EL Sheikh Wafik, Alexandria

Absolute best local dessert spot in Alexandria — no contest. The signature dish: rice pudding + ice cream + nuts. It sounds simple, it destroys you in the best way. Not too sweet, perfect texture, melts in your mouth. I was almost drooling mid-bite — that’s the honest truth. If you eat one dessert in Alexandria, make it this. 🤤👑 Non-negotiable.

Alexandrian dessert parlor, famous for its couscous, rice pudding, and ice cream.

Ordered: Rice pudding with nuts and ice cream.

This place might be the most revered dairy dessert shop among the Alexandrian population. Even hinting towards not having tried the establishment would make locals look at you with crazy eyes and recommend you try it at once.

To this day, they maintain their more vintage facade and interiors, but don’t let that fool you, for they hold up a very tight cleaning policy and keep the place spotless.

I am sad to say, however, that even my nostalgia couldn’t cloud my judgment when it comes to their dessert.

You see, Sheikh Wafeek uses milk ice cream for this dessert, plain milk. Not flavoured with mastic. Not flavoured with vanilla. Which, when added to a vessel of rice pudding, doesn’t add much flavour-wise.

Moreover, since their rice pudding skewed more runny than gelatinous, the melting ice cream failed to do much texture-wise either. All it did was add in a few intermittent chilled bites, which made the dish slightly more fun.

Surprisingly, the star of the show was the topping of nuts. It’s quite a generous handful considering the price you pay, and they even throw in some pistachios, which in this economy is a rare practice.

Overall, I still found this quite a unique and enjoyable experience. I mean its ice cream and rice pudding, of course I loved it! But it was not quite the locals or my childhood memories made it out to be…

The best rice pudding I have ever tasted