REVIEW: No jewel of the Nile

Maybe if the recent shawarma explosion hadn’t brought so many great pita places to the region, The Nile Café could slide.

But with such excellent competition, The Nile flows in with little to add.

The small cafe moved into a space on Manitou Avenue’s main drag this spring, taking the place of the Machu Picchu Store.

Owners Jimmy Sabry and Michael Ezzat (Egyptians and New York City transplants) hung the faux-wood walls with papyrus paintings and tall, gleaming hookah water pipes, which are all for sale.

At the counter they serve everything that might appeal to a passerby at any time of day: bagels, Danishes, sandwiches, ice cream, pies and cakes (all made elsewhere), and even Jell-O. At night the tables are whisked away and the booths become a den where smokers sip a sweet array of flavored shisha tobacco smoke (everything from apple to blueberry pancake) through slender hoses.

But for most of the day, Egyptian food is the scattered business’s focus.

There are lamb, chicken and beef shawarma sandwiches ($7-$8) in pita, plus kebabs and seasoned meat patties called kofta.

I started with an order of hummus ($5), which arrived thin and bland — no garlic flavor to speak of, just what tasted like lemon juice and a splash of oil.

It went downhill from there. Tzatziki ($5), which the very young, very inattentive server described as “yogurt with fruit or something in it,” is usually a bright, zesty sauce flavored with cucumber, lemon, mint, garlic and spices. Here it arrived as a bland, sad-looking dip with no discernible flavor.

The meats suffer from a similar deficiency. Some are undersalted. Most are underspiced. The chicken is as dry as jerky. All leave you wishing there were still a better schawarma shop in town. (The very good Heart of Jerusalem was chased out last year because its landlord said the frying falafel was bothering loft owners upstairs.)

The service is mystifying. Both times I visited, there was one other table of diners, and yet every other table was dirty.

The apparently high school-age servers don’t seem to clean one or acknowledge you until you sit down. The tables have boxes of tissues instead of napkins, and to make matters worse, the robust fan from the air conditioner keeps blowing your tissue off the table.

On my most recent visit, the server asked if I wanted a take-home box for my lunch at the same time she handed it to me, but she was too busy talking to the owner about smoking shisha to notice that my drink needed replenishing. The meal was supposed to come with a tomato-and-onion salad and fries. When I pointed out that it came with neither, she just shrugged.

With the constant turnover in tourists, The Nile has a decent chance of keeping its doors open through the summer. The challenge will come when winter sets in.

The Nile Café
★
(Serious issues)
Address: 954 Manitou Ave., Manitou Springs
Phone: 685-1410
Hours: 7 a.m.-7 p.m. daily, (hookah service 7 p.m.-1 a.m.)
Entrees: $6-$15
Vegetarian: Yes
Alcohol: No
Credit cards: Yes