FAMISHED EXPLORER

We all love Lebanese food, and there are so many new restaurants coming up, that we're spoilt for choice.  Zaroob has been a well-known name for Lebanese food since quite some time, and having visited other outlets, I can say their food is good.  This time I ended up going with a vegetarian friend of mine for a light bite, and even I stuck to vegetarian.  We had a foul jar this time. If you're familiar with foul medammes ( fava beans ), this one is similar; just that it comes in a jar. Along with it they give you chopped onions, tomatoes and parsley that you can add to it. You can also get hot bread with it if you like, just like we did.  I've had koshari at other places, and it's always been non-vegetarian. Here, it is vegetarian, and when I saw that I realised that most of the ingredients in a koshari are vegetarian, except for the meat which is added separately. They didn't have meat in this one. Viola! Here was a delicious koshari.  For t...

This is a small place located in Oud Metha / Karama, and I wouldn't have known about it had my friend not suggested it.  If you go in a small group, you can easily tell them to bring "one of everything" on the menu. This place has a total of about 10 items on their menu. The good thing about this is that they're focused on these dishes and make them extremely well.  Their kebabs are really delicious and this is an understatement.  The Lucknow kebab was my favourite here. It is a flat and big kebab made with some great spices. It just melts in your mouth.  (Sorry for the bad pictures, it was just irresistible, and got disintegrated by the time it came to me) The Shami kebab was also something which we totally loved. These are small, flat and round, and you get 4 pieces in one portion. These too melt in your mouth.   The Seekh kebab was very flavourful and soft. I'm sure you cannot stop at one bite.  We also had the kofta curry . ...

This is one of my favourite Thai food restaurants; I've been to other branches and decided to check this one out.  The ambience is nice with the brown and red theme just like the other outlets. This one is a little bigger though. They also have valet parking.  Pad Thais are one that I really like and this time I ordered the Bamee Pad . These are stir-fried egg noodles, along with egg, soy sauce and vegetables. We took these with prawn. They're topped with bean sprouts that are crunchy and complement the flavour really well. This one of-course was really delicious. No doubt about that.  A post shared by Famished Explorer [ UDIT ] (@uditss) on Apr 26, 2018 at 3:50am PDT For the curries, we had the Gaeng Garee Gai which is the yellow curry. It has a mild flavour to it and contains boneless tender chicken along with a few vegetables. We were thinking of having something more but this one was really filling for two people.  We had this with the...

Walking along the marina, we spotted this restaurant and decided to go in for a light bite.  This restaurant and La Gaufrette share their seating space. The seating for Bazerkan is enclosed while that of La Gaufrette is open, which is where we sat. They gave us the menu for Bazerkan.  We started with a fattoush . The quantity was a lot for two people. It was made pretty well.  Then we ordered the foul medammes. There was a bit more lemon than usual and it tasted a bit zesty for our liking. Though the hot bread that was there along with it mellowed it down a bit. Last but not the least, we had the moussaka batinjan. It is made from eggplant and mixed vegetables. I really liked this one, though it took a few bites to like the flavour. My friends didn't quie enjoy this.  Not a bad place overall.  The vibe doesn't feel very lively for some reason. 

The word " sthaan " in Sanskrit means place; it is also used in the names of the countries - Hindustan , Pakistan, Afghanistan - among others. I mentioned these three specifically since that's where the restaurant gets its name from since it serves food from these three countries. This restaurant started a few months ago and I've been hearing quite a bit about it, and wanting to go myself. Alas we decided to check it out the other day.  We ordered the dhaba murgh . A "dhaba" refers to the roadside outlets, and "murgh" is chicken. This was one of their specialities here. It is made with aromatic spices, and the chicken was really succulent.  One of my favourite desi dishes is the haleem ; but it isn't something that everyone gets right. We decided to order one nonetheless, and it was superb. The consistency of this one as well as the flavour were both on point.  We had this along with butter naan (Indian bread).  For drin...

I'm a fan of Kulcha king since a long time and I really like their kulchas. I've tried out different varieties and they all are pretty good. I especially like the tangy chutney (sauce) that they give along with the kulchas.  For something quick to munch on, we ordered a portion of masala papad . I liked the way it was generously topped with finely sliced tomates, onions, and capsicum. The topping were contained in the middle of the papad, and the whole papad did not become soggy as you had it.  This particular time when I went, we ordered for an aloo (potato) kulcha and told that it be made crispy. This one was crispy but there wasn't much potato filling inside, so we told them, and asked for another one to be made. In the other one that they got, the filling was right, but they forgot make it crispy. Then we had to send it again. This kulcha was for my mom, so by the time I was almost done with my onion kulcha, she hadn't even started. She halfheartedly shared...

There are a lot of Italian restaurants coming up these days and each of them has their own speciality. What I found special about this place was the interiors. It is a bit rustic but not like the rustic interiors we see these days; it gives a feeling that the restaurant is from the Europe that was a few decades ago. It feels a bit cosy too (of-course this is if you're sitting inside).  When the invited me I thought this would just be another Italian restaurant but the interiors proved me wrong.  There is a huge variety of items in the menu and as we pondered upon what to order they got us some bread along with a couple of nice dips to munch on.  We started with some Arancini , i.e.  fried rice balls that were stuffed with baby shrimp and mozzarella. These were really cheesy and a bit crispy from the outside which I really liked. They were served with a pesto dip. The good thing is that this starter does not make you feel too full.  Among thei...

After the huge success of their Bur Dubai outlet, they opened one in Barsha too, and they invited me to try out their food.  The place has a lot of tables in there, and in a way that's a good thing, but in case there are a lot of people, this place might feel cramped as the tables are in close proximity to each other.  They have quite a wide variety in their menu especially for the grills which is their speciality. They have char-grilled as well as pan-grilled. A post shared by Famished Explorer [ UDIT ] (@uditss) on Apr 20, 2018 at 5:45am PDT The manager offered to set the table for us, i.e. get their best dishes so that we could get a taste of everything. They first got the complimentary salad. We started with the shrimp which is my favourite seafood. It was pan-grilled . They got us two varieties - the lemon butter one, and  the spicy one. Both of them were really nice, though I liked the lemon butter one more, since it was something which I don't...