Senzo Mall - Chilli's

 

Part of New Food Court Area

When you read this on Monday, I hope to have just returned from Istanbul and I expect I will be exhausted. I’m on my visa run to Istanbul and back, staying only during the day on Sunday and flying out at night again on early Monday morning, just so that I can get an international visa stamp in my passport which will allow me to apply for a year’s visa in Egypt. I’ll tell you all about it once I’m back.

Anyway, in the mean time, my life has somehow been very busy and it’s often revolved around food, because that’s one of my favorite ways of socializing.

One thing I did was to go to Senzo Mall with Mona (who has a car) so we could try out the new restaurant Chilli’s that’s just opened there. Senzo Mall is developing a whole food court outside – there’s KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Jacob’s café, a sweet shop, Cordoba (restaurant relocated from where it was before), Bianco (another café/restaurant), and Chilli’s. More places are to come.

Whenever I go to Senzo Mall in the morning for my weekly shop, it’s dead. Consequently, going in the evening (we were fairly early, maybe about 7pm), I was shocked. The place was buzzing. The car park was quite full. The restaurants had customers when normally all seats are empty. We got a table outside.

I hadn’t realized that Chilli’s was a chain. It’s funny because they are using the Chilli’s branding, which includes big adverts for fresh Margaritas, but actually they have no alcohol (this is Egypt, after all). I remember Theresa posting about that on FaceBook with huge disappointment and Mona (also Egyptian/American) suggested to our waiter that maybe they alter the branding a bit for Egypt. But here they aren’t too bothered about contravening the trades description act (well, I guess it doesn’t exist, so they can’t contravene it).

The food was really good. I had a burger, since I don’t normally eat burgers and it was good to have something different. It was huge – American portions. For a drink, I had freshly squeezed strawberries. I’d definitely go back.

We wanted to go into Senzo Mall afterwards to buy some things (Mona) and get money out (Me). I couldn’t believe how busy it was; hardly anyone was wearing a mask. People have commented on this before, but because I go only in the mornings, it doesn’t bother me (there’s so much empty space and the Mall in any case has open doors at every corner). Now, however, it hit me like a blast of air on my face. I really can’t remember if was always this packed at night and I’ve just become unaccustomed to it, or if it was busier than usual when we went because it was shortly after Eid. In a way, it was nice to see all the life and for everything to look so normal. I wore my mask, because you’re supposed to, but to be honest, as I said to Mona, if anyone did have covid, I was probably stuffed anyway (as the mask doesn’t do that much). Oh well, the place is pretty well ventilated.

I went to get money out, but the area with cash machines, which is enclosed, was crowded with people and long queues. I couldn’t be bothered. I went back to the Pharmacy, where Mona was also in a queue. Apparently, she had Russians in front of her who had a huge list of medications they wanted to buy (you can self-medicate over here). Mona too decided she couldn’t be bothered.

And so we went back to Sahl Hasheesh. It was lovely to eat outside of Sahl Hasheesh for a change. I must do it more often.

If you’re looking for another blog to read, a friend is writing this one: Halfway Over the Hill about life in Italy… I can highly recommend it.