Food trip no. 3

(Panginggit kay Dad)

For my third food trip, I decided to have the family favorite: Pizza!

For the first pizza, I was reading this article on Yahoo about traditional pizzas. So I went to this pizzzeria over lunch just to have a non fast food chain pizza. The restaurant is called La Paesanna Pizzeria. The place is cozy, two blocks away from my office building. Looks Italian, with a pinay waitress and Arabic chef :)

I started off with some bread (pizza crust) with some preserved black olives and olives in tomato, and some chili oil. For 28 dirhams (pizza only), it's not too bad. But I had the half for take out, I think it's supposed to be good for two. Not bad, but needs to have more cheese.

The 2nd pizza I had was from last week. My officemate and I are supposed to go to the gym that evening, but we cannot grab a cab for an hour already so we decided (well, he did) to eat at the nearby Papa John's instead :)

For 60 dirhams, we had grilled chicken salad, fried chcken breast fillets, sodas and medium pizza (I chose the Little Italy kind, which had all meat, mushrooms and black olives). It is so good!

We didn't have leftovers...

So much for dieting!

Food trip no. 2

Like I've said, I have decided to document all the food that I eat here in Dubai. Much to the enjoyment of my dad, who I always share my stories and to make them feel envious of my love for food. Lately I am fascinated with Kebabs.

Kebab (also transliterated as kabab, kebap, kabob, kibob) refers to a
variety of grilled/broiled meat dishes in Middle Eastern, Central Asian and
South Asian cuisines. Kebabs usually consist of lamb and beef, though particular
styles of kebab have chicken or fish. Pork is never used for kebabs by Muslims
or Jews because of the religious prohibition on the meat, but is sometimes used
by non-Halal or non-Kosher sellers.

So for the past week, I've had two kinds of Kebab lunch and dinner. Both are chicken because I prefer them than mutton or lamb.

The first one is from an Iranian fastfood called Noón Kebab. I tried the plain kind and one is marinated in yoghurt. Yoghurt is very popular in arabic and indian dishes as well. This entire meal is priced at 19 dirhams... not bad. It comes with rice (which I didn't like). I was hoping they have the arabic bread instead. But I forgot to ask. :)

Just last night, for dinner, I went to a nearby hypermarket and I was looking for something to eat. I came across this section where you can get raw kebabs to take home or you can ask them to cook it for you then take it home. So I chose 3 varieties of chicken... in tomato, hot and spicy and in yoghurt. They ended up tasting the same to me. But it's cheaper, costing 5 dirhams per skewer. So 15 dirhams in all, with hummus, bread and garlic sauce (which turned out to be mayonaise). It also had a serving of fries on the side.
Not too bad huh?

The verdict? I am still looking for the perfect kebab... I definitely need to eat a lot more of these.

Food trip no. 1

I've decided to add to my blog my fabulous love for food... Good food, that is. I always dine out so I really look for food that is both healthy and good, while keeping in mind that it should be of superb value (reasonable, that is).

So for my second food trip, I should go with my favorite Grilled Salmon that I usually eat from Ikea. As you might ask, Ikea is one of my favorite places to go to... (I'll talk about Ikea on another post). They have cheaper food, great value and basically very simple and quick...

It's priced at 19 dirhams for the fish with steamed veggies and your choice of either gravy or white sauce (i opted for the fattening kind- the white sauce). And then I'd add some arabic bread and a bottle of good ol' H2O.
I just love Ikea and their food.

So for my second Grilled Salmon dinner, I just simply became a fancy eater... I ate at this restaurant called The Lounge inside a Marks and Spencer store, also located at the Dubai Festival City. So for a dish which costs 42 dirhams, this is what they started of with: 2 pieces of bread with some sort of marmalade. The bread by the way is freshly baked, and is still warm. I enjoyed it, really. Then they brought out the Grilled Salmon, resting on top of potato wedges (I don't even think it's an entire potato). It is about 3/4 inch thick (the salmon) and is so moist. I don't know how they can stay so moist and fully cooked at the same time, considering the thickness of the fillet.

Just wanted to make my money's worth by really cleaning up my plate! Did I mention that a bottle of Evian there costs 8 dirhams? Evian in Ikea costs only 3 dirhams. But hey, I paid for the ambience... (who ordered that darn ambience???--- like that Erap joke).