Restaurant review: Porsche kitchen Sports cars, designer kitchens and good food are a perfect combination, discovers Hanan Radwan What does an elegant sports car have in common with kitchen design? The answer is simple: Porsche. The internationally renowned German car manufacturing company has its own chain of home fashion and kitchen design stores, of which the Egyptian offshoot has come up with an enterprising idea: why not open a restaurant? And so P75 was born on the ground floor of the Mohandessin villa that houses Porsche's kitchen design and home fashion showroom. This restaurant is refreshingly unique in many ways. There are two outdoor seating areas for the casual diner, a curved corridor crowded with television screens for shisha lovers, a small indoor arrangement for a no-fuss meal, and a cavernous dining space designed like a spruced up warehouse where customers can enjoy dining to the tunes of a piano resting on an elevated platform in the centre. With such enormous room and few waiters, one might wonder, service may be dangerously slow. Not to worry; just press the button on your table and your number will alert the staff to your needs. Traces of such savvy thinking are perceived in subtle yet pleasing aspects such as the huge tree that the owners refused to cut down and instead designed the roof around its bark and complemented it with a corner of potted plants. And the menu does not disappoint. To be sure, the quintessential café offerings of sandwiches, pizzas and fruit cocktails are omnipresent. But with ingredients like emmental cheese and grilled vegetables added to your sandwich and fresh fruit blended to order, you know that this is not a typical round-the-corner eatery. There is food for all types, even the serious connoisseurs. Take the artichoke bake, for instance: a creamy mousse of artichoke hearts grated and blended with crabmeat, garlic, parmesan cheese and house spices. Or the P75 salad: a heap of greens hugging chunks of grilled salmon, cherry tomatoes and black olives, and crowned with plump prawns, all bathed in a tangy vinaigrette. Pared with hunks of brown bread topped with sunflower seeds and slathered with butter, the salad is a designer creation in its own right. At first sight, the fried calamari rings may appear bland and boring. But when teeth are sunk into their crispy coating and tender flesh, you know that they have been selected and cooked with a tad more attention than in a typical coffee shop. Then there is the grilled salmon steak: flaky and unctuous, the thick, coral coloured fish slab sprawls on a garden of sautéed vegetables and transports the taste buds to a joyful culinary paradise when dipped in the accompanying butter-mustard sauce. Recognising the hidden perils of ignoring Egyptian carnivores, the meat corner is well covered. Hearty eaters will appreciate the P75 steak, a generous portion of beef marinated in mustard sauce. The fillets are brick-thick and fork-tender, grilled to order. Dainty diners will be heartened by the succulent veal scaloppini, served with mushrooms and pierced with a decorative burrito triangle. With food of such quality, it might be tempting to slash one's bank account for a Porsche kitchen that can enable the serious diner to assemble these delightful concoctions at home. (In fact, the restaurant's name stands for the latest kitchen model). After all, what is the good life other than the ambiance and food of your choice? The only thing missing -- the latest Porsche model to drive you home. P75 Mohandessin
