Zafir - the Egyptian t-shirt shop!

Zafir is a cute Egyptian T-shirt shop on
15B Taha Hussein Street
off Marashly street.
(walk left from Kipling)
Zamalek.

Right next to Touch of Glass

The designs on the tshirts are unique. some have Arabic calligraphy on them with proverbs, some have truck art, some pun on Egyptian pronunciations and some are just cute!

The tshirts come in a range of size and colours and there are a specially curved cuts for women.
They all cost a uniform 110LE and if there is any defect you can bring it back within a week.

Each tshirt comes with a printed card attached explaining the significance of the particular design in English and Arabic. So they are really cute gifts for people back home.

The overall cloth quality looks good. Will let you know how well it washes once I wash my own :)

Edited on 24 May 2009 to add:
Daily News Egypt, did a full length article on this store a couple of years ago. Read the article here.

Siwa House - Shop for Siwan Items in Cairo

Siwa House
Hand Embroidery and natural products from Siwa Oasis.
17 Ahmed Heshmat Street
Zamalek

+2 02 2737 3014
+2 02 2736 3139



They have a really interesting range of items from Siwa. There are 2 parts to their collection - Siwa Creations and Siwa Organics

Their shop in Cairo is much fancier than the counterpart in Siwa which is quite basic. The walls of the shop are decorated with salt crystals and Siwan pebbles.

Siwa Creations items include hand embroidered clothes and Siwan Jewelry. These may seem a little expensive at first glance unless you feel it is worth the price for individually crafted items.

Siwa Organics comprises of Organically grown Siwan specialties like Olives and Dates and products made out of them like tapenades and salad dressings.

You can buy Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Lemon and Orange flavors too. (upto 65LE for a liter)
Pickled and herbed olives also cost about 25LE for a regular sized bottle.
Tapenades and jams (olive, carrot, sycamore, bitter orange marmalade) are also 25 LE.
There is a wonderful variety of Salad dressings in olive tomato, orange and sycamore flavors for 25 LE.
A Kilo of organic dates costs 10LE.
They also have pure organic salt crystals in small jars (165 gms) for 10LE, the olive flavored salt goes for 20LE. These can again be used in salads in their natural form.

Touch of Glass - Shop for Glass Work in Cairo

Touch of Glass is located on
15A, Taha Hussein Street
Zamalek
Cairo

+2 02 2737 1488
They have some really nice items in glass to serve food in and for decorative purposes in different colors.

Their rates seemed reasonable, in the range of 100LE onwards.

They also have a small selection of scented and decorative candles.

Wady Craft Shop / Tukul Crafts - Free Trade

The Craft Shop next to the All Saints Cathedral has been in existence since 2003. It is called the Wady Craft Shop.

What I do like about this place is that all the products are created by disadvantaged groups: hearing impaired, visually impaired, refugees, prisoners and other disadvantaged families. The center sticks products from the Tukul Craft Program for Refugees, The Boulaq Centre (a women’s aid program for widows and single mothers), The Deaf School Vocational Training Centre, Shams El Birr (a school for visually impaired people),The Menouf Social Service, The Prison Ministry and several independent producers including African refugees and Egyptians.

Whatever you buy here is fairly priced and helps support these people.

I've seen a range of gift options available at this location. African print bags, purses, pot holders, hand made albums, jewelry, mother of pearl inlay work, embroidery, wood work.

, ,

You can find the shop on the side of the All Saints Cathedral (inside the Cathedral gates, to the left when you are facing the Cathedral)
5 Michael Lutfallah Street
Zamalek

Timings:
Open Daily
Winter : 9:30-5:00pm
Summer : 9:30-6:00pm
Sundays & Fridays 11:00-4:00

Tel: 2735 4350
wadycraftshopATyahooDOTcom

You can view some of the products here:
http://wadycrafts.com/shop/
Tukul Craft Program

Lecture by Michael Haag - Author - Vintage Alexandria

Had the good fortune of attending a lecture by Michael Haag, eminent Photographer and author of multiple books about Egypt.


Although he is from London, he has been visiting Alexandria since 1973, prior to which he already had a lot of friends who had emigrated to the UK from Alexandria. Michael's passion for Alexandria emanates from every photograph and is evident in every word that he speaks.

For today's lecture, he focused on a series of old photographs that he collected from private family albums of long term residents of Alexandria. The pictures in this book span a century- between 1860 and 1960. He showcased 30 of the pictures and told us stories behind each one and took us on a marvelous journey into "Vintage Alexandria"

While the costumes were strange (3 piece suits worn while lounging on the sea shore for example) a lot of the buildings were recognisable. Although some of the buildings were destroyed in the bombing of the Western harbour during World War II and a lot of the buildings have been torn down to give way for new ones.

In Michael's eyes, Alexandria was the ultimate Cosmopolitan city until 1971, because the blend of cultures had not come through occupation or colonialism. The Greeks, Italians and other nationalities who lived in the city for over 150 years had been invited by Mohammed Ali to trade through the Alexandria port.

We saw a lot of previously unseen pictures of Lawrence Durell, Safinaz Zulfikar (later married to King Farouk as Queen Farida), Antony Benaki (the Greek cotton trader whose collection formed the basis of the famous Benaki Museum in Athens), Robert Koch (who isolated the cholera virus and developed a vaccine in an Alexandria laboratory) and other famous Alexandrians.

He showed us a picture of Constantine Cavafy from a business card he had printed and handed over to a friend during her wedding. The funny part was that the picture had been taken 15 years earlier! Cavafy continued to use the same picture for the rest of his life :)

The one thing that hasn't changed since the time of Cleopatra seems to be the layout of the Eastern Harbour, although a lot of the land has been reclaimed. The Hotel Cecil stands on reclaimed land and just beyond the original location of one of Celopatra's needles, which is currently in Central Park, New York.

It was an extremely illuminating lecture and it was a pleasure to be taken back in time to an era that was more gentle and cultured and "quiet"?

Most of his books that I browsed through seem worth buying. Visit Michael's website on http://www.michaelhaag.com

Buying Tea Bags in Cairo

If you are looking to buy Tea bags in Cairo, there are a couple of brands that you can try.
Twinnings - the tea bags available here are imported for the most part. So quality is assured.
Ahmad Tea - again imported. Quality good.
Lipton - Both imported and locally prepared tea bags are available. Locally made tea bags for plain tea are pretty decent. The flavored and special teas arent as good as the imported varieties.
Isis - local herbal teas. Good quality. I adore the hibiscus and cinnamon variety which is rarely available. So I stock up when it is available.

Flavored and herbal teas are available in a wide range of flavours.

Locally made tea bags will be much more reasonable than the imported ones. You may need to try which brands are acceptable to you and which ones it makes sense to buy the imported variety or bring them with you from home.

For an idea of prices. A box of 15 hibiscus and cinnamon tea bags by Isis costs 2.95LE.


Hibiscus tea (karkadi) is quite unique to this part of the world and is a nice souvenir from Egypt for a gourmand friend back home.

Wadi Foods

Wadi Foods is a local Egyptian Company which grows, bottles and sells organic products.

I have been extremely happy with their olive oil selection including the naturally flavored varieties (which come in attractive bottles that look very elegant on a dinner table and can be served as is)


Their olives come in multiple varieties (black, Kalamata & green) and with various pickling spices.
They have excellent capers and sun dried tomatoes too. (tart and firm, not soggy)

The pepper pickles are not as spicy as I (an Indian) would like them, but I have friends who aren't into extremely spicy food, who love these pickles.
Do remember that in a non Indian setting, pickles normally refer to something that has been preserved in brine (salt water with a little souring agent) The cornichons are good and the lime pickle is what we call in konkani -meetha udkache - which means preserved in brine. they also have vine leaves, if you are inspired to create your own stuffed vine leaves at home.

They say that, all Wadi Food pickles are handpicked and then processed naturally by curing them slowly without any chemical additives or preservatives. They do taste that way.

They have some excellent tapenades that go well on bruschettas for an impromptu snack or on toast for breakfast. I love the sun dried tomato tapenade the best

They sell ready made pestos (Basil, mixed herb and artichoke) and pasta sauces (Arabioatta, Alfredo, Mediterranea and Basilico) I haven't tried these as I prefer to make my sauces from scratch, so I can tweak the taste to our taste buds. But I did try an onion paste of theirs for marination when I was in a hurry one day and it tasted quite awesome. I don't remember the exact name on the bottle and I haven't seen it recently. Some of their products go off the shelves for a while depending on the seasonal availability of their fresh produce.

The Apple Cider Vinegar may not be the same as the one available in the US, but its quite good never the less and works out much more reasonable and healthy than the imported varieties. The balsamic vinegar is ok for marination, but if the balsamic is to be used as a dip or as the main top note flavor in a dish, then I prefer to use my bottle from Modena.

All measurements on bottles are in the drained weight.

These are the logos, you are looking for, when searching for Wadi Foods products

Most of their bottle produce is available in the Major Grocery Stores in Egypt You can also buy them from the dedicated Wadi Food Stores around Cairo

The other advantage of going to their dedicated stores is that you can also pick up organic chicken and organic vegetables grown on their farms along the Cairo Alex desert road.

They also have appropriate baskets for their bottles, which are very handy when you want to take some over as a gift for your dinner hostess. Or you can even carry one of their fancy jars. - My husband is convinced that I buy half the products because of their bottles :) which I love to re-use in different ways.

Feel free to use any of their spice/bottle racks and combine it with whichever bottles you think your hostess may appreciate and create a beautiful basket for yourself. If you fall in love with the arrangement yourslef, just buy 2. I speak from experience :)



Credit Note: Pictures have been taken from the Wadi Food Website.

Azza Fahmy Galleries

Located the Azza Fahmy Gallery in Mohandaseen with difficulty. The shop isn't clearly marked. Its called Al Ain Gallery and its on a side street which all compounded our problems locating it since we did not have the exact address.

The address is 73, al Hussein street. Their phone number is 749 3940

If you are coming past the shooting club main gate with McDonalds on your left, keep coming straight, cross the intersecting main road and keep going till you see Khodeir bookshop on your right. Just before khodeir bookshop(its on a corner) is a lane going in. This is al Hussein street. It may be easier to walk it than try finding it in your car.

They had a lot of interesting pieces ranging from her famous jewelery to lamps to traditional clothes to souvenirs of all kinds. But they are all highly expensive. Its some of the neatest handwork that I have seen in this country with neat edges and smart yet traditional designs. But you really have to pay the price for this work.

Her gallery in First Mall in the Four Seasons hotel in Giza is on the 3rd Floor and only sells jewelery.

My vedict - good but expensive - Personally, I'm not wiling to pay 7-10 times the price of something just because it has a fancy designers name attached to it.