Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Fancypants With A View At Loft 21

Cairo never seemed so peaceful as fluorescent feluccas sailed down the Nile and Fancypants stuffed his face on one of his greatest adventures yet.

Staff Writer
Being a moderately competent individual capable of distinguishing a semicolon from a hyphen and hitting the spell check button, I’m tasked with many responsibilities here at Cairo Scene. It is often very rewarded, especially this Fancypants business, but between writing  about all the nerdy happenings in town and fighting my officemates for the last slice of pizza, things can get a little hectic. It’s always a relief to end my work day with one of my patented Fancypants adventures but Loft 21 was like the chemically induced euphoria one gets after wrestling a large ferocious mammal with chainsaws for hands. After putting out a few, literal fires (note to self: don't let interns use the kettle again) I was more than ready to put on my Fancypants.
Upon exiting the elevator at the very top of the Capital Club I was greeted by the lovely staff of Loft 21 who lead me to my seat. They would have gracefully carried me there on a litter like a Game of Thrones character too if it wasn’t for all this baby weight. They set me up at a table out on the terrace with what is most definitely the best view of Cairo you can possibly get without going to space. After the server assisted me in picking up my jaw off the floor, I was presented with the drinks menu and it almost fell right back down. 
Unlike other spots around downtown when Loft 21 says cocktail they don’t mean a loose affiliation of liquids that may or may not be anything close to what you were expecting. Each one of the multiple cocktails I ordered was mixed masterfully, not compromising a milliliter in either taste or uh, ‘effectiveness’. 
 
Normally, I find octopuses (octopi?) to be terrifying deep sea aliens, capable of great intelligence but also creepy as hell. So eating one took a bit of mental fortitude. I’m more than glad I summoned the courage though because Loft 21’s grilled tentacle monster is divine. The accompanying appetizers of chicken liver pate with a berry compote and duck prosciutto with foie gras were a little more along the evolutionary branch that I’m used to eating but nonetheless tasted completely mind blowing. 
The tough part about many a Fancypants is that restaurants tend to be so eager to please (because I’m such a big deal) that they just fill the table with their best dishes and I have to express a degree of self-control that I’m not used to exercising. I managed, however, to make it past the appetizers and arrive at the main course without putting myself in a coma.
 
Pan seared scallops on a bed of champagne risotto with black caviar and lemon foam was arresting both visually and whatever the similar word is for taste (gustatorily, I looked it up). With it, all the way from Tasmania was a fillet of salmon that, if there were any grizzly bears in the hemisphere would have drawn them from thousands of miles away. I attempted to have the server toss it into my mouth so I could get the full experience but the pictures never came out. Matching the surf with a little turf was a certified angus sirloin that must have cooked by superhumans with the aid of advanced robotics to achieved such perfection.
All this fanciness is what we’ve all come to expect from these adventures. Usually, I concentrate real hard and pretend that I’m evaluating some abstract flavor thing when I’m really just thinking about how much of the delicious food I can jam into my mouth at once without choking. That is until I met Loft 21’s mac n’ cheese. Somehow with all this painfully fancy bounty in front of me, the dish I fell in love with the most was a side of pasta and cheese. Really though you guys, it was fucking amazing. A sprinkle of parmesan on top of perfect pasta and each layer was infused with a different, devastatingly delicious type of cheese. I’m not going to pretend I knew all the different cheese but I am going to boast that I made a point to eat all of it. 

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