italioni

alex and i had vague plans to go out for dinner thursday night, as a reward for sticking to our vegetable-heavy diet plan during the week. i was craving cheese, grease and unlimited bread, so while i waited for him to get home to work i perused the internet for italian options nearby. we'd been to a lot of them, and i wasn't particularly interested in the 'hidden gems' we'd have to search for, so was happy to be reminded that a new place had opened in zamalek, owned by the same people who have a couple of high-quality french restaurants. because it was the weekend, alex called ahead for a reservation, but they claimed they were full. for the rest of the night. despite his pleading "but we are just two - and small, too, hein?"

tori had mentioned that the italian embassy had a restaurant on their grounds, but weirdly enough i couldn't find anything about it online. figuring that there was a chance of it being more authentically italian than the competition, we hopped in a cab and headed downtown. a guard outside the embassy opened the gates, and we wandered around inside the compound until we saw another. there, we signed our names (in the non-italian column, sadly) paid twenty pounds, and were let in through another gate. again, we milled around a dark, empty garden until we saw a door in the shadows. inside, it was bright and noisy, filled with cigarette smoke and, i was pleased to note, wine. we sat down at one of the few empty tables and asked the waiter for menus. he looked at us, confused. 'no menus,' he explained, brow furrowed, as if we were the weird ones. 'ok, so what do you have?' 'anything you want!' 'penne with cream sauce?' well, except that. surprisingly, the pasta was terrible. worse than i can make. worse than the greek club's 9 pound ($1.50) spaghetti. fortunately, by the time the pizza arrived, we had taken a good look at what the neighboring tables were eating and ordered a couple of other plates that were pretty great. the dessert was shitty, but there was wine. we'll be back.