Egypt's national food which consisted of rice, lentils, macaroni and vermicelli topped with tomato sauce, spicy chilli or garlic sauce and crispy fried onions. Sis doesn't like it, I'm ok with it but it did feel like combining leftovers carbs and mixing them up with some sauce. We first had it as part of tour to Saqqara/Memphis/Dahshur. We had it again for lunch after visiting Coptic Cairo because of limited choices available. 

Breakfast was included in our accommodations in Cairo and Siwa Oasis. We stayed in 3 different accommodations in Cairo because the hotel we booked was said to be on maintenance and they moved us to their sister hotel in the Garden City for the first 2 days. We had to move back to the initial hotel we booked for day 3. The hotel we initially booked (i.e. the one we stayed on day 3) was so bad that we booked a different hotel for our last day in Cairo before flying out. 

This refers to veggies stuffed with rice mixture. We had a few - mahshi warak enab (stuffed grape leaves), zucchinis, bell peppers and cabbage from different places. They were all delish!

We first had stuffed grape leaves in a restaurant named Oldish. While all the food we had there was delicious, we noticed price differences during checking the bill before payment. One of the dishes had a price increment of a few hundred Egyptian pounds and one of the drinks was cheaper by EGP 10. When we asked, we were told that they coincidentally had a price revision that day and had not had a chance to update their menu. This wasn't informed to us when we placed an order nor when they gave us the bill. After a couple of rounds of back and forth, they adjusted the price for both dish and drink, and claimed that they reluctantly gave us a "discount".

Molokhia or spelled as mulukhia is a green soup made of minced jute leaves and cooked in broth. I first learned of this from the Cooking Fever game. So when we first saw it in Oldish restaurant, we ordered it. It was also part of the home-cooked meal in Luxor. 

Egyptian goulash is nothing like the Hungarian goulash. The Egyptian goulash is a type of meat pie with the crust made of phyllo dough. We saw it on a menu and wanted to order it to try but was told that we needed to pre-order it. This was the only dish we told our Luxor hotel owner that we wanted to be included in the dinner. We were told that they didn't have meat but we didn't mind, so this version was made with chicken. We initially thought they were going to replace it with some vegetarian option but it was likely that they were referring to beef in this context as it is usually made with ground beef.  

I would say these are more popular outside of Egypt, I guess?

Ta'ameya is Egyptian's version of falafel that uses fava beans and usually eaten as breakfast. We ordered a portion at Abdo in Siwa Oasis when we were out for brunch. It was also included in our breakfasts in Siwa Oasis. The other one with bread was also for breakfast. We arrived back in Cairo from Siwa Oasis and saw a breakfast food cart when we walked to the hotel. We joined the locals, stood around the cart and ate. It came with fuul (broad or fava bean paste).

On arrival at Luxor, we asked the hotel owner for recommendation of food and he suggested this Wolf Restaurant which is just a few minutes walk away. We ordered tagine dishes - from memory, one was moussaka and the other fish tagine.   

Om Ali which is the Egyptian bread pudding.