The finest Lebanese food in Abudhabi

I decided to cruise around ADH in my car looking for suitable places to eat with nothing specific in mind when I found Mosaic and I instantly browsed it on zomato and google only to find out that this restaurant has received several awards from the food and beverage industry in the recent years. So without a doubt, I parked my car and went inside.

The interiors are beautiful and its not a huge place but they have made most of the space they have and decorated it nicely especially the gorgeous chandeliers. The restaurant manager was very courteous as he helped pick a table for us where we can easily park our baby’s stroller and eat in peace. They have open kitchen with all the live action going on. The whole place smelled like lamb kebabs and saffron rice. We were given e-menu to choose from which was extremely efficient as they have pictures with each dish to understand what to have.

We ordered manakeesh, grilled chicken and kebab platter. While they were working on our meal, we were served complimentary salad and olives. Loved their presentations especially for the bread that came in abundance in an L shaped vessel. Not only the presentations were good, the bread was soft and doughy.

The manakeesh we ordered was half zaatar and half cheese, loved it! the grilled chicken was super fine, all the flavors were shining through.

The kebabs were outstanding. Loved all the flavors! cooked perfectly with their juices preserved within the meat. Chicken kebabs were good too which was a surprise because its extremely hard to cook perfect chicken kebabs because chicken has no flavor of its own. But we loved those as well.

The only thing that was a let down, was their dessert menu that had chocolate parfait, pineapple tiramisu and rice puddings. I wish there were more to choose from. So I ended up leaving without a dessert.

July 16, 2019 0

Pakistani chinese food in Sharjah

I know its a cardinal sin to admire Pakistani fusion of Chinese cuisine but I can’t help it. Growing up in Pakistan, I always enjoyed the Chinese food served there at various restaurants. Peking in Sharjah serves exactly those amazing dishes with a fairly average ambiance and several options to choose from in their menu. What caught my attention was the server’s dress code wearing a lovely kimono, she was efficient with the menu and even guided us about serving sizes.

I ordered american chopsuey, egg fried rice, chilli ginger chicken and chicken sizzling manchurian. The chilli ginger chicken was my favorite as it wasn’t loaded with chilli or garlic, the flavor of boneless chicken blended so well with all the other ingredients.

I felt American chopsuey was a let down as the one I used to have back in Pakistan was served with a fried egg on top and I believe that’s how this dish is supposed to be served.

Chicken sizzling manchurian was nicely done, it sizzled all the way. The flavors were pretty good except for the quantity of chilli in there that I felt could have been a tad bit higher. Nevertheless, it was good and I recommend you try this one along with the ginger chilli chicken.

The fried rice were average. Nothing special about them. May I suggest the chefs to tweak these with some burnt garlic to give that amazing authentic fried rice flavor 🙂

I apologize for having no pictures to put up with this blog post as I was starving at the restaurant and gobbled up the dishes pretty quickly.

July 16, 2019 0

Substituting Icecream with acai bowl

I am making healthier choices, look at my previous blogs if you don’t believe me. So I wanted to substitute icecream with a nutritious acai bowl and that’s when I headed towards Acai express. Loved the vibe there, the staff were helpful as compared to their ADH branch where the waiter literally asked me to wait because she needs to resolve some in vice issue with the other staff. Anyway, their menu is quite impressive but honestly I could have had a gallon of icecream in the price that got me just one bowl of acai.

They had various varieties of acai bowls, there were even a few with avocado. I found this one particularly interesting because I haven’t seen this as an addition to the simple acai bowls anywehere else.

I chose the pink smoothie bowl with strawberries, kiwi, almond shavings and cornflakes on top. It was pretty good but I have had better acai bowl in the same area. Particularly because the acai felt diluted for some reason. It was lacking the viscosity and thick consistency. I would recommend you order some other flavor maybe. Since the kiwi did not tasted well with the acai either. Also 38 dhs for one bowl was a tad bit too much. I would suggest the management to lower the prices a little so that eating healthy is affordable 🙂

July 14, 2019 0

The Good Bowl serving beyond nutrition.

I know I have a reputation of always indulging in junk food and dipping my bread in oily curries but I have to confess this that I am a bit skeptical of salads and soups and clean eating in general. Recently, I was introduced to The good bowl that has over 10 outlets in Dubai and all are delivery only and they’re open from 7:30 am to 3 am. How awesome is that? I bet making healthier choices is so much easier now.

While you take a sneak peak at their menu, you’ll realize the salad bowls have so much variety and each bowl is priced under 50 Aed. I find that pretty exciting because eating healthy is super expensive everywhere around the world but the good bowl is offering nutritious bowls at such affordable rates.

I tried their lentil and salmon bowl priced at 49 Aed and the spicy bulgar chicken & pomelo thats priced at 33 Aed only. Both the bowls were full of fresh vegetables and protien. The portion size was more than enough for one person. If you are aware of the famous Lebanese mudardara then you are going to love the lentil and salmon bowl because it is made with a mix of rice, rocca leaves, lentils, salmon chunks baked with hints of lemon, cherry tomatoes, fresh cucumbers and caramelized onions to give you the best flavor.

The spicy bulgar chicken and pomelo was super filling with baby spinach, yellow bell pepper, radish, pomegranate seeds, cucumber, tomatoes and coriander. This one is asure shot to offer to your friends who can’t stay away from chicken yet they want to integrate clean eating habits.

I highly recommend you order from The Good Bowl and try yourself. These bowls aren’t just healthy, they are full of amazing flavors too!

July 8, 2019 0

Levantish is where taste meets the myth

Levant’ish is an amazing restaurant in Al Qusais that serves Lebanese, turkish, syrian cuisine. Their kebabs, hummus, Shawarma, Lentil soup, Tabbouleh, Fattoush, Babaganush, Lamb Chops,Moutabel and labneh are the highlights of menu. They have indoor and outdoor seating and a baby seat is also available.

I specifically went to this place to enjoy breakfast. I ordered the Levant’ish breakfast platter which comprised of foul, labneh, mix manakeesh, choice of omelette served with juice, tea or coffee. Along with this I also ordered Fatteh Laban and sujuk omelette with shakshouka. Yep! I always order more when eating for breakfast.

I did not like foul as it had a lot of sour punch to it and did not taste fresh. The manakeesh though were amazing. We got cheese manakeesh and zaatar manakeesh, both were super. They served us fresh labneh where we shamelessly dipped our breads in. Instead of omelette, we were served fried eggs (2) and they were cooked well with steady whites and runny yolks.

My favorite item on the breakfast table was undoubtedly sujuk omelette. It had crumbled lamb kebab in there with the egg and together everything tasted divine. Fatteh Laban was quite spectacular too with warm chickpeas and toasted crumbs all layered together like a casserole topped with pomegranate seeds.

However, the shakshouka was a bit disappointing as I was expecting traditional Turkish shakshouka with eggs on top and tomato sauce everywhere else. The eggs were scrambled in the tomato sauce and the flavors weren’t that distinct either.

July 8, 2019 0

Breakfast woes

I am that lazy person who does not feel like getting up early on weekends and dressing up to go out for breakfast but I managed to somehow do that with an empty stomach. Me and my friend were roaming in sahara when we bumped into this nice coffee house called Icons coffee couture where they had a lovely vibe going on so we ordered Intercontinental breakfast platter which comprises of two fried eggs, two hashbrowns, labneh, grilled tomato with cheese, ricotta, fresh bread, orange juice and a hot beverage of choice.

So glad that the orange juice was fresh and had fair quantity of pulp in there. And the basket with buns and breads was awesome. The bread was so soft and so were the buns. Loved these! But the breakfast platter itself was a let down. The sunny side up eggs were over cooked and the hashbrowns were dry.

Loved the glasses in which they served juice and tea. I got green tea instead of coffee and it was nice. The staff was friendly and the service was quick. They overcharged my friend while swiping her credit card but then she contacted them and they quickly resolved her issue and reimbursed her the extra deducted money. Thank you very much for that.

July 4, 2019 0

How much is too much chocolate?

I know I will be bashed for posting this by a lot of you but hey! this is entirely true and I don’t think I can order these dishes again because they had extremely high content of liquid chocolate and while I tried eating, the chocolate stuck to my throat and felt itchy and uncomfortable. Ugh!

So I was craving for a dessert when I bumped into freez near Mamzar. This dessert parlor has 8 outlets in Dubai and I had seen them while driving in a lot of different areas so I planned to try them out with super high expectations. I ordered the customized waffle with half lotus and half pistachio and a red velvet kinder cake. The waffle was unbearably sweet, it was just too much. And not because of lotus but the chocolate effect. What I don’t understand is the fact that dessert lovers think nutella is chocolate where it clearly isn’t. I wish they would have added dark chocolate that has a hint of bitterness to it so that the flavors were balanced.

The red velvet kinder cake on the other hand was not that bad. I can have it again but with one exception. Icecream! Please add icecream on top of this which will actually make it best!

July 4, 2019 0

Chase the flavors with Manoushe street

Manoushe street has always been the talk of foodies for as long as I remember but I never really got a chance to try them out. Last week I accepted a blogger’s meet invite after a month I guess and I am so happy that I went there and tried their menu because it they had various combination of breads, salads, pizzas, wraps, Labenese kaak and manakeesh.

What I loved the most was how all manakeesh and pizza had this soft doughy bread that tasted beautiful along with their toppings. If you are a vegetarian then you my friend are in luck because they serve amazing veg manakeesh and pizza. Their potato wedges and homemade hummus was pretty awesome to begin with.

From pizza, I tried pepperoni pizza and three cheese pizza where my favorite was the pepperoni one. It was fresh, juicy pepperoni and the soft base made so much sense. Also, I would totally recommend you order their baked halloumi; even if you are not a halloumi fan. These guys bake it to perfection.

The tidbites with zaatar and spinach were also very nice. I specifically admired the sujuk because it was loaded with cheese and chicken. Tastes so much like a quesadilla but only more in terms of filling.

Thanks for having me Team Manoushe street, your service and quality of food was amazing.

July 3, 2019 0

Play with fire at the Wok’s Den

Wok’s Den is a nice restaurant located in Jumeirah 1 near La Mer with free parking and some really cool dragon graffiti on the walls inside. The kitchen has giant glass windows so you can watch the chefs in action while your food is being prepared.

The service is top notch! Our server made sure we were comfortable and helped us decide different dishes from the menu. Since we were fasting, the staff made sure that all our food was ready a minute before sunset so that we won’t have to wait and that made me feel super happy.

So we ordered Dragon shrimps and stir fried momos with schezuwan sauce for appetizers. The dragon shrimps were absolutely lip smacking, super creamy and soft to chew. The momos were an instant hit because the filling was so flavorsome and generous and the final toss in schezuwan sauce was ethereal.

For drinks, I ordered a pistachio shake and their specialty drink called Dragon’s Fuel which is suoer fun cocktail that has an intense kick of spice to it. Its literally like the sweet tangy and spicy gummy bears. I would recommend you go for it but have it in small sips instead of gulping it all in one go. Whereas the pistachio shake was great too!

For the wok, I chose soba noodles, mushrooms, snow peas, bok choy, sweet corn, black pepper sauce with chicken stripes. Loved the flavors in there and it wasn’t loaded with salt and chilli. The combination of flavors was just perfect. Wanna see how the wok was made? go check my Instagram page 😉

Then we had the triple schezuwan fried rice which were subtle and flavorful. They also have a black bean chilli sauce on the table that you can add to your food as you like. It was actually amazing and not too hot.

For Dessert, their coconut fried icecream was so delicious. I know it sounds so simple but please try it. Thank you Team Wok’s Den for the wonderful iftaar. Can’t wait to drop by soon 🙂

June 1, 2019 0

Falafel Party from Operation Falafel

I always plan to eat here but never actually do that and it had been 4 years so I finally decided to order food home and see what the hype is about. I placed order through zomato and it got accepted but then I received a call from the restaurant that they are out of eggplant so they cant put it in my wrap 😦 that was just sad, so I agreed for a wrap without it. Although they delivered complimentary hummus to make up for it but hey! ain’t no hummus makes up for eggplant in my wrap.

Anyway, the falafel were pretty crispy and good. I just feel they were overpriced just because they had a chutney filling inside. Normally, you get a falafel for 50 fils or 1 aed from street restaurants but this one was 10 aed for 4 pcs because its “stuffed”. The menu reads that these falafels are stuffed with pine nuts, onions and shatta but all I could taste was shatta (hot sauce)

The wraps were fine nothing extraordinary about those. I would suggest the restaurant to increase their quality of food in terms of flavors and decrease the price a tad bit 🙂

May 23, 2019 0

Even chicken recommends Chicken Cottage

Last week I went to Chicken cottage in the mall at JBR, Dubai. Its located on the ground floor with a great space for seating. The most intriguing part of their food is that they don’t use any preservatives for their meals. All ingredients are halal and fresh. I was fasting when I went here and planned to break my fast with the crispy chicken. So I ordered and waited for sunset to enjoy the meal. The service was a bit slow and I actually had to wait 20 minutes more but the restaurant was full of fresh fried chicken aroma so I didn’t mind. I was given complimentary dates and water.

The fried chicken I ordered was spicy and tasted really good, they have a sauce station where you can grab mayonnaise, ketchup, salsa as much as you like. I loved their salsa. It paired amazingly well with the fried chicken. Also ordered the spicy grilled chicken which was a surprise because it was superb. The flavors, tenderness of chicken and the glaze on top with that perfect charred flavor was outstanding. Loved it! I highly recommend you try their grilled chicken.

Next came the Monster burger which was actually a monster. Layered with a crunchy hashbrown and a chicken patty, this burger was pretty good. The only thing missing was a tangy sauce inside, so I slathered salsa inside and munched on this beauty 😉

For dessert, we got the chocolate brownie with vanilla icecream that was gorgeous! you can never go wrong with this combination. Absolutely loved it. Thank you for hosting me Team Chicken Cottage.

May 23, 2019 0

Kulfilicious- Your best bud for the summers

With the heavy summers approaching, kulfi and falooda are desserts that help bear the heat with a smile on our face. But only if they are made with perfection, the flavors and textures should be spot on. Hence, this place “Kulfilicious” that has over 12 outlets in Dubai. This blog is about the Deira branch that is also listed as Al Muteena under zomato. Its a colorful place with old bollywood timeless movie posters and the songs that they play are from the same movies. Their quirky stools, tables and a rickshaw inside are so instagrammable.

We started off by placing our orders: one for the royal kulfi falooda and the other was Gud Bud that’s based on a custard instead of kulfi and has more dry fruits in there. The best bit for all you vegetarian fans out there is that this comes with a vegetarian jelly also.

Loved the crunchy texture of gud bud, it had rose flavored milk at the bottom that was amazing if you eat and sip together. Super refreshing for any day of the year.

For the royal kulfi falooda, my three flavors were: Gulab daani, kaajuddin and malaika (rose, cahsew and creame) Loved the combination of these three. However, if you don’t want your falooda to be overly sweet then don’t choose gulaabdaani. I love the flavor of rose and the sweetness to it therefore I will always choose this one 🙂

The cherry on top is that they don’t use any preservatives and all the flavors are made locally. The service was pretty great and I highly recommend you try their desserts at any time of the day. You won’t regret 🙂

May 9, 2019 0