Thought we'd be fancy and order from La Bodega, which we've never done before. Although the delivery menu contains no sandwiches and such items as beef carpaccio with pesto, duck in filo with orange sauce and brochettes of fresh grouper with antiboise sauce, there is a pleasant and very reasonably priced selection of soups and salads. Longing eyeing the alcoholic beverages section, we ordered goat cheese salads at L.E. 16.
These arrived quite promptly with a pleasingly wee delivery charge of L.E. 1.50. Ya salam. Carefully packaged in aluminum foil containers upended over each other and then wrapped in foil, the salad gets full points for packaging and all cutlery was included, including spoons. The vast salad consisted of crisp mixed lettuces including fresh rocket (virtually the only leafy green item I like) with four toasted slices of French bread in the corners, each topped with a lightly grilled tomato wedge and circlet of goat's cheese. A nice big one. A little well-sealed cup of a light lemon-based dressing was provided. Everything was flavourful and the bread- which I wouldn't have normally eaten – presented a nice contrast to the cheese. The only jarring notes for me were the tomatoes, which were grilled and thus evil and not raw and plentiful as I usually prefer. But I was prepared to overlook this startling dearth of other vegetables than lettuce, a phenomenon that is at least in the top ten of my roster of rants, because the rest was awesome.
Jarring notes for officemate S were two male hairs found in her salad. She still ate it but when I called them to bitch mildly (was not own problem but she made the order to was my turn to call) they immediately put the manager on. He insisted quite strenuously on sending a replacement salad, which I declined with every appearance of kind graciousness (only because we were goat-cheesed out) whereupon he sent us both crème caramel with a fruit topping of kiwi, pomegranate kernels (right? Kernels?) and grapes. I was wowed. No one in Egypt has ever offered to replace a faulty delivered foodstuff before. I'm no fan of the crème, finding the burnt caramel taste too bitter and frankly the pomegranate seeds kept surprising my mouth in both texture and flavour (that's what she said…) but still good. Go BODEGA!
Also, my officemate says to report that Mori Sushi delivers extremely badly. Not been my experience but it is true that her eel sushi looked exactly like a long-dead internal organ, all pink and shriveled and frilly. They forgot the sauce. Which is KEY. She also ordered some kind of friend banana dessert which was an absolute travesty, an act of malignant fraud even. It was 1.5 Egyptian bananas in a thin-ass flavourless batter laying on three orange slices in chocolate sauce, which she had asked them not to include. This cost L.E. 33. Was incandescent.
These arrived quite promptly with a pleasingly wee delivery charge of L.E. 1.50. Ya salam. Carefully packaged in aluminum foil containers upended over each other and then wrapped in foil, the salad gets full points for packaging and all cutlery was included, including spoons. The vast salad consisted of crisp mixed lettuces including fresh rocket (virtually the only leafy green item I like) with four toasted slices of French bread in the corners, each topped with a lightly grilled tomato wedge and circlet of goat's cheese. A nice big one. A little well-sealed cup of a light lemon-based dressing was provided. Everything was flavourful and the bread- which I wouldn't have normally eaten – presented a nice contrast to the cheese. The only jarring notes for me were the tomatoes, which were grilled and thus evil and not raw and plentiful as I usually prefer. But I was prepared to overlook this startling dearth of other vegetables than lettuce, a phenomenon that is at least in the top ten of my roster of rants, because the rest was awesome.
Jarring notes for officemate S were two male hairs found in her salad. She still ate it but when I called them to bitch mildly (was not own problem but she made the order to was my turn to call) they immediately put the manager on. He insisted quite strenuously on sending a replacement salad, which I declined with every appearance of kind graciousness (only because we were goat-cheesed out) whereupon he sent us both crème caramel with a fruit topping of kiwi, pomegranate kernels (right? Kernels?) and grapes. I was wowed. No one in Egypt has ever offered to replace a faulty delivered foodstuff before. I'm no fan of the crème, finding the burnt caramel taste too bitter and frankly the pomegranate seeds kept surprising my mouth in both texture and flavour (that's what she said…) but still good. Go BODEGA!
Also, my officemate says to report that Mori Sushi delivers extremely badly. Not been my experience but it is true that her eel sushi looked exactly like a long-dead internal organ, all pink and shriveled and frilly. They forgot the sauce. Which is KEY. She also ordered some kind of friend banana dessert which was an absolute travesty, an act of malignant fraud even. It was 1.5 Egyptian bananas in a thin-ass flavourless batter laying on three orange slices in chocolate sauce, which she had asked them not to include. This cost L.E. 33. Was incandescent.
6 comments:
Pleasantly surprised about the amount of cheese in the salad. Sorry to hear about the grilled tomato - don't they know how badly that irks you? They'll learn. Also, SHOCKED that they sent compensatory dessert! When ever has this happened before?
'shriveled and frilly'
fresh fish is not meant to look as such! and when one craves a sauce to mask the flavors of the fish, then one is not a true sushi gastronome. and it simply becomes another accessory like that useless blackberry employed for twittering instead of business.
i've always admired your disregard for the 'it' and coolness factor that plagues this city....too bad they don't have a vaccine for that!
well, normally i don't want the sauce...but the eel is actually cooked, i am told, and is good with the sauce!
re coolness: ha, am not cool and have never had "it"...not intentional, believe me! besides, don't see how said disregard is reflected in this entry.
i thought id nauseate you today:
http://www.scene-heard.com/default.aspx#
made me throw up!
that magazine...and alter ego...has become nothing more than a parade of the editors' friends, haven't they?
lol yup! dunno about that whole funeral chic look they have...can't grasp how a party planner, fashion designer and a couple of djs will change our destiny!
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