Alfie Bey Restaurant

Sometimes when my family would go downtown Cairo or head over to the Khan al Khalili we would find ourselves getting very hungry.


There is a restaurant that we always stopped at when doing errands in Cairo and that was Alfie Bey’s. The people were friendly and while my parents talked about boring stuff, I could watch the buses and the electric trams go by. The Waiter there seemed to love my parents. Every time we went here he would hug them and greet them warmly. We always had the best seats in the house.
We always had the same thing….Kebab and lots of it. The waiter would bring us an appetizer of rice and meat that had been molded in a cup, Tahina and Baba Ghanou along with lots of ‘Aish baladi and shami. For dessert I would always get the crème caramel and my mother would get Omm Ali.
One day while my grandmother was visiting we left to go to the Khan without eating breakfast. After we finished shopping we were all starving! Dad decided to stop at the restaurant on the way back to the University.
We were greeted with the same waiter and he was introduced to Granny.
When the food was served, we began to eat. We stuffed our selves full of the appetizer and called for more Tahina and bread.

When the food arrived, we ate in a hurry, quickly to fill the empty spot in our belly.

Granny looked up at us eating so fast and asked “Why are we in a hurry?” I looked up...We all did and we began laughing.