumption and sorting out their customers from the outset.
Age restrictions
Obviously, you have to be of legal age to consume in bars. Beer and cider will be served to those over 18 years of age, and wines, spirits and hard liquor to those over 21 years of age.
What's very local
A sweet break in a pastry shop! From the outside, it looks like a florist's shop or a wedding dress shop with piles of ribbons and gildings dripping down along the window. Inside, you'll find delicious oriental pastries: kounafas (with vermicelli dough), semolina-based basboussas, baklawas (almond puff pastry), but also huge cakes full of cream, and petits fours. The portions are pantagruelic, you only have to see the size of the croissants to realize it. They also have an ice-cream section, some of which deserve to be eaten.
The fresh fruit juices are to be tasted imperatively, in one of the many small shops in town. Depending on the season, mangoes, guavas, oranges, strawberries or even bananas (delicious with milk, under the name of maouz billaban) are squeezed. All year round, the small lemons will be put through the centrifuge and give tasty lamoun. The Egyptians love sugar cane juice (assab) and a very thirst-quenching liquorice preparation (ersous). These stalls are recognizable from afar. All tiled, they give an air of freshness to the neighborhood. Each one puts his or her paw in it in terms of decoration, which is sometimes surprising. Frankly, it's not worth depriving oneself of it, it's too good.
The coffee (qahwa) is a Turkish coffee. It is excellent, even if the ground at the bottom of the cup is a bit confusing at first. When ordering, you must specify whether you want it without sugar (saada), reasonably sweet (mazbout) or generously sweetened (ziada)
Carcadé, a blood-red infusion of hibiscus petals, can be drunk either iced or hot, usually sweet. Opinions diverge on the virtues attributed to it: for some, it prevents sleep, for others, it is a sedative. Everyone agrees, however, that it is delicious and fragrant, which is not bad enough.
Sahlab, a funny, milky sweet drink, is especially good in winter. It is a mixture of rice flour and milk flavoured with coconut, cashew nuts and almonds, all with a few raisins. Replenishing!
Timetable