There are restaurants I walk into and feel instantly comfortable with. Mumbai Hafta wasn’t one of them. In fact, irrespective of its rather cute, retro-hipsterish interior, my first instinct was to turn and run. The restaurant isn’t big. When I walked in it was packed to the hilt with lunchtime diners. And the one free … Continue reading Mumbai Hafta – Karama
The Bridge is two restaurants, a Middle Eastern seafood specialist and Lebanese, and a shisha lounge and café on the JBR Walk. It’s a sprawling facility, the middle of which is the shisha lounge. You get up to the restaurant via a lift under the overhead walkway with a big red sign of The Bridge. … Continue reading Bridge, The – JBR
Is it the restaurant or the pub for which the Yesterday Restaurant & Pub at the Four Points by Sheraton in Mankhool is famous? Its interior is one of the best English pub designs I’ve seen in Dubai. I love the fact that there’s a separate billiards room and also separate dining areas, one of … Continue reading Yesterday Restaurant & Pub – Mankhool
With a name like Papaya Salad this restaurant could only be Thai. Yet some of the best dishes it serves are Vietnamese. Located in the Emirates 6 Building between Tasheel and Splash beauty salon, the interior of Papaya Salad is one of the best I have seen for a mid-sized casual dining Asian restaurant. It … Continue reading Papaya Salad – Qusais
Nene Chicken is a new South Korean fried chicken franchise which serves the spiciest chicken sauce in Dubai – hands down. It also has some seriously delicious fried chicken. Located in MOE’s Ski Dubai food court where Fatburger used to be (next door to Umami), the Nene counter is easily missed among bolder designs and … Continue reading Nene Chicken – MOE, Al Barsha
Sadak Chaap is a 100% vegetarian, Punjabi restaurant from Delhi which, everyone please take note, has relocated three doors down and now rubs one shoulder with The Monk and the other with Yalla Momos on Street 4 B – dead opposite Bikanervala. The restaurant’s front façade is draped in Diwali style lights which hides its … Continue reading Sadak Chaap – Karama
Tnagar Café is a newly opened, 100% vegetarian Tamilian restaurant in Karama. Every single one of their seventeen staff members have recently flown in from some part of Tamil Nadu – Vaṇakkam! My special thanks to @abu.curly for flagging this hidden gem. Located a few doors down from the original Tamarind Terrace on 7B Street … Continue reading Tnagar Café – Karama
Hadoota Masreya is an Egyptian restaurant which doubles as a shisha lounge. It’s unfortunate the shisha area is not separate to the dining area which, I would have thought, is required by law these days. As such, for non-smokers at least, the dining experience is a somewhat smoky, smelly affair. And that’s regrettable because the … Continue reading Hadoota Masreya – Al Safa
Dhaba Lane is one of the best Indian (Punjabi) restaurants I have dined at in Karama. Located behind the Park Regis Kris Kin Hotel on 2B street, Dhaba Lane (previously Khan Dhaba) has one of those modern-retro interiors which is so trendy with the Karama culinary crowd these days – Bhukkand Café, Once Upon A … Continue reading Dhaba Lane – Karama
Absolutely Barbecues, or AB’s as it has come to be known, is a hugely popular, all-you-can eat franchise with two branches in Dubai – this one in the Centurion Star Tower opposite Deira City Centre and the original in the Sidra Tower on Sheikh Zayed Road. Although AB’s opened first, I am told AB’s is … Continue reading AB’s – Deira City Centre Area
