Al-Omda, Mohandiseen, Cairo

I've been to Al-Omda three times and eaten delivery from them a couple more. It's a restaurant that serves basically all the typical Egyptian foods and I think it does a good job with it. There are two branches of it in Mohandiseen and interestingly each one has a completely different atmosphere-- the smaller of the two is indoors and seems to cater mostly to families with kids and the larger of the two is outdoors and serves sheesha as well as food and is popular with families and groups of young Cairenes. They serve Koshary and a number of "grilled" plates that come with different meats and side dishes.


I've eaten the Kofta grill at Al-Omda twice and each time it was a bit different-- the first time is pictured, and as you can see they brought out the meal on a steaming cast iron plate accompanied with roasted potato, sweet potato and eggplant in addition to bread, tahina, tomato and cucumber salad. The second time it came with french fries and was served on a regular plate rather than the cast iron. For those of you unfamiliar with middle eastern foods, Kofta is basically a meatball in an elongated (and slightly off-putting . . .) shape. The Kofta here tastes good but it is unfortunate that the ground beef that they use is a bit gristle-y and contains a fair amount of bone fragments and the like. I've had better Kofta at other places but I haven't explored the options in Cairo enough to have secured a reliable Kofta spot yet, but Al-Omda is decent. Cost is about 25LE for a plate that easlily serves 2 (if you split it they bring you a second salad and charge you and extra 2.5LE).

In addition to the Kofta I've also had their Fatta a few times. Fatta is an awesome dish that consists of rice (usually the rice here is cooked with something buttery (probably ghee) and salt so it is tasty on its own) mixed with pieces of bread (which here of course means something somewhat similar to what is called pita bread in the US) that are soaked in a broth of meat and spices and then baked until they acquire a kind of chewy consistency (I know this sounds kind of gross but it is actually delicious). This rice/bread mixture is then covered with a tomato sauce and usually served with some kind of meat (though it can be ordered plain as a kind of side dish). Here I've tried it plain and with lamb, and from other restaurants I've had it with chicken and oxtail. At Al-Omda the lamb was good but the portion size was a little skimpy. The oxtail version (from a place called Tekkia) was tasty as well-- the oxtail meat was tender but since the meat itself was unseasoned the "meaty" taste of the oxtail was a little much for me. Al-Omda also offers it with intestine which I plan to try when Di visits me here!

Although generally I am stuffed after a meal at Al-Omda one of the highlights of their menu is the Om Ali (the name literally means "Ali's mother"). Om Ali is a common dessert at restaurants here (along with rice pudding) and consists of some kind of puff pastry baked with sweetened milk or cream and usually nuts and/or raisins. The consistency of the cream/milk in Om Ali varied from fairly liquid to firm and pudding-like. At Al-Omda the consistency is very rich and fairly firm which is the type I prefer and it is made with hazelnuts and a few raisins (thankfully few and far between since I don't like raisins). It took a while for them to bring us the dessert and it tasted as though it may have been freshly baked. Though I am by no means an expert (I've only had the dish 3 or 4 times) I think this is a good rendition of the traditional Egyptian dessert.