The past few weeks have been a train ride of food experiences in the city. Everything from Emirati and Egyptian to Korean and Pakistani have made it to my plate, so here’s a summary line-up of a few of the foods that I managed my stick my camera lens into. Some of the foods are old-time favourites, others are new ones that might have me going back for more, while the rest were not inspirational enough to warrant a standalone post. Collectively, they showcase the multi-cultural potential of Old Dubai. If you’ve (a) eaten at any of these places and have a ‘must-try’ dish (b) tried the same dish I’ve mentioned at another restaurant in Dubai that rocked your world, then please be an angel and share it with me.

Shawarma Tashreeb, Bait al Baghdadi, Deira (04-2737064). Crispy strips of lamb shawarma with preserved lemon over tender juice-drenched strips of bread at my favourite Iraqi haunt in town. The bowl boasts the requisite amount of grease and meaty juices sighted in many Tashreeb dishes, and demands that you sink into a siesta right after.

Iraqi Dolma, Bait Al Baghdadi, Deira (04-2737064).  I’ve raved about this dish before because it’s so different from the plate of stuffed vine leaves we’re accustomed to getting at most Arabic restaurants around town. What I said about the dish last November in The National still held true when I tried it again this year: It turns out the Iraqi dish was not just limited to vine leaves but was a full-fledged dolma council, presided over by silky onion petals, bitter green peppers, baby aubergines and fleshy, cored tomatoes. Every vegetable clung to its share of stuffing, eager to impress my taste buds with the joint power of rice, minced meat, peppery tomato paste and herbs. The vegetables had been collectively stewed until tender in a broth of fatty lamb ribs, which were stacked up alongside the final dish.

Korean cold noodle soup with beef, Han Chengguan, Deira (04-2299620). A light summery option for lunch that is INCREDIBLY messy to eat with metal chopsticks. I’ve had a more flavourful version in the past, though something leads me to believe that there are hidden gems on this menu and a bit more menu-scouting is needed to fish them out.

Korean beef dumplings, Han Chengguan, Deira (04-2299620). Loved the hand-crafted feel of the dumplings, they didn’t look like those perfect little thawed dumplings you’d pop out of a freezer. But again, a bit mild on flavour and probably something that I’d skip in favour of a more adventurous dish at this restaurant.

Khasta Masala Kachori aur Hing ke Aloo, Chowk ki Chaat, Karama (04-3548575). Airy pockets of fried dough smeared on the insides with spicy lentil (urad dal) stuffing, with a dipping bowl of potato gravy simmered with asafoetida (hing). My biggest regret is going for lunch alone – I didn’t get to sample the breadth of Indian snacks they have to offer and that folks have been raving about, so the jury is out on this one.

Chowk Ki Chaat. I do love the tucked-away location of this tiny restaurant. Feels like a little piece of India. 

Pan-fried Lamb Bao, Nihal Chinese Restaurant, Satwa (04-3266888). I’ve done these before, and they were well-worth doing again. They arrive looking uber dramatic with that sheet of edible pan-fried bao skin stretched taut like cling film all over the dumplings that they win points even before you’ve plonked them in your mouth. Juicy, full of lamb and soy flavour, and that perfect doughy-squishy texture that makes you want to pinch their cheeks if they had any.

Noodle Soup with Hand-Pulled Noodles, Nihal Chinese Restaurant, Satwa (04-3266888). I can’t remember the name of this dish for the life of me, and to be honest, with the bao in the picture, the flavours were somewhat sidelined. All I know what that I requested for hand-pulled noodles in spicy broth. The soft chewy noodles have a starchy, doughy feel to them – probably something worth trying if you’re into the whole hand-pulled noodles game. If silky vermicelli noodles are your thing, I’d say skip the dish for something else on the menu.

Egyptian Falafel Mahshi, Al Ammor, Karama . Al Ammor always wins my vote hands-down. I switched up my usual order and tried the Tammeya (made with fava beans and not chickpeas) Mahshi, stuffed with chilli paste like so:

Al Ammor does not scrimp on the spicy sauce stuffed into the bellies of their perfectly seasoned tammeya, so spice-wimps (including myself) beware.

Khameer, Mama Tani, Jumeirah (04-3854437). Mama Tani is a comfy café nestled upstairs in Town Centre, Jumeirah. It’s a thoughtful concept that pays tribute to Emirati childhood memories, and smears simple ingredient combinations into the tender folds of a traditional yeast bread called khameer.

Cream Cheese, Coriander and Nuts Khameer, Mama Tani, Jumeirah (04-3854437). The favourite of the four we tried was simply composed of cream cheese, coriander and nuts – nothing outrageously complex, but just a nice teatime snack if you’re in the area. We paired our khameers with flasks of Arabic coffee (thoughtfully accompanied by chewy-gooey Omani halwa) and with a cool blended date-honey drink. And if you’re got a crapload of spare time on your hands, be one of the rare adults that asks for a colouring page and crayons so you can leave your mark behind on the café walls.

Ice Cream and Falooda, Billo Ice Cream, Ghusais (04-2592933). I admittedly fell in love with the name, the concept and the marketing behind Billo Ice Cream even before I stepped through the door.

This tiny ice-cream parlour tucked away in Ghusais wins massive points on reigniting Indo-Pak truck driver nostalgia, incorporating intricate truck art typically seen all over interstate highways in Pakistan and India, and on concocting the funniest menu names that will leave you chuckling even before you order a single scoop. While my hunt for great falooda in the city didn’t end at Billo, my favourite of the many scoops we tried – Pista, Crunch, Peshawari, Kulfa, Chickoo – the butterscotch-like Crunch appealed to my childish taste buds the most.

Billo Dudes, if you’re reading this, I beg that you line up your ice creams outside the kitchen in one of those usual freezer displays so that indecisive guests can taste across the range – that’s the best part about walking into an ice cream parlor!

So that’s my list, with the restaurant locations listed on my Google map. If you’ve tried these places and feel like I’m missing a glaringly good dish on the menu, give me a shout.

You know that feeling when something is not quite right and you cannot throw a dart at what it is? I have had that feeling for a few days now, ironically just as things are finally settling in with my food tour start-up. It’s a feeling that hits you like an invisible but sinister spice, making you sweat and twitch anxiously, masking itself behind other more obviously visible ingredients on the plate, driving you over the edge. One antagonizingly minuscule bite at a time.

There might even be tears. Tears that flow without singular reason, but rather, a murky muffled wail of reasons that you dare not disentangle.

I was wiping my eyes with the back of my hand like a kindergartener who had tumbled off of the school slide and was embarrassed, in pain and in desperate need of a blanket to cover herself up from rude pointing fingers and sniggering faces. One of the Goan dishes at Treat in Karama had dealt me a lethally spiced hand. But I didn’t know which one. It was a deliberate torturous play that went first for my tongue, then my facial taps, then my throat, and finally my upper abdomen. But in my brash attempt to taste everything that was on the table, all of it cooked with true Goan-style love and care, I continued gambling through the dishes until there was nothing left to lose—except the faint hope of consuming anything other than yoghurt and bananas for dinner.

But how I wept! I wept into the crunchy Chicken Potato Chop dusted with crackly semolina. The impossibly crisp fritter hatched into a bundle of squishy potatoes and chicken coated with fresh coriander paste and masalas—peppery masalas that might have been guilty of turning my flood taps on?

I wept over the Pomfret Racheido that appeared looking like a bloody crime scene.

The skin was smeared with a pasty Racheido masala that had the deadly hue of Tabasco but turned out to be as meek as ketchup. Soft mild flakes of Pomfret soaked up the different layers of Racheido flavour—the sour astringency of vinegar, the sweetness of sugar, and the bitterness of Kashmiri chillis whose ferocious red appearance often barks louder than it bites. The harmless dish was all flavour but no heat worthy of tears. It tasted of innocence.

I wept as I reached out for the Prawn Caldin, repeatedly seeking refuge in the sweet, coconut-infused curry and its resident pink prawns. Soaked up with triangles of blistered tandoori roti (though fluffy buns on the neighbouring table might have served as more absorbent dipping companions), this curry was my favourite of the lot. It was sweet, creamy and delicate with the fleshy bite of prawns curled around their papery tails. S.O.S. Caldin.

The glistening red Kingfish Curry stared back at my glistening red face. I had pushed it away after a bite or two, the kingfish somewhat too fishy for my taste. But I resented those two bites of the violently-coloured dish—they might not have been my cup of curry, but had they maliciously buried flecks of red pepper somewhere in my mouth? Somewhere where they weren’t being washed away? Somewhere where they could unleash an uncontrollable stream of facial fluids into a swathe of unappetizing tissue papers across the table?

It was all really quite inconvenient. I love Goan flavours with its medley of Portuguese and Indian influences, and Treat had this simple home-style take on the dishes that I’d like to have savoured without feeling like I was self-combusting internally through the meal. This inconvenience was no reflection on the food but on my spice threshold—a threshold that is humiliatingly low.

The Chicken Cafreal looked venomously green right from first glance at the tiny menu thumbnail.

Fat bone-in cuts of chicken and caramelized potato slices were caked with the same herby coriander paste resident in the Chicken Potato Chop. There was heat in that green masala. It was heat that could definitely raise the ambient temperature in my chest by a few notches, but I doubt it could be held responsible for the repercussions of global warming across the entirety of my facial glands.

Who dun it?

I irrationally continued consuming the food and being consumed by it. Life does that to you more often than you’d like to believe. It gives you the impression that you love doing what you do so much that you turn a blind eye to everything else, health, reason, family, common sense—only to wake up one morning realizing that you’ve overdone it all to such a wild stupid extent that you can’t bear the sight of anything more adventurous than a bowl of yoghurt and bananas.

Being a young hot-blooded woman of passion, I’ve spent many a morning with yoghurt and bananas.

I looked over at comparatively calm and spice-resilient Varshik and urged him to swap out the red curry he had rained down over his plate of rice with the milky Prawn Caldin. His dislike for coconut milk had repulsed him from the one dish that had played the white knight to my sniffling state of affairs. He reluctantly dipped his spoon into the curry for a quick cursory taste, barely sipped, and then quickly put his spoon down with apathetic disregard. As I reached back out to snatch the dish back into more grateful and deserving territory, his eyes widened: That dish—the aftertaste—that’s SPICY!

Bullocks. The mild sweet white looking thing couldn’t hurt a fly.

I peered into the Caldin as Varshik vehemently declared the angelic curry guilty. It was then, through foggy eyes, that I saw them. Specks of red scattered all across the glistening surface. Specks of red washed up along the rim where the curry line had receded. Specks of red everywhere. It suddenly made total sense. The initial taste was ‘sweet, creamy and delicate’—and then just as you went for a bite of something else like the now-acquitted red curry or the coriander chicken or the innocent pomfret, the aftertaste surged back in a covert pincer-like operation and sliced through your mouth with red chilli flames.

The Caldin, the one dish I’d used to extinguish the fire, was nothing short of highly flammable starter fuel.

Even though lunch was over, my stomach charred, and a tree had been sacrificed to wipe my tears away, I’m relieved that the Goan spice mystery was resolved. As for the ‘other’ niggling feeling in my life, I don’t know. It might take more than peering deep into a curry bowl to suss out the cause. But one thing is for sure, I’ve stocked up on enough yoghurt and bananas until I figure it all out.

Treat Restaurant
Karama
Phone: 04-3358112
Directions: Check out my approximate bubble on Google maps, which admittedly, isn’t going to be great since I lost my way to the restaurant and went to Timbuktu and back before I found it (with Varshik having to jump in the car and guide my lost soul in the right direction.)

Just like I promised, here’s part 2 of last week’s post that was waiting to hatch into a published post. The chick is finally out now.

Ever watched the Kotthu Roti man belt out his beats with…blades on the griddle? This stuff happens out near the street in places like Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, and often behind closed kitchen doors in Dubai and Sharjah. But when you come often enough to a place like Rakaiez in Sharjah, and you know the servers and cooks by name like Shiyam does, then closed kitchen doors will magically open for you.

Kotthu Roti is a tumbled up heap of chopped parotta with fried eggs and onions and masalas and green chillies whose biting aroma shoots right up your nostrils and hits the trigger for a sneeze. Here was another comfort food, one that had to be snatched up with the fingers and dipped into a chest-warming salna.

The night was about comfort and connection, and in many ways, it was a real eye-opener for me about Sharjah. And about foodies who don’t just eat, but start sensing and smelling even before they’ve entered the restaurant. The pungent smell of South Indian sambar spices as you place your order for Kotthu Roti. The smell of the blossoming Neem tree surround the Afghan/Pak Naan shop, a seductive smell that that shies away if you stick the blossoms up your nose, but that swirls up to you on its own terms by latching on to a passing breeze. The sweet-salty-caramel smell of the deep-fryer, a smell that slowly gives way to a fishy essence as you approach one of Sharjah’s tiniest, yet most outrageously popular fish shacks—Mamma Machi.

I have yet to try Mamma Machi – there was so much food that night that we couldn’t eat it all, but crazy awesome curried fish, I know where you live now.

There was a heightened sensitivity that night, a curiosity, a suspended judgement, and a keenness of appreciation that often defies the mass marketing of foods and restaurant concepts and blog posts eager to keep up with traffic stats.

And then, there was this.

A place that made a Chappli Kabab that has made every other chappli kabab of my past suddenly seem dry, rubbery and spiced with the wrong (more heaty, less flavour) spices.

This was the cashmere of chappli kababs. Caramelized to a golden-brown on the outside in that savoury way that tugs on your glands and gets your mouth salivating on overtime. Impossibly slim and soft like wool on the inside, glisteningly moist to the core, studded with ruby tomatoes, and seasoned with masalas like whole coriander seeds that erupt into citrus peel and dried green tea leaves upon first crunch, and then waltz down your throat leaving a whiff of flowers in their wake.

After you furiously argue that nothing, no NOTHING on earth can make that kabab better, the guys around you will recommend you squish a bit of lemon over it. NOOOO DON’T RUIN IT BY ADDING ANYTHING!…NO REALLY…PLEASE IT’S BEAUTIFUL JUST THE WAY IT IS…AAH OKAY  FINE…*SQUISH*…*MUNCHMUNCH*… HOLYUNTHININKABLES. THIS HAS BLOWN MY BRAINS TO A HAPPY PLANET CALLED BLUTO THAT DOESN’T EVEN EXIST.

The night ended with my brains still in Bluto but my body sitting cross-legged, sipping a midnight infusion of jasmine buds with honey that Shiyam had graciously made for us. It was the sort of drink that induces the deepest sigh in the deepest part of your chest and makes you deeply reflective about what you’re doing—in my case, blogging about food.

The evening had inspired us, and while we spoke about many things, we spoke most passionately about something that we’ve each been feeling in our own way for some time now. We spoke about dethroning oneself off of the social media pedestal and returning the crown to where it belongs—to the food, to the flavours, to the people who have accomplished so much through hard work, travel and experience in the culinary world. And above all, to those people, whether celeb chef or old uncle with a white beard who makes that cashmere of kababs, who serve you a plate of honest-to-goodness food.

Kotthu Roti
Al Rakaiez Restaurant
Phone: 06-5616373

Chappali Kabab
Al Ashifah Cafeteria
Phone: 050-1995071

If someone asks me where they could dig around here for a goldmine of authentic restaurant gems, I’d point in the direction of that dreaded National Paints Roundabout and whisper, Sharjah.

I spent the first six years of my life in Sharjah. A pity, because my food memories are restricted to Cerelac, Pofak and Omani chips. And Areej. One of the few ‘restaurants’ I remember was one where my sister and I jointly celebrated our birthdays—Hardees. I loved the place to bits and my parents had organized the best kiddie birthday in the world. I still remember the musical chairs (and I remember losing at it. I hated losing at musical chairs. Until I stopped playing it one day—the tension of scramming over in my frilly dress and furiously plonking down on that chair or wiggling myself into the seat even after it was obvious I had been second to grab it, all of it was just overwhelming. No number of Barbies you could throw in my face as a prize could change that. Why can’t everyone just get a chair, sit down, listen to one continuous track of music, and each get a free prize.)

From the left, my sister and moi, in all our frilly girly splendour

I was back in Sharjah for a food hunt last week, and now, I finally have memories that span beyond Hardees.

The person who led me on this food trek was Shiyam, the affable, brilliantly smart and impossibly understated food genius who really, truly, knows his stuff. Just read the About page on his blog, and you’ll start to get a very small idea of what I mean—small, because he’s humbly left praiseworthy bits and bobs out. I have nothing less than a Mount Kilimanjaro of respect for him. Two other men extremely critical in this foodie quest were Bjorn and Sheban, the Sharjah soldiers who keep stumbling across brilliant foodie gems, and then tempt me right when we all know that there are hideous pythons of Dubai-Sharjah commuter traffic between them and me.

The trek began with muffled conversation between bites of Aunty’s Dabeli: potatoes smashed and tossed in a tomato and onion gravy reminiscent of spicy pav bhaji, swaddled in the belly of a soft buttered pav. 2.5 dirhams, 250% flavour.

Between mouthfuls of food, Shiyam started feeding me little snippets of his fascinating life story, one that I hope he or somebody else with a distinctive storytelling voice brings to life someday. We need these authentic stories to be told. I am done with the social media drama queens (and kings) who’re thrown up on a pedestal for every reason other than their knowledge of food. It’s humble yet knowledgeable guys like Shiyam from whom I’ve got a bucket load to learn.

He led me into a kitchen with a kadai full of Bread Pakodas foaming at their mouths with bubbling hot oil. After seeing them on Shiyam’s FoodnFlavours blog, I’d expressed a craving for potatoes sandwiched between bread slices and deep-fried in batter. If you think that that combination sounds preposterous, then you’re probably right. It’s carb in carb, and deep-fried into a more cohesive and crunchy-squishy carb. It’s that minimalist’s arch nemesis served with a combo of not one, not two, but three chutneys parading around the plate—sweet dates chutney, coriander chutney, and sukha lasan (dry garlic) chutney. It’s that notoriously nonsensical hodgepodge dish that is so characteristic of Indian street food. That mocks intuitive and logical culinary composition. That snickers in the face of everything that is healthy and good for you. That when you’re craving comfort food, is so Goddamn Good.

We nibbled so much that night that I honestly don’t even remember scarfing down the batter-jacketed potato patty that arrived in the familiar patty-bun-chutney garb of a Vada Pav.

But the Bhel Puri I remember, because that was a revelation. I’ve had this haystack of puffed rice and fried sev (gram flour threads) with potatoes and onions and pomegranate seeds and every other chutney and masala within one-hand reach of the chaat maker many times before, but I’d never had it Mumbai-style—with raw mango strips. Somewhere in that consciously confused medley of ingredients, those mango slivers really shine through with a sharp tart acidity that I will want forever more in all future Bhel Puri renditions.

Lucky Shiyam, he lives within easy craving distance from these places and has figured out the good grub from the not-so-good stuff that often lurks just footsteps away. And what’s great is how he’s connected with the folks, building bonds strong enough to entertain his strolling into their kitchens for a peek. This ex-chef and serious food and wine connoisseur has probably wined and dined with revered top chefs of the world, but you’d never detect it in the twinkle of his eye. He seems to have a knack of befriending everyone, be it the guy standing over the kadai of frothing bread pakodas or…ahem…an Arab sheikh. And that humility and genuine engagement can be so refreshing in an online nation of food that all too often, courts popularity rather than the palette.

Stay tuned for Sharjah Food Trekking, Part 2. I clipped this post into 2 bits not because I didn’t get around to writing part 2. It’s already done to be honest. I just get so blitheringly bored myself reading long posts that I can’t imagine you having to suffer through it either.

Dabeli and Chai
Mazeej Al Punjab Cafeteria
Phone: 06-5480150
Near Immigration Office, Behind Al Mahatta Park, Al Nud, Sharjah

Raghuvanshi Chaat – Bread Pakodas, Vada Pav, Bhel Puri
Al Rajwah Cafeteria
Phone: 06-5633726
Al Khayal Building, Rolla Road, Umm Tarrafa, Sharjah

The first time I saw Cabrito was last November. It didn’t have a name at the time. It was all boarded up and under construction. And it lay on the head-smackingly dismal and dusty road near Mall of the Emirates in Barsha.

The next time I saw Cabrito was standing right under their blatantly non-vegetarian signboard, all ready to step in and finally get a taste.

(Didi and Varshik, thanks for being my Barsha-eyes.)

Cabrito, contrary to its name, is not Mexican or Argentinian. The origins of the place are grounded in the Arabian peninsula. The concept first opened up branches in Saudi, and it serves up the usual Yemeni/Bedouin suspects including Mandi, Madhbi and Madfoon. And some incredible cumin-crusted lamb shoulder that deserves serious tummy lust from any lamb-lover who finds themselves hungry within 50 kilometres of Barsha.

What chicken Mandi is to Crêpe, my Haneeth lamb was to Baklava. Multi-layered, texturally intriguing, deeply flavourful, sigh-inducing. This meaty baby had been baked up in what the hostess claimed was a ‘special oven,’ and it emerged with caramelized finesse. The burnished cumin crust on the outside was stretched taut in places, folded up thickly in others, and then tore apart right around the oval swells of muscular meat right around the shoulder joint. As we dug past the crust and into the meaty innards, we came away with spoonfuls (fistfuls) of tender lamb that were fleshy, savoury, and deeply reminiscent of a sheep farm in a down-to-earth, elemental way.

I could have sworn that there was a layer of freshly ground black pepper on top, but turns out, it was just a mono-spiced crust of fragrant cumin. It was the sort of minimalist approach that you’d expect from a chef who’s confident about his technique and quality of lamb. No pile-on of spices to confuse the diner, this lamb was daringly simple.

The massive shoulder was swaddled in a subcutaneous layer of fat that had done good things for the meat, including: (1) plugging away all those tricky spots where meaty juices could stealthily creep out, (2) acting as the natural base to caramelize and crisp up the outer skin that was draped over it, and (3) rendering itself soft and buttery so that you could either savour it or peel it away discreetly and just enjoy the fleshy contents beneath.

Now read this next line very, very closely. The menu only mentions haneeth (priced at AED 60), and gives you the option of choosing either the shoulder or the ribs. This is actually Mutton haneeth. What the menu will not tell you is that for an additional AED 15, you can sub out mutton with tender young lamb instead – and this is exactly what you should do. In the words of Russell Peter, Be a Man. DO THE RIGHT THING.

Source: Schema Magazine

If you can look past the haneeth, the restaurant also does credit to its intro soup, a clear stock soup that tastes almost exactly like home-style bone soup. It’s got the sort of soul-curing depths of clear meaty broth flavour that can make you smile, sing, purr. Whatever rocks your boat.

The side tomato sauce was a fresh tomato salsa that seemed like the whizz kid of a food processor. It was a light, refreshing splash-on to the rice and meat meal, a hearty  rib-sticking meal that is effectively going to stare in the face at any post-lunch attempt to work productively, and laugh so hysterically that the attempt will feel sheepish and run away.

Testament to lack of productivity after face-stuffing at Cabrito: Disturbing behaviours that involve giggling (without appropriate cause), stretching (multiple successive times in repeated sleepy yet spastic movements), and uncontrollably excessive tummy-patting. 

Here’s a little head-nod to the chicken mandi that was brought out on the table.

And with that, I’m done talking about it.

Cabrito will also serve…well, Cabrito—a whole roasted goat kid which is actually a Mexican or Argentinian speciality (Cabrito means ‘kid,’ as in goatling, in Spanish). But given that goats are Old World animals and that the Americas only got their hands on the bleating babies after Christopher Columbus shuttled the lot across the oceans (in 1493)*, I wouldn’t be surprised if Arabia had this kid-roasting technique down way before the South Americans did. And since we’re on the topic of South Americans, I reckon it would be quite interesting to do a totally unfair and over-simplified comparison between Cabrito’s 60-dirham Cabrito and Asado’s 210-dirham Cabrito served at The Palace near the Burj Khalifa.

If the Haneeth is anything to go by, the Cabrito might turn out to be quite a superstar too. We were told that the restaurant is awaiting their special Cabrito chef, a simple fact that has left my hopes unrealistically high for a dish I’ve yet to taste.

I’m not sure I’d drive out all the way for the mandi, and the cabrito jury is out for now. But that haneeth is a different story. That right there is a dish that’s definitely worth hunting down in the most dismal, dozer-overrun, dusty parts of Barsha.

*Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People: Linda Civitello.

Cabrito Restaurant
Telephone: +971 (4) 452-0255
Umm Suqueim Road, going towards Al Khail. Cross the Lulu Hypermarket to your right, pass the first traffic light after Lulu, then take your second right into the side lane and drive around in weird unhelpful circles until you finally get frustrated, curse all the construction, and dredge out the last vestige of energy you’ve got left to start hunting all over again. At some point, you will emerge out on the lane facing Cabrito, and the cumin lamb haneeth will make your life good again.
Here’s my google map for directions – subject to change based on construction.

This is how I found the Iranian dish that left me no choice but to betray my erstwhile Iranian love: Kabab Koobideh.

Kabab Koobideh at Abshar Restaurant, Deira

I was innocently waiting for usual kabab fix at my favourite Iranian restaurant in town, Abshar, when a server started placing a plate down in front of me. A stickler for my koobideh routine, I instantly reacted: ‘This isn’t my order!’

But it had already happened by then. Invisible puffs of fragrant smoke curled up from the green-speckled dish and teased my nose, my lips, my cheeks…the sensory tongues in my lungs…with the taste of a dish that was betrothed to someone else. It was the amorous smell of dill, one that reminds of you of nature and greenery and freshness and life. It was utterly intoxicating.

I would think about Baghali Polo for many days before I finally had the chance to sit down with it again. This time was at Iran Zamin. I had gone specifically to taste the dish—Baghali Polo with Mahicheh (lamb shank).

The Lamb Shank looked absolutely irresistible. Layers of fatty skin had just melted off and bunched up around the hollow bone, as though the lamb had intentionally pulled up its skirts to dangle its leg outside. When my impatient fork first pierced the shank, its inner lamb tendrils instantly tumbled out from against the bone like a flood of soft, soft meat that had been precariously held up by the smooth outer skin. It’s the sort of dish that makes your heart call the shots long after your stomach has pulled away its bib, so that every additional forkful of supple lamb glistening with pink juices is a move of sheer hedonism, not hunger.

If the meat itself hadn’t already scored a goal with me—and it did, many consecutive goals—the bed of rice hit a home run. The entire plate was spilling all over with buttery grains, threads of dill and tender broad beans, making it a sensory waterfall of aroma and flavour that just washes you away from the second you hit the surface.

If you want to know how enamoured I really was by the Baghali Polo with Mahicheh, let me tell you that I ended up ordering it again. Two more times. For the next two nights in a row. Abshar, the place where I had first glimpsed the shank seductively peeking out from under the dill-fragrant rice, also does a superb version of Baghali Polo. Theirs has flecks of tomato and meat stock gravy which adds an occasional sour tang to the buttered rice. But loyalties to Abshar aside, my initial tasting at Iran Zamin remains unmatched.

Everything else we ordered at Iran Zamin was understandably a blur. I tasted a rustic sauce of tangy meat stock served alongside a friend’s chicken and rice dish. I also forked off a few bites out of another friend’s special kabab plate whose perimeter was lined with minced lamb skewers and cubes of chicken wearing crispy belts of grilled lamb. Every dish was more than appreciated by the person who’d ordered it, but I know secretly that the Baghali Polo reigned supreme.

Another revelation at Iran Zamin was the Iranian version of a dish that I’ve enjoyed at many an Indian restaurant, the Faloodeh. The Iranian version is far more minimalist than the calorie-laden Indian one: crushed snowy ice topped with ice-cream, threaded with skinny rice noodles, and flanked on the sides with slices of lime. I requested for syrups—rose water, and what tasted quite similar to a strawberry or cherry molten jam—a really good move because both of them added a sweetness and flowery flavour that made for a richer spoonful.

It was a simple dessert, one that I might have loved even more had the noodles been a tad bit silkier than the rather crunchy ones served in the bowl. But the combination of rosy ground ice together with the bright flavour of the limes was undoubtedly refreshing, and something you’ve got to treat yourself to on a blisteringly hot day of summer (which is scarily, not too far away. MOURN.)

Faloodeh, kababs, everything that could possibly make it to your dinner table aside, go out and try the Baghali Polo with Mahicheh if you can. Seriously, do it. And photograph it closely so that when you’re faced with an empty plate with scant signs of melted butter and a rice grain or two, you have full visual proof that the dreamy dish with the dreamy dill and a dreamy lamb shank daydreaming in the centre of the dreamiest of dinner experiences…that same dreamy dish was deliciously real and totally worth falling in love with.

Iran Zamin
Emirates Concorde Hotel, Maktoum Street, Deira (here’s my google map of super-approx locations)
Phone number: +971(4) 2292931

I often don’t post up many of the articles I write for other publications on this blog (wait what? other publications actually publish what Arva writes?! yeah, I know, it’s all very shocking.) But I figured that this might be of broader interest beyond the editors who take pity on my food ramblings and slop me into a section that hopefully gets schmucked by an overflowing cup of coffee or gets shred to bits by the house doggie before it can assault the human eye.

So here it is, an article called ‘The Foodie Trail in Dubai’ for the ‘Indulge’ section of Live Mint in India. I finally penned down one of my favourite foodie treks in the city, thanks to Sidin, the Mint Indulge editor and tummy-achingly funny writer blogger at www.whatay.com. For people who’d rather not suffer through a formal food tour with me, this is for you – some of my favourite yummies in the city, all conveniently mapped out as one trail. If the thought of having this all in one easy printable format has left you so overjoyed that you’re practically speechless, then…turn on the printer and ram the print button like a sumo wrestler on steroids.

Pssst. I’m supposed to be sharing ‘soul-feeding stories’ on a Street Food panel at MAKE Business Hub in Dubai on April 9th. Judging by my blubbering posts, my verbal eloquence likely won’t scale the heights of soul-fed excellence. But if you’re interested in doing something entrepreneurial around street food in Dubai, in feeding your soul with insights from the owner of Zaroob/Mezza House and Tahir, the awesome-funny-friendly dude behind Moti Roti, in hanging out over coffee and dinner, or in hugging me for finally publishing a self-guided foodie trek in the city and saving you from the butt-pain of coming on a tour with me, then MAKE is the place to be. Check out the facebook invite here.

In 2011, I published a post called: Anyone out there found yummy Ethiopian food?

In retrospect, it was terribly written post that I have torn off my blog and crumpled up with the frustration of a lovesick Romeo who lacks eloquent courting lingo to bedazzle his Juliet. Here’s how that Terrible Post began:

I’ve never been wild about Ethiopian food. Not when I tried it in Philadelphia for the first time, nor the second time, nor even the blithering third time. And definitely not when I attempted to order take-out from an Ethiopian place buried somewhere on Naif Road in Deira. What was I thinking…let alone unappetizing, my aluminium wrapped Ethiopian take-out actually seemed somewhat lethal.

The Terrible Post went on as follows:

Still, I wanted to give [unnamed restaurant] a chance. There’s always that tenth time that can totally change your opinion about something – and I’m ready for my tummy to take the hit those nine times prior.

The Terrible Post concluded with a bleak verdict:

This clearly was not that life-changing tenth time.

The reason that this was a Terrible Post was because at the time, (a) I based my experience on assorted platters of alien curries over a bed of spongy fermented injera bread. Mixed platters are ironically the worst way to learn about a foreign cuisine. All the flavours get muddled up, I’m too busy trying to guess what every dish is rather than knowing the names beforehand, and I end up walking away from the meal with the dishes I didn’t love dampening out the ones I did—all of it creating an experience of forgettable mediocrity. It’s the bumbling buffet phenomenon: taste a little of everything, walk away remembering nothing.

And (b) Ethiopian takeout of certain dishes is an incredibly stupid idea. Obviously, my one takeout experience had honed in on one of those Certain Dishes.

In 2012, my opinion dramatically changed. It happened when I accompanied a Dubai One TV shoot to Al Habasha, an Ethiopian restaurant in Abu Hail. I had visited Habasha once in the past, but as always, had not walked away with any memorable experience that left me inspired to blog. At the time of the TV shoot, the owner Sara was there to show us how to make Doro Watt — a hearty Ethiopian stew with chicken, eggs, a special sour-spicy berbere spice mix, and nitter kibbeh, a spiced butter. Here’s the video link (which my rebellious blog is refusing to let me embed in here) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwkpRhhMEfM&feature=youtu.be - forward it up to 1:16:00 to watch Sara in action.

It was over the tangy aroma wafting up from the pot of fresh Doro Watt that I finally started soaking in flavours that up until that time, had been completely alien to me. Watching Sara make the stew using her mother’s recipe somehow connected me to it in a way that I just couldn’t when I tried to sample the food alone. The latter is like visiting China, making the wrong food choices or even a few good ones, all of which eventually languish in a sea of anonymity that quickly washes mealtime memories out of your mind.

Doro Watt at Al Habasha

The experience with Sara made me understand, value, and taste the food in a way that my taste buds couldn’t process earlier. For instance, injera, whose rag-like appearance never struck me as appetizing in the past, suddenly became the perfect spongy complement with which to sop up the curry. The strong fermented taste of this teff flour bread is an acquired one, but one that was easily acquired after I found the perfect stew to soak up its hive-like pores.

Doro Watt, Lamb Ribs, and Injera at Habasha

This was finally that life-changing moment when I’d start appreciating Ethiopian cuisine.

I reckon that much of it is the Grandmother Effect. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say: I despise my grandmother’s cooking. Yet I find it hard to believe that every lady two generations ago was a fabulous cook. There’s just something about knowing the person who’s making the food, seeing them go that extra mile to serve you with love, that makes the flavours more accessible, memorable, and strangely, more tasty. If the heart falls in love with what’s being served, it’s likely that your stomach will too.

A few days ago, I enjoyed a lamb version of the stew (Yebeg Key Wot) at the Abesinian Restaurant in Deira. Once again, the combination of sour, spicy and fermented just hit a spot that didn’t even exist up until last year.

Yebeg Key Wot, Abesinian Restaurant

Tender chunks of bone-in lamb immersed in this absolutely addictive berbere curry laced with the distinct buttery flavours of nitter kibbeh. The meat was plump with curry juices, and I snatched the bone marrow, reserving the tender innards for my own selfish pleasure. Every time the spice level turned my wimp taps on, I turned them back off with nibbles of aib, the fresh cottage cheese served alongside to extinguish the flames.

I couldn’t stop eating, to the point where when I stood up, I literally had to hang down like a bent-over spineless scarecrow – a very fat scarecrow – that just didn’t have the will to move an inch.

Even the kara mara tibs made me grab for second rounds. The dish was chock full of meaty strips—lamb? beef?—that had been charred beyond recognition. These cousins of jerky were drumming the beats of potent green chillies, stolen from the slit whole chillies scattered menacingly across the dish. Had the chillies been chopped finely, I’d have run miles from the dish. But leaving them whole imparted their sharp, nostril-tickling aroma to the dish, thankfully without the scorching bite.

Kara Mara Tibs, Abesinian Restaurant

We left Abesinian on a more-than-satisfied note. Each of the dishes were flavourful in their own way (though the Yebeg Key Wot won my heart), and once again, I had connected with the lady of the restaurant who patiently explained every dish and even left my friend with a little tub of teff grain so that he could attempt to grow it at home.

I don’t for a second believe that only the taste buds do the tasting. There’s a lot more that goes on—it has as much to do with smell, texture, the weather outside, childhood memories…as it does with the verdict passed by your taste buds. Most importantly, the hand serving the dish holds the power to make food accessible, and even magical in ways that Sara did for me. Ferran Adria, the man behind the now-closed El Bulli, Spain, said it best:

I say all the time that [my mother’s Spanish potato and egg tortilla] is my favourite because it conveys a point: that sentimental value comes above all else.

(Source: P6, The Flavor Bible)

Al Habasha Restaurant
Multiple Branches, but I visit the one in Abu Hail which I’ve plotted on my trusty Google map.
Phone: +971 (4) 266 7358
Website with helpful menu descriptions and a talking lady: http://www.alhabasharestaurant.com

Abesinian Restaurant
Phone (They have yet to answer my calls on this number): +971 (4) 273 7432
I’d be lying if I said I have any clue of where this restaurant is, no matter where I’ve thrown the bubble on my google map. One of my dearest foodie friends drove us here, after an eternity of turns and a constant flow of telephonic guidance from his driver. This is based on the approximate coordinates he graciously gave me!

When I first envisioned this grand concept of food tours and started planning to create Frying Pan Adventures, this is how I thought I’d structure my life:

Let me give you the hairy inside scoop on how things have panned out.

The moral: Wash the mascara off of your pretty plans, get real, and sleep like a bear before you launch a business.

But I love what I do. (says every sleep-deprived, coffee-chugging entrepreneur whose noble dreams have morphed from building a business to running away to Hawaii and sleeping on the beach. with a pina colada. extra ice please.)

The great thing about what I do is that I meet some really interesting and like-minded people who are generous, accepting of new flavours, and willing to throw themselves into a situation where the menu is bursting with alien-sounding names that might be snake’s blood with curdled lizard tongues for all you know. Suzy from foodieinberlin.com is a perfect example of one such like-minded soul. She met up with me during my North African food tour and then joined me for her first Maharashtrian meal yesterday at Peshwa (which incidentally serves neither snake nor lizard.)

Peshwa cooks up Maharashtrian cuisine, the same kind of cuisine that I developed a fancy for over one mountain-top lunch in Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra, and then fell deeply in love with at Manisha’s Kitchen in Dubai a while ago. A major difference between Manisha’s and Peshwa is that the latter does both veggies as well as meat/fish, and the menu is oodles more extensive than at Manisha’s. Flipping through it was like swinging through a jungle of dishes, and it took every bit of resolve to axe away some mouthwatering options and short-list just…10 dishes. And 2 drinks. (to our defence, 3 of those ‘dishes’ were just variants of roti.)

Here’s the plate of Kothimbir Wadi, deep-fried squares of gram flour fritters garnished with coconut shreds. The outsides were well-drained and crunchy at the edges, while the insides were full of gram flour seasoned with coriander and spices. I’m positive I tasted dried fenugreek too, though it’s sometimes challenging to dissect subtle herby flavours when the greens have sizzled up in a deep-fryer.

Ever bitten into a pakoda with a thick gram flour coating? Tasted the semi-pasty, semi cakey quality of the inner gram flour crust? Now imagine this starter having a tummy full of that texture. You’ve got to do the token dip in some sweet tamarind chutney or pickled lemon achar, or both…or if you take leftovers home, you could effectively violate the dish by dipping the fritters into ketchup. (guilty as charged.)

I was overjoyed to see Bombil Fry (Bombay duck) on their menu, hoping to stick my fork into some thin creamy fish crusted over with crunchy speckles of semolina. The joy lasted but a few glorious seconds when I was informed that Bombil hasn’t been available in the market for some time now. We settled on rawa-fried Surmai (semolina-crusted and fried kingfish), which was a sad cry from the crunchy fish that Canara a few metres away has spoiled me with in the past.

Limp and skinny fillet of kingfish, with a lacklustre coat of batter/skin/something I wasn’t expecting and a few faint grains of semolina. Peshwa: WHY YOU DO THIS TO ME??

Moving on to happier things, here’s the Bharli Wangi. Baby eggplants cooked in a rich peanut and coconut gravy, with the prominent taste of freshly ground coriander and the grainy mouth feel of ground peanuts.

The sweeter cousin of this same dish at Manisha’s Kitchen was a hit when I tried it, this more savoury version at Peshwa was a winner too. The only tweak I’d suggest is that they clamp down on the garam masala to mitigate the risk of severe chest burn, the kind that I am attempting to extinguish now as I write this post alongside cups of lemon and green tea.

Their Pithla, gram flour paste, was perfectly seasoned, and a favourite of Suzy who astutely observed that the paste was firming up from liquid to a more molten state as the meal progressed.

The flavour actually stayed good throughout, as well as in the evening when I scooped it up for dinner with tender bits of roti-like Bhakri (there were three options on the menu – Tandula (rice flour), Jowari (sorghum) and Bajra (pearl millet). We got all three of course.)

Now here was a first-timer on my plate: a seasonal speciality called Fansa Che Bhaji, or Cooked Jackfruit.

I’ve never eaten jackfruit cooked in a dish, let alone paired with peanuts, cashew nuts, coconut (sensing a theme here?) While the subtle fruity-nutty-masala tones of the dish didn’t make it the flavour winner on the table, it definitely got brownie points on originality and texture – soft jackfruit fibres intertwined with crunchy nuts.

May I introduce you to the tummy-saver that kept my innards feeling relatively refreshed despite the copious amounts of food? Say hello to the Kokum drink.

Made out of the kokum fruit indigenous to India, the drink was aptly termed as an antacid on the menu. If something saved me from exploding during the meal, it was this cooling potion of sour plum-like kokum mixed with cumin powder and a tad bit of sugar or jaggery.

Another drink that hit the table was Suzy’s Keri Pani (clear raw mango water), a summery sherbet-like drink that will blast your nostrils with a giddying perfume puff of saffron as you bring the glass to your lips (they had generously left at least 3 strands of saffron in one tiny glass of sherbet, a bit of an overkill because it silences the mango flavour to a mere squeak in the background.)

The Bharli Wangi might have been my favourite dish, but then…dessert happened. AND I don’t even have a sweet tooth. You can’t leave a Maharashtrian restaurant without having Shrikhand, so despite the fact that it was totally inappropriate after I’d stuffed myself like a cow, I called out for the hung yoghurt dessert garnished with almonds and saffron (Oh yes, there shall be dessert.)

But instead of pairing it with the authentic deep-fried puri’s, we used the shrikhand as a dipping pool for another dessert – Puran Poli (and then, there shall be Dessert.)

Puran Poli is a flour roti stuffed with a powdery mash of ground gram flour (chickpea flour) lentils and jaggery, and smeared over with a glistening something that I suspect to be none other than our beloved waist-loving warrior, Ghee.

Two naughty desserts, smacked together into one mind-blowing creamy, powdery, chewy, sweet, tender, yoghurty combo. Just perfect enough to make the cow in you find its second tummy compartment and stuff your face again.

I want to quit being shameless and tell you that I skipped dinner. But I can’t.  The truth is that I couldn’t stop thinking about the flavours of the meal, and finally had to reopen the leftover boxes to taste everything once again at night. If I had to compare the two, Manisha’s Kitchen does more homely, healthier-tasting food, and is cheaper on many of the same dishes. Peshwa has a far greater variety (which is very exciting but also downright confusing), non-veggie options, better service (a factor of having more manpower), and WAY more table space (at least 3 times more) so that you’re not falling over into the table next to you. Each has their place in the Dubai restaurant world – and I can only hope that we’ll have more restaurants dishing out authentic Maharashtrian fare down the line.

Let me leave you with this. This entire feast cost no more than – hold onto your chair – about 60 dirhams per person.  Or actually about 35 dirhams per person, because the leftovers made it to my dinner table last night, and will resurface for a final demolition over lunch today. Thank you Karama, for keeping things real.

Peshwa Restaurant
Phone: 04-3795520, 055-5490289, 055-8564661
Take the right turn after Moulin D’Or on Za’abeel Road and drive down. Peshwa will be to your right, just before the T-junction.
View Google Maps link.

This is going to sound absurd, but I think the best Malaysian food I’ve had was not in Malaysia, but in Philadelphia. It was at this restaurant called Penang, a Chinatown haunt where my college buds and I would eat our hearts out over the most flavourful bowls of chicken curry and fried roti, forkfuls of juice-dripping mango tofu with crispy noodles, greasy curls of mee siam noodles topped with crunchy peanuts and a hard-boiled egg, and tumblers of lychee juice to douse the flames being fanned by all that spice and curry gushing down our gullets.  I’m no one to attest to the authenticity—this might be America’s reply to Malaysian food, the same way California Rolls are to sushi—but the thought sweet-tangy mango and crisp tofu or chicken slivers unleashes waterfalls of desire in my mouth even now, years later…

…in a way that doesn’t happen quite the same way when I think back to my trip to Malaysia. That was the real stuff, and pretty good stuff at that. But I’m sorry folks, I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to say…I do love the Penang in America even more than the Penang in Penang (and glorified it here, in my clumsy blogger-beginner days.)

When I read about Noodle Bowl in Satwa serving Malaysian food in The National last April, the restaurant name got firmly planted in my mind. Given my complete inability to remain focused on my Must-Eat list, the seed germinated into action close to a year after it was first planted in my weed-tangled mind.

Two trips later, my friends and I agreed that Noodle Bowl is a pretty solid lunch bet—dishes that feel fresh, thoughtfully prepared and not overly greasy. But it’s still no competitor to the flavours I dream about since my college years.

The Hokkien Kway-teow was the winner on my list after two trips to Noodle Bowl—though the menu is so incredibly huge, I’m sure something else will crop as a favourite after a few more visits to the place. The dish arrived as well-portioned plate of flat rice noodles glistening with dark sweet soy sauce, twirled in with fried omelette bits, crunchy sprouts, spring onions slivers and red bird’s eye chillies that looked scarier than they tasted.

The Kway-teow had a clean simplicity about it that I wouldn’t have expected from a dish that looked somewhat greasy with soy sauce at first. Crescents of shrimp sat nestled in the noodle curls, plump to the bite and heavy with the taste of ginger. For a louder burst of flavour, I occasionally poked my chopsticks into the shrimp sauce served on the side—but it wouldn’t have been missed had it not been on the table. I’ve actually tasted the street version of Kway-teow on Gurney Drive in Penang—and I preferred this version. It was low on grease, full on flavour, and spot on with the combination of crunchy-soft- stringy textures.

The kway-teow dude in action during my trip to Penang last year 

On my second visit, Noodle Bowl accommodated my anti-seafood friend with a chicken-only version of this noodle dish, and it got the ‘thumbs up’ once again.

Clearly Emily’s experience from her National article had faded from my mind, because I went ahead and ordered the steamed yeast buns—Bao. I have a real weakness for bao, but time and again, I’ve been disappointed with the ones that have the thick cakey texture. They look so cushiony and inviting that you want to run up and pounce on them like the new mattress that finally made it home…and then the springs of my anticipation almost always anti-climatically break with the pressure. This time was no different. Each of the mixed buns in my bamboo steamer—the sweet-sauced chicken shreds, the grainy solidified custard, and the sweet red bean one—may have been prepared perfectly, but the ratio of dough to filling is so high that I’ve finally learned my lesson. Yeast buns are not my thing.

The braised dumplings in black bean sauce also made the lunch table. Decent, but nothing that will make me remember them years later. Or next week, for that matter.  The prize for the most flavourful filling in a dumpling/bun still goes to Nihal Chinese, a few blocks down on the same street.

The traditional Sichuan style chicken sautéed with red chillies and cashew nuts is a safe bet. This dish actually grew me on through the course of the meal, most things with cashew nuts and sweet sauce generally do.

The sweet sauce had an intriguing maple syrup sort of essence lingering in the background. For anyone who wants a less adventurous, no fuss chicken dish for lunch, this might well be it. Though beware, if you like dishes with spice and zing, this might not be it (even though it has two vicious chillies drawn next to it on the menu.)

The jasmine rice wrapped in lotus leaves got mixed reactions on the table. I was probably the person who enjoyed it the most, especially because of those bits of chicken tucked deep within the fragrant rice.

If anything brought me close to (sad) tears, it was my roti canai. I had all these images of poofy angelic sheets of Penang’s Roti Canai in Philadelphia rotating like a high res photo gallery in my mind, and then…I got these.

I was somewhat composed about the anticlimactic flat-looking paratha on my plate, until my friend across the table remarked that it resembled the frozen paratha they bought from the supermarket. It may not have been, but it did, and I didn’t want to think it. Or say it. But it had been said. My stomach just broke down and wept with sadness over a restaurant that’s too far away for me to trek over to any time soon. The chicken curry didn’t help to redeem the situation. It was bursting with an excess of curry powder and a few chunks of chicken clinging to thick bits of skin and fat.

Normally I just leave things in Malaysian/Chinese places at the salty stuff, but the deep-fried banana and peanut roll drizzled with chocolate sauce was in order (both to try and make up for roti canai, and also as a tribute to a foil-wrapped banana stuffed with peanut butter, chocolate chips and marshmallows that I tried to barbecue over New Year’s after reading an online recipe. I’ll let you imagine how that episode ended.)

This tasted exactly like what it was—banana + chocolate sauce + deep-fried wanton wrapper + occasional peanut if you snag the right segment of the spring roll. Don’t expect the drumrolls of deep-fried decadence to start sounding around you at the first bite. It’s sort of…silent.

Despite my roti canai bubble bursting into a mound of unspectacular roti and curry powder, I’m not giving up anytime soon with this restaurant. With a menu as long as theirs, there are bound to be a couple of hits and a couple of misses. It’s just a matter of time before I hit the zinger dishes. And save for The-One-Dish-That-Must-No-Longer-Be-Named, the flavours really do taste like they’re made at home. I also stupidly read the reviews of our very own Malay-Chinese food blogger in Dubai, Scribblelicious, after my two visits to Noodle Bowl. I haven’t tried even one of the dishes she’s recommended, which in itself will take at least two or three visits to cover.

Let me leave with you this. If you want homely Malaysian food, Noodle Bowl is worth a shot. There’s also the Pasar Malam or Malaysian Night Market with goodies dished out by the local Malay community that takes place every first Friday of the month at the Malaysian embassy in Dubai (remember the one I tried during Ramadan?)…and the last of which sadly took place this past Friday. There are times when I just shouldn’t bumble about with that Must-Eat list, and this was one of them. Le Sigh.

Noodle Bowl
Dune Centre, Diyafah Road, Dubai
Google Maps link: http://goo.gl/maps/0SWnA
Phone: 04-3453382
See their menu on Zomato here.