Traveling in Dubai, UAE, part 3

As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, John and I found out a few details of travel there that I'll share here in part 3:

Dining in Dubai:

Lunch away from the hotel will probably be at a mall or from a street vendor. There are a few other options: Walk inside a tall office building or apartment building and look around the lobby. Often there will be a little restaurant tucked away. These are very good value for money as they're where the locals eat. In an office building lobby, we found a small Asian restaurant where we ordered "hot rocks chicken" on a chance. We liked the service, the cleanliness, the food, and the pricing so much that we came back twice to eat there. The last time we were there, they treated us like regulars!

We were leery of the street vendors. The food looked and smelled wonderful, but there was no seating and no utensils, basically not Western-enough for our tastes. However, I think it could have been a memorable experience and I wish we had tried it.

In the malls there is the standard food court like you see all over the world. The malls are not non-smoking and the food courts can be very smoky as the young Emiratee men love to sit, talk, smoke, and text message in the food halls. There is always a table of men hanging out in every coffee area or food area. By the way, the coffee is delicious.

If you want to have a meal at an exclusive or expensive restaurant, book ahead. Or try to be there for late lunch instead of dinner. We ate a late lunch at Asha's (pictured) with no booking because we wanted to have the experience and it was completely booked every night we were in Dubai. I have read both good and poor reviews of Asha's online, but our experience there was wonderful. The sampler platter at Asha's was recommended by the server and it was extraordinary. There is a full bar and a wine list. Asha's is at The Pyramids in Wafi City which is the same mall where you catch the tour buses.

This post links to this previous post.