Posts Tagged ‘food’

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Filipino Dining

June 28, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

lumpia rolls and beef caldereta

Having seen a picture of lumpia on a friends Facebook page, I developed a craving. We visited Salu Salo, one of our favorite Fujairah restaurants. We also had beef caldereta and bicol express. So yummy.

bowl of beef and coconut milk stew

And shrimp dumplings

plate of shrimp dumplings

Our other favorite Filipino restaurant recently was closed for remodeling and the sign said it would reopen under new management. We weren’t sure what the new restaurant would offer.

new restaurant sign

Happily, the menu is the same and apparently the chef is too. Very good.

plates of food

Steak, pinakbet, fresh lumpia, and orange chicken.

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

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Busy Weekend

June 17, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

Friday morning plans included an early (8:30 am) morning breakfast get together with friends at a new restaurant in Dubai. The plans did not include not being able to get out of our parking garage because a trench had been dug across the entrance/exit. Only one way in and out and we were not getting out. This resulted in a switch to taking a taxi.

plate of eggs, sausage patties, potatoes, and a biscuit

The food was good, but the customer service was very bad, so I’ll leave out the name of the restaurant. The company of friends was wonderful as always.

Having traveled by taxi and having doctor appointments at 4 pm, we had a whole day to kill. So we spent most of it at Dubai Mall.

dinosaur exhibit

We checked out the new dinosaur exhibit in the grand atrium. There was a contest to name it and the winner was “Dubai Dino.” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it required a contest to come up with that. It has a ridiculously small head.

dinosaur exhibit

Then we traveled by the metro to Health Care City.

view out the train window

Dinner (or a really late lunch) at Circle Cafe followed.

plate of chicken, sweet potato fries

Then we had a bit of an adventure getting onto the Dubai-Fujairah bus. We missed one departure, but managed to catch the next one. It was a long day.

Saturday was a bit simpler since we could drive our own car. We met friends for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Aroos Damascus. We stuffed ourselves with marvelous food.

bowl of fresh vegetables

Aside from the fantastic fresh baked bread and delicious meats, my favorite thing is the complimentary bowl of fresh veggies.

The conversation turned to fish – salmon, tuna, etc., – so it didn’t seem out of place when our friend Rami said “What’s the best tuna?” After a brief pause, Daddybird and I simultaneously said “Chicken of the Sea.” This was met with laughter. Apparently, that was the answer Rami was looking for. He has asked it in many situations, but we were the first to answer correctly. He had been watching an “Apprentice” show where the task was to update the Chicken of the Sea ad campaign and he had never heard of it before. He found the idea of chicken of the sea funny. (http://youtu.be/NKnxQC79Cww)

Over the years we have collected (on purpose) ridiculous toys. Now that we have to move and are trying to reduce what we take with us as much as possible, we have solved this by giving the toys away at our farewell parties. It’s been fun, even for the recipients.

two boxed toys, lion and funny cock

Birds of a Feather

Interest Chicken and Lion

Posted in Dubai, food, restaurant, toys, Tweet up | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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Prague in Miniature

April 10, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

We hopped on the tram and traveled across the river to the Holešovice part of town to the market that is held in the old central slaughterhouse. We roamed around a bit.

two statues one of a woman with a bull and one of a man with a bull

These statues at the entrance were the first clue that this used to be either a cattle market or slaughterhouse. This shot doesn’t show them very well. One is a woman with a huge bull and the other is a man with another huge bull.

large warehouse room full of booths selling vegetables and fruit

DaddyBird was looking for the vegetable market. We found it by watching for people with vegetables and backtracking where they were coming from. We didn’t buy any veggies or fruits since it is late in our time here and won’t be doing much cooking for ourselves, but we did buy a few seed packets for growing herbs in our apartment.

Then it was back onto public transport. This time the metro subway train to the neighborhood of the Prague City Museum. But, first, lunch.

quaint restaurant

Just up the street from the museum is the Pivovarsky Klub which boasts the biggest beer menu. It also has very good food and a great atmosphere. An introvert’s dream.

yellow stone three story building

We were running short on time, but we did a quick tour of the museum to see the Langweil Model of Prague. The staff didn’t speak much English, but they were eager to help. We started with watching the short 3D movie of the model. This is cool because it takes you closer to the model than you will be able to get when looking at the original. The original model is on the top floor of the building along with a nice collection of artifacts nicely displayed. Well worth a visit – a longer visit than we managed.

large model of the city of Prague made out of cardboard

This is the model. It was made by Mr. Antonin Langweil as his hobby. (I would like to point out that he was a librarian in his day job.) It is quite amazing.

As usual, to see all the pictures of the day, click here.

Posted in museum, Prague, travel adventures | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Prague – Music, Books, Food

April 9, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

We headed up to the castle hill for a second day. DaddyBird stopped into a music shop to get a couple of Zelenka albums.

rows of compact discs in a music store

As we came out, we noticed that it had clouded up and was raining. There was much rejoicing.

quaint restaurant

We stopped in for lunch at a quaint restaurant.

cobblestone lane

We wandered on down the hill to the castle. We toured the Story of Prague museum display at the castle, but photography was forbidden.

view of rooftops from castle hill

This is what Prague looks like on a mildly rainy day.

tree lined path in a park

Back down the hill, we found another neighborhood park by wandering through a doorway.

bookstore

We stopped in at Shakespeare and Sons bookshop because Daddybird wanted to pick up a few Czech authors in translation.

graffiti on an archway showing a sheep's head

Graffiti is rampant as you may have noticed in some of my pictures, but it is mostly tagging and not artistic. It seems strange in a city so filled with art that the graffiti wouldn’t be artistic, too.

arched wooden door

I took several door pictures.

stein of extremely dark Budweiser beer

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant that was established in 1466. We had REAL Budweiser beer and a lovely meat filled meal.

To see all the pictures, click here.

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Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral

April 8, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.
main entrance to the Prague castle
We took the tram up to the top of the hill and walked down to the castle. (Interesting point of information – the castle is still used as the seat of government and the presidential residence.) Click here to see all the pictures. Click here for a map of the castle grounds.

cathedral spires

Within the castle grounds is St. Vitus Cathedral. To see the interior photos I took, click here. Click here for a map of the cathedral.

stained glass cathedral window

Many beautiful stained glass windows in many different styles.

entrance gate to the Strahov monastery

After touring the castle grounds and walking down the hill to the tram stop, we took the tram back up to the top again so that we could have dinner at the Strahov Monastery.

plate with goose leg, cabbage, dumplings

We ordered goose and duck. The goose entré was the best. The duck was good, but not as tender and lovely as the goose. The chef didn’t seem to know what to do with spinach except cook it to death.

plate with duck, spinach, dumplings

I ordered stuffed gingerbread dumplings with plum sauce. The dumplings were not made of gingerbread, much to my disappointment. I am not impressed with Czech dumplings, whether savory or sweet. They are tough and tasteless. Inside was half a plum and the plum sauce was delicious, so it wasn’t all bad.

dumplings, plum sauce, cream

DaddyBird had the pancakes with beer ice cream. I had a little taste of the ice cream and it was yummy.

crepes, ice cream, whipped cream

The sun was going down and exhaustion was setting in, so we took the tram home and called it a day.

tram rails

Posted in food, historical site, Prague, travel adventures | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Al Tarboosh

March 14, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

I have fallen way behind on posting. My apologies. I was spending my every waking moment working on a consultancy project, which is done now. Even though I had my nose to the grind stone, there were a few food moments in the last month.

About three years ago when we were preparing to move to Fujairah, we had breakfast at Al Tarboosh restaurant on one of our apartment hunting weekends. It was an interesting experience (click here), so it took us a while to go back for another try.

artificial rock-face waterfall inside the restaurant

It was good to see that they still have their indoor waterfall feature, although they have removed the bridge and added more tables. It is kitschy, but they have kept it in good condition.

bowl of lentil soup

We weren’t sure what the complimentary items might be, so we kept our ordering to the minimum. First complimentary was lentil soup.

basket of fresh pocket bread

The bread was lovely. I resisted because I need to stick the diet better than I have been. DaddyBird indulged and deemed it good, but not amazing.

green salad, hummous, mutabel

Additional complimentaries included green salad, hummus, and moutabel.

plate wrapped in aluminum foil containing mixed grilled meats

Then came the mixed grill – arayes (grilled flat bread with a finely ground meat filling), chicken & lamb tikka, chicken & lamb kabab, and lamb chop. Notice the fancy aluminum foil presentation.

desert bowl with fresh bananas, orange, apple, pomegranate seeds

To top it off, I ordered the fruit cup. Yummy. All freshly cut fruit except for the light drizzle of strawberry sauce.

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Biker’s Cafe

January 13, 2014

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

Biker's Cafe restaurant sign

Recently, the Biker’s Cafe opened a branch in the Fujairah International Marine Club compound. They serve breakfast until 3 pm, so we dropped in Saturday “morning.” (It was nearer to 1 pm, but it’s all relative on Saturdays).

In America, the word “biker” has a very definite and complex connotation. Something like this:

Biker

By Visitor7 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

So we laugh a little bit when we hear “biker’s cafe,” because none of the patrons look like this, except maybe DaddyBird. The Vespa on display outside the door of the cafe implies that Mods are welcome, too.

black vespa on display

I ordered English breakfast. The eggs were bland, as were the beans. It was nothing to get too excited about.

scrambled eggs, potato patties, link sausage, fried tomato, beans, toast, beef bacon

DaddyBird ordered the “omelette” which turned out to be layers (in a clay pot) of bread, fried eggs, beef pepperoni, tomatoes, bell peppers, and cheese. Nothing like the expectations the word “omelette” inspires. “Style above substance,” he says.

clay pot containing layered bread, fried eggs, tomatoes, bell peppers, pepperoni, cheese

We’ll probably go back and try something else on the menu. Maybe that crab and avocado item I noticed after I had already ordered.

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Special Ostadi

December 30, 2013

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

diners and dinner

The food at the family owned Special Ostadi (Al Mankhool Road, Bur Dubai) is always fantastic, but what makes this restaurant stand out is the personal touch. Before we even reached the restaurant, Majed, one of the three sons/waiters, greeted DaddyBird with open arms and a big hug. He had seen us coming down the sidewalk.

plates of dates, hummous, carrots, cucumbers, onions

We took a table for 8, but by the time all was said and done there were 14 in our party. By 8:30 (local dinner time) every seat in the place was occupied. The three sons serve as waiters and keep very vigilant eyes on the crowded restaurant making sure everyone’s needs are met, while still finding time to tease, crack jokes, and pose for pictures.

grilled chicken and beef with flat bread

Highly recommended, this restaurant is within walking distance of the Dubai Museum and the Al Fahidi Metro station. Don’t miss it.

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

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Al Meshwar

December 19, 2013

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

Al Meshwar was the first Fujairah restaurant where we dined back in 2009. We’ve been back a few times, in part because it is one of the few places open during “siesta” time. We dropped in again yesterday afternoon.

a glass of watermelon juice and a glass of lemon and mint drink

Fresh lemon mint and watermelon juices resulted in unintended Christmas colors.

rocket salad, mutabel, bread, and olives

Our usual salads and appetizers – rocket salad (jarjir), mutabel (eggplant), freshly baked bread, and olives.

chicken livers

One of my recently acquired favorites is chicken livers. They are served in a pomegranate sauce. Yummy.

lamb chops and french fries

The lamb chops were spectacular. The food has always been good here, but it seemed a step up this time.

Al Meshwar is easy to find. It is in the heart of town, across from the World Trade Centre. It was described in a travel book as “Flintstones meets the Crusade Castle” which pretty much sums it up.

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Kickers Ice Cream

December 16, 2013

Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.

business sign for Kickers Ice Cream

On an impulsive lark, we stopped by Kickers Ice Cream for dessert. We walked in even though these businesses are used to customers driving up and honking. We didn’t know the menu, so we went in to find out what was available. The huge ice cream machine is so loud that I fully understand why they don’t have inside seating.

plastic glass of white and pink soft serve ice cream layered with pomegranate seeds

This is what I got – pomegranate ice cream. Based on the cartons of full cream milk that were on display, I expected it to be much heavier. It was very light like ice milk instead of ice cream. Still doesn’t beat Finjan’s tea in clay pot as a dessert.

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