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Sunset, Good Food, Good Friends

February 8, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

red sunset as viewed from a highway between rugged hills

Thursday is the end of our week and the beginning of the weekend. We headed into Dubai to meet friends for dinner. It just happened to be sunset time. The high winds at this time of year kick up the dust and make for a pretty spectacular red glow along the horizon.

wispy clouds that look like wings

The wispy clouds were beautiful, like angel wings.

wispy pink clouds

We met good friends for dinner at the China Sea restaurant. We ordered too much food and managed to eat most of it.

carrot carved to look like a graceful bird

I am deeply impressed by our friends. They are good hearted, caring people, not just fun company.

Posted in Dubai, food, Fujairah, restaurant | Tagged , , | 3 Comments »

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Beanstro: All Day Breakfast

November 23, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

sign stating Beanstro a new leaf in our heritage

Even though Life is throwing us a few challenges, we still have to eat. We had previously seen this restaurant in the new Fujairah City Center Mall, but had just eaten at the time, so promised we would come back sometime. What’s the attraction? All day breakfast.

steak, egg, toast, corn, onion, tomato breakfast

DaddyBird took advantage of the all day breakfast to have a steak and egg meal.

bowl of mashed potatoes, pitcher of gravy

He supplemented this with mashed potatoes and gravy. The potatoes were real, not powdered (instant).

bowl of mashed potatoes with gravy on top

Quite tasty.

picture of the restaurant decor

We felt quite at home, like being in a Portland, Oregon restaurant. Nice decor, good coffee and tea, and good variety on the menu.

orange upholstered booths and frame coffee pictures

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Fujairah Food Tour

October 6, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

Friends from Dubai came to Fujairah for a food tour of our favorite restaurants. We began Thursday evening with Nepal Kitchen House.

chicken dumplings

We started with the signature momos (steamed chicken dumplings).

four dishes of food

Pictured above (upper right, clockwise) Aloo Jeera  (potatoes, cumin seeds, tumeric), Aloo Dum (potatoes, coriander, tumeric), Chicken tass (chicken, puffed rice, crispy onions), and Badam sandeko (peanuts, onions, tomatoes, chilies).

rice, vegetable curry, lentil soup

We also sampled vegetable rice and chicken rice – rice, lentil soup (daal) and curried vegetables/chicken.

After all that, we called it a night and headed off for a good night’s sleep before starting again with an 8 am breakfast of paratha (flat bread), chana (chick peas/garbanzo beans in a curry sauce) and tea at Al Khan Restaurant.

flat bread and chick pea curry

This breakfast cost 36 AED ($9.80) for 6 people ($1.63 each). They kept the bread coming and would have refilled our bowls, but we had to pace ourselves.

beach

We headed to the corniche for a bit of sun. It didn’t take long to have gotten more than enough heat. It isn’t quite winter, yet. The temperature high that day was 97F.

egg, garlic rice, beef

“Second breakfast” was at Sizzling Restaurant which opened at 11 am. Doing this tour on a Friday was problematic due to Friday hours. Many businesses are closed, some until 4 pm. Any future food tours will have to be done on Saturday.

Sizzling Restaurant is one of three great Filipino restaurants in town. Breakfast entrées consist of fried egg, garlic rice and a variety of meats.

egg, rice, chicken adobo

We ordered and shared three items – tapsilog (beef), adosilog (chicken), and tosilog (chicken).

egg, rice, chicken

Next, we attempted to explore the discount stores, but again ran into the Friday hours problem. Only one store was open.

inlet waterway

We headed down to Kalba mangroves to look for turtles. The mangrove area has been closed since March due to plans to develop the area. We weren’t even allowed to walk out onto the bridge to get a better view of the turtles, but we still managed to see a few.

When we returned to Fujairah, it was a bit too early for the bull butting and too early for bread at the Afghani restaurant, so we were off to Oriental Restaurant for Singaporean/Malaysian food.

table full of dishes and food

Pictured above is crispy shrimp omelet, egg plant sambal with shrimp, chicken and salted eggs, and mixed seafood soup.

beef with kai lan, hainanese chicken

Beef and kai lan is my personal favorite. Also pictured is hainanese chicken.

two bulls butting heads

We returned to the bull arena in time for the last bout.

One last stop at a discount store ended our day around 8 pm. A long, busy, and tiring day. Great fun with great people.

If you would like to get Mita’s take on our tour, read this Mita56’s Blog: Fujairah Food Tour

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American Breakfast Breakthrough

August 11, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

I’ve blogged previously about the difficulty of finding an American style breakfast in the UAE. ( Here ) IHOP (International House of Pancakes) recently opened in the Mall of the Emirates (Dubai).

If we were in America, IHOP would not be our first choice or any choice, in fact. IHOP has been around a long time (est. 1958) and quality of the food and service has decreased over the years. Because this restaurant is new and probably performing at it’s best in food quality and service, we gave it a try.

IHOP menu cover

The place was buzzing with both customers and a large team of staff. I’ve been craving eggs benedict for months now, so deciding what to order was easy for me.

eggs benedict, hash browns, blue berry pancakes, country fried steak, fried eggs

Over the years I have observed as DaddyBird would read the whole menu, considering all his options and then order country fried steak. After protesting that he doesn’t do that, he ordered country fried steak. I rest my case.

The food was quite good. The hollandaise sauce on the eggs benedict was very cheesy. Yum. A refillable coffee caraffe and a jug of grapefruit juice topped it all off. Service was very attentive and good.

Posted in Dubai, food, restaurant | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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Golden Fork

July 21, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

A new Golden Fork restaurant opened in Fujairah recently. Of course, we had to try it out.

two soup bowls

Not knowing the size of items, we ordered too much food, starting with soup. I had the corn soup and DaddyBird had a seafood bisque.

plate of three spring rolls

Followed by vegetable spring rolls.

grilled salmon, fried rice, tapsilog

Then the rest arrived – grilled salmon, fried rice, and tapsilog (rice, fried egg, beef). The waitress was cute when DaddyBird ordered tapsilog. She didn’t think he understood what he was ordering because it is a Filipino dish and she didn’t expect a big white guy to order it. It wasn’t strange or spicy, so I am not sure what the potential problem might have been.

Golden Fork is a Filipino restaurant chain. Filipino food strikes me as a strange mix of the exotic and mundane. Seafood and white toast/peas/carrots. I suppose that from their perspective the seafood is the mundane and the white bread/peas/carrots are the exotic foods brought in by the colonizers.

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Singapore: Days Twelve & Thirteen

July 7, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

With only two days to go and a long list of things we hadn’t done, I had to beg off for a bit of a rest, so most of day 12 was spent with my feet up. Then, it was time for dinner.

plate of salmon, tuna, and octopus sashimi

Our friend, Adrianna, guided us on our evening repast adventure. First we stopped for a snack of sashimi. Our final destination was a small Japanese restaurant (Restaurant Chako) in which it is best to call/email ahead to get your order in, because everything is prepared fresh, even the sauces. Therefore, dinner can take a few hours to complete. (We all forgot to take pictures of the appetizers – oops! We had edamame [soy beans], shishamo [small grilled fish], and maguro yamakake [raw tuna with yam sauce])

soup containing mushroom, shrimp, oyster, calamari, tofu, and more

DaddyBird’s dinner was yosenabe (claypot soup with seafood, chicken, mushroom, and tofu).

eel, scrambled egg, rice

Adrianna’s dinner was unatamaju (broiled eel on scrambled egg and rice).

mackerel, breaded chicken, breaded cuttlefish, rice, salad

I had the Chako set meal (mackerel, breaded chicken, breaded cuttlefish, rice, cabbage salad, potato salad, miso soup, etc.).

tempura shrimp and vegetables

We added tempura moriawase (shrimp and vegetables). It was all very delicious. Everything was prepared fresh and it doesn’t get more authentic than this.

sliced fruit and a round gelatin dessert

We capped it all off with several desserts. Above is coffee flavored gelatin, below is green tea ice cream. Not pictured – cappuccino ice cream and black sesame ice cream. The black sesame ice cream was really interesting – almost more savory than sweet.

sliced fruit and green ice cream

Our plan for the last day was to go to the bird park, but when we woke up it was raining heavily, so change of plans. The Asian Civilizations Museum was within walking distance of our hotel and offered an escape from the rain.

walkway bordered by trees on the right and an ivy covered wall on the left

The rain had let up briefly, so it was a pleasant walk down the riverside.

carved dragon head

We joined a tour that was starting when we arrived. The subject was the influence and use of Chinese art and style in other cultures.

white and blue porcelain elephant with metal additions turning it into a Turkish hookah base

This elephant is Chinese porcelain that was then modified in Turkey with the addition of the metal parts changing it into a hookah base (shisha pipe).

calligraphy artwork in the shape of a lioness

The museum presents all cultures and religions of Asia.

white bowl with blue decoration and Arabic calligraphy

This bowl was made in Iraq attempting to emulate Chinese porcelain, but instead creating a unique and beautiful piece with a style of it’s own.

We left with a long list of places we didn’t go and things we didn’t do, but we enjoyed Singapore very much and will probably go back again.

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Singapore: Day Nine

July 2, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

pork rib soup, pork stomach soup, rice, greens, peanuts

The day began late with a late lunch at Songfa Bak Kut Teh, our new favorite restaurant which just happens to be about two blocks from our hotel. DaddyBird opted for the pork stomach soup and I had the pork ribs.

tea kettle, sink, tea pot and tiny cups

… and tea.

view from inside the boat

We took a short Singapore river cruise. It was cooler on the water.

Clarke Quay seen from the river

Clarke Quay

Asian Civilization Museum

Asian Civilization Museum

Cavenagh Bridge

Cavenagh Bridge

Marina Bay, Singapore Flyer

Marina Bay, Singapore Flyer

Marina Bay Sands Towers

Marina Bay Sands Towers, Art and Science Museum

south bay skyscrapers

South bay skyscrapers

large tree on shore of the river

Tree

colorful old buildings on the shore of the river

Boat Quay – this used to be the area where cargo used to be loaded/off-loaded. Now it is restaurants.

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Singapore: Day One

June 24, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

busy pedestrianized alley with lots of shops and restaurants

After checking into our hotel, we were off again to meet up with our friend, Adrianna, in Arab Street.

Mexican bar

We had some lovely nachos at this Mexican bar, Piedra Negra.

bar covered in mosaic tile work with a large bird sculpture

There is a lovely bar covered in mosaic tile work and a large bird (condor? quetzal? Quetzalcoatl?)

small lizard clinging to the wall

And a nice little lizard clinging to the outside wall.

Then we were off to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, A.B. Ah Meng Kitchen.

open air, alleyway restaurant

Where we had

prawns covered in salted egg and deep fried

Salted egg prawn ball – prawn (shrimp) with corn coated in salted egg batter and deep fried. Very tasty!

deep fried fish skin

Deep fried fish skin – just what it sounds like, fish skin lightly battered and fried until crisp. Tasty, but one of those things you know isn’t good for you in the long run. DaddyBird wants to go back for more.

vegetables with mushrooms in a creamy sauce

Vegetable with Golden Mushrooms – which is not what I would have guessed by the looks of it. This was tasty also. (Tasty, my overused word of the day.)

mug of beer with ice in it

And beer with ice cubes.

cat curled up and sleeping under a motorcycle parked at the side of the street

Here is the first of what will be many cat pictures.

Then we toddled off to our hotel and slept and slept and slept some more.

(Apologies for blurry pictures. My camera was on the wrong setting which has been rectified and the pictures will improve.)

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Sushi

June 18, 2012

posted by Kanga.

This is a long overdue post. I love sushi. One of my concerns about moving to the U.A.E. was whether there would be salmon sushi/sashimi available. It took us a while to find a sushi restaurant. The first was Sumo Sushi in the Garhoud neighborhood.

salmon nigiri, salad, maki, and sashimi

Sumo Sushi is very tasty and moderately priced. It used to be our regular Monday night dinner when I worked Monday evenings in Dubai.

variety of maki sushi rolls

The next good sushi we discovered was Bento Ya.

aji sashimi

Especially tasty is the aji (horse mackerel).

pieces of maki sushi

Our third sushi discovery is Scoozi. It took being introduced to this restaurant by a friend, because I was put off by the name. It seemed that the restaurant was apologizing right up front – “scoozi.” It is an unusual concept to mix Italian and Japanese cuisines. We haven’t tried the Italian entrees. The sushi is pretty wonderful and they have an all-you-can-eat sushi deal for 140 AED ($38.00) that includes salad, miso soup, sushi, and dessert.

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Nepal Kitchen House

May 24, 2012

Posted by Kanga.

We’ve been meaning to eat at the Nepal Kitchen House for a while. We noticed the small sign while driving by. On another day, we ventured into the building to check out what kind of business it was. It turned out to be a restaurant. (One can’t always tell by a business’s title what it actually sells.) A few more times we drove by on our way home from some other restaurant and said “oh, we should have tried the Nepal Kitchen House.”

cubed potatoes with parsley, rice with lentil soup and chicken

This is aloo jeera fry (cubed potatoes with cumin seeds and parsley) and chicken rice (lentil soup, rice, chicken in a sauce).

vegetable dumplings

These are vegetable momos (dumplings).

chicken dumplings

These are chicken momos (dumplings).

cup of tea

Our meal began and ended with tea. This feast was 42 AED ($11.50 USD).

small lighted sign

I’d like to know more about the building that the restaurant is in. The building still has several businesses in it, but it has fallen into disrepair. It may have been the first “mall” in Fujairah. There is an inner court with two escalators going up just one floor that clearly no longer work. The columns are covered in beautiful tile work. It must have been impressive in its day.

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