Restaurant Reveiw: Istanbul Flower

I just plain love the food at Istanbul Flower so I'm not going to mention one word about the service...

Ok, maybe a few words... just be forewarned- Do not go to Istanbul Flower if you are expecting to be treated with kindness or even any acknowledgement at all. This MAY not be true for Arabic/ Turkish speakers, and I've noticed the kitchen staff is quite friendly and accommodating where the waiters are most certainly NOT. Just accept that you are going to have to flag down the waiter with a napkin, your order will likely be wrong and you'll get some major 'tude for pointing it out.

But it doesn't matter. As soon as you sit down, you will be presented with a huge basket of freshly grilled bread with sesame seeds, a deeply seasoned, almost marinated green salad and a plate of hummus, moutabel, tahini, pepper relish and eggplant relish. You actually do not even really need to eat anything after this, the platters are so abundant.

If you do want to order more, I'd highly recommend the lentil soup. Fragrant, lemony and savoury, its just perfect. Other selections to try are the chicken kebaps- big salty seasoned chunks of fresh chicken, lamb kebabs- garlickly ground seasoned lamb, and the mutton Iskender- slices of mutton in a red gravy with sour cream (maybe chtoora) over rice. All of it is delicious! Two people can easily split a main dish plus salad and soup.

The other amazing thing about Istanbul Flower is that it's a BARGAIN!! All this deliciousness, in a very clean, pretty classy setting will set you back only about 50dhs per person.

$$ ***

Restaurant Review: The Archive- Safa Park

I love the whole concept of the Archive. It's smack dab in the middle of Safa Park, full of books and long communal tables, they have an espresso bar, plenty of sun shades over outdoor cafe tables, close proximity to a playground for the kids... truly, it's practically ideal.

But then there's the service. We arrive and sit down at a table. There are less than 10 people (we were 5) in the restaurant and at the outside tables. We wait. After 10 minutes a waiter appears. He does not greet us, but rather unceremoniously hands us three copies of the menu. The waiter does not ask for a drink order, but promptly goes away. We look at the menu and wait, and wait, and wait...

We are sitting directly in front of the glass window where all six mostly unoccupied waiters can see us. They are clearly not going to come and take our order. So, I go in and inquire, just in case it's our fault, if there is table service outside. I am told that there is, but maybe I should order inside, just to get it over with.

After I pay, I return to our table. Drinks arrive promptly. For whatever reason, though, our new waiter thinks its a good idea to bring us 3 bottles of juice, 3 glasses for the juice, one latte, 5 glasses for water. So on three tables that cannot be more than 18" square each, we have 12 glasses. (We are eating with the children). Shockingly, one of the drinks is immediately spilled.

Lunch is served without event and then we never see the waiter again. No stopping by to see if we need anything, no clearing the empty dishes and glasses, nothing. And really, none of these things is that big a deal, but taken altogether, one gets the sense that the staff at the Archive simply could not care less about the dining experience.

The food is pretty good, my latte was delicious. For lunch, I had a beetroot arugula salad with goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts. The salad was fine, but with an indistinct dressing and three or four hazelnut halves, hardly inspired. My husband had a roasted vegetable sandwich. Last year, this sandwich was served piled high with delicious veggies and a generous smear of goat cheese on the bread. Now, not so much, the sandwich is thin and the vegetables and cheese feel like an afterthought. My son, who had the beef pastrami was the only person really excited about his food, although the sweet potatoes that came as a side were simply baked and completely unseasoned.

The little ones had pancakes which were tasty enough and they did finish them completely. There is something very nice about eating pancakes outside for lunch. I wished they had been a bit more generous with the maple syrup, though.  Again, it just felt like nobody in the kitchen is really paying attention.

The Archive is certainly good enough. I think my frustration comes from the fact that the food used to be sensational and the restaurant has the potential to be truly terrific. There was a time, when it first opened, that you went to the Archive for the amazing food and just lived with the service. I certainly expected the staff to mature and become more polished.  Unfortunately now, I guess you go for the ambiance of sitting in the park and try to not to expect too much of the service or the food.

$$ **

Restaurant Review: Dubai Garden Center Cafe

Oddly enough, the Dubai Garden Center has a Cafe. They seem to be generally expanding their wares from plants and dirt into garden sculpture, furniture, cute indoor and outdoor housewares, used bookstore, a deli and best of all, a cafe.

Now, Dubai has lots and lots of cafes. Some I've even wanted to review, but couldn't get waited on. Some that are too pretentious or delicious but too expensive to visit regularly. There's also the problem of weird or just plain horrible service, which given enough of it, does ultimately ruin the pleasure of going out to eat.

All of these Dubai style cafe problems are nearly completely solved at the Dubai Garden Center's cafe.

The food is delicious. On our first visit we had a turkey-ham and cheese croissant which was flaky and perfectly toasted, not microwaved so it wasn't soggy! Hooray! A mushroom quiche was excellent, full of woodsy mushroom flavor but with plenty of cheese and egg. We split a chocolate muffin that was moist and not too sweet. Coffee drinks were prepared EXACTLY as we ordered them. A latte was a perfect balance of coffee and milk, and American style brewed coffee tasted great! instead of like dishwater.

Our second visit was for sandwiches. We had turkey and cheese and a mozzarella and tomato one. Both were fresh and delicious. Drinks were cold, chips were crispy.

The service is normal. There is no snob factor, whatsoever. Even better, there doesn't seem to be any of the 'Yes M'am, Sirrrr!!!' meaning 'No'. The staff is genuinely friendly, not obsequious. Most importantly, when the wrong sandwich was accidentally delivered to us, the waiter removed it with a simple, 'I'm sorry, I'll get the correct one!' and then did so, in under 3 minutes! not with 20 minutes of consultation with colleagues or a desperate need to make us admit we had ordered the wrong thing! Coffees were served promptly and hot. BUT, not so scorching they couldn't be consumed! Change was correct and counted back to us.

The prices are fair! Our first breakfast cost around 60dhs and lunch was about 100dhs. The cafe is not cheap, but for the excellent quality and great service, I think the prices are perfectly set. I cannot think of a western-style cafe in this town that is more reasonably priced for comparably great service and fresh food.

I would eat at the cafe happily, regardless of weather I need anything else on sale at the Garden Center. Also check out their deli offerings, lots of Italian gourmet foodstuffs, plus the Ripe market on weekends. The Garden Center is becoming a food destination in an excellent way!

Restaurant Review: Medzo

Medzo is an Italian restaurant in the Wafi Mall which our dining companions assured us is 'The best Italian place in Dubai'. And, I have to say, I was fairly sceptical going in. The Wafi restaurants are all good enough, but, in my opinion, tend to err on the side of keeping tourist diners happy by avoiding anything too creative. On balance, Medzo avoids this trap, comes up with some delicious offerings in the process, and only makes the very tiniest of slips.

The restaurant's interior is pleasant, all beige, pink, and off white. The vestibule and long hall enhance the sense of stepping into a secure, quiet, and elegant world. The dining room is immaculate & uncluttered. The outdoor dining area is well surrounded by greenery to help isolate you from the clubby scene at other Wafi restaurants. The non-Italian concept of Oasis is much in play at Medzo.

For wine, our dining companions ordered a 2010 Banfi Chianti Superiore. I'm not a huge Chianti fan, so its not my favorite. What I did note was the flawless wine service our waiter delivered. So many staff in Dubai restaurants do not know how to perform this simple part of table service, it was truly refreshing, not a drop spilled, no bottles touching glass, each person served in the correct order. The best part was our waiter did this naturally, without awkwardness, and was entirely unobtrusive.

A Tomato crostini amuse bouche and a bread basket arrived quickly after the wine. Foccacia, chopped tomato with a dollop of goat cheese and a delicious, tiny olive punctuated this dish. Some kind of basil pesto was squirted on the plate beneath the bite, my readers know how much I hate this practice, this bit of basil oil belonged on the bite, not under it for you to discover after you have eaten it.

For appetizers, we ordered Beet parcels stuffed with goat cheese, Scallops with truffled polenta and an Asparagus soup. The beet 'ravioli' were very nice, paper thin rounds of roasted red beet stuffed with goat cheese. Tiny cubes of pear dotted the plate. These might have been better as slices, placed on top of the 'ravioli' to be eaten in a single mouthful, but still a very nice appetizer.

Seared scallops were served over a truffle polenta. The scallops were perfectly cooked and seasoned simply with salt and pepper. The polenta suffered a little from being slightly runny and I would have liked this dish to have a stronger truffle flavor. Can't argue with perfectly cooked scallops, though.

For entrees we chose the lamb butterflied and stuffed with olives over roast potato, artichoke and olives, a veal scallopine with pancetta and more of the mushroom polenta and the beef tenderloin. Aside from the slightly undercooked pancetta served with the veal, each dish was prepared and presented with care and deliciously fresh ingredients. Everyone cleaned their plates.

For dessert we had the Sorbet, two dollops each of mango and raspberry served in a silly gigantic platter, awkward, but still very tasty. The pannacotta was perhaps the only non-home run dish of the evening. There was just too much gelatin in it so the consistency was rubbery, rather than the normally smooth unctuous texture pannacotta is known for.

Go to Medzo for the service, for the ambience, for the food. Just go. It really may be the best Italian restaurant in Dubai.

$$$$ ****

Restaurant Review: mOre Cafe

Today we had brunch with some friends at the mOre Cafe in the Gold and Diamond Park off Sh. Zayed Road. Brunch at mOre is a fairly impressive affair. You can order the buffet if you think you might like to take a shot at bursting your stomach or you can order off their extensive menu.

With everything from Nicoise salad to burgers to pancakes, mOre definitely tries to please everyone and generally succeeds with fresh-tasting, simply prepared foods. Their chefs aren't taking any risks but the food is definitely tasty.

If you get the buffet, as my DH did, before you even leave your seat to go check out the buffet table, a plate of eggs Benedict is whisked in front of you with a basket of bread, and a huge fruit plate. This alone is enough to feed about 8 people, but of course you cant do that with it. When you are done, if you can cram in one more bite, there are some delicious cakes, we sampled carrot and zucchini which were both yummy.

I have a cultural thing about buffets, I find them kind of gross but intriguing at the same time... I don't really want to try all these different foods together in the same meal and so, in this way, the mOre mandatory eggs benedict before buffet table makes an odd kind of sense to me.

mOre cafe supports local arts by allowing painters to display their work in the cafe. Something we definitely need here in Dubai.

My only complaints about the cafe are that the acoustics are absolutely awful. Although it was less than half-full, it sounded like nothing so much as an elementary school cafeteria. Our pleasant waiters had a terrible time hearing us and we them, which led to mix-ups over coffee, mustard and missing utensils. It is so noisy in there, that while I'd definitely order food from mOre for catering or delivery, I'd think twice before going back there to eat a meal at peak hours.

$$ ***

Restaurant Review: Ping Pong Dim Sum

I'm so seldom in love with restaurants that I'm feeling a little dizzy. Ping Pong Dim Sum has turned my head. I don't even need to write a review really, the motto on their website, "Little Steamed Parcels of Deliciousness" pretty much says all that needs to be said.

Personal favorites include the chive dumpling, in its pretty green wrapper and the scallop and shiitaki mushroom dumpling which is just exquisite. Spicy chicken and vegetarian dumplings proved tasty. My husband enjoyed a king prawn dumpling in a black squid ink pastry. We also gobbled a bunch of crispy asparagus and some fantastic tiny spring rolls some vegetarian, some chicken. Oh, just go and order everything!

We went to the Dubai Mall branch.
The decor is simple, dark wood offset by white plates and accessories.
Service is pleasant and efficient, no weird Dubai hovering and seems genuinely friendly.
Dinner for 7 (with one person who didn't eat very much) cost around 500dhs but it might be worth going to their Lazy Friday promotion (unlimited dim sum for 132dhs per person, kiddos for 65dhs).
Ping Pong also offers a large variety of tasting menus which seem like a cost- efficient way to go for one or two people.

I have three teeny tiny little complaints.
1. I feel like a bit of a piggy eating there because the dumplings come three to an order. For a family like ours (5, all dumpling fanatics) I wish they would break out the large steaming baskets. And I acknowledge this is my only possibly legitimate issue with this place...
2. The lack of beer . There is nothing better than a cold beer with your dumplings, but not my country and all, I shan't complain, very much.
3. The lack of pork. Again, not my country but I would love to see what the chefs at Ping Pong would do with pork (something magnificent, I'm guessing).
*** $$

Restaurant Review: Sumo Sushi- Dubai

Updated Review:
Ok so I finally went back over to Sumo and I'm kind of thrilled to report that all the stuff I hated about it has been fixed! They've got a fume hood and or they are cleaning the grease traps! They are chopping the seaweed a little finer! My hair doesn't smell! Whoohooo! I'm thrilled. I can now recommend you go there.

I used to love it, but now I hate it... Sumo Sushi is a Dubai sushi chain. It has a lot going for it, like not hideously unhealthy kids meals (rice, fruit, edamame, other cold veg and entree), fresh fish, and some innovative dishes like the sushi sandwich (a chopped spicy tuna layered in rice 'bread' with a seaweed 'mayo' inside. They have a cute logo and the one we go to, in Town Centre is a contained restaurant but entirely open and smack dab in the middle of the mall, which makes for fun people watching without it being a food court kind of experience. It also has some low tables where you sit on the floor, which is always fun for the kiddos.
Prices are fair enough. A family of five with the meal described below runs around $100 (but this is with the ubiquitous overpriced Dubai juice cocktails, which I'm trying to get the kids to avoid these days...).
We usually all start with a cup of miso soup. Sumo's miso seems to be made from a powdered mix. Its a little briny but it is redeemed by generous chunks of silken tofu and lots of seaweed. I think I'd prefer the seaweed chopped a bit finer, its difficult and a little silly to eat it.
My DH usually gets a salad called 'Avocado Maguro'. Its avocado and tuna with sesame seeds and a soy vinaigrette dressing. I ordered a Seaweed Salad once and instead of what I am used to (long strings of seaweed in a peppery-vinegar dressing) I got a garden salad with large, flat, hard-to-chew pieces of green seaweed standing in for the lettuce.
Usually I get a Tuna Lover's Bento or a Salmon Lovers Bento and the Husband gets something called a Rock and Roll. Sometimes we split a small sushi sandwich with it too.
The Rock and Roll is the origin of my problem with Sumo Sushi. Its a roll of tuna, avocado and salmon with the outside rice covered in crispy fried bits of panko. I fear, that like a lot of restaurants in Dubai, Sumo Sushi has fry-o-lators and no fume hoods. Over time, this is causing EVERYTHING in the restaurant to begin to smell a bit like fried food, including the tables and chairs and your hair when you leave because bits of grease become airborne as they cook with no hood.
For me, the effect is revolting. I cannot stand the smell of the place and am to the point where I avoid the Town Centre mall because of it. My enjoyment for Sumo would be immediately salvaged if they got a fume hood (if they have them they need to be cleaned desperately). And I'm bummed that we have to find a new sushi place...

Restaurant Review: Bo House Cafe

Today my DH took me to Valentine's lunch at the Bo House Cafe in Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residence Complex. I was kind of excited, the Bo in Bo House is supposed to stand for 'Bohemian' and I was thinking something like our own hometown, ultra-cool (but more importantly delicious), Vanilla Bean. While the Vanilla Bean is, in fact a bohemian kinda place, Bo House is just another corporate 'concept' restaurant.

Its not a bad concept. The interior of the restaurant is all undulating white walls and nook-like vistas of the sea beyond. It has a VERY notable poured epoxy floor covered in swirling multicolored decals and crazy flowered sofas for seating. Outside, where we were happy to eat, is miles less distracting with simple, ubiquitous, imitation-rattan furniture covered in cozy pastel pillows and large umbrellas overhead. The view from the patio is of the JBR public parking lot, but it didn't really detract as seating is high enough up that you get a good sea view as well.

We started with salads. For him Halloumi cheese over spring mix with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was tasty but perhaps at 55dhs could have used a more generous hand with the cheese, three wafer-thin slices of the grilled Halloumi didn't really allow for it to be enjoyed throughout the dish.

I had a Mixed Vegetable 'healthy choice' salad which was quite nice. It included steamed cauliflower, artichoke hearts, yellow and green zucchini on a bed of chiffonade lettuce and white cabbage in a basil vinaigrette.

We shared a pot of yellow curry with chicken. The curry was tasty enough but a little bland. It actually reminded me of a super-creamy version of the Japanese boxed curries my college roomie's mom used to send her from Tokyo. Bizarrely, and annoyingly, someone has decided to serve a good two cups of curry with less than a full cup of slightly greasy 'saffron' rice. Ditch the seasoned rice and just give a reasonable portion of plain white rice with this dish and it will be fine.

While the food at Bo House is ok, the service tends to feel a bit like a very mellow version of the Three Stooges. I spotted some friends eating in the cafe proper and I got up to go and say 'Hi'. One staffer was bizarrely confrontational in finding out what I was doing or if I needed anything. "Madam! Where are you going?!? What do you need!?!" I know, everyone in Dubai is afraid that if something is wrong they'll get fired, but if Bo House wants to cultivate itself as a cool meeting place the staff needs to chill about people wandering around the restaurant.

Also, pretty much the instant my final forkful of salad hit my mouth, a server came rushing over and grabbed away the salad plate and utensils, without saying a word, which annoys me. But when we had finished our curry, the empty dishes sat in front of us long enough to gather flies. Timing is everything and Bo House seems to have a problem with offering the sort of laid back but highly functional service that make some 'Bohemian' restaurants truly cool places to go.

$$ ***

Restaurant Review- Silk Route Chinese and Thai at the Arabian Courtyard

We have a guest so we went downtown to the Dubai Museum today instead of doing school. After the museum, everyone was starvingly hungry so we headed across the street to The Silk Route Chinese and Thai at the Arabian Courtyard.
Normally, I avoid hotel restaurants. But our guest had read a review of the restaurant and wanted to check it out and we hardly ever have Chinese food here so we thought we'd go for it. That and the boys were at borderline whining...
The hotel is pretty fantastic for its decor. Really outrageous, lots of atrocious gold fabrics, multi-colored waterfalls, shiny surfaces, etc. The restaurant keeps to this style with red silk wallpaper and bamboo as its main decorating themes. Paper lanterns everywhere complete the kitchy look.
For the boys we ordered the vegetable wonton soup, a plate of lamb satay, some chicken dumplings and some fresh spring rolls. The wontons were stuffed with broccoli, carrot and cabbage; quite nice and enjoyed by all the self described 'meat-arians'. There was some complaining about the lack of pork wontons. Along the lines of "if they can serve alcohol in hotels, why not pork?" Perceptive little munchkins, aren't they?
My only complaint was with the spring rolls which were marked as vegetarian but still contained shrimp.
Husband ordered hot and sour soup which he said was not particularly good, but he thought this might be an American -vs- rest of the world thing as he never has it the way he likes it out of the US.
Both Guest and husband had crispy beef. Guest asked for not-spicy which evidently the restaurant took to mean 'no flavor' so she was fairly disappointed. Husband enjoyed his. I had vegetarian pad thai (no shrimp) which was also pleasant enough with generous chunks of a seasoned tofu and slivers of fresh vegetables.
All in all, an ok meal, I probably wouldn't go there again though...

$$$ **

Arabic Junkfood

One of the few meals that all members of the clan agree on is Arabic Junk Food from the Eat & Drink Restaurant. Which has, I am happy to report, one of the weirder websites I have ever seen. ~Do hesitate not to visit! Make an especial note of woman breathing fumes of burger! Delicious.~
Middling English fluency is so awesome.

Tonights dinner of two chicken kabab platters and two lamb kabab platter set us back a whopping 66 UAE dirhams, that's $17.98 for:

20 kebabs (12 lamb, 8 chicken I've been told I should order Chicken Shish Tawok next time because its chicken chunks rather than ground chicken meal which is tasty but well, dodgy.)
4 pints of hummus (personal favorite throughout the city- perfectly balanced tahini & chick pea, creamy, but you can still taste the chick peas...)
6 large arabic flat bread rounds
1 pint of yogurt sauce
1 large green salad
assorted pickles
french fries (They sprinkle these on top of the kebab to soak up the grease I think, rendering them extra delicious...)
Truly enough food to feed an army at an amazing price mostly vegetarian friendly if you just skip the kebab too!

Iftar

Iftar is the breaking of the fast each day during the Holy Month of Ramadan. So last night we went to our school's annual Iftar at the Al Bustan Rotana hotel which is near the airport here in Dubai.
So facing an airport hotel buffet, I was a little ambivalent. Especially because school functions havent really been known for their cuisine in the past...
Call me pleasantly surprised. The food was delicious. We enjoyed the usual Lebanese fare of hummous, pita, tabouleh, lamb and chicken kabob, plus some more regional food like chicken with the bitter green molokia and harees (which I dont usually like, but was quite nice).
The ballroom of the hotel was ok, if not exactly tastefully decorated. The service was pure Dubai, lots of useless hovering and inability to answer questions or deliver what was asked for (forks???). But altogether, a very pleasant experience.
I think we will try to catch one more Iftar before Ramadan is over, I hear good things about the tents at the Ibn Battuta mall.

Restaurant Review: Pizza Express

We are in love with Pizza Express. Finally, good pizza in Dubai! not just acceptable, not just palatable, but good. Tonight, we had pepperoni and mushroom on thin crust. Their sauce is ever so slightly spicy, the cheese is fresh, the service is well, service, rather than fawning while doing nothing...

This is the first time in a year I didnt feel horrible about forking over my dirhams for a Pizza.

Their whole sales pitch on the website is kind of bull----, the dining rooms resemble nothing so much as every other restaurant in this country. But it's Ramadan and you cant eat in anyway, take it out, order two, they're small...

All-you-can-eat discount sushi.

I know, all you can eat discount sushi doesnt really sound that good. And let me tell you, I was sceptical. The whole concept seemed especially unnerrving because there is some kind of deadly food poisoning in Dubai.

So it was with a teeny bit of trepidation that I made my way with my friends and my DH over to the Bur Dubai Ramada Inn for Sushi Sunday at Teppanyaki House.

Well, all I can say is amazing. Just delicious. An assortment of rolls and sashimi first, then some more creative rolls, then some MORE sashimi, then some spicy tuna, then some more rolls and finally we had to say uncle. I suspect the sushi chef would have kept getting more creative had we had the stamina to keep up with him; another night maybe.

Everything was fresh and tasty and everyone felt just fine the next day- all good signs. Bur Dubai outside the Ramada turns a little wild between 7 when we got to the restaurant and 10 when we left, interesting people watching available...

Dubai Mall Supper

Finally screwed up my courage and took the kids to the Dubai Mall. Our primary purpose in going there was to see the aquarium, but we also had to gather some dinner because it was unlikely I would have the time and/or will to cook after viewing the worlds largest piece of plexiglass....
The aquarium is worth seeing, but the lack of exposition makes it basically just a giant fish tank. I was kind of hoping for a more educational experience for the boys.
Dubai mall has a Caribou Coffee which I generally think has much better coffee than the other well known wholly ubiquitous chain coffee store... So we went there for a snack, a mocha cafe for me and the boys shared some chocolate donuts. This was followed by complaining that the donuts arent as good as those at any one of the 13 Dunkin Donuts between our home in CT and my parents in RI.
After the Aquarium and the snack, we went over to Waitrose to gather dinner. Waitrose is actually not that impressive in terms of quality and selection. We got some chicken kabab marinated in yogurt and coriander, sauteed spinach, glazed carrots (which were yummy) and some fresh flat bread.

Restaurant Review: The Noodle Room

I really wanted to write a review of The Noodle Room. In fact, I liked the menu, the decor and even the utensils so much that I wanted to write a GOOD review of the noodle room. Alas, it was not to be. Our friends met us at the restaurant around 7:00pm. The place was busy but not packed by any stretch of the imagination. We ordered right away and our waiter seemed quite solicitous and friendly, handing out chopsticks and setting a brazier up on our table. And then... nothing.

Absolutely nothing happened for 45 minutes. NOTHING! Not even a re-pour of water. Not a complimentary cracker or dish of edamame. NOTHING!!

Then, our waiter informed the DH's at our table that they had dropped our food on the floor and it would be a few minutes before they could serve it. My DH asked if we could have whatever survived the alleged dropping on the floor. The waiter said NO!!!!!!! I say alleged, because we were seated two feet from the kitchen, if five orders of Udon, two of Ramen and a Gyoza had hit the floor, we would have known about it.

The moms then took matters into our own hands and told our waiter we would be leaving and that the Noodle Room certainly didnt want us there for ANOTHER 45 minutes while they made our food. The kids were edgy enough as it was.

The manager was solicitous and apologetic, but no actual food ever appeared in the time it took us to settle the matter and get up and go. If I was managing that restaurant I would have grabbed every dish in the kitchen and had it put on the table immediately. Its kind of a trend in Dubai that apologizing is the end of it. When a table of 9 is sitting without food for 45 minutes because their waiter didnt put the ticket in (which is what I think REALLY happened), its an event that calls for action, not just apologies.

Oh well, maybe sometime we'll go back to the Noodle Room and see what its like. Until then, it will forever be branded in our family lexicon as the "No Noodle Room"!

Today for lunch, I made them noodles in compensation for their visit to the No Noodle Room. 5 orders, 20 min, did 100% of the prep. The Noodle Room has no excuse.

Sushi fantastic

Last night my husband took me to the first most authentically glamorous place I've been to in Dubai so far. The Souk at Madinat Jumeirah. The entire thing feels very much like a set from a James Bond movie. Palm trees with twinkling lights, outdoor dining areas, boat rides etc.

Its a little to clean to be a real souk, the shops are all beautiful; jewelry, clothes, shoes (lovely lavender sequined flip flops...), even interesting furniture made from old Indian buildings is available. The prices will knock your socks off, but maybe not if you are from New York or Moscow or some such place.

We had dinner at Japengo Cafe, which like every other restaurant in Dubai is part of a chain which is part of a huge multi-national corporation. As such, the restaurant appears to be doing a bang-up business in burgers and sandwiches and we were a little nervous sitting down because we werent quite sure that the sushi we wanted would be any good.

My husband ordered miso soup and I got edamame because they didnt have a seaweed salad. I LOVE SEAWEED SALAD so I was extremely disappointed at this development. Seaweed salad is one of the main reasons I go to shushi restaurants. The miso was ok, it tasted a little bit like a powdered mix, but this was balanced by lots of seaweed and some fresh chunks of tofu. The edamame were served whole in the hulls with salt and were perfectly fine.

For dinner we had a mixed plate of 6 sushi and 6 slices of rolls. These were very tasty. Some of the sushi looked a little haggard- time for the guys at the sushi bar to sharpen their knives, but overall the quality was very good. Three of the rolls were just cucumber, rice and nori, a little disappointing considering the price.

We ended up ordering another 12 slices of rolls because they are so small and got 6 tuna and 6 "California" rolls. The tuna was very tasty, fresh and tender. The California rolls, on the other hand, were not great. There was some unagi in them with a bunch of different vegetables, and they were rolled in salmon roe.

I think of a California roll as avocado, salmon and maybe some cucumber or daikon for crispiness but in Dubai, California roll seems to mean 'whatever junk the cook wants to put in a roll". The large quantity of salmon roe is, to me, a little bit of a warning sign that the sushi under it isnt of the best quality.

Our waiter was very nice and busy enough not to do the Dubai hover, which was refreshing. The whole meal with tea and perrier (no wine available) came to about 300dhs or about $80.

Altogether, Japengo was a pretty good dining experience, I'd definitely swing by there on my way home to pick up dinner, but I dont think I'd go there on 'date night' again. Its a little too industrial, a little too cold and corporate in its feel. I wish there was a real Japanese restaurant here...

Restaurant Review: Carter's

We were recently obligated to go out to dinner with some people who proved themselves to be authentically horrible. The restaurant, however is my concern today. By default, due to its proximity to one person's hotel, we decided upon a restaurant called Carter's in the Wafi Mall. Now Wafi Mall is worth visiting if only for its reproductions of Egyptian Temples- every man a pharoah at Wafi- and walking through these things is quite the experience.

Our dinner started out pleasantly enough with a pretty attentive waitress taking our drink order and talking up the specials, but since our party wasn't drinking, she seemed to lose all interest in waiting on us after taking the drink order.

For a starter, I had a cheese and sundried tomato bruschetta with sauteed mushroom and arugula. This was actually pretty ok except for the truly disgusting balsamic reduction which was thankfully not too heavily applied. PLEASE, Chef's of the world, skip the g--d--ned balsamic reductions! They are overpowering and unnecessary at best. Also, this was two different bruschettas, not one. A mushroom and arugula and a cheese and dried tomato would have been much much better.

For a main course I had a simple baked mustard chicken over mashed potatos with something called 'pearled' vegetables. The chicken suffered from a pickup of at least 20% - far too much of a crispy coating - that left me feeling more like I was eating at McDonalds than at a 'fine dining' restaurant and put down the melon baller. A kind of honesty in preparation seemed to be sorely missing from our meal.

My husband had a pot pie, with an unfortunately slightly soggy puff pastry on top; served with mashed potatoes and no other vegetables. Our dinner companions ate unremarkable salmon over couscous also served without a vegetable side, but they deserved it.

Carter's is fine for the atmosphere, I gather it is supposed to be reminiscent of a 'Ricks Cafe' from Casablanca or other romantic 40's mid-eastern destination, but it proved to be a boring meal at best and a little bit of a rip off, with very little care for or precision in preparation. I certainly wouldn't go there again.

Lulu Takeaway

We went on the supermarket trip from hell yesterday. The Yaris can't actually hold a family of five AND a weeks worth of their groceries. Plus my husband was having real trouble with the notorious, ubiquitous, and horrendous Dubai ring-roads so we went around and around the supermarket for a solid hour before actually arriving there...

The imaginable level of grumpiness and hunger was quickly dealt with by some supermarket prepared-food. Which was good because my normal response is paralysis, followed by yelling at my children and maybe some crying...

They had lovely hummus, tabbouleh which here is more of a parsley salad than anything else, a greek salad and some baba ghanoush (eggplant spread). I served these with bread and a bit of baked marinated chicken. A reasonably satisfying supper and on the table in about 10 minutes.

Restaurant Review: Zyng!

Tonight, we ate at the Zyng Asian Grill in the Ibn Battuta Mall. No joke. Dubai malls take their food courts very, deeply seriously.

As chain shops go, it was pretty tasty, lots of fresh veggies and overall not too salty or sugary.

Mr. Dumpling was less than impressed with their version of potstickers, eating only three. Poor Mr. Dumpling misses his Jade Garden potstickers so much. I liked the vegetarian ones and would pass on the meat next time.

I did especially like the pad Thai. It was almost equal portions of noodles and shredded carrots with lots of green onion and chunks of well-seasoned tofu, tasty.

A decent bargain at less than $40 for dinner for five, and your waiter does a nifty trick of not writing down anything you order and actually getting the order correct! Pretty snappy.

Church Samosa

Went to mass tonight at St. Mary's Dubai, if ever there was a clear, blaring arguement in favor of the Latin Mass, St. Mary's is it.

After mass, you can get delicious samosas from the cafe. Oh, this is no catholic ladies with baked goods and watery coffee kind of a situation. There are at least 15 different kinds of piping hot filled rolls, plus cakes and drinks from everywhere on the planet (although the Goans seem to have a monopoly on the situation...).

A half dozen samosas plus two bottles of water were only 12 dhs. Only drawback was no chutney for them (woe is me).

The finicky american children wouldnt touch them, we'll see if the parents are spending the day in the bathroom tomorrow...