Cheap, healthy and oh so tasty: the best kushari in Cairo

The Guardian, by Shahrokh Parvi

This spicy mixture of rice, lentils and pasta started as filling food for the poor - but is now Egypt’s national dish

Rice and spicy … a dish of kushari in Cairo. Photograph: Alamy

My wife and I are avid scuba divers and on our latest trip, to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, our flight booking meant a stopover in Cairo. As I always do when staying in hotels, I asked the concierge where he likes to eat, and though he was confused as to why I didn’t want five-star hotel food, he pointed us in the direction of his favourite kushari restaurant.

Often called the national dish of Egypt, kushari is a vegetarian recipe of rice, lentils and al dente macaroni, usually topped with chickpeas, crispy fried onions, and a fresh tomato sauce (often with the option of hot chilli or garlic dressing).

It has been around since at least the middle of the 19th-century, probably evolving from a mix of Indian and Italian influences. Donkey-pulled food carts used to hawk it around poorer areas, but as its popularity grew, hole-in-the-wall shops and then restaurants sprang up across the city, many of them selling nothing but kushari. It’s cheap, but packed full of protein and so many carbs it is widely favoured by the city’s marathon runners.

The restaurant was called Abou Tarek Koshary, on Maarouf Street in downtown Cairo. From the outside it looks more like a small office block than a restaurant, but its four floors were packed with locals and tourists all tucking into big, tasty plates of food in basic, but clean surrounds.

For a fiver, my wife and I had a main course of kushari, drinks and dessert. As a restaurateur I was envious, yet I had a smile on my face: this place was all about simplicity and good food.

• Abou Tarek, 16 Maarouf Street, Cairo

Shahrokh Parvi is managing director of London deli chain Del’Aziz