I'm Not a Fiend

Yo Mama Wheat Noodles w/ Kimchi, Avocado & Fried Egg Recipe...

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:18:01 +0100

Yo Mama Wheat Noodles w/ Kimchi, Avocado & Fried Egg

Recipe post on request!

In Search of Filipino Joints in Dubai

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:36:00 +0100

We went on an adventure to Satwa - in search of a restaurant that turned out to not exist anymore. But you know us!!! We turned that disappointment into an opportunity!!

We wandered the busy streets on the verge of starvation and passing out after too long a day at work and too small a lunch (pattern of my life - opposite of my ideal). For some reason there’s plant shops everywhere and I find myself planning how to hook up some hanging baskets in the flat..?

First we settle on a little place with tables out on the street, hanging paper lanterns, and a tiny indoor area with just a TV, and a glass front fridge. This place was called ‘Kabayan’ which means country fellowman in Filipino, and worked perfectly with the atmosphere, and the constant stream of Filipinos filling up their plates.

We spot some sticky-looking chicken skewers. Sold. We’re staying. But wait, is that a microwave I just saw her stick the skewers in?? Less sold, but it’s too late. They come out looking like they’ve been dipped in a tub of Vaseline. I hate myself a bit for liking them. Maybe some sizzling sisig will make up for this.

Traditional sisig is made with finely chopped pig’s head (bear with me here). It’s boiled to get tender, the best parts (cheeks, ears, jowls, etc) are hacked up, fried till crispy, then made delicious by being mixed with liver (yes), onion, calamansi (a lime-like fruit), and vinegar, then topped with a raw egg. Obviously sizzling sisig was originally conceived as a way to make a tasty meal out of the uber-cheap leftover bits of pig.

This being Dubai however, the version we tried wasn’t pork. I think it was chicken. Like, 90% sure. 80% maybe. Whatever. It tasted pretty bombastic. Served on a hot stone plate, the bottom bits get all crispy, and the egg cooks into every nook and cranny as you eat it. I need to try the classic pork. Sisig my friend, we’ll be seeing more of you very soon.

Across the road, and we head into a second place, Mister Inasal, “Pinoy’s favourite chicken barbecue”, they claim. These guys had something called ‘crispy chicken skin’ on the menu. O M G. that might just be the most genius idea ever. However we were unfortunate in that they had run out by the time we got to the till - bummer.

They made up for this with some pretty major barbecued chicken wings (look at the char! The beautiful char!), accompanied by weirdly yellow rice and “beef soup” aka hot stock in a bowl. You had to go through the “Party Hall” to get to the bathrooms, which at the time had some kind of Jesus rock party going on. Kamal was weirded out, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how you look at it), I’ve experienced many a Jesus rock party (really it was just a church service) in my life, so was totes unfazed. It was the first time I’ve seen one in the party hall of a chicken restaurant though.

We stumbled out of Mr Inasal, bloated with meats, and our eyes were drawn immediately upwards to the shimmering beacon of Salt ‘n’ Pepper. Hmm maybe we did have room for a little dessert as well. Halo Halo, as well as being a really great band, is a colourful dessert of endless surprises. The gift that keeps on giving, as you eat Halo Halo, each bite brings something new to the table.

Flan, shaved ice, jelly, ice-cream, red beans, tapioca, caramelized yams, plantains, or sweet potato, something coconut flavoured and chewy, evaporated milk poured over it all. It’s a party of textures, with enough sugar to erode your teeth to the gums. A fucked up version of jelly and ice-cream, on acid. I don’t know if I hate it or love it, but it was a suitably confusing end to the night.

Even though these three places we visited had merit, we know our journey isn’t over. For sure there’s more and better out there, and we’re going to find it. Part 2 of the search for great Filipino eats coming soon…

Soyster Wings & Papaya Salad

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:13:00 +0100

These are the wings that dreams are made of. We deep-fried them to crispy heaven, then tossed them in a slick, glossy sauce made from slowly simmering oyster and soy sauce, white vinegar, garlic and a little hot sauce. A sprinkling of freshly toasted sesame seeds and sliced spring onion, and the masterpiece is complete. They’re so beautiful, you can’t look directly at them for too long. They’re like the sun, man. You’ll go blind.

We’ve kind of always had this dream of opening up a chicken wing shack one day… We’d sell wings so flavourful, you’d collapse on the floor just from just a whiff of them! I already came up with the really hilarious punny name for these wings on the menu - Soyster Wings!! Investors: come at us bro, let’s make this happen!

To accompany these wings we simply THREW together a papaya salad (it took me about an hour). This was made with partly-crushed peanuts, an unripe papaya - half grated, half finely sliced (so you get the crunch and sour flavour, and the dressing still absorbed into the little slivers), a fluffy mountain of fresh coriander, spring onions cut into long shards, thinly sliced tomato, all tossed in a ridiculously hot and sour dressing of oyser sauce, lime juice, white vinegar, soy sauce, and most importantly - a dangerous amount of chilli.

Dar Al Sulh Part 2

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:50:00 +0100

We headed back to Dar Al Sulh a record four more times before it closed - earning ourselves the honorary (and imaginary) title of Most Dedicated Guests. Amba salad never left our plates (and always in our hearts), along came meatballs stuffed with amba, vegetables stuffed with spicy rice, eggy cheesy pastries, chicken patties, a lime and spring onion salad, fried fish, dolmas, and more amba salad.

One thing I didn’t mention in the previous post is the film that was playing on loop throughout the week. ‘Tuning Baghdad’, a project by curataor Regine Basha, looked at the music of the Iraqi Jews, another dying tradition. The sounds we heard were incredible: being huge fans of the label Sublime Frequencies, who often seek out these kinds of traditional music, these songs had a lovely similar vibe to them. The idea that these sounds are long forgotten made for a unique soundtrack for our evenings with an atmospheric selection of clips of musicians playing folk songs from the region. All of these clips and more can be found in the collective archive on www.tuningbaghdad.net. Stay tuned for a guest post from Regine coming up very soon!

Taking down the Market of Everything at the end of the week - and the end of Traffic!

There was a lot of love in the room.

The Saturday night was packed! They were pulling tables and chairs out of their arses to get everyone seated.

GODDAMN. These stuffed peppers, onions, courgettes and aubergines were incredible, possibly my favourite dish of the week.

We’ll miss you Dar Al Sulh!

Jambalaya

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:34:00 +0100

I got the recipe for the first jambalaya I made from that well known Creole cooking expert, Delia Smith. I was about 17, and so damn proud of myself that it became my go-to “swanky dish” when I wanted to impress. Thus I made it for Kamal within a couple of weeks of us meeting, and reader, he was mine.

Jambalaya’s appeal lies in its volume - usually made in massive comforting vats, its texture - squoodgy enough to eat your mountain with just a spoon, and its flavour - the hum of spicy sausage fat tingles through the whole thing.

Chop everything up first, and this is a really easy way to make everyone love you and think you’re great. This much will feed a lot of people, or just a few people getting carried away. As you can see none of the amounts are too exact, with jambalaya you can just work with what you’ve got.

Ingredients

1 chorizo ring, chopped into thick slices (you don’t have to use this much. I just LOVE IT)
4-5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped into bitesize chunks (don’t event think about using breast, you absolute moron)
1 large onion, sliced
2-3 sticks of celery, sliced
1-2 yellow or red peppers, sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 green chilli, finely chopped
3 large tomatoes, diced (you could faff around briefly boiling then removing the skins, but I’ve never found this to be worth the effort)
2 pints hot chicken stock
1-2 mugs of rice
Tabasco
Paprika
Fresh parsley, chives or coriander
Spring onion and yogurt to serve (optional)

Method

Get the biggest, deepest pan you can find, with a lid. Fry the chorizo pieces on a medium heat, without oil, for a couples of minutes till just browned and crispy, then remove from the pan.
Add some oil to the pan, which should still have that beautiful melted chorizo fat in it, then brown the chicken pieces for a few minutes. Remove the chicken and set aside with the chorizo.
Next fry the onions till they soften up, then add the pepper, celery, garlic and chilli, and cook it all for about 3 minutes (seasoning with salt, pepper and paprika).
Return the chicken and chorizo to the pan, at the same time putting in the chopped tomatoes and the rice. Give it all a good mix to distribute the rice, pour in the chicken stock, and mix it all again. Everything should be well covered by the stock.
Put in as much Tabasco as you like - in my case, a lot. Have never understood why the standard bottles are so petite, gimme MORE.
Turn the heat down to a low simmer, cover the pan, and leave 15 minutes before checking on it. At this stage stir the jambalaya, taste the rice, and decide if it’s going to need any more water for the next 5 or so minutes of cooking (it usually needs a bit).
Get your bowls ready, slice spring onions and put out yogurt if you want it. Sprinkle over the spring onions and fresh herbs, and your vat of jambalaya is complete.

King Koshari, Dubai Marina

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:43:00 +0100

Apart from the neon-lit tourist restaurants that line the Walk, Dubai Marina isn’t an area that has much to offer food-wise. It is a shame - the waterside location has the potential to be lovely, but instead feels like any other characterless “strip” in a tacky holiday spot (minus the alcohol, of course). A little more upmarket than Kos. But not much.

However, just around a couple of corners from Marina Walk you’ll find King Koshari, a little Egyptian fast food place I’ve mentioned previously here. Koshari is a dish that’s hugely popular in Egypt, usually from street vendors, and it’s a carb-lover’s dream.

Consisting of a heavy combination of macaroni, spaghetti, rice, lentils, vermicelli, chickpeas, and crispy fried onions, topped with a spicy tomato sauce and some garlic vinegar, don’t even think about heading to King Koshari unless you’ve got some hardcore appetite on the go.

And don’t get all squeamish about this bizarre mish-mash of ingredients - it’s seriously tasty. When I’m feeling ravenous (which is most of the time), nothing beats stuffing my face with Koshari until my belly is about to explode. It’s just SO satisfying. And did I mention cheap? A massive tub that you’ll struggle to finish will set you back a measly 12 dhs. We always ask to double up on the sauces, but I’m sure you knew that.

King Koshari has got some pretty Western fast food joint-style branding going on, and the inside (which is weirdly always empty) is for some reason designed to look like a road. You sit on benches on the “pavement”, next to a lamp post, while the obligatory flat screen TV plays some terrible music channel. Still kind of tacky, but this time with character.

Dar Al Sulh

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:06:00 +0100

‘You are eating a dying language from the plate of a ghost.’

Last night was something special. We had booked places for the opening night of Dar Al Sulh - a pop-up Iraqi-Jewish restaurant organised by The Moving Museum in collaboration with artist Michael Rakowitz, taking place at Traffic. This pop-up is the first time Iraqi-Jewish food has been served in a restaurant in the Middle East in decades, and was a celebration of an almost forgotten cuisine and culture.

The Arab Jew was a completely new concept to me. I grew up in a village called Ashtead in Surrey, which is, you know, a fairly white place to live… My history lessons consisted of World War 1, World War 2, and… oh yeah, that was it. Since moving to London, and now moving to Dubai, my eyes have been opened to a world of culture so vibrant and varied that it’s hard to remember a little place like Ashtead exists back there.

But still - was I aware of the exodus of Iraqi Jews (and other Jews across the Arab world) out of Baghdad in the 1940s? No. Did I have a clue that this diaspora was related to the establishment of the state of Israel? No.

So the fact that Dar Al Sulh is the first restaurant in the Arab world to serve the cuisine of the Iraqi Jews since this displacement was exciting, I could sense the momentousness of it despite my relative ignorance. I always feel that the best entry into learning about a culture is through the food, therefore it was a huge honour that this occasion served as my introduction.

Dar Al Sulh - meaning Doman of Conciliation - refers to lands where Muslims and non-Muslims have made a formal agreement to allow freedom of religion, and to live together in peace. The ingenuity of conceptual artist Michael Rakowitz (himself identifying as an Arab Jew) conceived the idea of a seven day pop-up restaurant in Dubai (where so many Muslims and non-Muslims live side by side), working with The Moving Museum’s Aya Mousawi and Simon Sakhai to bring this vision to life.

It’s all taking place at Traffic, an awesome multi-functional creative space in Dubai that we’d been meaning to visit for months. Finally, we made it down there last night, only to hear that it’s closing in a couple of weeks! This sense of bittersweet final hurrah, combined with the sense of this being something unprecedented in Dubai, made for an extraordinary atmosphere of communal anticipation.

Before the food was served, we had a quick look around the Market of Everything, which is running at Traffic until May 4. I briefly lost my shit at the wonderful sight of actual second hand clothes for sale in Dubai, and bought a brilliantly garish shirt from Vintage Souq’s stall, which is well worth a peek. Then we snuck into the little kitchen where the feast was concocted - I don’t know how they made a meal for 50 in here!

Michael and his handiwork.

It seems a cat always sneaks into the scene wherever we eat these days - streetside restaurants, kebab shops, art galleries…

What’s being served over the seven dinners are Michael’s Iraqi-Jewish grandmother’s recipes, which in his own words, ‘represent something of an endangered species’. Exploring the different ways to tickle the tastebuds, each night is themed either bitter, sour, salty, sweet, or umami. Last night, we had Sweet.

The meal started with dates. This represented the Iraqi tradition of placing a date in the mouth of a newborn baby, so the first thing it tastes is sweetness, and for us, it was the first sweet taste of a beautiful meal.

Huge bowls of Kubba Qari’yi were placed among us - a delicious, comforting stew of meatballs, dumplings stuffed with mini-meatballs, and squash in a sweet, spicy, tangy tomato sauce. This was accompanied by Sambusak b’Tawa - crispy, savoury turnover pastries, filled with chickpeas and spices, rice, the tangiest hummus in town, and Amba Salad.

The salad - while served in beautiful traditional metal bowls, smuggled out of Iraq by Jewish families in the 40s - looked innocent enough. Just a standard chopped salad, we thought? Wrong! This salad was made with amba, a mango pickle condiment that is popular in Iraq and India, and this transformed it into the sweetest, tangiest salad to ever grace my mouth (you’ll notice I’m using the words sweet and tangy a lot). It was incredible. I must find some amba immediately, and add it to everything I eat. This is urgent!

The meal ended with some fresh fruits, which after filling up on meatballs and dumplings, was about all I could handle. The communal act of sharing these new and foreign foods with friends and strangers was an experience we won’t be forgetting anytime soon. Emiratis and an English girl, people from all over the globe, humbled and equalized by sharing a traditional meal. Looking to move forward by celebrating the past. It’s rare to find something so genuine and unique in Dubai, so I’m grateful I had the opportunity to be there.

Xinjiang Style Lamb Chops

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:36:04 +0100

Feeling inspired by the cuisine of the Xinjiang region of China - which has held a fascinating, mysterious allure over us since our countless trips to Silk Road in London - these wonderful lamb chops were conceived. The style of cooking feels sort of ancient; hand made belt noodles, meat on a stick grilled on an open flame, or in this case lamb chops, which always feel vaguely caveman-like to me. So obviously, roasting these lamb chops on a flaming hot barbecue would have been ideal (I’m drooling at the thought), but since we’re currently living on the floor on Kamal’s sister’s studio flat, this ain’t happening anytime soon.

We marinated the lamb chops in oyster sauce, soy sauce, spicy chilli bean paste, garlic and lime juice, grilled them on our lukewarm hob till finally sizzling and crispy, then sprinkled a coating of toasted sesame and cumin seeds all over those juicy mamas. This final addition totally transformed the flavour, bringing a kind of dusky nuttiness into the sweet equation. The leftover marinade we heated up, and drizzled all over as a sauce.

These lamb chops were amazing - sweet and sticky - with the marinade turning into a glossy glaze, and the salty fat bits - ohhh the salty fatty bits. If you haven’t sucked on the fat of a lamb chop, you haven’t lived.

In a probably not very Xinjiang move, we made a slaw to accompany the chops. Red cabbage, carrot, and red onion were dressed in oyster sauce, garlic, lots of lime juice, vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, toasted sesame seeds, and chopped fresh coriander keeping it fresh. With a lot of the same ingredients mirrored in this dressing from the lamb chops marinade, the slaw was the perfect crunchy, zingy counterpart.

We made this for dinner two nights in a row - IT’S THAT GOOD, GUYS.

Dubai So Far

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:09:00 +0100

Ah Dubai, this place we now inhabit is best described as indescribable. Never have I lived in or visited a city that I have garnered such mixed feelings towards; a place of contradictions, of mystery and of beauty. It’s hard to explain the mass juxtaposition that Dubai presents, on one side you have this completely modern city, filled with luxuries, tourists and general stuff we’re not into. But then you have the other side of Dubai, the ‘old’ side as people like to call it, which is a complete time warp of what the country used to be. It’s where a big mix of ethnic groups live and as a result, where the best food is. We’ve been living here a mere 3 months now and if theres anything we’ve learnt, it’s that you really can’t judge Dubai as a city, or a place to live or talk about until you’ve delved into all it has to offer.

Heres a few photos we’ve collected from our adventures here so far, it’s been a good journey, but we still have a lot to do, a lot to see and most importantly a lot to eat!

Words by Kamal

Calicut Paragon, Karama

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:10:00 +0100

In Karama, where everyone’s your ‘friend’ and wants to sell you a watch, there are endless streets and corridors of shops and market stalls, all desperate to sell us sunglasses! Handbags! Watches! Hey you need a handbag, we got designer handbags, imitation handbags, lots of lovely handbags.

We’ve been to the area a few times lately, while our friend Karthik (an Indian, visiting from London, who spent many of his childhood and teenage years growing up in Dubai, among other places… a typically long-winded backstory, as with most people in this city) has been showing us around some pretty excellent places to eat.

On our way to Calicut Paragon, a guy targeted us the second we left the metro “Hey you guys looking for Karama market? I’ll show you where to go…” then Kamal realised what this guy was up to… “Hey you don’t sell watches, do you!?” “Yes my friend, watches, handbags, sunglasses!” Our friendly guide had less than honest motives for directing us to our restaurant (which turned out to be a long, sweaty walk away from his shop anyway).

Calicut Paragon sits in a square overlooking a park, surrounded by other Indian restaurants. Each seems to have its own speciality - Aappa Kadai next door is known for their aappams (coming up soon on the blog), Calicut Paragon is where you go for some tasty seafood treats from the Malabar region of India, while on the other side you’ll see a vegetarian restaurant. We’ll skip that one for now then. So while they all stand side by side, they’re not exactly competing directly, but more harmoniously co-existing pieces of a puzzle.

After freshening up with some lassis, obviously we went for the crab, on the menu as ‘Dry Fry Crab’. These babies were hacked up, spicy, salty and fried to a crisp, with tons of crunchy marinade clinging to the shells like a batter. This stuff was gold dust to me. A nut-cracker was provided to aid crab-destroying, but this was hard work. I found myself vaguely putting the whole leg in my mouth to soak up that awesome flavour, while Kamal shamelessly ate the shell. Are we gross? I’m beyond caring.

The prawn mango curry had a little sweet, tropical hint to the yellow sauce from the tangy mango. I always thought I didn’t like mangoes… but lately I keep catching myself enjoying that exotic, golden flavour like no tomorrow… I’m beginning to realise that what I don’t like are the mangoes in England. I just didn’t know there was a whole other world of mangoes out there!! Anyway this was a beautiful, fresh, vibrant curry. We were all in love with it, though they could have been more generous with the actual prawns.

With any curry feast you need something to sop up all the juices and sauces - here at Calicut Paragon we had Kerala parotta. These floppy, flaky flatbreads were perfect for ripping up into shreds, operating simultaneously like sponges for the sauces, and gloves for scooping up meats.

But it ain’t over yet! We also had Calicut’s ‘Special chicken curry’, with soft chicken cooked on the bone, and a milder, smooth brown sauce. At first it seemed kind of innocuous, the shy dish of the bunch, and then, out of nowhere, I found myself just DYING over it. This was a ‘special’ chicken curry all right. There was something intangibly rich and satisfying about it. I couldn’t stop putting my parotta in it. And that’s not a double entendre.

Just in case we were still a little peckish, one more dish - kingfish with coconut, masala spices, onion, and pepper, wrapped in banana leaf and pan-fried all together. Woah. This magic parcel of delights was the best of the best, creme de la creme etc, etc. The bottom of the fish crusted up nicely from the frying, while it all had that utter lucious moistness from the steaming effect of being enclosed in the banana leaf - what a double whammy.

The one thing I’ve noticed in of a lot of these restaurants is the lack of decorations. Bare to the bone, institutional decor rules all, and apart from the usual sheikh portraits and singular pot of flowers, there is rarely art, historical references or any imagery of the culture. I guess it’s all about the food (and this was some wimper-worthy, last-meal-on-death-row quality food) - but what’s with all the hair nets on the waiters?

Bulgogi Chicken with Smacked Cucumber Salad

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:36:00 +0100

So there’s going to be a few posts now featuring stash from our Korean supermarket sweep. We’re just too excited about it all!

Bulgogi is a popular Korean marinade for meats, usually consisting of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sugar, and pepper. It’s spicy and fruity, and our addition of honey made this chicken dish sticky and extra sweet. But fear not… all that tongue-cloying sweetness was kept in check by a) the spiciness, and b) the mixed grains we cooked to have on the side. I’m not totally sure what all the grains are (but the packet looked great! trust me!), but glutinous rice, lentils, and some kind of beans were involved in the textured, nutty combination.

As well as this we made a Chinese smacked cucumber salad, dressed in a ton of garlic, toasted sesame seeds, chilli bean paste, soy sauce, vinegar, and olive oil. This is a dish I’ve tried at a few Chinese places, and always wondered - do they really smack the cucumbers? Why is it called that?? How would you even smack a cucumber??!

A little googling, and we found out that yes, you really DO smack the cucumbers. Apparently it loosens the flesh, helping it soak up that silky dressing. But we still didn’t know HOW to smack the cucumber. So this is what I did:

I smacked the shit out of those things! Smacked them till they broke! I guess it worked, because it tasted amazing. Let’s not lie - any dish with this amount of garlic (there’s four raw cloves in that bowl) is always going to please ol’ stinky breath here. But the sesame seeds are totally necessary here to cut through it with some more nuttiness, and the chilli bean paste was our own addition, giving a fiery twist.

Fusion meals are something that trouble me. Here we had a Korean meal with a Chinese salad on the side, and at first I had a bit of an existential crisis about it - who am I to do this? Is this allowed?What is the line?? What does this mean???!! But in the end, if something tastes good with another thing, and you keep both sides authentic, then it can’t be so wrong. So that means NO to covering bulgogi chicken in cheese and turning it into a burrito (although that does sound weirdly good now…), but YES to pairing bulgogi chicken with a complementary Chinese salad.

And in this case, the two dishes had a bunch of the same base ingredients - soy sauce, sesame, garlic - which just goes to show that no country’s cuisine is an island.

Good Finds in Dubai Supermarkets

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:46:00 +0100

Dubai as we know it has a tendency to be hit and miss when it comes to finding good supermarkets. All these imported goods - most of which strangely coming from the UK, makes it quite an expensive city to cook in. We’ve heard from long-term residents that many people here don’t even cook, and prefer to eat out every night as it’s both cheaper and less time consuming to do so. That being said, there are so many different cultures present in Dubai that theres gotta be a ton of interesting stuff out there that you just have to search for. Heres some recent good finds…

Yes we are vain and went for the best-packaged looking goods we found, but hey! they all tasted great - everyone wins!

Words by Kamal

Kamal's Mum's Kebabs

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 19:59:00 +0100

Kamal’s mom’s Turkish barbecued kebab patties have always been infamous among all who have eaten at the Rasools’ house. She’s always being told to start her own little business, a kebab shack selling these hot, spicy mommas to the public! I always look forward to eating these when we’re in Bahrain.

The recipe was passed on to her from her own mother, and the chain is probably even older, going back through the generations. This is traditional kebab – not the manufactured meat you get in grubby kebab shops in the UK – this is a whole new league.

Combining a smooth mixture of lamb and beef mince with onion, breadcrumbs, and a secret blend of kofte spices, she shapes this into little round patties. The specific recipe is of course top secret classified information - hidden in the highest mountains of Istanbul, so they say.

The patties are barbecued along with tomatoes and chillis, everything charred to perfection and oozing with delicious fat and flavor. What you do is grab some khobez (flatbread), put your kebab on, add some sumac-sprinkled onion, maybe a little eggy rice, a drizzle of tahini sauce, wrap it up… and BAMMM!!! That is some goddamn good food.

You won’t believe how juicy these babies are, and the pairing of beef and lamb together - beautiful. They’re all smokey from the barbecue, with just enough spice and onion tang to give them a really addictive flavour. The tahini sauce we used was Kamal’s Flamingoods sauce, making this even more of a family affair.

Ravi, Satwa

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0100

Ravi is a Pakistani restaurant with cult status. It’s been in Dubai since 1978, and much like Bu Qtair, everyone has heard of it and everyone recommends it. They’ve got five branches now, but the one we went to in Satwa - so they say - is the original and the best.

Satwa is one of those nice bits of Dubai where the streets have pavements, there’s loads of people walking on them, it’s noisy and bustly, and the buildings have actually been there a bit longer than ten years.

We smelt Ravi before we saw it - the aromas of spicy sauces and meats wafting out of the open kitchen onto the street, tempting us closer, mouths watering. Looking through the windows to the kitchen, we saw countless cauldrons of curry bubbling, being stirred by a guy casually sitting over them on an elevated chair. Seriously, he was sitting on this thing like it was a throne. Another guy was tending to the skewered chickens, someone else was pushing some minced meat around on a big flat griddle.

Round the corner, two guys on bread duty (traditional clay oven, what else?), and about 20 more vats of blip-blopping curries, being watched over by this guy.

Kamal thinks he looks like Ghostface Killah from Wu Tang Clan?! Or maybe Ghostface Killah’s dad. You might think he’s stirring that pan, but look again. He’s actually holding it with a spanner. And how many people work in this place anyway?! It seemed like there was a different person allocated a station for every dish on the menu - whether that meant they were specialists or not, remained to be seen.

The outdoor seating area is planted in the middle of the wide pavement, so the atmosphere and people-watching is unbeatable. It’s packed with a real mixture of people, tourists who have clearly been given the tip, and residents who have been coming to this establishment from the start. The indoors has that typical white-tiled, neon-lit kitchen sink look going on, as seen in New Abul Grill, and a few thousand other places.

The menu in Ravi is pretty unhelpful - in a place like this it’s best to talk to your waiter about what kind of thing you’re after, and they’ll help you order. Although we did end up with some kind of weird creamy, almost cheesy veg dish this way (I don’t even know WHAT was going on there, it was kind of like a potato salad curry), everything else was delicious.

We went for butter chicken, mutton chops, chicken tandoori, mutton peshawari (soo tender!), paneer spinach curry, lots of daal, chicken tikka, and the best of all - chicken handi. Unusually everything was fairly mild, someone had been a bit shy with the spices that night it seemed. The mutton peshawari was more a gently herby stew, while the chicken tandoori lacked that deep red spicy crust, seeping into the flesh that you would see from a lengthy marinade. Despite this it was cooked beautifully! Fresh from the charcoal grill, it was crispy, smokey and tender to the bone!

The daal, paneer spinach, and chicken tikka, all tasted lovely and nice and everything - but something rich and hot was lacking! The chicken handi was the only dish with a bit more punch (chilli was present), and was great for dunking the endless stream of bread in.

We’ve read online from quite a few different sources that Ravi is inconsistent - that the chefs change over everyday and that the quality is varied. From the hype we were given, and the army we saw in the kitchen, it’s not hard to believe this. Although it was all fine, and we got a ton of food for pleasing prices, it definitely didn’t blow our minds from the one experience we had.

Maybe we need to give them a second shot! I am totally willing to undertake that task.

Yakiniku Beef Noodles

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 19:13:00 +0100

Supermarkets in Dubai - as a generalisation - suck. Gone are my days of lingering lustfully in the aisles of Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, throwing half my wages away. Both these supermarkets exist here, but in such an empty, sad, soulless form, with disappointing stock at extortionate prices.

This pathetic situation lead to us spiralling down a cooking rut. We felt uninspired and out of ideas for too long…. UNTIL NOW.

Last week Kamal had the genius idea of looking for an Asian supermarket online - a couple of hours later we were in 1004 Korean Supermarket in Barsha, losing our shit. Something about kids in a sweetshop would be an understatement. So many sauces! Spices! A whole fridge of kimchi! Unidentifiable dried foods! Noodles, grains, rices, in countless varieties. A million things that we didn’t know, but that looked goddamn delicious.

I wanted to buy the whole store. Above is what our funds allowed us to buy though, and the beef belly, below.

The beef belly might look like bacon, but it wasn’t. It was easier to prepare and cook, than getting some steak, being already finely sliced, and despite being fattier, it tasted lighter.

The first dinner we made with our loot was sliced beef belly cooked in yakiniku sauce (a sweet and spicy soy and mirin rice wine based marinade), with buckwheat noodles, a dollop of red pepper bean paste, and a whole load of bonito-seaweed flakes and kimchi on top to add a hot, fishy kick! What a bonanza of taste this was.

Can I talk for a second about how much I love kimchi???? That fermented, sloppy, hot, red pile of cabbage is just so much more delicious than anything should be allowed to be. Kimchi makes everything taste better. Kimchi makes life taste better.

This whole dish came together as a melange of flavours living in harmony - salty and sweet, but not too sweet. Just enough spice, just enough fishy tang, a little crunch from the kimchi. The buckwheat noodles had a more full-bodied, subtly nutty flavour that was a really nice undertone to all the madness going on all over them.

We even had enough leftover for me to take a packed lunch to work the next day. Hooray!

The Carton No. 5 Issue Launch

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:18:00 +0100

We recently discovered an awesome food magazine based out of Beirut, called The Carton. It’s an independently run endeavour, full of beautifully laid-out illustrations and photography, alongside some really smart articles.

It always teaches me something new, and introduces some unknown aspect of food culture to me. For example, I wouldn’t know about King Koshari, the best goddamn Egyptian fast food in TOWN, were it not for The Carton (Koshari is a mixture of rice, lentils, macaroni, spagetti, chickpeas, spicy tomato sauce and garlic vinegar. It shouldn’t work, but it REALLY REALLY does).

Excitingly enough, the girls from The Carton launched their new issue at Kamal’s work, The Magazine Shop, a couple of nights back! They brought along a whole smorgasbord of Middle Eastern sweet treats for everyone to try - think lots of dates, pistachios, olive oil, sesame seeds, sticky honey, and you get the idea. Shout out to the sesame seed biscuit topped with peanut butter and something similar to candy floss (third photo down). You were delicious.

As well as this they launched their drink collaboration with The Magazine Shop - introducing a cold drip coffee with a shaving of tangerine, called The Carton Java - refreshing with a major kick! Yummy and great night all round. Can’t wait to read the issue!

Shebla Cafeteria, Bur Dubai

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 07:17:00 +0100

Eating a meal on a wobbly plastic stool, on the side of a dusty road in the souq, is the kind of experience that makes me happy I’m in the Middle East. There’s a thousand places like Shebla Cafeteria, selling a hugely varied menu, some of which looks a bit dubious. You can only assume most people ignore all that and stick to the shawarmas.

We were lucky on this day to be walking past early enough to catch a rare sight - a freshly piled up, raw shawarma. Layer upon layer of fat pieces of chicken breast, all slathered in a bright orange marinade. We were witnessing the birth of a shawarma! Doesn’t it look beautiful? This was nothing like the processed log of “meat” you usually come across in the UK. The freshest shawarma these eyes ever seen!

An hour of wandering through the souq, fending off pleas to buy pashminas later, we came back, and it was ready for a shaving. The unusual thing about the shawarma at Shebla is that they used masala spices, vinegar, garlic and capsicum for the marinade, putting a delicious Indian twist on a classic Middle Eastern street food. I love it!

Each shawarma was a mere four dirhams, meaning for the equivalent of £5 we could happily fill ourselves up with three shawarmas and a sweet pomegranate juice each! Before you get any ideas about our appalling greed, most shawarmas here, like these ones, are pretty small. The little pittas come stuffed with chopped up chicken, salad, and, as per our request, a gallon of garlic tahini sauce.

And YES, it tasted just as good as it looks. The spices gave the meat a hint of the smokey greatness of tandoori chicken, combined with the fresh salad, and the tang of creamy garlic tahini sauce (the invention of this sauce is one of the world’s greatest achievements) made for a shawarma worth going back for next time we’re in Bur Dubai.

Char Siu Tofu Noodles

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:14:58 +0000

Tofu - for when you can’t afford real meat. I avoid plain tofu like the plague, but this ready-fried char siu was pretty damn good. Sure, I would have preferred pork belly, but when is that not the case? We mixed the cooked noodles and chopped tofu in a char siu barbecue sauce (just can’t get enough char siu, baby) for a really quick, easy meal.

I’ve been realising that to make a standard noodle stir-fry dish interesting, it’s ALL about the toppings. Here we put crushed cashew nuts, sliced spring onions, and a ton of coriander - had we mixed all of this in while cooking, the crunchy textures of the nuts and the fresh flavours of the spring onions and coriander would have got lost in all the gloop.

Instead they’re the first thing that hits your eyes and your mouth and your teeth and your tastebuds. And that’s wassup!

Crab Quesadillas

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:45:43 +0000

Aahhhh crab. You wonderful and complicated thing. I love you. Any recipe involving fresh crab is going to be kind of a long, arduous process. But it is sooooo so so worth it. Crab is my favourite shellfish, it has that rich, luxurious, salty sort of flavour that goes so well with cheese, you don’t need to add loads of it to each quesadilla to make them taste great. And you know what that means - more quesadillas. Fresh red onion, peppers and chives cut through all that creamy richness, adding a subtle, tart, tangy crunch.

In this post on Crab Spaghetti I gave instructions for cooking the crabs then getting the meat out of the shell so check that out.

Once the meat was extracted (keeping the roe in, ALWAYS keeping the roe in), we dressed it in lemon, garlic, chives and chilli. Fresh chopped coriander would also work perfectly here to lend a little Mexicana, but I love the oniony vibe of chives.

With a ton of cheese and a sprinkling of diced red onion and red pepper, lay it all out with a helping of the marinated crab on one half of a tortilla, then fold it over and slice into triangles. We used some pretty tasty corn wraps, which were square shaped - you can get square shaped tortillas anywhere these days, and they’re so much easier for old clumsy hands here to deal with.

All you need to do is heat up a pan (dry) and put the quesadillas in for a couple of minutes on each side, squishing it down a little so the cheese oozes and welds everything together. Easy! Except the original crab process. Don’t use tinned crab, you might as well use tuna if you’re stooping that low. Come on now guys!

Bu Qtair, Dubai

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Long before Dubai was but a twinkle in my eye, I watched an episode of No Reservations in which Anthony Bourdain visited the city. Yes, I am obsessed with that show. And yes, it is my cultural reference point for far too many things. I should probably be embarrassed.

Anyway, while Bourdain’s disdain for Dubai was palpable, and hardly enticed me to visit, there was one part that made me want to charter a private jet over to the Gulf immediately - an Indian fish shack by the name of Bu Qtair.

Luckily for me, even if I weren’t a loser who followed Bourdain religiously, I would have eventually made it to the fish mecca anyway - turns out it’s something of a Dubai institution. As soon as anyone I meet hears that I “like food”, they get all gushy about the best seafood place in Dubai - and it’s always Bu Qtair they’re talking about.

Located on a dusty street ironically close to the sheeny-shiny Burj Al Arab, as you arrive it’s not totally clear what to do - lurk around the tables, strewn randomly across the bumpy front yard? Perch on a wobbly plastic patio chair and wait? Venture into the portakabin which contains the kitchen? Turns out you go for the last option.

Once inside, you place your order through a window direct to the kitchen - we spoke to a guy while he was slapping whole marinated hammour after hammour onto a mountain of fish. What a sight to behold! Coupled with the pervasive smell of the spices in the air, and the ever-present and varied queue of Asians, expats and Arabs, you could see already why this unique eatery is so popular. The atmosphere is alive, which is so rare in a city that can often feel soulless.

The menu depends on what fish has been caught that day; these fish literally go from the sea to the marinade to the frying pan in a matter of hours. We ordered 1kg of prawns, as well as 2 pleasingly massive hammour, between 5 people.

No matter what you order, it’s all smothered in a red spicy masala paste that can only be described as DIVINE. Coriander, turmeric, chili and cumin were all involved - but apparently the only people who know the whole sacred recipe are the two brothers who own the place. Not even the guys who cook the fish know what’s in it. When deep-fried - everything’s deep-fried - this paste turns into a gloriously sticky, crunchy coating, clinging to the charred fish skin and curled-up juicy prawns.

Here’s a warning for dumb people - don’t wear anything nice to Bu Qtair. Tie your hair up. Don’t bother doing your make-up. Wash your hands first. And leave your vanity at home. You’re going to get messy! But that’s the best thing about it. Sometimes knifes and forks really just hold you back. Plus it gets pretty spicy - likelihood is your nose will stream non-stop. No big deal.

This all comes with big bowls of soupy red fish curry sauce, and piles of paratha, a soft, slightly chewy, pan-fried Indian flatbread. Dunking everything in this coconutty gravy is essential - it’s slighter milder than the marinade, but matches it perfectly. Can you imagine anything better ripping up a fat, juicy, crispy fish with your bare hands and smothering it in a spicy curry sauce? Can you?? If you think you can, you’re wrong.

Imagine enjoying this outdoors, surrounded by happy people doing the same, children running around, cute little skinny stray cats darting through every now and then, and little salty sea breeze in the air. I really couldn’t have been happier.

The lack of fixed menu means they tend to make up the price on the spot, and rumour has it there are different prices depending on where you’re from. Western expats for example, you’re going to get a slightly higher price. But to be honest, why should we care? It’s still around a third of a price of the same amount of fish in any of Dubai’s fancy seafood restaurants, and around 100 times more fun.

Bu Qtair, 4 D Street, Jumeirah, Dubai