Out and About in Dubai

So all I wanted was rice noodles.  Quarter-inch thick rice noodles – to be exact.  Last time I bought them in Carrefour and saw a whole boxful in the Al Maya market just downstairs from my apartment.  Should be as easy as buying oh, rice perhaps?

Well, I don’t know what’s worse.  Driving to 5 different grocery stores in far reaching parts of Dubai and not finding any rice noodles at all…….Or going to the Waitrose by my house, and almost (almost!) scoring rice noodles only to notice that instead of plain…they sold only CARROT, SPINACH, or PUMPKIN flavor. WTF!?!

I kid you not.  You can see the proof for youself in the photo.  I think at this point I started hysterically laughing/crying and my husband had to drag me out of the store to avoid any potential embarrasment to himself.

Tags: food, wtf | 3 comments »

My mom makes a killer Vietnamese Sweet and Sour Soup. It’s pretty much restaurant quality. Actually, it’s better than restaurant quality. She gave me the recipe a few years a go and I like to make it every once in a while because it’s mm-mm good. DB’s not a big soup person so he will usually have one small bowl while I finish off the rest of the pot by myself.

I made a small pot today to use up some of the recao (“nice-smelling-herb” or “sawtooth herb” or whatever it’s called) I bought at Sunflower the Thai market yesterday.  Slurping gooooood!

A while back, I was flipping through these two Vietnamese cookbooks and came upon their versions of this soup. Both recipes in each book called for the addition of tamarind pulp. So I thought I’d buy some tamarind and try it out. Another recipe also called for some lemongrass. I had some lemongrass in the freezer, so I tried throwing that in the pot too.

(Shaking head) I should never have messed with THE MOM RECIPE. Why did I have to spoil a good thing? I was hoping I could make what was great even greater but the soup that came out of the lemon grass and tamarind experiment not only tasted all wrong but made me sick. Real sick, if you know what I mean.

Tags: food | 1 comment »

First let me say that I managed to figure out my photo uploading issued with Wordpress.  Turns out that I have neglected upgrading to the new version for months and months now and after upgrading to the lates WP version, everything is working again.  Well…sort of.  I have never been able to upload via Firefox so only IE works. 

Yesterday I had my 6th prenatal visit at American Hospital so I thought I’d try to find the nearby Kim’s mart that is on my map of Dubai Asian Grocery Stores and also to pick up some Thai basil from Sunflower foodmart for a Vietnamese dish that I’m cooking up this weekend.

So I drove out of American Hospital towards Lamcy and followed my map to find this Kim’s mart.  I drove and drove around in circles trying the other nearby streets as well.  No luck!  If anyone has any idea where this market is, please be so kind as to let me know.  I have also heard of something called Dean’s Fuji-something Japanese mart.  Any leads on this would be great as well!

I’ve been to Sunflower (the Thai store) in Karama twice now so can pretty much find it without my map.  However, I haven’t been able to drive myself directly in front of the store.  I always end up on a one-way loop about two blocks away – it’s easier for me to just park and walk the two blocks than to figure out from my map how to loop around again.  I love the fact that the streets of Karama are windy-bendy but I also hate it for the same reason.  If you know where to go, it’s all peachy-keen but if you don’t, then it’s a f@*%ing nightmare.

Anyway, I got to the store around 4:30pm as I remember getting there once between 1 and 4pm and it was closed.  They seemed to have a new shipment that just arrived from Thailand or something because there were 10 or so styrofoam ice boxes in the back area with loads of Asian goodies for making all sorts of yummy dishes!

In addition to Thai basil, I bought some Asian cilantro (I don’t know what it’s really called but in Puerto Rico it’s called “recao” and it’s great for spaghetti bolegnese and in Vietnamese, my mom calls it something that translates to “nice-smelling-herb” and I’ve seen it labeled as “sawtooth herb” in some cookbooks.  Anyway, we use it for Vietnamese Sweet and Sour Soup - yum yum yum!  Here’s what it looks like:

Finally, I also bought a large taro because I needed it for my Vietnamese spring rolls.  At least I hope it’s taro because it looks different from what I thought it should look like.  I guess I’ll find out tomorrow when I cut into the thing! Sadly, I did not find any sugarcane (normally sold in a can) so I guess making Vietnames grilled shrimp on sugarcane is out.

Sunflower also has a bunch of other things I might find useful in the future such as banana leaves, pandan leaves, lots of Asian veggies, spices, etc.  I also liked the fact that most of the unidentifiable stuff (at least to me) was labeled in English.

After Karama, I had an hour to kill before meeting up with my husband so I decided to see if I could find the Korean foodmart in Al Barsha called “1004 Mart” which is also on my map (which I forgot to print out and bring with me) so after driving around in circles a bit I finally found it (see picture of store front above).

The store stocks mostly Korean items similar to the Hanarum and Safestway one but the items are labeled in English which is a big help since I don’t read Korean and don’t know what 99.9% of the stuff is.  Maybe after my Vietnamese supper party I’ll do a Korean one?

Tags: food | 5 comments »

It’s been many long months but the search for bubble tea has finally yielded some results and I have tasted and photographed the proof!

Noodle House (a Jumeirah branded restaurant) has introduced Bubble Tea at their restaurants for 18 dirhams.  I had the almond one and it wasn’t as good as the ones I’ve had in NYC but it was good enough for now. 

Here is the bubble tea menu (click on the picture for a larger image): 

Will be sure to stop by Kitsch one of these days to check out their Bubble Tea as well.

Tags: bubble tea, food | 13 comments »

Thanks to comments left by ellen and Nerissa, I checked out the new Korean supermarket in the Safestway market (on Sheik Zayad Road just south of the Mazaya Center).

Woo-hoo! Now I don’t have to drive all the way to Karama for my Korean fix!

 

New, bright, and airy. Well laid out aisles, a frozen section in the middle:

 

Instant noodles galore:

 

Seaweed and more noodles:

Tags: food | 10 comments »

I haven’t forgotten about Arabic Sundays but they will most likely be few and far in between since I don’t cook as often anymore. This work things just gets in the way of everything!

This is a dish I cooked up months ago but just got around to posting. La-ham nashif or meat fried with spices is a simple one-pot dish (minus the boiling of the lamb) that’s so simple and delicious I can’t wait to make it again!

The word nashif means dry with a little gravy. This is a modern dish which is fairly simple to make, yet its taste and texture belie its simplicity. Usually prepared as an evening meal, it is more popular in the winter months accompanied by bread. It is also a favourite picnic dish at weekends, when the nashif will be packed into a thermal container. Served with bread, sliced onions and tomatoes, this dish can also be prepared with chicken, truffles, shrimps or deboned tuna.

The spices in this dish include the bezar, turmeric, and ground cardamon:

I had some lamb chunks leftover from the last Arabic recipe (lamb saloona) that I boiled in water for 45 minutes to tenderize:

 

I chopped up some fresh coriander and garlic:

 

Sliced onions were fried in vegetable oil until golden brown:

 

When the onion was browned, I added the spices and garlic:

 

After a few minutes, I added the lamb and some water to make a thick gravy. Then served it all up over basmati rice:

 

Like I said, this was a simple dish to make, the lamb was so tender, and the spices really brought out the flavors of the meat.
 

Note: This post is part of my Cooking Local project.

Last Sunday: Meat Stew

Up next Sunday: Fish Cakes (Sa-mak koufta)

Tags: recipes UAE | 3 comments »

Last Saturday, DB and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We decided to get married when we found out that DB was getting transferred to Dubai for work. Getting married meant that my residence visa, health insurance, etc wouldn’t be an issue if I decided not to work.

We chose the 5th anniversary of our first date as the special day. Sad to say that we haven’t printed a single wedding photo yet for framing. I’ll get around to it…eventually.

To celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary, we went to Vu’s at Emirates Towers. Of course, we started of with some bubbly
 

Here are photos of our meal:
 

“CRAB” – My starter of snow crab cannellone, caramelized chicken wings, orange flavored bisque, morels foam:
 

“TUNA & SCAMPI” - DB’s starter of butter poached scampi and toro roulade, avocado bavarois, yuzu jelly, oriental dressing:
 

DB ordered his favorite wine – a Barolo:
 

“WAGYU ASSIETTE” - My entree of seared tenderloin, braised cheek and herbs pastilla, mash potato, asian rataouille:
 

“LAMB LOIN” - DB’s entree of soy marinated lamb, apple compote, caramelized baby onions, apple puree porcini mushrooms and lamb jus:
 

We were given a free dessert in honor of our anniversary and I have to say that it was very very good! Which is saying a lot because I don’t like dessert (other than creme brulee and chocolate soufles). It was just the right balance of sweet and bitter:
 

The food was all excellent! And in case you think I have a photgraphic memory to be able to remember what we ate, word-for-word, I better dispel that thought right now by saying that I asked for a menu to take home. Maybe I’ll get around to framing it one day.

Tags: celebration, dolce vita, food | 10 comments »