Food on Voyage - Dubai (Part 2)

Night view of Burj Al Arab - The tallest tower of the world.

The tour can never end without visiting the two icons of Dubai :) Burj Khalifa & Burj Al Arab.

The fourth day of our tour started with the visit to the Burj Khalifa which is located at down town, Dubai. Burj basically means "tower". Burj Khalifa is the tallest tower in the world with 160 floors to its credit. It was initially called as the Burj Dubai, but was renamed as Burj Khalifa to honor the UAE President, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support during the financial crisis.

This tower has made records for being the tallest structure ever built, tallest freestanding structure, building with most floors, world's fastest elevators etc. The list is pretty long and admirable :) Its truly a man made wonder. Heights of engineering. :P Hats off and big applause to all the minds and hands behind the great job. :)

The shadow of the Burj Dubai clicked from 124th floor :)

We chanced to get tickets to elevate up to the 124th floor of the tower. Entered the elevator with heights of enthusiasm to get to the top. Ooops felt as if I was flying on a jet. It hardly took half a min to reach the 124th floor.

The doors opened to the top of the world and all I could see was tiny buildings and the great Arabian sea :) Its the first time I felt tall :P

A walk around the 124th floor with glass walls could give a panoramic view of the beautiful city with tall grey buildings, brown lands and blue see. Sadly its almost void of greenery.

Burj Al Arab made me feel so elated :)

The water fall structure at the mall runs through the entire height of the mall with diving fiber glass human sculptures which are extremely attractive and beautiful.

The entrance to the Burj Al Arab is through the Dubai mall. Hence it was the next spot that we had spent our time at.

Dubai Mall is again a place of records. Its the world's largest shopping mall based on total area. It has total internal floor area of 5.9 million square feet. Awwwwwwww.. Yup even I was awestruck at the facts!!

Walked.. walked... walked and walked for long peeping into every attractive shop. There was literally nothing that was not available at the mall, but all for high rates!! :P

Macarons!!! wow they were so colorful and attractive. Available in loads of flavors. And could also find a lot of luxurious chocolate and sweet stores in the mall with such cute and attractive display of their goods at the windows :) I was drooling like a kid :P

The next stop for the afternoon hunger needs was at the California Pizza Kitchen(CPK).

We quenched our thirst with Italian sodas of Mango, Peach and Kiwi flavors.

The main course included a bowl of Broccoli Sun-dried tomato Fusilli pasta. I can still recollect the taste of the delicacies. ;) ummmmm

And also treated ourselves with Vegetarian & Japanese eggplant pizza. Which tasted so heavenly with the combination of mozzarella cheese, baby broccoli, grilled Japanese eggplant, roasted corn, sliced red onions, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes etc on a very soft honey-wheat dough base. It can easily be called the best pizza that I have ever tasted. :)

Roamed around the mall for the rest of the day.

Dunkin donuts is one other outlet that my sis used to keep telling me about. So looked out for one and tried few donuts :) I loved the chocolate frosted donut and blue berry crumb donut the most. Never knew donuts could be this tasty :)

Woke up with great expectations and dreams and Burj Al Arab dint fail to meet it out :)

The last day of the trip started with a visit to the Burj Al Arab - the first seven star hotel of the world(there are only three in the world so far), the tallest hotel in the world and also the most luxurious hotel in the world :) I was totally at the top of the world :P he he

Through few high sources we got a chance to sight see the hotel and it gave us sheer bliss and goose bumps all over.

The Burj Al Arab stands 321 m high on an artificial island 280 m out from Jumeirah beach, and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. It is an iconic structure whose shape mimics the sail of a ship.

The hotel has totally 27 floors as per the lift, but each floor has a sub floor making it a total of 54 floors.

All the suits are posh with super luxurious interiors and top notch technology.

The ball room of the hotel is one special attraction with 24k gold painting for its sealing and other designer walls. :)

The fountain found at the center of the atrium adds beauty to the hotel and at special occasion pumps water to the height of 7 floors :) Wowww

Al Muntaha - suspended restaurant

There are lots of restaurants within the hotel and the most attractive is the Al Muntaha meaning "ultimate" or "highest" at 200 mts above the Persian gulf which is suspended from the 26th floor of the hotel. It gives a total panoramic view of the sea. One can easily identify the shape of the Palm islands from this height. :) It was pleasure to take a look from there :)

Now comes the best part :) The breakfast :)

It was a set menu which basically had three classifications - vegetarian, eggetarian and non-vegetarian.

They served us with a chilled fresh mango juice and a chocolate filled croissant as the starter. Followed by a small glass of mango colada, some fresh exotic fruits and a small glass of muesli with cut fruits added to it. :) I couldn't decide on which was the best!!! :P

The main course chosen by me was Poori and bhaji along with a cup of fresh vegetable raitha. :) The poori had some cumin and ajwain/omam added to it which gave extra taste to it. It was totally yummy. :)

The other option chosen by my pals were Sunny side up and hash potatoes. They look really cute :) I loved the hash potatoes too. Perfect in texture.

Along with this we had some toasted bread accompanied by butter and four flavors of jam.

Ended the lovely fulfilling breakfast with a cup of herbal aloevera tea. :) It was truly heaven in a cup :)

The royal breakfast and the entire trip to Dubai will surely be the most unforgettable experience for my life time :)

Written by: Nithya

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Food on Voyage - Dubai (Part 1)

Burj Al Arab - View from the Jumeirah Beach

Short trips that break our boring schedules bring sheer bliss and adds a lot of spice to our life :)

I'm just back from a fabulous five day trip to the modern city of Dubai :) Oh my God!!! just wondering how a country could grow up so fast!! Be it the metros, roads, the tall buildings, man made islands and what not! Its surely one of the best tourist spots ever I believe.

Its my first over seas trip and this reason made it even more exciting for me. Flying in a Boeing 777 Emirate flight was a pleasure again :) Landing on an Arabian land which is so developed was fascinating. Enjoyed visiting almost all the land marked places :) At the end of the trip all I could say was "I love you Dubai" :)

The memories are green and I would like to share some of my foodie experiences with you all. 99% of the Arabian dishes were non-vegetarian, hence I had to depend on multi-cuisine food from all food brands of the world :)

Cruising down Dubai creek is a novel experience, one which you should never miss when in Dubai. Its truly aesthetic to have dinner on a Dhow Cruise viewing the fascinating lights of Dubai creek with mild music at the background.

The Dubai sky line view at the night is fantastic. The tall buildings illuminated with colored lights make them look brilliant. That too on a full moon day.. Do I really need to say?? ;)

Coming to the food, they welcomed us with an Arabian famous dates and then a chill mango drink. Which was followed by a grand buffet with loads of continental dishes. Since I'm a herbivore, there were restrictions for me. :( Anyways I enjoyed the fresh vegetable salad, Chickpea salad, Corn and bean salad, pita with hummus, bun butter jam as well as a main course of dhall rice with vegetable gravy and a small serving of spaghetti napolitana. :) Is that it??? No no no..

Dessert was the best part. :) four yummylicious desserts namely, Cream caramel, Pineapple souffle and two others were Arabian special namely Mohalabia which was a milk based pudding dressed with fresh fruits and last was UmAli which means “queen of puddings” basically made with puff pastry. It was so different and scrumptious :) I enjoyed every bit of it.

You can have a virtual treat through the pictures :P

Dubai Dhow cruise to sum up - Delicious Dinner! Awesome ambiance! Fantastic view! and a lovely sail! Sheer bliss :)

Next agenda of the trip was a half a day city tour through the roads of Dubai. :) We visited the Grand Mosque first followed by a quick look at the Jumeirah open beach. The first look at the Burj Al Arab was so fascinating and made me jump in joy. Oh my!! I just wished Dubai had a moderate climate. Uffffff it was burning hot that we could not enjoy it much.

Next was to the Jumeirah shopping mall and aquarium. We could not resist having a cold icecream after a short walk under the scorching sun.

Cold stone ice-creams are those which my sister used to flaunt about when she was in US. So now it was my chance to test it and yup, she is so true. They were simply classic. Loved the richness of the ice-cream. We had dark chocolate and cake batter flavors. Yummmmmm :)

More than that, the gymnastics that the guys out there did while serving us the ice-creams were so eye catching and awesome. One would pick the choice of ours and roll it into a ball using the scoop and throw it to another at the other end of the store who would catch it rightly in a cup and serve it to us. It was mind blowing :) They were our proud Indian guys :P Check the pic above :)

Later we traveled by a Mono rail to have a view of the palm islands and finally had a look of the Burj Khalifa as well.

The other half of the day was geared up for desert safari :) I had the least idea of how it would be! Thought it would be a boring drive into the dry desserts, but then I was totally wrong.

It was truly an adrenaline rush experience. OMG!! it was a crazy rash drive into the dunes of the desert for 45 longggg mins in a super cool Land cruiser :P I thoroughly enjoyed it. Have never loved a rash drive before. :)

Finally reached a camp area where we had a short camel ride, some Arabic mehandi do etc.

They welcomed us with an Arabian sweet called the Luqaimat which is an all purpose flour combination balls dunked in dates syrup. It was so damn tasty :)

It was followed by a candle light BBQ dinner.. awww again its 100% non-veg. So I had to depend on the other vegi dishes like some Chinese noodles, carrot rice, penne pasta, pita with hummus and few salads.

The dessert of the desert was paalpayasam ;) I don't know what they call it in Arabic. But it tasted just like paalpayasam. :)

Picture credits for mall of emirates: here.

The next day's touring started off with Mall of Emirates. Ski Dubai was the highlight of this mall. We enjoyed some happy go skiing for a while and then walked around the mall for hours. :)

Ski dubai is a lovely creation I say. Its such a contrast of climate indoors. Simply classic experience :)

My tummy demands for the lunch time was satisfied by Subway :) I have tasted subs here in chennai, but they they were not so fresh and good as it was on this specific day. Oh so soft and yummy.

I had a foot long veg sub with sweet onion and honey mustard sauce :) So delicious and filling it was :) Gave me the energy for the rest of the day :)

After a little more of walking and window shopping, we recharged ourselves at Starbucks.

We cherished a cup of Strawberry vivanno smoothie topped with cream and also a coffee. Ummmmm it is definitely special to have it here. Perfect and lip-smacking :)

The view through the window made us awestruck. The most expensive cars ranging from Lamborghini to BMW and what not. Name it and it was there!! Sophistication and wealth of Dubai could be seen :P

This day ended with a walk into the gold souk of Dubai. Awwww shining and dazzling gold all over!! :)

Coming up next - Part 2 of trip to Dubai with the royal breakfast at Burj Al Arab - the largest hotel of the world and one of the most luxurious one too. Keep waiting :)

Written by: Nithya

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Gooseberry Pickle / Nellikai Oorukai

A totally cozy lazy week has passed by and I hardly peeped into the kitchen :( Oops.. but I never skipped a meal. :) All thanks to mummy for pampering me out of my fever syndrome. :)

But a yummy pickle that grandma taught me when she was here has been there in my drafts for days now. We are really pickle people!! almost one full rack of the fridge is filled with various pickles ;) yummmm

Nellikai / gooseberry is a rich source of vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium and phosphorous. Pickled or plain, gooseberry is always yummy.. I love the expression in one's face and the goose bumbs formation when the taste buds come in contact with the juice of these berries ;)

Ingredients:

Gooseberries / Nellikai - 10
Tamarind pulp - 2 tsp
Jaggery - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Fenugreek(Vendhayam) powder - 1 tsp
Cumin(Jeera) powder - 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
Chilly powder - 2 tsp
Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - for tempering
Oil

Method:

Pressure cook the gooseberries. Cut them along their lines and remove the seed.

In a pan take a tblsp of oil and season with mustard. Then add the gooseberries and all the other ingredients one by one and mix well. Cook for just five minutes and remove from pan.

Yummy gooseberry pickle is ready. Serve it along with curd rice.

This can be stored in refrigerator and used for around 15 days.

Written by: Nithya

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Pomegranate Mocktail & Fruity Yoghurt

After an array of festivals, I had a lot of fruits stocked at home. Out of all, the pomegranate stood out this time since it was simply blood red and so tasty too.

I am just recovering after a viral fever and badly wanted a energy course of food. So naturally this made me google for fruit based recipes especially using pomegranate and the most attractive one was the Pomegranate Martini cocktail. ;)

Vodka!!!!! ahem ahem!! was my expression. Its an almost impossible ingredient for me.. So I chose to go for a mocktail instead and it was a super dooper hit :) Simply loved the different taste and I enjoyed the way it is presented too. :) Cheers to myself ;)

Sipping the sugar coated glass, gulping the drink and chewing the pomegranate pearls in between was a sure bliss :)

And of course the home made fruity yoghurt is always my favorite since curd is my dearest ingredient :)

Pomegranate Mocktail

Ingredients:

Pomegranate - 2
Sweet lime - 2

For simple syrup:

Sugar - 2 tbl sp (according to your preference)
Water - 2 tbl sp

Method:

De-seed the pomegranate and reserve some in a bowl. Pulse the rest of them in the mixie to just get a pure extract of pomegranate juice void of seeds. Strain it well and keep it aside.

Extract the juice of sweet lime and keep it aside too.

Now to make what's known as "simple syrup", start by pre-warming a pan over high heat on your stove top, and adding the sugar and water.

Heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved and you're left with the sticky, sweet syrup. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Now comes the presentation part. Coating the serving glass with sugar is the highlight.

Take a small plate and spread a thin layer of sugar over it. Run one of the sweet lime slices around the rim of your glass, wetting it with the citrus juice as you go.

Turn the glass over and carefully rotate it in the sugar evenly.

Take a martini shaker if you have one. ;) its really if you don't possess one. I dint use it too.

Just combine two parts of pomegranate juice with one part of sweet lime and add the simple syrup according to your taste bud's requirement. I used around 2 tsps of it for one glass of juice to make mine. Mix this well with a spoon and pour it into the prepared glass with some ice cubes. Finally top it with the reserved pomegranate pearls.

The addition of simple syrup as well as the proportions are totally upto your taste and the sweetness of the fruits you use.

This quantity made 3 glasses of mocktail.

A classic looking delicious drink is ready to serve :)

Freak your guest and enjoy mocktailing ;)

Note:

A very quick run in the mixie is called pulsing. Some mixies have a special button for this operation. This quick run does not grind the seeds.

People who want to make mocktail, just add two parts of pomegranate juice with one part of vodka and add one tsp of lemon juice or two tsps of sweet lime juice if it is sour enough.

Replacing the simple syrup with just water and sugar does make a difference. So do not skip making the simple syrup. It adds to the taste for sure.

Fruity Yoghurt

Ingredients:

Banana - 1
Pomegranate(De-seeded) - 1/2 cup
Apple - 1
Goa - 1
Fresh Curd - 1 cup
Sugar - for taste

Method:

Dice banana, apple and goa into small sized cubes.

Whip the curd into a smooth paste adding adequate sugar to it.

Now combine both and serve chilled. :)

Simple fruity yoghurt is ready to eat.

Enjoy making and enjoy eating :)

Note:

The choice of fruits is upto you. Be creative. Generally berries go well with curd.

The curd has to be thick and fresh. Sour curd can make it taste bad.

Add sugar adjusting to the sweetness of the fruits or you can totally avoid it too.

I am happy to send this to 'Food palette red event'.

Written by: Nithya
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Vinayaka Chathurthi Celebration

Vinayaka Chathurthi also known as Ganesh Chaturthi is the Hindu festival celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the elephant - headed son of Shiva and Parvathi. Ganesha is the cutest god who is worshipped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.

At home we used to celebrate this festival in a very grand manner by arranging a big array of Ganeshas and performing pooja to them. This year we had place 110 Ganeshas in our pooja.

According to our custom, we used to first perform a special pooja for Parvathi Devi by reciting slokas and praying for all goodness. A set of 16 threads with 16 knots would be tied around the right wrist during this pooja.

Then follows the Vinayaka chathurthi pooja. Chanting of various ashtothrams and concerned slokas go on followed by offering of neivithyam to the lord.

This year we made two types of Kolukattai namely the Cashew(mundhiri) kolukattai and Sesame(Yellu) Kolukattai as well as the famous Coconut modak.

I have the recipes of the kolukattais(Sweet dumplings) posted in my last year celebration over here.

Recipe for Coconut Modak Filling

Ingredients:

Coconut scrapping - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method:

Take the scrapped coconut and jaggery in a pan and heat them until the jaggery melts and combines well with the coconut. Add the cardamom powder and some broken cashews to it and mix well.

Remove from flame and use it as the filling for making modak.

Use the modak mould if you have one, else make cup shape with the white dough and fill it with one tsp of the filling and close it carefully with the white dough.

Steam cook them for ten mins.

Yummy and beautiful looking modak is ready to serve. :)

Happy making. :)

Look out for the white dough recipe here.

Step-wise procedure of making Kolukattai(Sweet dumpling)

Wish you all a very happy Vinayaka Chathurthi :)

Written by: Nithya
Send in your queries by clicking here.