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.