Caracas cafe

Caracas cafe located in a small street in the heart of medan Lebnan -and now in Arkan mall too-its been a while for me being there since 2009,  did some photography work with them, and since then I really like the place.
The interior is self made, and I think it took a lot of time touring Beirut cafes and food spots to reach the concept they have, its divided into 2 parts indoor, and outdoor, its cozy, friendly, and warm, the only draw back is the built in sofas which I don't really appreciate as a concept in a cafe or a restaurant, also the ventilation in the indoor area is not good, so if you are allergic take the outdoor area.
The good thing that the owner is always there, keeping a close eye on the day to day operation.

What I love in this place is the consistency of the food quality, they serve very good tabboulah, batata bel kosbara (spicy potatos) and raheb for the starters,  for the main dish they have a speciality manqosah al tabliya (baked dough in the oven with cheese and sausage, or kofta, or zataar), and the arayes are amazing too, the minced meat marinated mildly not so spicy and not so flat, the Grills also are good.

For the drinks they serve the best jaalab in town, a Lebanese drink where they have this jaalab syrup made of grape molasses, dates and rose water, diluted by water then adding fresh nuts to it and served with some ice.
Coffee there is basic, good to have it, and they serve white coffee too made of Cardamom, as well as good Turkish coffee.
For desert the winner is the ice cream bomb, ice cream fried in a dough, brilliant one to go, with caramel sauce on the side.

Apart from the food they serve several shisha flavors.

Over all review
Quality of food  4 out of 5
Drinks                5 out of 5
Service               4  out of 5
Interiors             3 out of 5
Price range       Moderate 

For more information http://www.facebook.com/pages/Caracas/289177920343?fref=ts

Yehia El Alaily, Photographer
www.yehiaelalaily.com
studio@yehiaelalaily.com

Left Bank

Left Bank cafe operated late January 2012, hiring a good French Chief Benoit to run the operations, meet the guy before the opening for a photo shot, we had a long chat about his background, and he was experienced working in Tokyo, Paris and Bangkok for 15 years.

Designed by Eklego a distinguished design office in Cairo, the interiors reflects modern Cairo, where downtown master plan forms the ground pattern, and one of the book shelves mocks Cairo tower, the glass wall facing the Nile offers a great view as well as the plastic ceiling along offers natural lighting in the morning time along the view as well.

Left Bank offers some books for sale and a wide variety of magazines for the usage of the clients, along they offer a once a week a social event varying from fashion, music show, to movie showing.

This french bistro offers diversified breakfast menu, selling fresh bakery all day long with great bakery specially the baguette,  the breakfast menu is diversified and ranging from cereal, free range eggs, bacon, salmon, etc....

The food menu is very good, the Pizza is great tried the Arugula pizza it was thin crisp and very tasty, the tomato sauce made to perfection, and the mozzarella cheese  is originally buffalo mozzarella, not the regular chopped commercially used cheese.

On some other occasion I tried the Medallion beef served with butter cafe de paris, it was cooked as I ordered it, medium, and it was lean and no fat running through, and the cafe de Paris was  great, herbal with thyme and low salt butter.

Juices are good, and really fresh, but the coffee was regular and fairly over priced, they also offer several herbal tea fusions.

For desert had my favorite of all times tiramisu and it was really good the coffee taste was there not invasive, as well as the mascarpone cheese.

Over all review
Quality of food  4 out of 5
Drinks                3 out of 5
Service              4 out of 5
Interiors             5 out of 5
Price range        Expensive

For more info check http://www.facebook.com/leftbankonline

Yehia El Alaily, Photographer
www.yehiaelalaily.com
studio@yehiaelalaily.com

Cairo food review intro

Cairo food scene is going crazy, new concepts are taking over areas like Zamalek, and Maadi like a storm, along my job as a photographer and my work is always around food and travel which gives me a solid background in the field.
I came out with a conclusion there is no honest food reviews from people to people, a big portion is advertorials, while the remains is not serious online stuff, some of them is sponsored.

My reviews will cover the hot spots in Cairo and some regions around, like Gouna, Sharm, Sokhna, etc.... My main target is food outlets and coffee houses, rating is variable on the scale of 1 to 5, ratings include Quality of food, Drinks, Service, Price, interiors and the whole experience.

Will post 2 to 3 places each week, your feed back, comments and suggestions are more than welcomed.

Yehia El Alaily
Photographer
www.yehiaelalaily.com
studio@yehiaelalaily.com