Dubai Food Culture

Last weekend was to be the awards night for the World Luxury Hotel Awards our reason for going to Dubai in the first place.

So as that has been moved to South Africa and postponed till the 6th of December and we couldn't change our flights or accommodation bookings we had better make the best of the Arabic food culture.

So after a couple of fantastic days in the desert its been a eye opening look into Dubai food culture that is quite varied and unique. Being a nomadic Beddawin culture in the past and to me its look and tastes are loosely bases around Lebanese style of food. Hommus and mezze plates plays a big role and with many slow cooked meets mostly chicken and lamb with rice so a sort of a Indian/Arabic Birayani dish all eaten by hand.

The lamb Birayani that we had in the Beddawin tent ... yumm the rice was so fluffy, a perfect mix of moist saucy rice and the dryer plain rice combo just done to traditional perfection, the meat soooooo succulent, waiting on a recipe for that one, but it had cardamon, cumin, cloves and a perfect mix of Arabic spice.

We did two food tours in Dubai the first was a cultural lunch and the second was a night tour that took us into several parts of the city to experience Arabic food.
Traditionally Arabic coffee is served as you enter a Beddawin tent, a person home or a restaurant.
Arabic coffee is served in small handleless cups and is a coffee that uses raw beans, not roasted so its not a strong coffee. It is a refreshing spicy coffee that is drunk a lot just during the day also, it has been brewed with cardamon, clove and cinnamon and is a great pallet cleanser.
Another refreshing drink but this time cold is a small shooter glass of icy cold lemon/lime with a honey sugar syrup and mint. All processed in a blender and strained to make a sweet minty citrus drink SCRUMOOOOO. Especially on the hot days and as we were there at the end of their autumn and still being 40 deg days it was most welcome.

And final on drinks this time a milky drink a COLD yogurt and rose water smoothy I'm addicted and I just kept going back for more.
The highlight for us was the Persian food which was the last restaurant on the night with it depth of flavours and spice combinations. The wood fired flat breads with camel cheese and leaves of mint, holy basil (not an Italian basil it was sort of like a Thai Basil) and the soft lamb and veal kebabs served with hommus and a green chilly oil. Desert was a rosewater ice and mango ice cream a beautiful cool way to finish dinner.