Náis Italian Kitchen, Dubai - Watch That Space

If you've read many of the ramblings that are posted here, you might have guessed that I love noodles. Rice noodles, egg noodles, wheat noodles.. they are all good, and even better when they are freshly handmade, moments before they are boiled up and given to me in a bowl, along with some kind of meat. Simple, staple stuff. Food that makes you want to take a nap about half an hour after you finish eating. The reason must be it's so good that your brain is overwhelmed with joy and needs to take a break.

With infallible logic and an empty stomach on my side, a few friends and I visited the Náis Italian Kitchen in the Jumeirah Lakes Towers area of Dubai. All their pasta is hand made, so that was all the encouragement I needed.

The first thing we noticed was that this was not another clichéd Italian place. The good size and airy layout made it feel more like a hip cafe, with modern artwork hanging from the walls, soft white lighting, without a single checkered red & white tablecloth in sight. The kitchen was viewable from the floor of the restaurant, but not totally open thanks to a thick piece of glass between the food and our germs. I could see assorted sizes of very clean looking stainless steel pots and pans hanging from all the right places, making the kitchen look like it was ready to cook up a storm at a moment's notice.

We were still reading through our menus, trying to pronounce the Italian for each dish, when we were personally greeted by a woman who wanted to make sure everything was in order. A nice gesture, and given that we hadn't had so much as a glass of water, we didn't have much feedback for her just then. The lady was doing the rounds of all the tables, and seemed to be in charge of what was going on. I think it's nice when managers or owners take a bit of interest in their customers, since it shows that they are not only concerned with their own personal impression of their restaurant and food. Speaking of the food...

We ordered a small margherita pizza to share for entree, since I'm fairly sure it is illegal to visit an Italian place without getting at least one pizza. It appeared on our table with glistening bubbles of cheese still rumbling around on it's surface. Unfortunately the base made up about 90% of the thing, so the delicate layer of herbaceous tomato sauce went almost unnoticed. Good space filler, but not a wise entree if you expect to eat much afterwards. The mains turned out to be a lot more interesting.

I felt a bit like Tom Thumb upon delivery of the hand made beef ravioli, with sage, leek and butter sauce, since each ravioli was enormous. The dish looked like a pile of big greasy christmas presents waiting to be unwrapped, served on a wide brimmed white dish that looked like an upturned porcelain sombrero (in a good way). Considering the girth of the dish, it was actually a smallish portion, with only half a dozen ravioli in total. Luckily the flavour was more satisfying, with lashings of butter dominating, and sadly no real sign of the leek, but plenty of sage to back it up. Possibly too much butter for some, and maybe a bit too much for the other ingredients to handle.

mushroom and pasta cooked in oil. I want to swim in this.

The handmade egg taglioni pasta with porcini mushrooms was our other main, and in a word it was seductive. The pasta was fresh, dense, oily and supported the soft pieces of mushroom scattered amongst the mess, which was sprinkled with fresh parsley for colour and freshness. the pasta and mushrooms were almost the same consistency, and gave a real moreish vibe to the dish. Did I already mention that all the pasta in Nais is handmade? Well, it makes a difference worth experiencing.

With our belt buckles begging for mercy, we sheepishly ordered a dessert to share. Home made Tiramisu, which was essentially all the elements of tiramisu all piled together to order. Slushy, sweet and strong thanks to the coffee flavour. No Tia Maria since we are in the Middle East, but it still satisfied the sweet craving encountered after a salty main meal.

Despite the helpful hello from the manager before our meal, the service was enthusiastic, but confused. It seemed to me that everyone on the floor was a trainee, since they all appeared to need direction before anything useful would be done. All the food was delivered correctly, and in a timely manner, so the kitchen must be under control, but the floor staff could do with a bit more training. Considering this place only opened in August last year, it's possible that they could still be working the kinks out of their business.

RECOMMENDED

The menu leaned a bit too far towards the greasy and heavy side, so maybe the menu is another thing that is still being worked on. I would still recommend a visit to Nais, but if you aren't impressed on your first trip, give them a couple of months, then go back and see if anything has changed. It isn't a bad place by any means, and it feels to me like they have nowhere to go but up.

The bill (for 2):
1 x Margherita Pizza - 25 Dhs
1 x Handmade egg taglioni pasta with porcini mushrooms - 85 Dhs
1 x Handmade beef ravioli, with sage leek and butter sauce - 70 Dhs
1 x Lemon & Mint juice - 18 Dhs
1 x Tiramisu - 35 Dhs
TOTAL: 233 Dhs (Approx. US$63)

Restaurant address:

for exact locations of all reviewed restaurants, take a look at our map.

Yildiz Saray, Dubai - Turkish cuisine with a twist

A friend recently read a review highly recommending Yildiz Saray, a Turkish restaurant that is tucked away in the Concord Hotel in Deira. No more encouragement required - we got the gang together and made the trek to Deira.

There is nothing awe inspring about the Concord Hotel. It is one of a thousand very similar, very average looking  hotels that can be found on most streets in Deira. I can't comment on the quality of the rooms, but walking through the hotel lobby I was not filled with great confidence that an amazing meal awaited me just around the corner. Thankfully, I was wrong.

We were greeted with enthusiasm at the entrance to the restaurant and led into a large, beautifully decorated dining room that had tables in the centre of the room with cosy booths off to the side. This was a gastronomical oasis in an otherwise very desolate setting. We quickly took up residence in one of the booths and started salivating over the picture-packed menu. Ordinarily this is a major turn off for me. Menus that are covered in pictures I associate with fast food that is too mediocre to justify a written description of its content. However, hats off to Yildiz Saray and their photographer because the pictures not only fuelled our apetite but they were quite helpful in avoiding the otherwise 100 questions we would have asked the waiter "what is Manti" and "what is Hunkar Begendi?"

No sooner had we sat down than the sweet scent of warm Turkish bread wafted across our table. It was diffcult to resist the soft, sesame topped, complimentary bread baskets that came accompanied with feta cheese and the delectable spicy Ezme paste; a tomato and red pepper chopped vegetable dip that danced across your tongue and left your mouth softly tingling from the spice.

Being in a group, it was the perfect opportunity to order one of the large mezzeh options to share for entree. We knew the mains were going to be meaterific so we opted for the assorted cold mezzeh that came with hommus (solid, nothing incredible), Baba Ghanouj (the smokiest, possibly the best we have had in Dubai), creamy and zesty Labna drizzled with oil and herbs, vine leaves that would leave most others for dead, an oily bean dish that was probably the weakest of the lot and....drumroll....the stuffed baby egg plants (amazing, herbaceous parcels, stuffed with tomato and strangely, but perfectly, topped with cheese).

I could have stopped right there and it would have been a great meal. But alas, when I travel 50 minutes for dinner, I do feel a need to go beyond the entree page and tackle some of the mains that have already earnt this newcomer restaurant such a great reputation.We ordered big in an effort to cover as many of the main dishes on the menu that we couldn't pronounce. It is always a surefire way to an interesting, if not fantastic meal. We started with the Sebze Guvec, a mixed vegie dish that was reasonable, but a little too oily to be the healthy option that we had hoped for. The Hunkar Begendi consisted of chunks of seasoned beef served on egg plant puree that resembled mashy peas and was topped with fried onion. It had a great balance of spices but was slightly let down by the beef being overcooked.

We also ordered the Manti, meat filled ravioli parcels served in a fantastically spicy tomato sauce that was then topped with yoghurt. It was spicy, it was creamy and excellent in small doses; but more than a couple of mouthfulls would have been an overload. The Beyti Kebap, the turkish answer to a sausage roll, was chewy, overcooked kebab meat wrapped in very greasy pastry, and left me feeling robbed of precious stomache space.

The big ticket item, the Iskender Kebap, was the show stopper in most of our opinions. The tender kebab meat that was laced with a rich tomato gravy, and simply melted in your mouth. The meat sat on top of crispy pide bread cubes that were so heavily infused with butter that I was transported from Turkey to Paris in a culinary confusion. Topped with a thick, refined yoghurt this dish somehow worked. But buyer beware - this dish is not for the faint hearted. Although delicious, it is heavy and reminded me far more of french cooking than what I had expected from Turkish cuisine.

RECOMMENDED

I would recommend Yildiz Saray to those looking for something a little left of centre. The entrees were simply fantastic - standard fare done really really well. Some of the mains are really unusual and on that basis alone they are definitely worth a try. My one word of caution would be to go in a group so that you can order a variety of dishes to share. If I had been challenged to eat any one of the mains in its entirety I think I would have died trying. Each dish was so intense and rich that a few bites was enough and a few more would have been almost sickly. It was an unexpected dining experience that goes to show what this blog is trying to tell you - get out of your comfort zone and try something different.


The bill (for 5):
2 x bread baskets - complimentary
1 x mixed cold mezzeh - 90 Dhs
1 x Fattouch salad - 25 Dhs
1 x Hummus - 20 Dhs
1 x Sebze Guvec - 70 Dhs
1 x Beyti Kebab - 70 Dhs
1 x Manti - 60 Dhs
1 x Hunkar Begendi - 60 Dhs
1 x Iskender Kebap - 55 Dhs
3 x Big Water Bottles  - 24 Dhs
3 x Diet Cokes - 24 Dhs

TOTAL: 498 Dhs (Approx. US$135)

Restaurant address: Emirates Concord Hotel, Al Maktoom Street, Deira, Dubai.


for exact locations of all reviewed restaurants, take a look at our map.

Al Madina Flower, Dubai - One Dish Wonder

Clockwise from left: Raita, Papadam and Sour Pickle, Parathas, Chicken Korma and finally the Mutton Biryani.

There are a lot of underpaid, overworked expats in Dubai, from places like India, Pakistan and Nepal. The amount they earn doesn't leave them with much to put towards eating out, and because of that there are a huge number of excellent value eateries where skint workers can enjoy a good meal without breaking the bank.
So maybe I've found the humanitarian silver lining in this sweatshop of a city; They don't earn much, but they have access to damn fine food for cheap. I like to find where the taxi drivers and laborers eat, and follow them inside for some inevitably amazing food which usually costs less than the tip at a 'regular' restaurant.

So, after all that, where did I end up? In Satwa, a predominantly Filipino neighborhood near the Dubai Creek, where I stumbled upon the Al Madina Flower cafeteria.

Cosy. In a good way.

This place is tiny. It can comfortably seat 15 people inside and another 4 outside on the mini verandah, which is livened up by a small array of green pot plants and flowers. Al Madina Flower, right?
Inside there is the usual cafeteria layout, only more compact - a cash counter near the door, to pay on your way out, a handwashing basin, a warmer full of samosas and fried chicken or fish, a fridge with randomly assorted soft drinks and laban (a watered down yoghurt drink with salt), and a few tables surrounded by plastic stools. Oh, and behind all that is the micro-sized kitchen and juice counter. Who looked at this place before it became a cafeteria and thought that it could ever fit this much stuff inside? They must have been damn good at Tetris, that much is for sure.

After a warm greeting we placed our order; one mutton biryani, a bunch of greasy parathas and a serving of whatever chicken curry was going at the time, which turned out to be a mild korma curry.
It all arrived after no more than two minutes, along with raita (yoghurt with chilli and onions), spicy and sour pickle, papadams and a very oily little jug full of chilli flakes and coriander with other spices mixed in. You gotta love side dishes.

Mystery Sauce. Very zingy and oily. Contained a lot of vinegar, which worked well with the rice.

The biryani was and is the best I have had. Ever. The spice blend was generous and rich, with whole cardamom and cloves, long slivers of green chilli and specks of mustard seeds and fresh coriander. The rice was fluffy and perfectly cooked, with multi coloured grains of red, orange, yellow and white giving a bright vibrance to the whole package. The meat was gorgeous, fall-away-from-the-bone mutton, cooked for hours and hours. Never dry, never tough, and not oilier than it needed to be. Not too much sinew, bone or cartilage to make it seem cheap, but enough to make it rustic and hearty. I didn't find any tiny shards of shattered bone, just a few large pieces of cinnamon bark which had to be carefully set aside. All those intense flavours worked in harmony and complimented by the smooth spice of the raita and the pungent lingering sting of the pickle.

The chicken korma curry was simple and respectable. It was tasty, but not worthy of sharing a space at the same table as the biryani. Hell, I felt unworthy as well. The chicken was soft, and the sauce gave a nice creamy flavour to the slightly mushy parathas which we used to mop up as much as we could before...
Refills.
Yep, this place refills every part of every dish for free, other than the meat and bread. So just as we were starting to feel satisfied and proud to have made it to the bottom of the biryani, a gigantic bowl full of fresh spiced rice is plonked onto the plate. Same went for the curry sauce, which was instantly replenished whenever the level fell too low. We didn't even have to ask for any of this. Now that's what I call service. Two big thumbs up for attentiveness.
We had a couple of chai teas after admitting defeat at the hands of the never-ending rice mountain on our table. The tea was not as creamy as we would have expected, but it is possible that our taste buds were just overwhelmed by that stage.

RECOMMENDED

It's hard to highly recommend a place like Al Madina Flower. There is no denying that their biryani is world class; It's better than the ones I've had in India. But everything else was just adequate. The chicken curry was quite plain, and the parathas seemed a bit soggy. The staffs' attention to the needs of customers was second to none, and considering the budget that the place runs on, it is an achievement for everything to be so well kept. It is a quality establishment, with a solid commitment to good food, but it just doesn't tick every box.

I still recommend this as the perfect place to stop by for lunch if you have time. Five bucks for a bottomless meal for two people is hard to pass up. It won't take you long to be served, but it could take you forever to empty your plate.

The bill (for 2):
1 x Mutton Biryani (with unlimited extra biryani rice)
1 x Chicken Korma (with unlimited extra curry sauce)
4 x Paratha
2 x Papadams
2 x Chai tea
TOTAL: 20 Dhs (Approx. US$5)

Restaurant address: Satwa, on Al Hudaiba Road, across from the West Zone Supermarket. 100 meters from the Iranian Hospital.

for exact locations of all reviewed restaurants, take a look at our map.