Papa John's dips into the crowded culinary scene Why waste time and resources reinventing the wheel? Or in the case of Papa John's Pizza - a new venue that's fighting for its share of attention on the already cuisine cluttered Gamat El Dowal Street in Mohandiseen - why reinvent the fast food pizza parlor? Even the first time one walks through its entrance, there are whiffs of familiarity - and not just from the smells of oven-baked pizza. It's the cookie-cutter décor. You cannot escape the obligatory jars of colored pasta on the shelves, the paper placemats boasting their latest culinary promotion, and the uncomfortable seating. It's almost identical, but not quite, to the garden-variety pizza parlor chains (not mentioning any names) that sit on every other street corner. We give Papa John's the benefit of the doubt, however, hoping that the familiarity crops from functionality rather than lack of originality. That is until we placed our drinks on our "100% Real Cheese coasters, and opened our menus. The names of the dishes may be different, but the menu held few surprises. For starters there's the obligatory breadsticks, cheese sticks, chicken strips and chicken wings. Papa's goes one step further and adds potato wedges and onion rings to their menu. The only seemingly new dish is the Mushroom Magic, fresh mushroom with garlic sauce and herbs. Of course, in order to fit the mold, they had the mandatory salad bar. It was adequate, but not tempting enough to lure us out of our seats. We opted for the "4 for All so we could sample a few of the starters. A few minutes after taking our order, our waiter returned to inform us that they were out of chicken wings. After much discussion, he confirmed that we could only substitute the wings one of the three starters already included in the dish, so it was a "3 for All after all. Once the starters platter arrived, what little enthusiasm we had abated. Chicken strips were dipped in batter, the same batter the onions were presumably dipped in, and though tender lacked flavor. The potato wedges were equally banal. They arrived with a sample of sauces, which we hoped would punch up the flavor. They did, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. It wasn't a surprise that they had been poured out of a bottle given that they were photographed in the menu as prepackaged dipping sauces, but we didn't quite expect the taste to reinforce the image. The Pizza Dipping was a thick, tomato sauce that added more texture than flavor to the potato wedge. The BBQ sauce was okay. The Special Garlic sauce lived up to its name if by "special they meant "so unusual you can't quite figure out what it's supposed to taste like. Thankfully, the pizzas arrived, and because the tables are so small, the waiter was forced to remove the starters in order to serve us. We had decided to take the tour and ordered from their selection "Pizzas of the World. We were served the Chicken Florentine - pizza topped with grilled chicken, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, with creamy spinach Alfredo sauce. For something a bit more exotic, we chose the Hawaiian, pizza topped with smoked veal, pineapple, and extra cheese. Given the starters, the pizza was a pleasant surprise. The crust was thin, but not too crispy. The sauce wasn't too overpowering. According to the menu, the pizza had "extra cheese, but there was no evidence of that on our pizzas. The cheese was light enough that the pizza didn't have that glistening greasiness to it. Unfortunately, the pizza is served with a free helping of the Special Garlic Sauce. On the plus side it also comes with a side order of Pepperoncini, which adds just the right punch of spiciness. As for dessert, well it simply wasn't worth the calories. A pizza parlor is more suited for family dining, and on the corner of one of Cairo's busiest streets this was no exception. Papa John's is a place to take your children knowing that you can walk away at the end of a meal causing minimal property damage. It's also a given that there is a reasonably high noise tolerance, which is why we did our best to ignore the wailing child at the next table. The large screen TV on the opposite wall did its best to drown out the noise. Of course the downside to the TV was the inability to draw the waiter's attention from the ongoing football match. Once we did, though, he was pleasant and helpful. Papa John's Pizza is your typical fast food pizza parlor. If you're craving pizza, then Papa John's is a good alternative from the usual, thick, greasy pies. But if you want to enjoy it, then maybe it's best to make a call and order in. Papa John's PizzaAtlas Hotel, Gamat El Dowal St., Mohandiseen, CairoTel: 19277
