John Harris
Contributor. John has lived in the United States, India, Lebanon, England, and Scotland and has called Cairo home since 2005. He lives in Zamalek with his wife and three kids. John serves as a writer, development consultant, and father to rambunctious kids. He writes about food and travel for Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition.
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This restaurant may have no name - at least no name recognizable to anyone restricted to Arabic or English - and it has precious few non-Chinese patrons. On the evening we went, we were the only non-Uighur diners. Unless you happen to speak Uighur (...
My daughter is a budding geologist. She loves rocks. We have a delightful book that we always take with us as we travel around Egypt, A Traveler’s Guide to The Geology of Egypt, published by AUC, and I do my best to tell her dramatic stories...
There is considerable concern about the state of the economy in Egypt. The revolution, some say, is bad for business. Tycoons have been locked up. Properties have been seized. Assets have been frozen. If you examine one of the most dynamic sectors...
Food critics in Cairo spend a lot of time in the middle of the road. It’s not often that we get to sample truly exemplary tastes. Whereas food critics in Beirut or Istanbul may find themselves spending much of their time distinguishing the...
A friend recently told me an Egypt traffic horror story about a two mile back-up at a checkpoint, where traffic had simply stopped. The two-lane road quickly became four if not five lanes, and the heat and tempers were rising.
Quickly, cars that...
The various Kings of Egypt may be a distant memory, but Cairo’s King of Shrimps is still alive and well. My family and I stumbled upon this delightful restaurant (its name really is the King of Shrimps, written in both English and Arabic as...
This column is not ordinarily prone to hyperbole. It rarely finds the best, worst or most extraordinary of anything. Rather, I spend a lot of time tasting the pretty good, adequate or mildly disappointing. Therefore, when I meet extraordinary, I...
I’m a believer in value. Value is a difficult concept to define, but it basically means that the worth of something purchased should equal or exceed the price paid. Value has nothing to do with cost; good value can come expensive or cheap. I...
Dining in Cairo has taken on a new sense of urgency in the revolutionary age. In the spirit of abiding by the curfew, last orders at many of Cairo’s dining establishments until recently were not much later than 10:30. This was a bit of a shock...
Living in Cairo is full of ups and downs. On the one hand, there is incomparable history and culture, and plenty of friendly neighbors--on the other, there is chaos, noise, dirt and pollution. It’s a wonderful town in which to live; at the...
