Injy El-Kashef has never been more unpleasantly surprised When I heard about the National Geographic's expedition into the Great Pyramid and all the hype surrounding the event I was overcome by a sense of pride and intense curiosity which compelled me to retouch base with my glorious ancestry. As, incidentally, I was also hungry, I thought there must be a restaurant that offers authentic Egyptian food -- as in Ancient Egyptian food, not koshari -- and the first venue that came to mind was the King Tut restaurant at the Pharaonic Village. I called them up just to make sure, and their answers were unmistakable: "Yes of course. We have really Egyptian food. We have fish and poultry and bread just how they baked it." It sounded reasonable; the Ancient Egyptians ate a lot of fish and geese, it's all there on the reliefs, and if they say it, they know their own kitchen. In a highly enthusiastic tone, I called a dear friend of mine: "We're going to eat Ancient Egyptian food!!! Isn't that great?" His reaction was less jubilant: "Yes. Very nice. But I am very angry now: this was my idea! I thought about this 10 years ago. Every brilliant idea I have gets stolen. It's infuriating. Anyway, where is this place?" Along with a third dear friend, we headed out to the Pharaonic Village in what seemed like a school-trip mood. At the ticket booth and security check, personnel were flabbergasted to hear that we only wanted the restaurant. No museums? No tours? We thought their surprised reactions were a subtle way of pressuring us into visiting, and, of course, paying for more tickets. Little did we know. After crossing the small Nile stretch that separates the main attractions from the reception area, we walked into what seemed like a children's summer camp dining hall, and quite a bland one at that. Yes, the ceiling was painted blue with the golden stars replicating Goddess Nut's firmament of the famed tomb interiors, but that was the only resemblance it bore to anything Pharaonic. And if I should mention the costumes worn by the waiters, I would only say one thing: they need a round in the washing machine, followed by a hot iron. That was our first impression of King Tut restaurant -- one that nothing else managed to wipe off our sorry, disappointed minds. The one element connecting the items on the menu with Ancient Egypt was their label: Cleopatra's steak with mushroom sauce; Nefertari's delight (grilled pigeon); Hapy's émincé with butter sauce, etc. Laughable. Attempting to reproduce Ancient Egyptian cuisine is a huge endeavour requiring an incredible amount of research, and to replace that with some half-cooked international dishes is insulting to the diner's intelligence, at best, especially if the said dishes themselves are inedible. While our food took forever to arrive, the three of us tried to think of a worse restaurant we may have encountered in the last 10 years and could not think of one. King Tut actually topped the list of never-ever-again restaurants. Our barely touched plates included a Mixed Grill (how wrong can you go with a mixed grill for heaven's sake?) composed of dry, stale, horrible pieces of animal protein. The Steak with Mushroom Sauce turned my stomach. What kind of meat was this? As to what constituted the sauce, I spared myself the masochistic exercise of figuring that one out. Only my friend's Chicken Panné was bearable enough for her to eat half her plate and satiate her hunger pangs. It took a huge amount of time for our food to come. It took us about five minutes to understand that we simply could not eat it. Leaving our food untouched, we paid the LE120 bill and walked out of there, highly regretful and, like victims of violence, ashamed. King Tut, Pharaonic Village, Al-Bahr Al-A'zam St, Giza Tel 571 8676/7
