Out and About in Dubai

 

It’s been exactly two months since I started looking for work in Dubai and there has been some developments since the last round of rejection emails. A very very good development actually. Last Wednesday I was offered a job position and I accepted! Woo-hoo!

But I am superstitious so until I get the actual contract in my hands, I am keeping mum on the position and the employer from everyone. Only the husband knows (of course) and one friend who had interviewed with the same company.

I will say that this job hunting thing is just awful. It’s not exactly stressful as I’ve done it so many times before in New York, Miami, Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York again, and now Dubai. It does get easier each time in terms of interviewing and selling yourself but then again, with each job, you have more experience to sell.

But the parts that I hate are the getting-the-interview and the waiting-game part. For example, I started off by sending my resume to all the major recruitment companies in Dubai as well as applying to ads in Monster, RecruitGulf.com, Bayt.com and a bunch of others. Did any of them get back to me to schedule an interview? Not a single one.

I know I am a great candidate and any company would be lucky to have me. Now these are not my words but words from ALL my former employers as well from a recent interviewer. But why didn’t anyone pick up on my resume? Ah, that was a rhetorical question by the way. We all know the HR game: It’s something like 10% experience, 30% luck, and 60% who you know*. Wait, does that add up to 100%? Think so.

So a month and a half into job hunting, I was starting to get royally pissed off at the lack of response. There’s nothing like anger to get your ass off the couch and do SOMETHING. Drastic. Anything.

Well, I played the who-you-know card, which got me a few preliminary interviews. Then perhaps luck got me second interviews and experience landed me the job. Or, maybe luck landed me the job…who knows.

However, after those first prelim interviews, there was nothing. Nada. Nilch. Not a peep. One week passed. Then two weeks. Then a third. I thought they had forgotten about me. That’s when I got angry again and sent another flurry of resumes to the recruiters - this time I addressed them to the CEO’s and managing directors. I had nothing to lose, right? Seemed to have worked as I did get some responses. And guess what? I think this second anger event created momentum in the form of a second interview for the position that I really really really really wanted: The day after I sent out this second flurry of resumes, a recruiter called me for the first time and just 10 minutes later, I also got a call-back from one of my prelim interviews. Yes, it took them 3 weeks to do so. But I forgive them.

My recruiter interview went okay - though it was only 20 minutes and I felt sort of like cattle beind herded through the gates of job placement commissions. Whereas my other interview lasted an hour and a half and in the end, I was offered the position, and as much as I tried to play it cool and say that I’d think about it, I just blurted out, “I’ll take it!”

So that’s the update. Now I play the waiting game again - this time it is for my contract. Hope they don’t forget about me or wait another 3 weeks…

*not scientific…just my experience.

Tags: job hunt | 1 comment »

Was just checking my website statistics today and I noticed that even though I hadn’t posted anything in the last couple of days, my blog was getting more visitors than usual.

Turns out, my entry on Asian grocery stores was listed in a Dubai periodical - the GulfNews “Blogosphere” article for May 6. You can see for yourself by clicking here (my listing is the last one of the bunch).

I think it’s funny that I’m in the tabloid section.

Tags: blog | add comment »

The days and nights are starting to heat up here in Dubai. Most mornings I wake up to 30C (86F) temps. The balcony garden is going okay. Remember the sad looking rosemary? Well, the poor plant never took root so it died a slow death eventually drying out completely. I tossed it and replaced it with a smaller rosemary plant (top right of pic) which seems to be doing pretty well at the moment. I bent two of the branches into the soil to see if it will root so that I can get a second and third plant out of it. I’m thinking rosemary roast chicken and lamb.

Sage - I have two of these plants sharing the rosemary pot. I don’t know what to do with them except make stuffing but I’m sure I’ll think of something. Suggestions welcome.

Mint - You can also see the mint has flourished very well (bottom border of photo). Mojito time!

Basil - The Genovese basil (top left) suffered from spider mites. I sprayed the leaves with a soap and water concoction every couple of days for a period of two weeks and that seemed to have gotten rid of the pests. The sprayed leaves, however, did not look appetizing at all so had to be removed. You can see that one basil plant in particular has grown like crazy! I used some of its leaves last night on a tomato cucumber salad - yum!

Basil (Asian) - I bought some Thai basil from a grocery in Karama and stuck some of the branches in water. They rooted within a few days and I just planted them into soil (below). They are looking a little droopy and beat up but then again, the poor things have been refrigerated for who-knows-how-long, then stuck into a cup of water, and now into a pot of soil in the searing desert sun. I hope they will make it as it’s extremely hard to get Thai basil here. And a good Vietnamese pho just doesn’t taste right without it.

Thyme - In the middle of the basil pot is a bushy bit of compact thyme. I planted it there because I didn’t have room for it anywhere else. But I don’t think the thyme plant likes it there at all as basil loves water and thyme does not. So I have bought a new pot for it and hopefully it will take to its new home and flourish. Maybe I’ll make a bacon-mushroom-thyme quiche tomorrow.

Parsley and Cilantro - The parsley? Dead. It does not like the Dubai heat I guess. The cilantro seedlings would have died as well but I moved them inside the house and they are growing slowly but surely.

Does anyone else have an herb garden in Dubai?

Tags: gardening | add comment »

Although I’m quite keen on learning how to cook Indian and Middle Eastern food while here in Dubai due to the wide-spread availability of key ingredients and spices, I still crave some of my mom’s Chinese and Vietnamese homecooking as well as other Asian foods that I am used to eating in New York.

Since my mom’s not here with me and Dubai isn’t New York, it’s up to me to re-create my mom’s most scrumptious recipes as well as those dishes that I can’t get in Dubai’s restaurants.

Thus my foray a couple months ago to Karama which is about a 20 minute drive North from my apartment (on a good day). I had heard that in Karama there is a Korean grocery store and that it was “behind the post office,” and that there is a Thai grocery “next to Venus restaurant.” Yes, all great and wonderfully precise directions…uh, NOT. Again, I lament on the lack of a real postal system here!

Anyway, I did drive around in circles…not just on one occasion but maybe two or three separate ones. Eventually, through the help of google and a few phone calls, I found both markets as well as the Chinese groceries in Deira and even another Thai (possibly Singaporean) grocery in the Karama fish market.

To help future shoppers out, I have pinned the locations to these markets on a google map. Please click here for the map and if you know of any other places where one can get Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Thai products, please let me know!

PS - Still no luck in the search for bubble tea even after wandering all around Al Attar center in Karama.

Tags: food | 2 comments »

 

Last Friday, I partook yet again in free champagne night at Boudoir. I behaved so well the first time but this particular night did not end pretty at all. Forgetting that champagne is not water, I ended up praying to a couple of porcelain gods throughout the evening.

To top if off, I managed to lose my purse which had my house keys, money, credit cards, ID, and camera. Now that is something I haven’t done in a long, long, time.

Luckily, when I called the club the next day, they had found my purse and everything was still there - not a single dirham was missing.

Definitely a lesson learned - can’t have too much of a good thing.

Tags: alcohol | 1 comment »

Al Mahara = The Oyster. I meant for this to be a restaurant review but it has turned into more of a ramble on the ordeal we had of even getting to the place! Oh well. Please read on if you will.

Last week I was finally able to secure a reservation for Al Mahara at the Burj Al Arab. This is the restaurant that has the huge fish tank in the middle:
 

 

The reservations were for last night (Tuesday) and as DB and I drove towards the Burj - I decided not to valet. In NY, valet parking is very rare and always expensive and ’till this day, I still have a hard time valeting my car.

So I had this bright idea that we would self-park! I do it at every other hotel in Dubai, why not here? As we drove into the car park in our little Toyota Yaris rental, we passed an amazing array of very, very, expensive (some quite colorful) cars including the hotel’s fleet of white Rolls Royces, and finally squeaked our way into a parking spot (I say squeak b/c you can always hear me coming from a mile away as our little Yaris has got an engine squeaking problem).

It soon became obvious that no one self-parks their car at the Burj because there was no direct way out of the car park and into the hotel lobby. We had to walk up 4 flights of stairs, through room service, almost getting lost in the kitchen until someone in a chef uniform lead us out, then more back-of-house (where they had pictures of staff at various team-building events), only to emerge behind the reception area! What a laugh it was. I bet all the staff that we passed by thought we were nuts.

By this time, we were 15 minutes late for our 7pm reservation. Oh well. I was more concerned about how we would find our way back through the back-of-house maze and to our parking spot. Needless to say, I will never be self-parking at the Burj ever again when valeting is free (plus tip).

We checked in at the hostess table but they couldn’t find our reservations. We were a bit late but surely they couldn’t have given our table away already? The nice hostess asked for my confirmation number and luckily I still had it on my phone. I punched up the conf # and said, “Here it is, # blah-blah-blah for April 23rd at 7pm. It is Tuesday, right?” At that point, both DB and the hostess looked at me as if it were Monday. “It is Tuesday today, right?” I repeated.

Ok, so it was Tuesday but it was also April 22nd, not the 23rd. Ach! Long story short, I did make the original reservation for Wednesday, but then I called to say that we couldn’t do Wednesday, could we have Tuesday instead? I was told that I could change it to Tuesday, but it would have to be at 7pm and not 7:30pm as originally scheduled. I said no problem. So it seems that the time was changed, but not the date. (Why does this stuff always happen to me?)

I was prepared at that point to be sent home but maybe the nice hostess sensed that I had already paid my penance through the car-park/back-of-house journey and allowed us to stay and dine as long as we vacated our table by 9pm. Whew!

How was the dinner? Well, before I get to that, I thought there was supposed to be some kind of submarine ride to get you down to the dining room. Turns out, this “submarine ride” was just something called The Elevator. For the life of me, I can’t remember seeing anything other than elevator walls. Or maybe I was too busy people-watching the 10 tourists that were in the elevator with me. Well, I missed it all. I know, I suck at noticing these things.

Dinner? It was amazing! And it was also not. I had a pre-starter of 4 oysters (one with pineapple, one with Thai fish sauce, one with sesame carrot sauce, and one au natural) which at first seemed like odd combinations but was quite scrumptious. I loved them all! Especially the one in the Thai fish sauce. So thumbs up here.

DB had a starter of scallops with veal cheeks with an amazing sauce. Also thumbs up. My starter was a lobster bisque with seafood ravioli. The ravioli was very tasty and the lobster bisque was properly balanced and also tasty but not amazing. No thumbs down but no thumbs up either.

For our mains, I ordered the lobster thermidor (way over-salted for me!) and DB had the Kobe beef with pan-seared foie gras. I wasn’t very impressed with my dish but DB’s was freaking amazing. Especially the sauce! With every bite, I found myself whispering, “Holy mother of God.” And I’m not even religious! Two thumbs up!

So for two starters (and the pre-starter that I snuck in), two entrees, two glasses of wine, one gin and tonic, two cups of tea, and no desserts, the total bill came to 2300 dhs ($625). Yikes. It could have been a bank breaker for us. But we have a modest food allowance so the tab was manageable in the end.

The service? It was just fine. Not quite 5-star (nor self-proclaimed 7-star) but the waiters were friendly, unobtrusive and efficient. Oh, and there was a really nice harpist throughout the evening.

I’m sorry that I don’t have any photos of the food. Blogging faux pas, I know. I wanted to take some but DB asked me not to embarrass him by whipping out my camera. Not that I ever listen but I thought I’d let him have his way, you know, just this once. I did sneak in a shot of the fish tank (which I couldn’t take my eyes off!) from the vantage point of our dining table:
 

 

From what I could see, there was a leopard and a black-tip shark, moral eel, triggers, huge grouper, angelfish, butterflyfish, and much more.

And we did find our way back behind the reception area, through the staff photo gallery and room service, and finally down the 4 flights into the bowels of the car-park. Just a few confused stares from the staff along the way.

Tags: food, restaurant | 2 comments »

A friend ordered a strawberry smoothie the other day and it was served in a cup with a domed lid. Nothing special, right? That’s how Starbuck’s frappuccino’s are served. But then I saw the straw and it was one of those large diameter straws. The ones that are used with bubble tea so that the tapioca pearls can’t be sucked up. That’s when it hit me again. The darned bubble tea craving.

I have no idea if I will be able to find this concoction in Dubai. But I do have one lead. A very vague lead: Karama. However, that is like saying: “Somewhere downtown,” or, “By the Mosque.”
 

 

It took me 3 attempts over a 2 month period, driving and walking around in circles, before I was able to find the Korean supermarket which was also located in Karama. And same effort to find the Thai supermarket. Also located in Karama. Neither were easy to find because they were on side streets and everyone in Dubai gives directions like this: turn right at the post office, left at the house with the yellow awning, second right after the speed bump, straight at the roundabout, u-turn at the mosque, second right. It’s no wonder there’s no postal delivery system to homes and businesses in Dubai! Street signs? What street signs?

Anyway, so I’ve been told that there may be a bubble tea place in Karama. (I am bolding this area because I cannot say Karama without narrowing my eyes and without a low growl coming from the back of my throat due to flashbacks of driving in circles.) But, I’m always up for a little adventure and exploring. So what I think I’ll do is systematically weave in and out of streets until I find this place. Worse that can happen is I discover tons of other cool little shops and markets. I heard there’s a fish market down there - maybe I’ll pick up some fresh seafood for dinner. And now that I know where the Korean market is - I’ll stop by for some kimchi and Korean ramen.

Wish me luck!

Tags: food | 1 comment »