The food in Dubai has been exceptional and being a foodie who likes to try new things it has been a great experience. The food has all been of Middle Eastern influence which is food I tend to enjoy most. I have struggled with the heat and this at the same time tends to suppress your appetite and I have found I have been drinking bottles of water to stay hydrated. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel I demolished 3 bottles of water which are readily available for you in the fridges provided by the taxis. Don't worry they charge enough as every ride somehow averages out at around $30-$50.
The hotel breakfast was your typical western type breakfast with a few additional items and what stood out was this honey comb sleeve/rack direct from a bee hive. This I had seen on how honey is produced, but never an entire rack for you to help yourself and the flavor was intense. You just cut a piece off with a knife and that piece goes directly onto your toast or bread. This morning a new rack was in situ so this is a new rack daily. The honey sis lightly thicker as it has the honey comb as well which was not chewy which I had imagined it to be. I was kind of feeling sorry for the bees as this would have taken mountains of work with pollen collecting just to be consumed for breakfast.
After having had a large breakfast you are not hungry due to wanting to drink water all the time due to the heat. In the evening most people tend to go out at 9pm with most restaurants closing at 3am. This is how people live here with many business opening at 10 am in the morning. Eat late, rise late due to the weather.
When you are sitting down in a restaurant and a menu that all looks foreign because it is all foreign the smells hit you as food is being delivered to tables around you. I was not sure if the dishes I had settled on made me look like a gluttonous pig or not as there were basically two mains and 3 sides with one of the sides being a 1.2 m ground juicy beef type thing called a Turkish Pide which is a filled flat bread. This flat bread was hand ground beef and not minced through a machine. This was outstanding and to be fair was a meal on it's own knowing granny eats like a mouse.
I also had a Lebanese meat platter (chicken, lamb chunks and then skewered lamb mince like you find on those long kebabs. Another two dishes were ordered with lamb and hummus and another dish for the nibbler with a mouse appetite being a lamb dish with pomegranate. Most of what was ordered was far too much and I finished everything besides the 1.2 m Pide dish. Not forgetting we had one of those large puffy flat breads that every table gets when dining.
This above photo is Knafeh which is a popular Arabic pudding. The main ingredient is Kadayif which is spun pastry dough and has a very fine texture like shredded wheat. This is soaked in a sweet sugar syrup called attar and then layered with cheese. This is baked for 30 minutes and then topped with crushed pistachios and a dollop of ice cream. I never had any as cheese is just not something I enjoy and only sampled the dough which was great. This was on granny's have to have list after watching food channels on Arabic food. I had no idea why we were waiting so long and only found out when it arrived it would take 30 minutes to prepare and bake and yes granny knew, but kept quiet. Apparently this was all she wanted for dinner and was saving space to eat this.
Overall this has been a great experience and loved the chicken and lamb dishes the best as hummus is acceptable as a salad in my mind. You can keep your lettuce and just give me hummus which is chick peas in a blender along with olive oil and some other bits like tahini I think.
There is a big difference to the food you find at home that is supposedly Middle Eastern and does not come close to the real stuff. I could eat this type of food a few times a week and never get bored of this as the flavors and spices are just so different.