Restaurant review: La vie en rose Gamal Nkrumah starts with Sweet Lady and ends with Chocolat Chaud You wouldn't have trouble locating Columbus Café, France's leading chain of espresso bars. All you have to do is head for Giza's upmarket suburb of Mohandessin and cruise Al-Batal Ahmed Abdel-Aziz Street -- which together with Gamaat Al-Dowal Al-Arabiya holds together the social edifice of the Gulf Arab-dominated neighbourhood. Add pollution to its problems, plus a whole load of aimless youngsters from oil-rich Gulf sheikhdoms in summer, and you have one great steaming mess of a Mohandessin. If ever trapped in its humid summer tensions, Columbus Café is an unlikely hideaway. Whatever else you may say about it, Mohandessin is not short of eateries. Indeed, it's a foodies' paradise. But its restaurants don't necessarily attract the gastronomic connoisseurs. Most of the clientele in these eateries, some of which are exorbitantly expensive, are far from sophisticated. In Paris, the pavements spill over with people eating outside. Not so in Mohandessin. Still, Columbus Café has been the place to be seen sipping coffee since it opened its doors last month. The walls of the street-facing sides are made up almost entirely of windows. The edifice of the building in which the famous French establishment is located is an overpowering russet -- bold and loud -- and hints at the explosion of colour inside the café itself. We hadn't planned to be here. We were supposed to dine in a floating restaurant. Let's just say it turned out to be one of our better mistakes. You are bound to stumble upon some seriously cool customers at the Columbus Café. It's the place to be seen, but do you need a bank balance as big as the hype? It's not cheap, but at least the juice is good value. You are more likely to bump into youngsters. But the more mature will not feel out of place. Indeed, this mix finds its parallel in the décor and in the clientele. The décor is gaudy -- the colours loud and jarring. But here and there are old-fashioned touches. But enough about the ambiance, what about the grub? The menu has oodles of appeal, but especially so the freshly-squeezed fruit juices with seductive names like Sweet Lady, Sensation 2, Soprano Scream and Romantic Breeze. I'm decidedly carnivorous and I inadvertently glance at the main dishes -- conjured up essentially to satisfy the taste buds of the carnivores. The mushroom and mustard beef fillet caught my eye, but I opted instead for Roquefort beef fillet, which I was told would come pink. It did, but they did not tell me it would melt in my mouth. The accompanying buttered vegetables -- sprouts, potatoes and carrots -- were quite simply divine. My companion had plumped for date pie. It tasted as rich as it sounds. Then he tucked into his pasta. The spaghetti Bolognaise was good, with plentiful mince meat, onions, carrots, tomato sauce, olive oil and parmesan cheese. After two such pleasingly well endowed courses it was abundantly clear that this café did not do things by halves. Desert was similarly spot-on. I couldn't resist a slice of the Devil's chocolate cake. Very chocolatey. It's difficult to imagine a more decadent end to the meal. But my companion did. He settled for the Caramel Machiato -- espresso, vanilla syrup, Irish cream and caramel sauce -- or was it the San Francisco Steamer? Not to be outdone, I went for the good old Chocolat chaud. Coffee at Columbus Café is an event in itself, and almost worth a visit on its own at the end of an evening. Service, though, is patchy at best. The waiters make a show of being helpful and friendly, but there are too many of them and they are not sufficiently professional and discreet to justify the higher than average mark-up. Columbus Café Mohandessin Tel: +2 762 7015, 762 7016 www.columbuscafe.com Open: 7.30 am to 2.00 am Dinner for two, LE135.
