No its not a spelling mistake I promise. Last night Stu and I decided to take advantage of the visa dining special that runs until the end of June, and made a reservation for dinner at a restaurant called Marina at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. The restaurant is situated on the end of a long breakwater overlooking the Burj Al Arab hotel. A truly stunning location. Getting there is a bit of a walk down a rather long path, so we opted for the golf cart shuttle instead. Sadly there is a nightclub above the restaurant, so you feel like you are eating your meal whilst sitting inside the still-beating glass heart of some giant sea creature. And I am sure in the day time the view is amazing from inside, but at night all you see is yourself reflected in the glass if you are facing out or the large fish tank if you are facing inwards. Testament to how many Russian tourists we get here the menu is not in English and Arabic, nope, its in English and Russian. Very bizarre.
The evening started off well. Stu chose a lovely Australian Shiraz from Sandalford Wines which was delicious. The waiter was very knowledgeable, able to recommend dishes and suggest slight menu changes; he even told us about the out-of-stock items on the menu before we decided, which believe me is very rare in these parts and usually discovered on ordering the ONE thing you fancy on the menu. But I digress. We were served a Boston lobster salad as an appetizer, then Stu had the Marina sampler (5 small tastes of the best starter items) and I had the Fideous soup (which is a Spanish style squid soup with fresh peas). Very very tasty indeed. Sadly the main courses were disappointing. Whilst there was no doubt that the ingredients were fresh and the dishes well prepared, the style of the food was not what we expected. The Marina positions itself as a seafood restaurant, but sadly there are only 6 or so seafood based main courses and they all seem to end up being very Chinese in construction, so for my taste too much sauce and all mixed together in a bowl. We should have just ordered more starters and skipped the main course entirely. I think Aquarium, which we visited before, is better for both the range of seafood options, and of course, value for money.
On a different note I saw a story on CNN this morning about a Saudi woman whose husband divorced her via a text message! And disturbingly this has been ratified by the court in Jeddah. Now I am sure many of us have been dumped this way, but divorced? That really does take the cake doesn’t it? The story is here.