sandCat in Dubai

Category: food

  • HAPPY NEW YEAR from Dubai

    I know it is technically not New Year until tomorrow, at least not according to the Gregorian calendar which we use, but as we already had Islamic new year on the 28th December I thought it would be safe to say it anyway. We planned a low key-ish celebration at home with a couple of friends; in fact the prawns are marinating in the fridge as we speak and the chocolate mousse is half made. And it seems it’s just as well we didn’t spend money on tickets to any of the many new year’s eve (or “NYE” as they call it here) parties, as they have just all been cancelled today by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. I apologise for the long title, but this is how he is always referred to so I had better follow suit. The cancellation of all celebrations is in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza who are under attack from Israel. So I guess this means no fire-works on the Palm, or hooting on the streets. We will still have our braai, and some champers, but we will be doing it very quietly!

    new turf

    Yes, we have replaced the turf in the garden. Even though we don’t own the villa we decided to spend the money as we are going to be here for at least another 6 months, and possibly longer, and also we were growing very tired of the increasingly patchy grass. It seems, according to the gardener anyway, that we had Gulf grass before, and this, combined with a merciless assault by some vicious fire-ants, left us with a very sad excuse for a lawn indeed. We are now the proud owners of Sharjah grass, which hopefully will survive a little better. Unfortunately we had to poison the ants in the process, and whilst I am not proud of this I am very happy with the results so far.

    I hope you all have a lovely celebration tonight whatever you might be doing. If you are going out, please travel safely. May 2009 (or 1430 AH if you prefer) be your best year EVER!
     

  • yes beauty CAN be calculated, and Christmas in Dubai: part 2

    our tree
    [our tree]

    So the jolly old guy with his white beard and red suit has been and gone for another year. Luckily for me my change of address memo must have reached the north pole in time as I received this very intriguing looking book from my boss, a lovely pair of sunglasses (see pic below) and our secret santa at lunch yesterday brought me some scrapbooking goodies. I am a very lucky girl indeed (this said without any sarcasm whatsoever). Honest.

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  • desert detox & “going native”

    My recent silence is not for any reason other than my lack of anything interesting to report. Today we reach the halfway mark in our 10 day detox. Stu has a rather inflamed and sad gallbladder, so instead of just having it sliced out of him we decided to try an alternative approach first. Our new naturopath has placed us on a rather uninspiring diet of brown rice (organic of course) and veggies. So we have been laying low and not going out much, except to work, which has left me with no restaurant stories, nor anything else for that matter, to impart. However I am sure you will be delighted to know that we are starting to feel a little more energetic now and hopefully are on the easier end of this 10 day program. Besides there are really only so many ways you can dress brown rice up so that it is not boring. The picture below I took yesterday of some of the lovely fresh fruit we bought to sustain us; South African grapefruits, grapes and granny smith apples plus some other bits. I was actually saying to Stu some months before we left SA that there was not a granny smith to be seen, this is clearly why as they seem all to be here in the supermarket in great green groaning piles.

    nice fruit

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  • sub 30 at last, at least in the morning

    Yes I know this post is a couple of days later than normal, I do apologise I just haven’t been feeling all that inspired this week and didn’t want to bore you more than normal, call it a case of writer’s block, or maybe I should say blogger’s block, not sure my rambling counts as proper writing.

    Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming another good friend to Dubai. That makes two people that have visited us now. So nice to see our friends, when are the rest of you visiting huh? Garth was here on business for Gitex Technology Week (which was massive apparently), and we had the pleasure of his company for dinner. Twice! The first evening we took him to Tagine and happily it was just as good as the first time, and of course I had to have the very best dessert in the world, Kenaffa (hope that is spelt right), which is a phyllo pastry creation from heaven. He made us even happier by treating us to dinner that night. Of course we HAD to reciprocate (any excuse for another meal I say), so on Thursday we headed down to a restaurant Stu had spotted in the first couple of weeks he was here on his meanders with Bevan, and didn’t try at the time being a little shell-shocked as he was still converting prices into rands.

    Villa Beach
    [Villa Beach restaurant]

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  • the day at the pool that wasn’t

    I am happy to report that the cooler weather really does seem to be on the way. This weekend was very nice, temperature in the day around 37C or so, and yes, that really is cooler! Trust me, sub-40 makes all the difference. The fact that there is little humidity at the moment also helps with the perceived comfort level.

    Friday we started with a visit to a charity book sale at Times Square Centre, proceeds for Feline Friends. With most books going for 10 dirhams each we stocked up on best-sellers we had missed the first time round; and some older, well-thumbed novels by favourite authors. I think we probably walked away with around 40 books. That should keep us busy for a while. After that we joined Peter & Eunice for frunch, yes again. It was just as delightful the second time, although this time I stayed away from the delicious bread so as not to get too full. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and digesting a very nice meal.

    at Barasti
    [at Barasti]

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