Tony Roma's - Festival City, Dubai

Looking for some good service and juicy succulent steaks? Head in to Tony Roma's at Festival City.

 We went there for dinner a few days ago wanting to try out a new joint. We started off with a platter of quesadillas, buffalo bites (balls), onion rings and potato skins with cheese and bacon bits served with  sour cream, ranch dressing, salsa and barbeque sauce. Of course the platter had a name which I cannot remember. A regular size costs AED 50 (and with my type of appetite it can feed at least 3 people). Everything on that plate was delicious. They also gave us complimentary nachos with salsa along with our drinks. I had a lemonade and my hubby had an iced tea.

For the main course I had a steak combo (Special-cut, 6 oz. New York Strip with Grilled shrimp). I chose shrimp but you can substitute it with any of the following - grilled chicken, fried shrimp, chicken tenders or fried fish fillet. I chose garlic crusted beans and mashed potatoes as my sides. My hubby also had steak and both of us were tummy full and satisfied. The steaks were cooked medium rare just how we liked it and the mashed potatoes were not bland at all and the beans were crunchy flavorsome and yummy even if you don't like beans.

The total bill was around AED 255. They also serve ribs which I would like to try next time =)

Merry Christmas everyone Ho ho ho

Merry Christmas one and all!

Body Shop has some nice gift hampers of body wash, perfumes, lotion etc (ranging from AED 99 to 200 something) and Nine West has a cool sale on handbags (around AED 200) :)

But just step into any mall and I'm sure you can go crazy....

My dad's recipe for ribs....rib-i-licious ;)

On my trip to the supermarket I saw a packet of ribs and I instantly knew what I wanted to do with them.

My dad had cooked chops while I had been home on holidays and I simply loved them. So I’m sharing the recipe with you all. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Marinade

1kg Ribs

1tsp Cumin powder (Jeera)

1tsp Red Chilli powder

1tsp Coriander powder (Dhaniya)

1tsp Black Pepper powder

1/2tsp Turmeric powder (Haldi)

1/2cup Yoghurt (or a little more but enough to cover the ribs)

1/2cup soy sauce

2tbsp Tabasco sauce

Marinate the ribs with the above ingredients and keep overnight in the refrigerator.

1) Take a pressure cooker. Add some oil and fry about 4 cloves of garlic, 2 cloves, ½ inch cinnamon stick and 1-2 green chillies (for a little heat).

2) Add the ribs and fry them just for a minute.

3) Add a little water in the cooker so that it won’t burn. The soy sauce should provide the liquid component but in case your pressure cooker is a big one then you may need to add a bit of water too.

4) Wait for about 5 whistles before turning it off.

5) In a plate, mix barbeque sauce  (HP Sauce) with equal parts of honey (if you find it too sweet then add more of the sauce and less of honey). Wait for the ribs to cool and then dunk them in the mixture and finally fry them for a minute or two on each side just so that they become crispy on the outside.

Voila – serve them with mashed potatoes and stir fry veggies and you are good to go!

Persian khana anyone? HATAM (Dubai Mall)

Hatam is a Persian restaurant located inside Dubai Mall in the 2nd floor food court area.

 

We went on a Friday for lunch and it didn't seem to be crowded at all. We sat in one of the booths near the windows so that we could get away from the freezing cold air inside the mall.

 

We started off with hummus (AED 16). They also brought some Arabic bread/naan and a plate consisting of salad, olives, cheese and pickles. For the main course we shared - Rice with slow cooked lamb (around AED 35) and a plate of Kababs cooked in yoghurt with French Fries(around AED 40). We also ordered 3 fresh strawberry juices (AED 18 each). The number of items we ordered seems less when we were three of us but the tall glass of strawberry juice along with rice just filled our tummies and I'm glad we didn't go overboard. In fact we still had some left over rice.

 

I would definitely go there again for some of their tender juicy lamb. Yum yum yum!

 

 

Finally some news on Bangkok...

I know I know I promised to write about my trip to Bangkok. Things have just been in full swing ever since my hubby and I returned from our holiday.

Instead of writing a day to day summary of what we did in Bangkok (which wasn't much apart from eating and getting massaged... :)... ), I thought I'd write a brief on the restaurants and spas around ploenchit road/chidlom where we were put up for 8 glorious days.

 

We stayed at the Renaissance Bangkok Ratchaprasong Hotel located right next to the Chidlom skytrain stop. The room was spacious with an attached bath which was all glass! I later figured out how to draw the blinds.

 

Breakfast was a complimentary buffet which had dishes like fried rice and pork! This was definitely unusual for us but a nice change and my hubby couldn't resist the dim sums and Thai pancakes. They had the usual fare too which included American and Indian breakfast dishes.

 

The hotel seemed to be a full-house. Considering we went in the middle of October I guess they get a lot of tourists as the rainy season comes slowly to an end.

 

But a lot of the guests seemed to be there on business trips more than leisure so I guess either way it does pretty well. The hotel also has a swimming pool and gym neither of which we used (yup we are very lazy!).

 

So that's the hotel. Stay tuned for the Floating Market and Tiger Temple reviews!!