FAMISHED EXPLORER

We were in the mood for some middle Eastern food and saw this place in JLT.  When we went there, we saw that they serve Iranian food too. We started with the Mirza Ghasemi which is a dish made from charred eggplant, slow roasted tomato, garlic sauce, poached eggs. The combination sounded a little weird but it tasted great. The taste of the eggs wasn't over-powering. Next was a soupy dish - Ash . This contains whole wheat noodles, fresh herbs, lentils and cured yogurt. I've had it in another restaurant so I knew what to expect. It is topped with garlic chips and crispy onions which really adds to the flavour. It's something like an Iranian version of a lentil soup. It is a bit thick, and we had it with the hot bread that they served. Kubideh is a famour Iranian kebab and we had the kubideh wrap . The flavour of the meat was really nice. It was served along with some garlic sauce and pickles.  The service was good too.

If you're looking for a place with a nice artsy decor in JLT, then this is a great choice. The ambience feels cozy and is done up well. They also have outdoor seating. They invited me to try out their food.  We started with the Maryam Salad . This has rocca leaves, beetroot, yogurt, and lemon juice. I'm not much of a salad fan and when I saw this, it didn't appeal much to me, but I took a bite and it was pretty good. It may not be something that I'd order, but salad lovers and healthy eaters will surely enjoy this.  For appetisers, they recommended the cauliflower with tahina . It was my first time trying it out, and I really liked the taste of this one. The cauliflower had a bit of a smokey  and burnt flavour of the crispy onions on top, and the combination with the creamy tahina was superb. Batata hara is another classic Arabic starter that we had here, and it was served fresh and hot with a bit of a zesty hint to it.  For our drinks, we had the ayr...

Majlis Al Sultan is a restaurant located in the Al Safa / Al Wasl area. They have free parking at the back side.  The ambience is nice and it felt like a good place as soon as we entered. Although it is not very big.  We started with the Oriental mezze . This consisted of hummus, moutabel, and pistachio labneh. The pistachio labneh was something different and nice. The hummus and moutabel were good too.  They have some interesting and refreshing drinks too. Then they prepared the avocado and halloumi salad in front of us. It certainly felt refreshing when served. It also had some rocca leaves, cherry tomato, sun dried tomato, beacon nuts, and dried fig.  We then had the cous cous salad . I'm a fan of cous cous and this looked really appealing. It had some griled vegetables, chick peas, and dried fig too, as well as chicken breast (can be removed for vegetarian variant). The chicken was a bit hard and lacked flavour. For the mains, there w...

I was recently invited by S hotel in Al Barsha to try out their newly launched dinner buffet. The recently started buffet is available on Thursdays, and the timings are from 7:30pm to 11pm and it is priced at AED 79. The buffet consists of a wide variety of Arabic dishes. A nice selection of cold starters like hummus, fattoush, moutabel, zaatar labneh balls, and lots more.  The hot starters were quite good. I especially liked the fattet hummus which had a nice flavour to it. The cheese sambosek were average though.  The cajun spiced roasted potato was nice and chunky.  For fish lovers, there's clob fried fish too which was pretty good.  A traditional famous Arabic appetiser is the kibbeh, although the one here was just average.  They had a nice selection of beverages too.  For the mains, I started with the lamb lubia saloma. It was my first time having this, and I had it along with rice. It has a very mild flavour to it, and wasn't ...

Grand cafe is located near Dubai mall just at the corner boulevard street at a lovely location. The place offers free valet parking too. They've recently launched their lunch buffet and they invited me to try it out.  It is reasonably priced at AED 65 without shisha, and AED 85 with shisha.  They have a good selection of items too. Beverages, salads, snacks, appetisers, mains, and desserts. For the beverages, they have jelleb and lemonade.  I really liked the mushroom soup here. It was creamy. There was also a chpice of lentil soup.  I really liked the tabbouleh and the eggplant walnut salad that they had. It was fresh and flavourful.  For the hot appetisers there was batata hara , sambosek , spinach fattayer , cheese rolls , and sfiha baalbakiyeh . These were good enough, but could have been better.  I also had the makanek there which I liked. The more traditional bbq choices like the kafta and taouk were a part of the...