Riyadh has grown so much in the last 10 years and this is particularly noticeable when you look at restaurants. Nowadays most restaurants have opened outlets in Riyadh’s new districts. This is the case with Can Café. This fashionable coffee shop has a branch on the trendy Al-Tahliya Street lined up with some of the best restaurants in the capital and another outlet on Omar Bin Abdul Aziz Road (Exit 14) in the Rabwa district.

Can Café is a good place to have breakfast food at any time of the day! You can order “Four pieces of French Toast with maple syrup, orange juice and American coffee” for SR32. “French Toast”, known in French as “Pain Perdu”is a delightful dessert consisting of slices of stale bread or brioche or milk bread which are soaked in milk, dipped in eggs beaten with sugar, then lightly fried in butter. “French Toast” is served hot and crisp. Originally intended to use up leftover pieces of bread, French toast has become a delicious breakfast food.

For the same price you can order two waffles served with maple syrup, orange juice and American coffee. Waffles are made with a thin batter cooked traditionally on the stove between two buttered and heated plates of a waffle iron. Nowadays, waffle irons are mostly electric. They are fitted with a thermostat and sometimes have a nonstick coating so that the plates do not need to be greased and the waffles can be taken out of the mold more easily.

The waffle batter is made of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and water or milk, with a flavoring (usually vanilla or orange-flower water, but sometimes cinnamon, anizeed or citrus fruit zest). The dough can be enriched with fresh cream or made lighter with whisked egg whites. Waffles, like pancakes are sold in the streets and at fairs in France and Belgium. Waffles should be crisp on the outside and soft inside. They are best when eaten hot, sprinkled with sugar, or topped with whipped cream or jam.

You can also order an American breakfast which comes with two eggs any style, toasted bread, French fries, butter, orange juice and American coffee. If you prefer an “omelette”, be prepared to pay SR3 for each of the following ingredients: tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, green peppers and cheese.

Incidentally, most of the times we eat savory omelettes but in France we have some delicious sweet omelettes like the “Omelette Dijonnaise” filled with custard cream mixed with ground almonds flavored with blackcurrant jam then topped with egg whites whisked to stiff peaks, sprinkled with icing sugar.

This “omelette” is glazed quickly in a very hot oven and served with blackcurrant jam. Dijon is a French town famous for its mustard and its blackcurrants and when a recipe calls for these items it is known as “a la dijonnaise”.

Can features a nice selection of savory crepes filled with spinach and cheese, chicken and mushroom or chicken and cheese. I somehow prefer my crepe cooked in butter and sprinkled with sugar. The great French writer Anatole France wrote a beautiful description of pancakes: “sprinkled with sugar and eaten hot, they form an exquisite dish. They have a golden hue and are tempting to eat. Thin and transparent like muslin, their edges are trimmed to resemble fine lace”.

And since we are talking about sweet dishes, Can Café also serves one of my favorite desserts: “Hot Chocolate Souffle”. It is based on a milk mixture bound with egg yolks and flavored with chocolate before folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. During cooking, the air trapped in the egg whites expands and increases the volume of the preparation, which must be served immediately, before it collapses.

The Ice Cream section features two classic sundaes, the Peach Melba and the Banana Split. The Peach Melba was created in 1892 by the famous French chef Escoffier when he was at the Savoy in London. It was served at a dinner given by the Duke of Orleans to celebrate the triumph of the famous 19th-century Australian opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba. The original Peach Melba consisted of a swan of ice bearing peaches resting on a bed of vanilla ice cream and topped with spun sugar. Today Peach Melba is made with poached peach halves or peach halves in syrup placed on a bed of vanilla ice cream and coated with raspberry puree.

Banana Split was created in the States. The main ingredient is a banana split in two lengthwise. This is topped with three balls of ice cream of the same or different flavors topped with chocolate sauce and decorated with whipped cream and candied cherries.

I have been carried away by my love for sweets but you can rest assured that Can Café’s menu has a selection of hearty dishes like Breaded Chicken Escalope, Breaded Pan Fired Hammour Fillet, Sirloin Steak with Pepper Sauce. These dishes are served with your choice of French fries, mashed potatoes, sautéed vegetables or green salad.

There is an excellent selection of Salads and Sandwiches but I personally love the Italian style panino, a sandwich made from bread other than sliced bread. Can Café uses ciabatta, an Italian white bread made from wheat flour and yeast. This type of bread is lumpy, rather flat and most definitely rustic. It has been said that the loaves are meant to resemble comfy old slippers. At first, you taste the crust that is crisp, and chewy. Then you have that soft spongy crumb with all its beautiful holes.

If you are on a diet, you can look at the Light Meals section which features a Low Fat Caesar Salad, a Grilled & Marinated Vegetable Salad, or a Portuguese Chicken Wrap.

Last but not least, Can Café serves some great fruit cocktails. The Pina Colada, Banana Colada and Strawberry Colada are cool, refreshing and oh so breezy on a hot summer’s day!