Anise - InterContinental Dubai Festival City, Dubai, UAE

I had the pleasure of dining here for a company party. First up of course the decor really blows your mind off! The interiors are stunning and really well thought out. The view from the deck of the water near festival city is pretty neat as well.

We had the buffet and first plus point is the variety. There are generous selections of food from every cuisine possible. Indian, Japanese, Arabic and Italian being the main torch bearers.. Starting from Salads the normal Arabic variety of hummus to Japanese raw fish, Edamame, Sushi, sashimi,

Main course of Indian paneer butter masala, chicken curry and naan to freshly prepared Dim sum, noodles, pizza and pasta! Wow one really gets confused where to being from! 

The food was great. Every dish tasted awesome in short. Once we can place our order at the station and the food reached our table through the table card number provided

Only thing lacking I suppose was the service. Service was brilliant the first 10 minutes, after that they were not to be seen near our table at all! We had to keep on trying to get their attention to get fresh cutlery or drinks etc. 

 A tad bit expensive but a very flashy place if you want to impress your colleagues or that someone special ;)

Gazebo, Rashidiya, Dubai, UAE

So we celebrated my birthday by having dinner here :D (Happy birthday to me!)

First up the seating arrangements are nice, each table gets its own private space curtained off from other tables, but the curtains are HIDEOUS! seriously like a B movie left over material. And you can choose the tables which look over the main road and watch the airport and Dubai metro whizz past! 

We ordered the Hari Mirch murkh ke Tikke(green chilli chicken Tikka) and Some Paneer Tikka lightly flavored with yogurt and not so spicy. Time taken to get both Tikkas was around 20mins! The Paneer tikka was good but both were cold by the time it got to our table, considering the time it took to prepare we expected hot food atleast.

Main courses were Garlic butter naan with Murgh Lahori and Aloo Methi also a Hammour Tikka biryani thrown in for good measure! Along with cucumber raita. And drinks Mango lassi and sweet lassi. 

The Naan was awesome, generously doused in butter and loads of garlic! Aloo methi was packed with methi, usually in other restaurants the potatoes would be more and the methi would be a handful only but here the methi was LOTS which really gave a nice flavor to the dish

Biryani and the Murgh lahori got good reviews too from my companions :) Both lassi's were good the mango lassi extra thick due to the addition of mango of course :D

Service was quick. They have a button at each table to summon the waiter :D how quaint! Quantities are good enough, 1 dish can do for 2 folks. Plenty of parking space available in front too. 

Lovely place and would like to visit more although it is more of a non-veggie friendly restaurant  they have decent amount of veggie dishes too after all being a sister concern of Kamat restaurant which is a purely veggie should not be a let down. 

Abad Plaza Restaurant, Al Nahda, Dubai, UAE

Spotted this place when we were looking for a parking spot to go to Sahara centre :) yes yes saving on salik by parking in the Dubai side. We went in one day for dinner and 2 days later for lunch.

Ambiance is just ok, I think they could use a pop of color in their paint job but clean. The entrance has a live puttu and appam stand. 

We ordered Hot honey paneer as starters and it was good, a tad too sweet for my taste but yes something different. Dinner was my standard appam and egg roast. The appams were waffer thin and the egg roast was delicious the taste of the coconut oil coming through give its a different edge, I have to confess this might be one of the best egg roast I had in Dubai in fact! We had the nadan tea as well but that was such a disappointment :( tasted like plain water!

Lunch which we had here 2 days later was meals. I had the veg meals and my companions got the chicken biryani and fish meals. The meals were just OK, the rice they used was of good quality and tasted good. Rest of the curries like sambar, curd curry, cabbage side dish etc were just fine. 

Service was quick on both occasions. But nothing special just the normal give food, give bill, no smile nothing to remember. Go there for the food only :) 

Adens Aramana Restaurant, Qusais, Dubai, UAE

Visited them for a friday lunch and expected it to be full, yes it was but still managed to find a table in the section that serves meals. They have two sections I guess one serving meals where the banana leaves were already set and the other side serving Biryani and other food items. 

As I said the banana leaves are set on the table with the side dishes and accompaniments. Once we take our seat the rice is ladled on and the curry is poured starting with Dal and ghee then sambar. 

The curries are OK, kind of plain esp the dal no flavor at all. Sambar tasted better. The moru and rasam were good. Moru curry was placed in a clay pot in the center of the table. The side dishes were just OK too all of them tasted like the chef didn't put in much effort? :) The aviyal was awesome though! There were two types of payasam one wheat and other one semiya. The wheat payasam was DIVINE! My companions got the chicken 65 and fish fry as accompaniments and they said it tasted good, I guess they are better off at cooking non- veg dishes.

Service was ok, we were asked the first time to refill our dishes once next time we had to ask again. Ambiance is good, nice lighting and seating arrangements. Parking is available in front but during rush hours one might have to wait a bit to find a decent spot.

I have had better sadyas in Dubai before but will have to come back and try their other dishes like appam and drinks to give a proper review :) 

Yellow Chilli Pizza, Al Nahda, Dubai UAE

So having read some good reviews about this place and also being close to home we decided to try out their pizzas and pasta. Parking is found in front and in plenty. Small seating area but there is an outdoor seating area too. 

Interiors are a bit run down as the place is kinda old. We were greeted by an Indian lady who welcomed us in and handed over the menus. 

I read a good review about the Paneer tikka pizza made me promptly order that without even having to look at the menu and my husband went in for the spaghetti vegetariana, the lady at the counter advised us to try the pink sauce as that is supposed to be their specialty. I ordered my pizza as a combo which comes with French fries, garlic bread and a drink. 

 

First up came the garlic bread and french fries. The garlic bread had real garlic chopped on top and not just garlic sauce which made a big difference to the flavour, it was fresh and yummy. Then came the pasta, he pasta was great and yes the pink sauce was delicious indeed, her suggestion was not wrong at all.  

But my pizza :( it was just OK I feel the paneer was crisp but no flavor as I expected. The pizza base sauce was nice I guess made of fresh tomatoes. and the cheese was melting off the slices but something was missing, some flavor I'm not sure what? 

Service was good and the food took only around 10-15 mins to reach our table. Will have to go back to try other dishes as well like the frankies and sandwiches.