Good morning and welcome to Cairo, Egypt. We figured the best way to explore the city
is by doing a local street and fast food tour. Along the way, Egyptian friends have told us the
foods we had to try when we finally do make it to Cairo, so we're really excited to check them
out and see what people from Cairo really eat. Yalla, let's go!
We are gonna get to the first stop, the falafel place.
So, Mostafa actually brought us within the souj to a ful cart, it's fava beans
and also we're gonna have falafel this morning for a more traditional breakfast.
The name of the owner, his name is Fawzy, so everybody knows Fawzy (the restaurant name).
This fava is with lemon and the other one is not with lemon.
Mostafa said some people doesn't like it with lemon so, I'm gonna try both because i actually love lemon.
Really good i like it a lot i think we need a little bit salt in it (Yeah, we can add more.)
Yeah, add more. Okay, I'm trying to without the lemon one
Big difference?
I like it with the lemon (okay). Yeah.
So Egyptian food apparently is all about eating with bread and your
hands so i'm going to get a little bit of the Ful.
It's really good it's definitely got kind of like the creamed beans kind of taste
I like it too though. So, falafel time? (Falafel time). I'm gonna try it without the eggplant first.
Really good, it's got that fried crispy outer shell. I think i'd like a little bit less fried but it's
still really really delicious and we have like two bowls of it now so i'm ready to dig in
and eat a lot of falafel right now.
Falafel french fries and eggplants.
Oh man the eggplant makes it so much better. I actually liked it a lot.
Mostafa, you ordered so much food!
No, that's not too much food that's what the Egyptians eat that's all for one person.
So we ordered for one person (What?) Yeah, that's all for one person.
For a ton of falafel, a ton of fava beans, its so delicious.
We're gonna go walk it off now before eating lunch.
All right so along the way we actually saw this it's called a ground cherry in English.
I like it but it doesn't taste like anything I know.
It's not sweet, it's kind of soury, but it's like a soft sorry. It's really good. I'll pose for you now.
Thank you.
The local newspaper just took my pictures eating that food i'm very curious to see how
it's going to be on the press. By the time you're watching this, probably uh we'll be able to share it.
These streets really are beautifully chaotic. I love it so much it's so alive but we're heading
over to Cairo gate right now because it's supposed to have one of the best views in
all of old Cairo to see the city.
We are on the top of the wall of Al-Qahira (Cairo).
There are two separate towers here on top of Cairo gate that we're gonna go up separately and
we're gonna try to see if we can wave at each other take pictures that sort of fun stuff.
This is how high we are.
So, Gokce and Mostafa are actually going further up there's one more flight up, but I think I'm
good here. We are going to se Gokce pop out from the top of the other tower in just a second.
Hey Steve! There are so many mosques.
Let's go now, this is so scary, but so much fun.
we've come to El Fishawy for a tea and coffee break and it is not just the
oldest coffee shop in Egypt, its the oldest coffee shop in the entire Middle East
dating back to 1710. Gokce got just kind of a regular Egyptian coffee with milk more like
a nescafe but stronger and I decided to be a little adventurous and try a Turkish coffee
here in Cairo. So let's see how it compares to the real deal in Istanbul.
It's like a bit lighter and smoother than typical
Turkish coffee, so still delicious but definitely not the same thing.
What's your name again?
My name is Mahasan.
Thank you, Mahasan is so pretty, beautiful.
Wow, finished product. Thank you so much.
The music actually is kind of Turkish music. It feels like my dad is sitting in the living room
and right now playing his musical instruments, because that's how I spend my weekends
at my parents house. So I found out that this is actually not just a coffee this is a coffee mixed with Turkish coffee.
That's why it tastes different and now knowing the fact that if there's Turkish coffee in it, i like it more.
1-7-1-0 17-10 so this is the date of opening this coffee shop.
And most importantly for our international audience, Morgan Freeman was here! Oh Gokce's gonna be a little bit
jealous they actually made a special coffee just for me. I'll go bring her some in a little bit.
Oooh, that's a bit of sugar to it this time for sure, sweet.
With my new tattoo that painted all over my pants but i still like it.
So what do you think about this special coffee that they made for us?
It doesn't have Turkish coffee in it this time.
yeah it's like sweeter too.
Yeah, it has sugar in it and I really like it.
We are in the souk area, that's why we are seeing a lot of different materials for the weddings,
for housing. It's actually mainly for women because you know how much women love shopping.
It is kind of reminding me of the Dubai area. The souk culture is very common for Middle Eastern cultures
and it's very nice to see here too.
We came to this place called Gad, apparently this is also
very much known with their falafel breakfast, but we came here for lunch actually.
We're going to have feteer which is kind of like an Egyptian pancake it's also sort of like borek
if you're familiar with that. As well as Egyptian style shawarma, so we're really excited to see
what kind of differences they have from like the ones we're familiar with. This is a local gem and
we can kind of tell from everybody who's here, very much local.
Very excited about this.
I'm the chef!
All right, this is the Egyptian style shawarma we're having chicken shawarma
because Mostafa suggested that one and it has a familiarity with, of course Turkish
chicken doner, but i'm very curious to try the Egyptian version of it.
Inside is very similar the chicken shawarma part and then tomatoes, some onions and I believe they
have parsley in it too. I love parsley so this is perfect for me.
Tamaya and tahini are inside this and it's garlic sauce as well as tahini which I hope you know what tahini is. If you
don't you need to try it and get it in your life so. I'm excited to try this Egyptian shawarma now.
Wow, honestly I really like this with the tahini in it. It gives it a different taste than I was expecting.
Baba ghanoush and tahini are the best, I really recommend
anybody come to Egypt, to eat your shawarma from Gad with this kind of bread.
Oooooh.
It smells so good, I can't wait to try.
Wow, so cheesy it has peppers tomatoes olives it tastes so good.
Okay, this is Feteer, it's like an Egyptian
pancake. We got it with cheese and olives on the inside so I'm really excited for this because
Gokce said its delicious. Man Egyptian food is really good. Bye Hossein thank you for having us at Gad!
So this guy, 20 years ago he had a little shop. Very, very small shop and then after that he had
some tables outside of the shop. When the people start to like him he put more table more table,
until like three years ago he bought all this buildings and he now became one of the most
famous restaurants in all over Egypt. It's a local restaurant, not a very fancy restaurant,
but the taste is very good and the prices are also very good here.
We're going to try some Molokhia
There are two stories about that. One is ancient Egyptians didn't know what it was they thought
it was a poisonous plant and they wanted their slaves to try it (first). And the second story goes Mulukia means
king (or ruler) and it was actually made for kings.
All right I'm going to try...
Everybody in Egypt, they eat it with this. If you want to eat it with the spoon you eat it with rice.
This tastes exactly like the color green. I don't know there's a better way to describe it. It's got
this like deep dark rich green color to it and it's really delicious with the bread definitely
not a soup i've ever tried before tasted before there's really no comparison that kind of comes to my mind.
I like it, I don't love it. I wouldn't go out of my way to have it. it's very sticky look at this.
Yeah, that's how we eat it.
This is zucchini, this is pepper, this is cabbage and this is eggplant.
It's really good and I really like the sauce that they use. I think it has a little bit of a spicy sauce right?
(Yeah, spicy) I like that spicy taste because that's not how we make it (Turkish people) and i like this way as well.
I actually never had it with eggplant before so this was first time and I really like the taste and the
manager here said this is not even spicy, this is medium spice. So, i would dare to try the spicy
next time because i love spicy food. Now i'm gonna try the liver. They did not fry they cooked it and
it's cooked in the fat of sheep. So instead of oil they use the fat of sheep which is very interesting.
So good! I just don't understand how I didn't have tahini on my table.
It just makes every food so much more delicious.
There's just too much food to try here in Cairo, Egypt, so
we are going to rest up and digest. See you in the morning for day two of our food tour.
Good morning and welcome to the second day of our food tour here in Cairo. Now we are about to try
one of the most popular foods here in Egypt that everybody has told us
we have to try before we leave. We're going to actually do it in a kind of unique way.
If you couldn't tell from behind us, we're at a dock right now so we're going to hop on
a felucca which is a traditional Egypt boat and uh sail on the Nile.
On our second day Nermine joined us.
So Mostafa brought us to his favorite koshari place.
I'm going to try this and I'm so excited,
because every single person I've spoken with in Egypt told me to try this there's no meat
in this. It's pasta, rice, chickpeas, tomato sauce, some of lentils. Are they lentils? (yes)
Whoa, this is good.
I can have this every day for breakfast. Just a little bit of hot pepper, not too much.
She's going to ruin my stomach. I can understand why Nermine eats it all day every day.
Now we're going to try hawawshi. This is toasted beef in a pita bread.
This is also commonly eaten in Egypt. It smells so nice and I can see beef and some peppers in it.
Wow, is there cheese in it too?
No, this one doesn't have cheese sometimes you add cheese, but this one doesn't have it.
Mmhm, I'm so glad we have two pieces because I really don't want to give my piece to Steve, it's so good.
Thank you, thank you Nermine!
Oh my god she got us Egyptian desserts and whoa, there is so much different kinds of desserts here
Mostafa mentioned that this (dessert) is his favorite. This is (sweet) goulash. Yeah, I'm going to try this one.
Mmhm, that is my favorite now too.
All right, all good things must come to an end. We highly recommended Nile River cruise on a felucca,
just 200 egyptian pounds. So now we're gonna go try to burn off some of this food.
We're stopping by here to try some special Egyptian dish. so this restaurant isn't exactly
So this restaurant isn't exactly street food,
however, pigeon can be and is done in many different parts of Egypt in that style.
The way that they make it is rice filled pigeon. There is also freekeh which is kind of similar to bulgur.
Honestly I don't know how to eat this. I'm assuming I'm supposed to cut this there is no dipping
sauce they brought, which I'm surprised because they usually bring a lot of tahini let me check again.
Is this tahini, no it's not okay we don't have tahini this is how we're eating this. Let's try.
Wow, this tastes really good with the rice stuffed, it's just I can't really like tell
you it tastes like anything because it's a very unique taste it kind of looks like
It kind of looks like a mini thanksgiving turkey if i'm going to be completely honest it's like a little tiny guy.
As you can see here, the pigeon part is very thin. Well apparently this is the part where
you get the most of the meat right here.
On the bottom of the pigeon.
I'm so nice, I'm gonna give Steve my own pigeon, do you want to give me the camera?
It's a bit on the dry side. I don't know
necessarily if that's how it's supposed to be made. It's my first time ever trying pigeon it's good.
I wouldn't say it's my most favorite meat in the world, so I wouldn't necessarily go out of my
way to eat it again to be completely honest, but I definitely don't dislike it either.
All right, done with our pigeon experience, now let's go find Mostafa and continue on with our food tour.
We're here with Mostafa and his friends and they said forget everything, tonight we're eating like an Egyptian!
So, we're going to try quail and a bonus food camel liver. We heard that this is
a pretty special delicacy in this part of Giza.
This is the...?
Quail liver, it;s the liver of the quail.
And then we have quail itself. Oh, poor bird what happened to you? Am i supposed to eat it with hands?
Or? (hands, hands). Hands, okay I'm gonna eat it with hands. All right now I'm gonna dip it into tahini because
in Egypt you dip everything in tahini and they brought a lot of tahini here.
Everybody gets their own.
Everybody gets their own tahini.
Wow, this tastes so good. It kind of reminds me of chicken.
Yeah.
Do you want to try the liver?
I actually like it more than regular lamb liver (all right) yeah it
tastes much better. It doesn't even taste like liver honestly it tastes like really good cooked meat.
It's still a bit chewy. I wouldn't say it's quite like meat like Gokce
said, but it's actually really good. I really do like it, I swear Mostafa. (okay) Before i try
the quail itself, the camel liver wound up being passed in front of me. So, let's try this.
Wow, it was really chewy. I wasn't expecting that. I'll be honest
Its ehh (mediocre). I really like the quail liver better than the camel liver to be honest.
Seriously Egyptian kunafa is a must try too!
And they have almost 12 different kinds of kunafa they said this is with cheese,
this is with chocolate, this is with cream and they all taste so good.
We ate a lot of food. (Yeah)
And I love the minty taste (of the tea). This is really good. Oh, Muhammed paid the check.
Ahh Muhammed, okay this is about...
Yeah, he didn't let us pay, he paid it (the check)
We were fighting there at the cashier because
I wanted to pay, but he did it before me. So we are really sad. So we have to invite him, okay next
time and you have to be with us. Extend your time here (okay). We can go tomorrow, okay? (okay, okay)
So, we have ate our way to the end of this food tour. we are so stuffed. I can't believe how incredible
I can't believe how incredible this whole experience was in Cairo.
We have one more video coming up from Egypt, so don't forget
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And we'll see you on the next one, bye
A living city that's full of garbage.
Yes,there are about 70 000 people live here.
Oh my gosh.
Most of them are Christians.
We're at the biggest church in the entire Middle East and it is carved into a mountain.