FAMISHED EXPLORER

 Thambapanni is a recently rebranded and revamped Sri Lankan restaurant which was taken over by a new management. They invited me to try out their food. We started with one of the famous Sri Lankan juices - the wood apple juice . It is a fruit that is very hard to find in UAE and is found in very few places around the world. It has a bit of musky and spicy flavour to it. You might have to develop a taste for it, but I really liked it as I had had it earlier. Sri Lankans have a various buns as small bites, and the restaurant has these too. They got us the fish bun , and the chicken bun which were really nice.  The chicken roll too was quite good. My favourite perhaps was the seeni sambol . This is a bun filled with spiced caramelized onions. It has a sweet and spicy flavour to it and you should surely check it out. Seeni Sambol in the background A street food item that's very popular is the Kottu roti . It is made by chopping Sri Lankan flatbread, and adding spices and vegetables

 This is a pure vegetarian restaurant that has really delicious food.  I was invited here for the Monday Thali Madness . Every Monday they have unlimited Gujrati thali for AED 23. The thali had 2 types of dal, kadhi, corn spinach, gatte ki sabzi, and potato sabzi. Apart from that there was a samosa and dhokla, a chaat (bhel), and two sweets. They also get you hot phulkas and puris. Gatte ki sabzi was delicious, and the dals too. I really enjoyed the thali a lot. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Udit 📷 [Famished Explorer] (@uditss) There's also masala chhaas which has a nice mix of spices in it. Apart from that we also tried a few chaat items here.  We started with the pani puri , then we had the sev puri which was on the spicier side and really good. We also tried the dahi puri which was nice.  I especially liked the samosa chaat that I had here. The chole in it was lovely and the samosa had a nice taste to it too. At the end of our meal

 This is a multi-cuisine restaurant; they serve Indian as well as Chinese and Fillipino cuisine. I was invited to try out the food here. We started with the lemon coriander soup . It was a bit more lemony than usual, but quite nice.  For starters, we had the paneer chilly which was really good. The paneer was soft and tasted great.  The chilly chicken was average though. The chicken was a bit hard.  You should definitely try the seafood bucket . They pour it on the table and everyone can dig in and have it there. The spices and marination was simply delicious.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Udit 📷 [Famished Explorer] (@uditss) Then we had some grilled chicken . It was made well and had a nice flavour to it. I also liked the hammour fillet which was made with very little spices, yet tasted really good. We ended our meal with the gajar halwa . The consistency as well as the flavour was spot on.

 Don't be fooled by the name of the place. It is a pocket friendly multi-cuisine restaurant. They've got Indian, Arabic, and Indo-Chinese. They got us some refreshing drinks. I really liked their strawberry lassi . We started with the Arabic salad platter . This has tabbouleh, fattoush, hummus, moutabel, and vine leaves. It was nice and fresh. Everything tasted good. The vine leaves were warm as opposed to the cold ones that you usually get, but tasted really nice nonetheless.  Then we had some cheese balls . These were also stuffed with some potatoes and were quite good. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Udit 📷 [Famished Explorer] (@uditss) The chicken drumsticks were crunchy and tasted good with the sauce.  We had heard good things about the seafood platter so we called for one. This has prawns, fish, lobster, and mussels. Since we didn't want mussels, they replaced it with a bigger fish. They suggested the lobster in manchurian sau

 I had seen this place a few times but wasn't aware what they serve until I was invited to check them out.  It's a really nice place with a very desi place to it. It's also bigger than I expected.  We started with the baida roti . we asked for the keema version which comes stuffed with mutton keema inside it. It's got egg too. It was delicious, flavourful, and filling.  I'm a total sucker for fries, and when we saw the loaded pizza fries , we definitely had to try those out. These comes loaded with cheese and taste just like you're having a pizza with all that pizza sauce, oregano and more. Also, the quantity is huge and you'd need 2-3 people to have this. A very loaded dish indeed. They currently have an offer on their chicken bbq platter . You get 29 pieces for AED 29. This includes chicken tikka, chicken malai, and chicken hariyali. I liked the chicken tikka the most. All of the three were really flavourful though, and not dry at all which is what I real

This is a newly opened Asian restaurant in JLT, and I was invited here to try out the food.  It is a small outlet which has limited seating for about 5-8 people, so I'd rather recommend a delivery. For our beverages, we started with a fresh orange juice and a watermelon juice , both of which were quite good.  Then we moved on to the soup. We had the chicken tom kha . It was a bit thicker than usual. The taste was good though.  For the appetisers, we had a prawn cake . Not too many places have this so we were looking forward to it. The quantity is really good. The taste wasn't bad but it could have had some more flavour.  The chicken siu mai were really good though and we had it along with the spicy sauces that they served.  For the mains, we ordered a Nasi goreng . This one was just average; I'd say I've had better.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Udit 📷 [Famished Explorer] (@uditss) The fish in blackbean sauce  was delicious t