One of the more disappointing meals we had in Cairo was at Al Khal which is located in the Intercontinental Hotel. It has an impressive 4.9 rating on Google from over 1200 reviews! Typically, this means that it will be definitely outstanding. However, its anything but. Here was part of the menu:
The reason I highlight this page is that the dish, Hamam Mahshi, was recommended to us by a few people in the country (not at this particular restaurant, but in general). I had to try it. The presentation was promising:
The sauce was prepared tableside, also promising!
The dish was disappointing. The pigeon was presented over smoke but there was little flavor. Same for the sauce. Everything definitely looked better than it tasted. I would try this dish again somewhere else just to see if it was prepared “wrong” here, but I definitely would not try this restaurant again. Service was pretty good, and I figured out how they were able to generate such high reviews at the end:
They bring you some tea, juice, and pastry at the end and ask you to leave a positive review. Most people will feel obliged at this point because of the hospitality and friendly service. I can’t think of any other reason because the food itself is unremarkable.