Tunisia or Egypt? Culinary duel
If you like delicious food, like my husband, and the amount of hot spices does not scare you, welcome to Tunisia! But... in Tunisia it is very rare to cook with gloves, at most it is a white coat and a cap in large fast food chains. Once I did see the chef in gloves - in a cafe at the Tunisian airport Carthage (Cartage). Here, if the shawarma near the metro is not made in special plastic gloves, the next day it will be closed.
Another feature of Tunisia is specialization; let's say you are hungry and decide to go to a cafe / restaurant and, according to our habit, expect you to order a salad or other appetizer, then the main course, then juice, mineral water, tea or coffee, which you will eat with dessert, washed down with wine or beer, cruelty awaits you disappointment, to eat you need to go to one cafe, drink coffee or tea, already in another, it is better to buy dessert in a special department of a supermarket or a pastry shop, ice cream in general in a separate cafe called glacerie, and croissants, right, in croissanterie, you can buy wine in a supermarket (not only in General, you can also in Monoprix) if you are lucky and the month of Ramadan has already ended or has not yet begun. If you are in a tourist area, then almost everything can be on the menu of a cafe on the first line or in a hotel restaurant for Europeans, even alcohol. In the month of Ramadan, such cafes and restaurants do not work.
In Egypt, everything is simpler and there were no such problems. You will be fed even in Ramadan, especially in tourist cities, and the menus in the cafes are interesting and varied, although there are also mini cafes with fresh juices, but Egyptian wine. . . it’s probably better not to drink at all.
Both in Egypt and in Tunisia, there are a lot of hookah lounges, often right on the sidewalks next to cute cafes, which in Egypt are called coffeeshops, and in Tunisia, as a rule, salon de thé .
More about Tunisia. . . if you sit at a table and do not take food with you (amporte importé , s'il vous plaî t), you will be offered a free salad or freshly baked bread with seasonings: homemade mayonnaise, harissa (tomato paste with garlic and olive oil), meshukha salad (chopped chili fried in olive oil) and very often french fries come as a free addition to the main course. In Tunisia, food is not salted, but an exception is made for tourists.
Leave a tip if you like it, watch the locals, they never fork out for tips.
I decided to tell you about food in Tunisia in more detail, it deserves it! But there are also significant advantages of Egypt: these are McDonald's and other world brands, as well as the opportunity to taste a hamburger with pork, in Tunisia, the hamburger menu is, in fact, a beefburger, there are no pork products, but tuna...
So, in Tunisia, it’s a good option to eat in a cafe ($5 for two) or a restaurant ($10 or more), eat ice cream, buy cakes in a pastry shop and warm crispy baguettes in a bakery, and drink strawberries and other things the rest of the time (kiwi, dates, banana, lemon, orange and their combinations) fresh juices and delicious coffee.
In Egypt, drinking water is very expensive and in cafes and restaurants they will save on it and not every stomach will go unnoticed, therefore in Egypt, in my opinion, it is better to buy dates and fruits on your own, wash them thoroughly, and drink mango fresh juices , a cane drink and only bottled water, delicious juices, even in tetra packs, and there are amazingly tasty and fresh seafood in fish restaurants.
In general, opinions, even in my family, are divided: I prefer Tunisian cuisine (I love their pâ tisserie), my husband prefers the Egyptian-Cairo version, especially food a la McDonald's, and my mother is a fan and activist of the Egyptian-Turkish movement "all inclusive forever".
