Thursday March 28th, 2024
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This New Egyptian Platform Makes Ordering Lunch Way Too Easy

Many a great thing has been born out of man's insatiable hunger. My Chef is one of them.

Staff Writer

Attention bachelors, bachelorettes, and anybody else whose mama doesn't pack their lunch for them every morning because they've allegedly grown into responsible adults. Wait, hold up – does that mean that everyone at CairoScene is considered a responsible adult? That's terrifying. One of the marks of successfully reaching adulthood is the conversation we have day in and day out at the office, no exceptions: What are we going to eat today? Who's ordering? It's a junk food delivery world, which means we order three or four times a day (at least) since no matter what we're still hungry five minutes later. So obviously, by the time Thursday comes around, the entire office is practically byesh7at because we've spent all our pocket money on food, and then we repeat the cycle again on Sunday. We thought that was just a CairoScene thing since we're all sorts of peculiar, but then My Chef amassed 500+ likes on Facebook before even launching their beta phase, so clearly this is a minor generational catastrophe.
It's no surprise that the megaminds behind My Chef are two university grads – Antoine Naggar and Rami Shelbaya – who looked around at their bachelor friends and realised that they all have the exact same problem. "A lot of our friends who have just started working find a lot of trouble when it comes to having lunch during the work week," Shelbaya explains. "They usually can't really prepare meals at home and bring them with them, so most of them resort to ordering out, but that gets very expensive very quickly, plus it takes them some time each day to decide what they will order." Amen, brotha! He's preaching to the choir, here. We do this on the daily. So, in typical male fashion, Naggar and Shelbaya saw a problem and set out to solve it. "Antoine had the idea of doing a subscription-based meal system where you pay a certain fee at the beginning of the month that guarantees you a meal each day of the workweek," Shelbaya continues. We're sitting here wondering why we didn't have this bright idea ourselves.Adulting includes a lot of responsible things like making smart decisions, budgeting, getting (healthy) groceries, cooking, meal prepping, and resisting the urge to order Hardee's all the time instead of bringing your lunch. Now if you're the budgeting sort - which you should be – then My Chef makes it plain and simple. For one month of meals – one per workday – you'll be paying 35 EGP per meal and 10 EGP per delivery. We know, math is hard, but you can do this! At the beginning of every week you get to decide what you're eating for the rest of the week, and their options – from Middle Eastern to European and Asian – look a little something like this: Vegetarian? That menu is coming soon. Vegan? That menu is coming soon. Allergies? You fill that in on your subscription form. Don't like the taste of cilantro? Err... You'll have to take that one up with them personally. But the point is that they've got a pretty varied menu and a lot on the back burner that'll be coming to life upon their official launch, which is expected to be sometime around the new year. All of this is a pretty big task for two guys to take on, so they sought out the help of Octagon, a head honcho in the corporate catering and food industries world that helps them get things together financially and logistically. Why do you care? Because that means they have wicked chefs with a varied culinary background as well as one heck of a huge kitchen where it all goes down. 

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, here are the technicalities: My Chef starts its beta subscription period in mid-October, and only a few spots will be available and they'll only be delivering in Tagamo3 for the time being until they iron out the kinks. That means set a reminder on your phone to fill out a subscription because you might forget, just like you forget to pack your lunch every day. You can sign up for the aforementioned month plan or for a one-week trial at 55 EGP per meal and that 10 EGP delivery fee. Once they're fully launched, they'll be expanding to Heliopolis and Nasr City. They're a pretty flexible duo, though, or so we've noticed; they seemed pretty interested when we suggested they serve mac and cheese grilled cheese sandwiches, so it seems like they're pretty open to ideas and feedback. Maybe someone will finally make our mac-and-cheesy dreams come true.

Can you guys come to downtown, please? CairoScene needs you!
 
Check out My Chef on Facebook, and don't forget to set that subscription reminder on your phone.