Business monthly October 04   LETTER FROM THE EDITOR FEATURE EXECUTIVE LIFE VIEWPOINT REPORTS SUBSCRIPTION FORM ROUND UP FOLLOW UP ADVERTISING RATES MACROCOSM Search Business Monthly | Back Issues

THE EXECUTIVE LIFE
Executive Larder	Restaurant Review

Straight from Anytown, USA: Cinnabon

Many years ago, in a land far, far away, my high school sweetheart and I would periodically skip first-period chemistry to start our day at the local Cinnabon bakery – the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon rolls doused with sugar frosting and fresh coffee helped us do some chemical bonding of our own.

Cinnabon, a leading cinnamon roll retailer, operates or licenses more than 600 bakeries worldwide. Until recently, the sole Cinnabon bakery in Egypt was located in the Maadi City Centre, directly across from Carrefour – a location that all but guaranteed its success.

Thanks to the booming business of its flagship store, another outlet has recently opened in Mohandiseen, and, though the area is already saturated with new restaurants and trendy cafés, the queues outside Cinnabon’s doors prove the ancient maxim, “There’s always room for dessert.”
Customers can watch – from behind protective plastic dough shields – the elaborate preparations that go into these saccharine confections, as huge balls of dough are fed into a machine that flattens them into the appropriate length, width and depth. The bunmaker – a proud vocation – then touches up the buns’ proportions with a special measuring stick, slicing the dough as he goes.

Then the key ingredient: Cinnabon’s original Makara cinnamon, which is added to the dough liberally. More ingredients are then added, depending on the type of rolls being churned out, with each strip being rolled up length-wise, creating an oblong cinnamon log, which is sliced up evenly – and measured with the stick – to ensure all rolls are uniform. These are then nestled together in a deep-dish pan and baked in an oven for 30 minutes. Upon retrieval, they’re smothered with Cinnabon’s trademark frostings, the recipes for which are apparently top-secret.

The flagship Cinnabon roll comes covered with a sweet cream-cheese frosting. While these are generally the most popular, there are a numerous other varieties. The Pecanbon is a classic roll topped with pecans and doused in sticky-sweet caramel frosting, while the Chocobon comes with a liberal amount of rich chocolate topping.

Prices range from £E 9 for a regular-sized, classic Cinnabon to £E 13 for a large Pecanbon.

Finally, no cinnamon roll is complete without coffee. Fortunately, Cinnabon has a cappuccino machine on hand to provide caffeinated joy in classy mugs embossed with the restaurant’s logo.

The bakery, it should be mentioned, offers more than just sugary treats. A small selection of entrées, including salads and sandwiches, is also available. My companion and I sampled the Caesar salad and the smoked turkey pannini, both of which came quickly, despite the never-ending stream of customers. The distinct deli-style presentation of the salad included healthy-looking lettuce with a light dressing (though not Caesar), topped with Bake Rolls. The sandwich, meanwhile, was served on toasted French bread with a zesty sauce and a generous amount of sun-dried tomatoes.

While the salad and sandwich would have sufficed for a light lunch, it was the end of the day, and we needed a sugar-induced second wind – so we ordered a large classic Cinnabon and a large Pecanbon, along with a latte and a cappuccino, in addition to a slice of carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies. Fresh, hot and almost overwhelmingly sweet, the cinnamon rolls took us back to that little bakery we knew a decade ago.

The buns, though, are certainly the restaurant’s forte, and the other treats don’t fare as well: the carrot cake was substandard and still slightly frozen, while the cookies tasted disappointingly artificial. The latte, though, was good and frothy, while the cappuccino proved a perfect complement to the sweets. Our bill came to £E 82.50 – a little pricey, but with venues targeting Maadi and Mohandiseen exclusively, not a surprise.

Sarah Broberg

Coffee, Mediterranean style

Drinking a cup of strong Italian coffee is an important step in preparing for an interview for this journalist. Not being a fan of the instant coffee purveyed by most offices and lacking the steady nerves required to imbibe the Turkish version, I usually prepare myself a cup before setting out.

While in Alexandria for work, I was faced with a coffee dilemma following a sleepless night in a noisy hotel. Should I grab a cup on the way to my interview and risk being late, or instead request multiple cups of the instant brew required to approximate the effect of a single cappuccino upon my arrival?
Having decided in favor of punctuality, I was pleasantly surprised when my request for a cup of instant was met with the reply, “We don’t serve that here, but I can offer you an espresso instead.”
Since a thirst for Italian-style coffee has made it to the Alexandrian workplace, it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of cafés purveying the drink around the city. Whether they’ve sprung up due to globalization and the ensuing inevitability of the development of a coffee culture suitable to upper middle class tastes, or whether they represent an assertion of the city’s Mediterranean identity, I’ll leave to the cultural theorists. In any case, for Cairenes who can’t do without Cilantro or Coffee Roastery, Alex is now home to branches of those establishments (see sidebar). For those interested in something more local, they need look no further than City Café or The Bistrot [sic].

City Café affords plenty of people-watching opportunities due to its location on a busy corner of a downtown street lined with banks. It’s easily spotted from a distance by the bright red and white Illy sign letting everyone know that it is the purveyor of a high-quality Italian espresso. With windows on two sides and an interior painted Provençal yellow and blue, City Café can’t but lift one’s mood. The absence of televisions displaying the gyrations of the latest Arab pop tart allows customers to focus on their companions’ conversation or sink into contemplative reverie. One needn’t always look out the windows for people-watching opportunities, though, as the animated conversation by café regulars at the long bar (coffee only!) is intriguing enough.

Customers choose between the more expensive hot beverages using the Illy bean or some other unspecified cousin. A no-name espresso runs for £E 3.15 while an Illy cappuccino – my choice – was £E 5.00. Service was fast, and the drink arrived with a nice peak of frothy milk topped with a dusting of cocoa and sugar. Salads, sandwiches and pasta are all on offer for an economical £E 5.95-13.00.
The Bistrot, on another busy street, but with a quieter feel due to the trees in planters lining the front and side of its exterior, proved another good find. Set in a space with high ceilings and walls painted a pale beige bordered by darkly stained wood, the Bistrot offers a calm environment in which to take a break from the hustle and bustle of downtown.

Seeking a quick dinner before an evening lecture, I decided to sample the Bistrot’s light meals. Although my choices of a grilled vegetable salad and chocolate brownie topped with walnuts, honey and cream proved tasty enough, neither dish bore much relation to its description. The salad turned out to be a rather prosaic combination of tomatoes and cucumbers, obtaining a little bit of sass from a blue cheese dressing. The brownie came topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce – less of a shock than the salad as I’d pried the secrets of its true composition out of the waiter before it arrived.

It was only as I finished up my meal with a latte made with Lavazza coffee (coffee runs from £E 4.00 for a Nescafé to £E 8 for a double espresso) that I took note of the single TV screen with its videos and the animated conversations going on around me. Put it down to a spacious interior or the high ceilings, the café was startlingly tranquil in light of the number of customers at the time of my visit.
Two other coffee spots bear mention: the Brazilian Coffee Shop, located on Saad Zaghloul Street, and the Cecil Hotel’s sidewalk café on the corniche.

The Brazilian Coffee Shop is the place to go for a quick java jolt. Standing room only, it’s arranged in the style of an Italian bar. As one sips or tosses back anything from an espresso to a hot chocolate, there’s a singular opportunity to contemplate the order and progress motto of the Brazilian flag which is painted on the ceiling.

Take-out cups are sometimes available, sometimes not. The hot cocoa with milk (£E 2.50) is a wonderful mid-winter drink, especially welcome when trying to escape the frequent rain showers that characterize the colder months. The Brazilian uses its own coffee which is not bad, though not as delectable as Lavazza in my view.

Last but not least is the Cecil. Sad to say, the five-star hotel served up the least impressive coffee I drank during my visit. Rather watery, my cappuccino tasted as though powdered milk had been used to make what should have been a frothy topping. To be fair, I demanded fast service, having only 20 minutes to spare before taking a taxi to the train station. At £E 6, the coffee was also steeper than any of the others I’d bought, and was made all the more expensive by the £E 3 tip I gave for speedy service. Piping hot and delivered with a smile, it was nonetheless well worth its price for the opportunity to watch the sea laugh and play before I boarded the train to Cairo.

Willa Thayer

Submit your comment

Top