A Blogliterati.com Blog

Last month we were invited to try out one of Dubai’s newest luxury ice cream concept – Rolling Cones at Hyatt Regency, Dubai Creek Heights.   Rolling Cones is a premium concept in soft serve ice cream conceptualized by, Sunaina Khanna Harisinghani and Prateek Shah. A first of its kind desert parlour Rolling cones offers extravagant ice cream and coffee concepts adorned with pure edible gold laced with delectable crunchies and sprinkles of gold dust.   Dubai never fails to amuse and exhilarate us with its incredible offerings. Rolling cones is one of the newest line of luxury dining places that completely bowled us over. Who doesn’t like to have their coffee or ice cream laced in pure gold, anyways! With exotic blends to choose from, Rolling Cones offers authentic taste and creamy texture of ice creams that bring new meaning to rich desserts. What we totally enjoyed and highly recommend on the menu is The Rolling Luxury and My Precious, a piece of art created ...

Situated right opposite to Spinneys in one of Karama’s popular food lanes is the Dhaba Lane restaurant – a new age Punjabi shack-style restaurant serving lip-smacking Punjabi and north Indian street food and snacks. The first thing that catches attention when you pass by that street are the colorful and funky store signs. As you step in, you are stunned by the life size replica of an Indian truck, which also serves as the cash counter and welcome podium of the restaurant.  Interesting props like milestones, traditional water jugs and mood lighting inside add that milieu of a traditional roadside shack where truckers stop for refreshments. The interiors are impressive, out of doubt and the fare is doubly so!  I was served with a Kajur Shot– a date flavored condensed milk drink. The drink in itself was quite tasty as an amuse bouche and the presentation was interesting as it came on a treasure box fuming with liquid nitrogen. This was followed by a glass of Santa...

I was recently invited to attend an iftar hosted by Claypot restaurant at Citymax hotel Bur Dubai. It was my first time at the restaurant in particular and hotel in general.  The iftar was pretty well organized and featured a delectable mix of Arabic and Indian buffet with a decent array of food choices including fresh salads, mutton biryani, a host of Indian breads, curries and desserts. The buffet also featured a wide variety of nuts, dates, dry fruits, and Turkish coffee. I went for Mutton Biryani and delicious butter chicken curry with fresh Indian breads that were served on our tables. The service was very good and the quality of food was excellent.   The biryani especially was very well prepared – Indian style and tasted scrumptious. There were kebabs, Indian samosas, Arabic falafel and also regional Indian specialties like the famous Punjabi fish preparation – Amritsari Machi. The salad and cold mezze selection was fresh and refreshing and featured Arabic spec...

Couple of weeks ago, me and my dining companion were invited to review Royal Jodhpur restaurant in Roda Al Murooj Hotel.  "Jodhpur" as it is otherwise called had been on our radar for a long time, so when an invite came from the hotels end, we gladly took it.  We went there on a weekend hoping to spend a lot of time in the restaurant's beautiful waterfront terrace. The interiors were definitely classic and featured polished tables, slick cutlery, imperial drapes and stately chandeliers - all quite in line with the "Royal" on the name. However the green wall paint actually intended to add regal authenticity to the precincts looked quite drab, to our liking. The terrace was beautiful, with pleasant breeze, gorgeous views of the Dubai skyline above and pristine waters below. The Fare Pre Starters In pre starters we were served with Jeera Khari puffs and   Macaron Chaat . Jeera Khari puffs The Jeera Khari puffs came seated on a miniature mesh-wire car ...

The Al Seef waterfront is suddenly becoming a beehive of activity. If you happen to visit on a weekend, you'll see hundreds of people shopping, eating, walking up and down the promenade or simply hanging out there. The stretch is becoming the Dubai Marina for those on this side of town. The 1.8 km long Al Seef waterfront is a new development from Meeras offering dining, retail, leisure, tourism attractions and a lot more.  According to the developers Al Seef has been designed to “bring to life the traditional Emirati culture that underpins Dubai’s iconic heritage”. The district consists of two main areas: A heritage area, inspired by old architecture in Dubai, and a more contemporary area featuring modern design elements.  We went there on a Friday evening and it felt like we were in a fiesta - live music performances, kids playing with balloons, vendors selling everything from handcrafted gifts to historic souvenirs of Dubai and people enjoying the far...

At Grecian Grill traditional herbal flavours amalgamate with modern cookery techniques to create a culinary experience of sorts. To me, all this while, Greek food simply meant Gyros and at times - the usual Greek salad. Nothing more. I wasn’t adventurous enough to walk into a Greek restaurant and try the fare there. I can perhaps attribute this hesitation to my difficulty in pronouncing Greek food names on the menu. Things changed for the better last week, when I was invited to be part of an exclusive focus group to try authentic Greek cuisine at Grecian Grill.  This intimate tasting session was organised by well-known food blogger and my good friend Suren Rajamohan on the behest of the restaurateurs Kyriakos and wife Yuli . Grecian Grill Restaurant in Dubai Marina promenade is owned and operated by this Greek couple, for who the restaurant is more than a business. Coming from a family that has been in the culinary profession for ages, starting a restaurant in...

Last month we were invited to review the newly relaunched Mahec By Satish Arora at Le Meridian Hotel on Airport road.  Mahec recently partnered with legendary Chef Satish Arora and has thus renamed itself from Mahec to Mahec by Satish Arora. Through this successful collaboration, Chef Arora is bringing on his culinary magic to the Middle eastern shores. About Chef Satish Arora Chef Satish Arora has cooked up legendary feasts for royalty, world leaders and celebrities for over five decades .  Over the course of his career, he has served and received generous admiration from esteemed guests such as Princess of Wales Diana, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, His Highness Prince Aga Khan IV, Queen Elizabeth, President Bill Clinton, Francois Mitterrand, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, boxing legend Mohammed Ali, musical maestro Zubin Mehta, and astronaut Neil Armstrong to name a few. About the food Chef Arora...

So you think South Indian food is just Idli Vada Sambhar?  Think again! There is a common perception or rather a misconception that South Indian food is all vegetarian with Idlis, Vada, Dosas and Sambhar being the primary food of the region. On the contrary South Indian food is as diverse and unique as fare from any other part of India and has a lot more to offer than what is commonly perceived. South Indians in UAE More than half of the expat Indian population in UAE come from the southern part of India. In fact the first wave of entrepreneurial Indian immigrants in UAE were originally from the state of Kerala in the south. Yet the cuisine from this region is grossly underrepresented in UAE. Multifarious cooking styles The region is vast and so are the flavors, cuisines and preparation styles. In Hyderabad, the capital of the state of Telangana, for instance, one could see an amalgam of Mughal, Turkish, and Arabic cuisine influences. The term “Hyderabadi cuisine...