Dining
El Gahsh is a world away from Egypt's international cuisine, which is available in luxury hotels. The founder's friendly family speak a little English and serve their signature fuul and tamiya (a kind of falafel) breakfast day and night until 4 a.m. for under $2; it's busiest early in the morning (no phone).

Abou El Sid, on the ground floor of a colonial-era apartment block in the Zamalek neighborhood, is the place for upmarket Egyptian food. Rooms of gilded Louis Farouk furniture and Andy Warhol–esque portraits attract both elderly socialites and hipsters (157 26th of July St.; 2-735-9640; entrées, $3–$10).

Sequoia, a tented restaurant along the Nile at Zamalek's northern tip, serves Egyptian staples in a breezy outdoor setting; after midnight, a DJ spins Arab house music (1–3 Abu Feda St.; 2-735-0014; entrées, $5–$12). Fishawis, the famous coffee shop in an alley of the Khan al-Khalili, is a good place to sample Cairo's famous sweet beverages, including hibiscus, sugarcane, carob, licorice, tamarind, and sahlab, a drinkable pudding of milk, pistachios, and rose water (no phone).

Music
Mazaher, a group of Zar musicians brought together by Ahmed El-Maghraby, plays Wednesday evenings at Makan, which is catty-corner to the early-20th-century nationalist's house and pharaonic-styled mausoleum (1 Saad Zaghloul; 2-92-0878; egypt.music.org). In Zamalek, at the end of 26th of July Street, under the 6th of October Bridge overpass, the El Sawy Cultural Center has jazz, experimental theater, classical Arabic music, and fusion groups nightly at 8 p.m. (2-736-6178; culturewheel.com). The Cairo Opera does annual productions of Aida and avant-garde fare such as Mozart's Don Giovanni in Arabic with Italian mafioso costumes (cairooperahouse.org). Upriver on Roda Island, the Umm Kalthoum Museum has an interactive exhibit where visitors can watch a video and hear excerpts of the diva's greatest hits (2-363-1467).

Reading
Both the book and the English-subtitled DVD of Alaa Al Aswany's Yacoubian Building (American University in Cairo Press, $14) are available at the Diwan bookstore in Zamalek (159 26th of July St.); the English translation of his Chicago is due out in Cairo this month (American University in Cairo Press, $23). The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit is journalist Lucette Lagnado's moving memoir of her Jewish family's life in downtown Cairo and their forced exile after the 1952 revolution (Ecco Press, $26). Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, by Juan Cole, describes the impact of the 1798 French invasion and its echoes in America's invasion of Iraq (Palgrave MacMillan, $25).