Restaurant Review: Bu Qtair, Jumeirah

Purely for the love for sea food.. Go to this place only if you satisy this one condition.. :-) this was a first for me in Dubai in terms of ambience or rather the lack of it. Although the restaurant does mention that they are shifting to a new and better area across the road soon which promises to be better in terms of facilities so will wait to check that. For now, go here with comfortable clothing and a patient mind.

So the concept of this place is that you first queque up and choose your fish (sheri, hammour n prawns were our options when we went to dine there-these are fresh catches from that day, marinated and displayed at the ordering counter). Then you have a waiting area which is a sandy patch outside the restaurant. In step 3, your name will be called out when your order is ready and the attendant will assist you to get a seating. You need to mention if u want to eat your fish with rice or kerala parathas or khuboos (arabic bread) while collecting your fish plate. After being seated, you dig into your prize. Literally.. coz you are so famished with all the waiting especially if u go there on a weekend. We waited 30mins for our turn to order and 60mins to get our order. My advice would be to go there only if you love your fish, are ready to brave Dubai humidity, else better still, go during winters.

Coming to the taste, we ordered a medium sized hummour and 250gms prawns for 2 of us. The fish is cooked in Indian spices, it is bit on the oily side so you would need to come here on one of your cheat days :-) but it tastes pretty good, especially the prawns were brilliant. The curry they gave as a side was also tasty and added to the great combination of parathas n fish. In terms of food, I really enjoyed it since I enjoy my sea food. Not much to talk about ambience since there isnt any. 

Overall a different experience, quite a contrast to the otherwise flashy eateries you find all over Dubai, you are almost transported to another world far from the glitz of Dubai but I have realized that many a times its in such places you find real gems. Slurppp... 

Restaurant review: Innlay Asia, JLT, Dubai

I was planning a dinner date with my two friends, each of us being from different countries and total foodies. We wanted to try a place that neither of us have ever tried. Since we work in Jebel Ali, the choice of place was new Dubai. Finally we managed to zero in on JLT and the restaurant was Innlay Asia. We had heard good reviews about this place and were excited to try it. 

Since it was early evening, the place was not crowded. The ladies attending us were extremely friendly and assisted us through the menu. The overall ambience was nice and sweet for a quiet dinner with friends or family. 

Going through the menu which had Asian/Thai and even Myanmar dishes(first time I happened to visit a place serving this cuisine in Dubai), we finally managed to place our order based on the recommendations of the waiteress. Let me review each item that we ate seperately. 

Starters - Thai spicy papaya salad with prawns. As the name suggests, it was nicely spiced up (people who have low spice tolerance levels may skip this) and crunchy to bite. Since I quite like spicy food, this was a hit for me. 4/5

Main Course:

Mother Su' style seafood curry with steam rice - this I would say was medium spicy with a nice blend of veggies n fish fillet and tasted lovely with the steamed rice. 4.5/5

Clay Pot Hmee shey noodles with chicken and veggie - this is a Myanmar dish, was very very nicely spiced up noodle soup with chicken n veggies. Definetly not for people who cant take hot food but I simply loved it. I could almost feel all the blocks in my nose clearing up :-) 5/5

Deep Fried Fish Fillet with chilli n crispy onions- this was one dry dish that we ordered, fish fillet fried and served with fried onions, nicely flavorful but not spicy. 4/5

Dessert: Green Pancake with Caramel Coconut - if you like the taste of grated coconut, this one of for you , since I know not everyone enjoys eating coconut. So this was caramel grated cocunut rolled into green coloured pancake rolls. Since I enjoy the flavor of grated coconut, I truly enjoyed it. The pancake was nice and soft. 4/5

Overall I loved my food journey at this restaurant since it played with all my senses in terms of colour, taste, crunchiness. I was lost in the array n degree of spices in the various  dishes we tried. Would highly recommend this awesome place to everyone wanting to try something extremely high on taste n flavors.

Restaurant Review: Sarovar, Diera Gold Souq

Tired of gold and spice shopping in Gold & Spice Souq? Feel for some fresh juices, Indian south indian snacks, chats or even wholesome vegetarian lunches or dinners? You have picked the right place.  I got pretty nostalgic when I went to this restaurant last weekend. The last time I had been to this restaurant was a decade back and between then and now, the taste of the food, the ambience nothing has changed. Dont expect a big flashy place considering it is in the middle of Gold Souq. Instead its far from it, very humble, very small in size- accomodates jus 4 tiny tables. But this is what comes closest to home cooked Indian food to all the people living around Gold Souq and working there and also a good option for people shopping at the Souq.

We ordered paneer burji, daal tadka, rotis and the mini thali. Paneer burji n daal tadka were really very tasty. Mini thali which came with 2 veggie dishes, papad, yogurt n sweet gujrathi style daal along with steamed rice and 3 rotis was also equally good. Choice of veggies could have been slightly different since both were potato based-wish there was some more variety. But everything tasted great.

All in all had a tasty dinner over salted lassis after a tiring walk around gold n spice souq. Ahhh bliss!!

Restaurant Review - Smiling BKK, Al Safa

During weekends sometimes you feel like a nice quiet dinner and sometimes you feel like some place whacky. The latter is what I felt like this weekend.. So when we were driving around Safa n Al Wasl road, this neon lit mustachioed Monalisa caught our eyes. The name Smiling BKK. Kind of fit into the mood we were in so we decided to check out this place.. There's plenty of parking behind the building so that wasnt a problem.. So we went into the restaurant- our first time here. 

Let me first talk about the ambience since that surely stands out - The place is definitely not for people looking for a quiet weekend dinner but if you are game for a vibrant, rock n roll kinda hippie and cool Thai joint then this is the place.. Loud music, dimly lit funky interiors.. Very unconventional place featuring photos of Thailand, Hollywood stars and Monalisa in various guises including Einstein, Elvis and the likes are all over.. There were also  life size standees of Charlie Chaplin, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, Marlyn Monroe and even one of Michelle Obama.. So its as varied as it can get.. Coming to the craziest part - They give you a toy machine gun along with the menu which you need to fire when you ready to order.. Crazy isnt it.. 

So we browsed through the very detailed menu, the names of the food items were as crazy as the place itself.. So you had things like Little Johnsons and Big Big Johnsons to Its been a hard day's night.. Can you believe these are names of dishes?? Had a good time just reading them.. So finally we decided to order chef special Nothing Shonky Here which was basically fried chicken wrapped in pandan leaves served with sweet chilli sauce as starters, Honkey Tonk Woman aka choo chee fish which was hammour fillet in red curry and then egg fried rice.. Phew.. Now that was some ordering we did.. To go with this we ordered iced lemongrass and berry juice blended.. 

Coming to the food, all of it was served together so we had it the Thai way which is everything together.. the starter was superb - fried chicken but its ok to cheat on your diet over weekends sometimes.. ;-) especially if the food is so yummy.. Excellent flavor , loved it. The fish in red curry with egg fried rice was also extremely good, slightly above my acceptable salt levels but nevertheless tasty.. Drinks - lemongrass was simple, berry was a thick juice and fresh too.  

All in all we were extremely pleased at our choice of restaurant for the weekend.. Came out of the place happy and satisfied :-) 

Restaurant Review: Slapfish, IBN Batuta Mall

As we meandered throught IBN Batuta mall after a movie, I came across this restaurant- the name was very unconventional but something told me that I must give the place a try (although I am not brave enough to try sea food during peak summers). 

The ambience of the place was nice, bright and modern which probably was the reason my heart n mind wanted to give it a try. After we were seated at our table, we were given an ipad menu which had pictures of how the dish we order would look like which was quite useful in helping us with making the selections. 

We browsed through the menu and finally decided to place an order for the Rodeo style barramundi sandwich and the daily fish plate along with our cucumber fresca n fresh orange drinks.  When the food arrived, must say it looked pretty much like the picture shown in the menu. The sandwich came with chips and coleslaw. The fish plate with salad and rice. Coming to the taste, let me go one by one:

Rodeo style barramundi sandwich- this had the fish fillet grilled and covered with freshly ground pepper, also had crispy onion rings, lettuce and sauce kept in between burger buns. Not sure if they had a brown bread option, would want to check it next time. Tasted really good I must say. The chips that were served as side were heavely - very crunchy n fresh. All in all I loved this one 

Daily Fish plate - Coming to this dish, it was grilled mahi fish, on a bed of flavored rice and fresh green salad with vinaigrette dressing. Everything tasted fresh and yummy, fish soft , salad crunchy n rice mildly flavored. Good good pick.

Both dishes were perfect in portions for one individual each.

Coming to the drinks, cucumber fresca was a bit too sweet for my taste atleast but otherwise fine.

All in all a great place to dine in for some awesome sea food. Highly recommend it.

Restaurant Review: Naya, Jumeirah Beach Hotel

So my food journey took me to this restaurant located on the first floor of Jumeirah Beach Hotel. As the name suggests, this is a new addition to the Indian dining experience. I had heard mixed reviews of this place and frankly I have also come out having mixed feelings. Wouldnt rate it as the best north indian food joint but its good for a try.  The place seemed more popular with the residents of the hotel, also it was a predominantly non-Indian clientele.

Coming to the ambience, it had a fine dining feel to it but on the other hand was a little noisy for a fine dining place. Extremely helpful staff, very friendly. 

For the food we ordered, dahi puri chaat for starters which was mentioned as the chef's pick, this was nice. Main course we ordered paneer khurchan, chicken tamatari tikka (although this is a starter) and bread. Paneer khurchan was quite nice - its in between a paneer kadha and paneer bhurji i would say. Chicken Tamatari tikka was served nicely on skewers kept inside a clay pot. This was decent in taste but the pieces were too big in size and slightly dry rather than juicy.  I have memories of chicken tikka that can easily be eaten with bread if there is some chutney to accompany. For the dessert we ordered Naya dessert platter which said it comes with gulab jamun, ginger kulfi and litchi ice cream as per the menu but ours dint have the litchi ice cream unfortunately. It had the kulfi with 3 pieces of gulab jamun instead -all tasted good though. 

Overall a decent experience but since I have tasted very good Indian food at other places in Dubai, benchmark is set high.

Restaurant Review: Memsaab Curry & Tandoor

I am glad I started out on my food journey coz otherwise I would never end up finding certain good eateries and this happens to be one of them. Its a medium sized restaurant located in JLT but would be a bit difficult to find if you are not already certain that you are headed here. I would say places such as these would get popular through word of mouth only. 

Interiors of the restaurant had a unique feature - one wall featured a design made by spices jars kept horizontally into the wall. Good idea. Overall the place had a combination of royal and rustic feel.

We were welcomed with a very refreshing drink and fried colourful muttar (finger chips made with flour) with green chutney. This gave a good start to our experience since it was such a terribly humid day outside.

Coming to the food, we wanted to order the tangadi kebab but were informed that it was out of stock owing to Ramadaan and iftar, so we ordered the mix platter. It came with aloo tikki, chicken boneless tikka and hot spicy wings. Aloo tikki was something different compared to the regular tikki we find everywhere else - it had aloo with stuffings inside -  was good. Chicken wings could have been a bit juicier, felt a bit dry. Chicken tikka boneless was nice and flavorful. For the main course we ordered the bread basket with chicken balti - chicken balti would score full points. It was very yummy, the chicken was soft and the gravy nice and creamy. Went beautifully with the bread.

Coming to the staff, they were also very helpful and assisted us in choosing the dishes. 

Overall we had a good experience at this restaurant and would definitely come back for more.

Restaurant Review - Jogi da Dhaba, Business Bay, Dubai

The first time I heard the name of this place was in the pamplet I got with our Gulf News paper. The name instantly struck a cord since it sounded very very desi.. Thumbs up to the owners for keeping this name. Very sadde punjab types.... 

On Friday noon, hubby and me were just wondering which new restaurant we should try this time around. So I told my hubby this name and his face broke into a smile since he is a Punjabi.. So we took off to Jogi da Dhabba. The place was a bit difficult to find considering the construction work happening all over Business Bay but we finally managed to find it.

There is outdoor and indoor seating although the restaurant by itself is kind of small. Location of this restaurant in about 18months will be very appealing since its just overlooking the upcoming Dubai Canal. Once we were seated at our tables, we got to ordering our food.  They have a wide selection of veg n non-veg food on offer. We ordered Palak ka Shorba and Button Ajwain tikki for starters; daal navratna, mili julli sabzi and roti lacha parathas for the main course. As we were waiting for our food, we chatted up with the owners and came to know this restaurant just opened. Very friendly people and they said the purpose to open this restaurant was that authentic punjabi food was not easily available and I do agree, so was hoping this place would do justice.

Coming to the food, palak shorba was very tasty, it was served with a dash of cream. I am not the biggest fan of mushroom so wasnt sure I will enjoy button ajwain tikki but since my hubby wanted to try it, went for it. Must say it was simply awesome, very flavorful and a great combination with the green chutney they served. Coming to the main course, daal and mixed sabzi both very yummy. Since I am a hardcore non-veggie, it takes a lot for me to be convinced about veggie food but my heart and stomach were fully content gobbling the food at this joint. Only one point was that their dessert selection was not much - there was just gajar halwa, kheer n ice-cream. Would expect gulab jamun and the traditional moong daal halwa to be added atleast.

I have promised the owners that I will be back for non veg food after my lental period is done and I will surely go back. Just looking at their wide choice of food got me impressed. My first impression of this place is very positive and I will surely come back for more.

Restaurant Review: Awani, Jumeirah Beach Residence

If you are in a mood for good Arabic food amidst beach settings, head right here. Situated in the heart of the Walk, JBR,  is a very nice Arabic restaurant that goes beyond the traditional fatoush, tabouleh, shish tawook and grilled hammour. 

Loved the chargrilled fish in tahini sauce - very flavorful and shankleesh salad (salad with red lettuce, walnuts, green apples, traditional mature cheese with chef's special sauce). Definitely recommend this place.

Restaurant Review: Simi's, Karama

With Dubai being a hub for so many restaurants and different cuisines, my aim is to atleast try 2 new restaurants every weekend. So in this journey of finding new places to try, I happened to come across Simi's in one of the relatively quiter lanes of Karama albeit close to central Karama. We went there on a Saturday afternoon, found parking easily. The restaurant was not crowded and we were immediately seated at our table. 

What immediately struck me about the place was that it was kept so neat and clean with good interiors. The red white and goldenish interiors gave a very nice bright look to the place coupled with beautiful ethnic wall hangings. It had a very modern North Indian feel to it.

Coming to the food, we ordered salted lassi, aloo methi, daal tadka with dhaniya parathas, also non-veg thali. Salted lassi was heavenly, especially since the weather is scorching hot outside right now. Daal Tadka was great, 10/10. Aloo methi (potatoes cooked with fenugreek leaves) wasnt as per my expectation, it definitely tasted good but had very little methi in it. When we make it at home in typical Northie style, there's plenty of methi in the dish. Coming to the thali, here again every dish tasted very good but I would expect a thali to have atleast 1 dry sabzi. What was in this thali was daal makhni, paneer tikka masala, boneless chicken curry and raita. So basically all heavy on stomach gravy dishes. I am hoping the management takes out one of the veggie gravy dishes and instead includes a dry one. The dhaniya pranthas were also nice and yummy. At the end of the thali, we were greeted with hot gulab jamun which was really yummy so we ended up ordering another plate of the same. 

All in all the food was definetly yummy, just few alterations required on the content.