Now, onto the story.
I've been thinking a lot about how best to characterize Dubai, and I think calling it a City of Extremes wouldn't be far off the mark. You've got wildly elaborate 5-star hotels and you've got workers' slums. Try the middle lane of SZR on any given day and find a billionaire's bloated SUV next to the rickety lorry of several indentured servants. Modestly-clad folks brush shoulders with half-naked hedonists in the malls. Ostentatious business-people stroll around having loud, important conversations with a BlueTooth headset chomping on their ear 24/7 while others work quietly away on the first and only rung of their career ladders. Let's just say the middle ground isn't the most prominent real estate here.
I think we experienced a perfect example of Dubai's extremes in the form of two meals, one day apart. The first was at a posh Moroccan restaurant at a swank beach resort/shopping complex complete with man-made lagoons and views of the glittery gulf, and the second was at the Eat & Drink Restaurant in a low-key residential area near Safa Park.
For the equivalent of $300 Canadian doubloons (900 AED), we got:
- a little trio of starter salads and a few links of spicy sausage as appies
- 3 dinners of meat & veg & sauce, nicely-flavoured but hardly mind-blowing
- 3 mocktails
- a bottle of water
- a bottle of wine that I'd guess would cost about $60 in a Canadian resto
- a beautiful, shimmery view of winding lagoons and in the near distance, the Gulf glittering with the lights of the Atlantis resort and the Palm Jumeirah
- lovely live music
- a pretty outdoor patio done up with Moroccan fabrics and flourishes
- a text reminder about our reservation (I don't have a lot of friends yet so any text is pretty exciting)
My favourite part of the $300 evening was a close tie between the general ambiance and the attentive wait-staff's stripey uniforms, which were sort of Alcatraz-prisoner-meets-Moroccan-tent. Oh, and there were little orange facecloths in the washroom for the drying of hands. I find it so decadent when I get to use a wee facecloth only one time and then throw it in a basket which I don't have to carry around on my hip later.
All in all, it was a pleasant night ooot and abooot, and we knew before we arrived that we'd be paying for the setting. I think a considerable number of the fancy restos in Dubai are all about glamourous and exclusive ambiance, and the food/service come a distant second. They cater to the See and Be Seeners and make no bones about it.
The Eat & Drink Restaurant, on the other hand, is a place you could visit in your floppy pants, and if anyone sees you there, well, you saw them first. There are several E&D franchises in the Dubai area, and the concept is all about...you guessed it. We arrived about 9pm one evening for some nosh, and that's just what we got for our $20 Canadian (55 AED).
The Eat & Drink offers 300 items of Lebanese, Chinese and Indian Mughalai cuisine. Their bilingual menu features toothsome food photography and mentions their ability to cater as well as the rentability of their "party hall," which I think was what they call a rather dark and sticky-looking alcove off the main upstairs dining area.
We sat at an old Formica table with uneven legs and plastic chairs. The waiters were brisk and no-nonsense. They weren't there to chat, suck up or sing the M'amSir song. They were there to take your order, and if you weren't ready, then that table of 10 very hungry Indians over there was ready, and if you wanted to get your food before those guys, better order.
So we did:
- Two "Eat & Drink Special" juices (other choices included the "Disco," the "Lexus," the "Computer" and the "Hero No. 1."
- Hummus and pita starter
- Two chicken shawarma plates
- A bottle of water
The water, in contrast to the $10 that was charged at Spiffy Patio, was free. So was the plate of crisp, cut-up veggies and pickled thingies that arrived for us to munch on. We sipped our super-fresh and tasty juices (the "Special" turned out to be every fruit known to humans, pureed with some rose water or grenadine or something) and watched our fellow patrons. Several languages bounced off the cheerful green walls which hadn't seen a coat of paint in a dog's age. But you can't eat paint, my mom always says. (News to you, eh Mom?)
My favourite touch was the blue crash mat stapled to a protruding ceiling beam. Our willowy waiter had to duck every time he went under it, but I guess that crash mat was there in case he forgot.
Our food arrived nice and fast. The hummus was fresh and unapologetically smothered in olive oil. The chicken shawarmas were ginormous, hot and tasty. And the ambiance was highly entertaining. There were folks of every description E-ing and D-ing, from a soccer team of young, sweaty, white expat-ettes to a very raucous group of Asian dudes who were all over the Sliced Duck and Hot & Sour Whatnot. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.
As for whether the bathroom had little orange single-use facecloths, I wasn't brave enough to find out. Hubby was, and returned to report a "single-holer" in the men's. So I'm suspecting there was probably a shortage of wee towelettes in the ladies'.
Anyhow, we've been back to the E&D since, and the Fancy Pants Patio (which was called Shoo Fee Ma Fee, by the way), not so much. We're more floppy pants, peeling paint, wobbly table, free water, BlueToothless, delicious-food-for-$20-type people, I guess.
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1 comment:
I'm quite fond of the image of a bluetooth headset chomping on someone's ear.
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