Eating our way through May

It's been a month of nothing but makan, makan, makan... As we celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in early May, Ben n I planned to splurge on a nice (iow, expensive) dinner and decided to dine at a place that serves "ultra modern" cuisine here in Dubai.

I suppose it won't be proper to be too critical about the food and I won't even mention the name of the restaurant or the dishes as it was sort of recommended by an acquaintance (and I guess there's some sort of unwritten rule between chefs not to criticise each other... much). I'll just show u pics of some of the courses we had and highlight a couple of things.


For instance, the restaurant manager who served us. He's a really friendly chap even though he speaks with a rather odd angmoh accent (for an Asian dude). He had quite a lot of talking to do too since almost every course came with detailed instructions. --- "First, pop the sphere... mix it... go for it" --- "You have to put the whole thing in... alright, cheers... go for it!" --- "Combine the flavours... Combine the textures... Go for it..."


We were mis-informed beforehand that dinner was the 9-course tasting menu cos the Chef served us a special, new 18-course menu. Yup, EIGHTEEN. There were so many courses that we didn't even know which was the main course, or if there was a main course at all since everything came in minute tasting portions.

One dish featured skate and I just learned that skate is the very atas name for stingray lah. And this piece of pari was TINY. Seriously! It was 2cm x 1cm x 0.75cm.


There were a couple of courses that stood out from the rest, but halfway through the meal, I felt pretty jelak and the only thing I could think of and wish for was an indecently huge slab of MEAT. A yummy, juicy, meaty steak.


I guess I'm really not the sort of person you can bring to a fine dining establishment. This has been proven a couple of times already. Once, when we had lunch at Les Amis and one of the rubber soles of my cheapo mary-janes came off in the restaurant. And a few days later, we celebrated Valentine's Day at Saint Julien n I felt very sick halfway through dinner from just half a glass of champagne.

So back to this dinner. One of the four different desserts we were served was this blackforest globe-thingie. Like the other globe-thingie (the red one pictured earlier), we were advised to "give it a light tap with the back of your spoon" to break it. And like its red predecessor, it needed A LOT MORE than just a tap.


So I tapped it... harder... and harder... no luck. I exclaimed to Ben, "Sounds like tennis ball!" Ben, who was trying another dessert, started choking and got into a laughing fit that took quite a while to pass. We were both giggling so much we had cramps, and tears in our eyes.

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and even though we were stuffed by the end of the meal, I still craved a good steak. Since our anniversary falls on two consecutive days (officially registered at ROM on the 8th and properly married in Church on the 9th), we justified to ourselves that it would be fine to have our anniversary dinner two nights in a row.

So the next night, we had MEAT! Yeah... go for it!

We invited Seri (Ben's colleague) to join us for a hearty meal at La Parilla, the Argentinian restaurant in Jumeirah Beach Hotel. They're best known for their larger-than-life chunks of Angus beef - 500 gram portions to be precise. The restaurant manager is an extremely cheerful and very animated (and loud) lady named Margarita. She's really super, and it was really amusing each time she spoke, laughed or smiled. She practically grins from ear-to-ear with a beam that would probably outshine Eddie Murphy's!

I liked when she described the beef like it was the best thing in the world, like, "Ooh... ahh... Where I come from, we only eat BIG meat! Just roast the WHOLE COW... Oh... I LOVE MY MEAT!!"

So I decided to "go for it" and ordered the 500g tenderloin. Not wanting to feel left out, Ben ordered a 500g ribeye. That's ONE KILO of beef between the 2 of us! It definitely satisfied my craving!

Seri, who by now has made up her mind that we're absolute gluttons, ordered the more timid duck breast. Halfway through our steaks, I suddenly craved for an icy cold Coke and when I got it, I practically did a "slurp-and-ahh" thing cos it cleansed my palate way better than any wine or water could. Then I passed my glass to Ben and he did a "slurp-ahh" too and it felt so good that he passed the glass to Seri, insisting she had some too. So she had a sip, and even obliged us with a really cute n polite "ahh"! She probably didn't want to be the odd one out, what with us two going "WAH, SHIOK!" and all.

Besides unhealthy stuff like soft drinks and junk food, Ben n I also love the caramel popcorn and nachos with cheese that are sold at cinemas here. They're very, very generous with the cheese - a rich, golden yellow, creamy cheddar. Sometimes we see a long queue for the freshly made crepes, so recently, we decided to try the turkey ham, mushroom n cheese crepe, and now we're hooked!


We love it so much that sometimes we go to the cinema just to "ta pau" it. The popcorn + snacks counter is beyond the cinema entrance (past security), so it's not normal for people to enter just to buy food. But sometimes we get permission to pop in just to takeaway the caramel popcorn and have our own movie marathon at home.

One time when I bought some popcorn and a crepe for takeaway, the Arab couple queuing behind me were baffled. The lady said to her guy in utter bewilderment (and a very pekat angmoh accent), "Why's she taking it AWAY???" Ben n I are still wondering if it's really that weird to take-out popcorn from a cinema or if there are other people out there who do it too. Anyone?


In mid May, we had Friday Brunch at Spectrum On One, in The Fairmont. Friday Brunch here is like your Sunday Champagne Brunch back in Singapore. Ya, even with champagne and all. It was a bad start for our first Friday brunching experience in Dubai cos first of all, they messed up our booking and did not have a table for us. We waited at least 15 minutes till they managed to clear a small table for us. Brunch costs AED450/person (about S$200) that includes free flow of champagne, organic wine and cocktails whether you want it or not.

The restaurant was packed. Unfortunately, we found out soon enough that the attraction here was definitely the free flow of booze, not the all-you-can-eat below-par food.

Sashimi was fresh enough, but like everything else at the Japanese section, nothing worth writing home about. I wanted some miso soup but it was displayed in a very shallow dish, not a deep bowl or pot. It was utterly idiotic to expect anyone to get any soup using the soup ladle. It would be like trying to scoop soup with a spoon served on a flat plate. Totally dumbass.

BL: Yorkshire Pudding. BR: Seaweed no longer seems that edible now that I've seen how it thrives on our precious but mucky shores in Singapore.

The seafood section served fresh oysters and cooked prawns, crayfish and Alaskan crab. There were also a few disgusting trays of cold, cooked seafood soaking in a pool of diluted ice. A waitress insisted on standing right in front of the oysters to promote alcoholic shooters that were so deeply coloured they looked like little shots of poison. She just stood there, practically denying me access to the oysters as she tried to push me some poison. I told her I wanted oysters, and she gave me TWO. Bloody hell.

The Chinese/Thai section shouldn't even deserve a mention here, but I shall since I had a small bite each from 3 very disgusting dimsum parcels - prawn, chicken, and vege. The vege one wasn't even real veggie. They filled the blinking thing with chives! We didn't try anything from the Indian section, and Ben had some roast beef with Yorkshire pudding from the Western side.


It is said that the brunch here boasts the best and widest array of desserts, and they also have a Cheese Room, much to Ben's delight. However, towards the end of brunch, we were terribly disappointed. The desserts were probably on display from 10 that morning, so pastries were soggy and the colder desserts were 'sweating'. We only enjoyed the tiramisu and creme caramel.


We started our meal at around 1.30pm and by 3pm, the crowd had dwindled, leaving behind only the alcoholics who were by now pretty pissed, and getting rowdier by the minute. The once enticing spread of cheeses had also vanished with the more sober guests, much to Ben's dismay. Most of the cheese boards were only left with the rind of what might have been a nice end to a terrible meal.

Brunch ends at 4pm but they stopped replenishing any of the food at around 2.30pm. Around this time, chefs could be seen gathering in little clicques far from the counters, chatting and ignoring most guests. Ben noticed how they would attend only to lady guests. Yes, there's a rather crude Hokkien term to use here that contains the letters C---H---.

TL: The Giant Broccoli was decoration. TR: a very foul n soggy coconut macaroon.

Anyway, the next day we met Mabel and Chee Lin for lunch. Dashidai, a dimsum restaurant here had just opened a new branch in Jumeirah Beach Residence, about 10 minutes drive from where we live. Mabel n Chee Lin have raved about Dashidai before, and luckily, the food here is quite good. Actually, just comparable to mid-range dimsum in Malaysia or Singapore, but very good for Dubai standards.

We tried the highly recommended Claypot Braised Beef and (chicken) Char Siew Pau which Ben thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, I had a bowl of chicken with century egg porridge that was terribly bland, almost bordering on tasteless. The next weekend, we went back for more charsiew pau!

Last week Ben told me he had about a week of lieu days that he had to clear from work and asked me to plan a short getaway. He specified "not anywhere in the Middle East" cos then it wouldn't feel like getting-away. With the Pound n Euro sky high, it was difficult to plan a trip to Europe without breaking the bank. I finally decided on Ireland but later we discussed and figured it wouldn't be much of a holiday either cos we'd have to cram so much within 4-5 days.

Then... I suggested something else to Ben... His face lit up immediately n just from his expression u could tell there were a million thoughts n feelings rushing n buzzing about in his mind at that very instant. He was so excited about it that he even cut his finger real bad while daydreaming at work the next day. And he says we should go in September to celebrate my birthday... That's my husband's sneaky way of taking the guilt of himself cos the whole idea of it already seems so lavish.

So the magic words? All I did was suggest, "How bout we travel to London n stay in Bray for just a few days, just to dine at The Fat Duck, and then fly back?" Heck, why not... Go For It!


So it seems we're not only eating our way through May, but are eating our way to Bray. :p