Dubai Travel

When you sign up for a tour package or decided to spend the rest of your vacation some place else, other than your local country, you will be packing your clothes and accessories but not food. Of course, if you get hungry, either you call the room service of your hotel and order the food of your choice, which can be quite expensive. On the other hand, there’s the ever reliable international food chain, Mc Donalds that would cater you the sloppy burgers and super sized softdrinks. But aren’t you getting tired (and fat?) of eating the same old food that you can eat at your own local country? Part of being a tourist is to browse the country’s best restaurants and eating local foods to get the best out of your vacation.

In Dubai, the amount of spices used are very strong, which makes it very unique, exotic and amazingly delicious. The delicacies served are nowhere near the taste of Western foods. One of the most delicious local foods in Dubai is the chick pea dip called humus. Humus is best eaten along with the unleavened bread called Pitta, which is served with almost any Arabic food. The best humus should have a thick consistency. You can spread the humus in the pitta just like a sandwich spread or you may tear the pitta into small pieces and dip it into the chick pea dip. Almost all of the Arabic restaurants in Dubai serve humus and pitta. Aside from humus, felafel or bean patties are also served with pitta bread. Falafel is a delicious street food commonly eaten at Dubai’s corner stalls.

Kibbe Kibbe is another local food in Dubai. Just like the humus and the pitta bread, kibbe is one of the mezzes or starter food in the emirate. It is a minced patty of lamb meat serve with onions and bulghur. Other local food mezzes include tabbuleh (a salad mixture of bulghur, tomatoes, mint, onion and parsley), vine leaves or warak enab, baba ganush or eggplant dip, and the kussa mahshi or stuffed zucchini.

Main dishes are also served in the restaurants of Dubai. It usually has rice and meat from lambs, chicken, or fish. The khuzi is one of the must-have local foods that are usually served during a mansaf (a Bedouin feast). Khuzi is a whole roasted lamb placed on the top of the spiced rice. Makbus is another favorite food in Dubai. It is a casserole of lamb or fish that comes along with the rice. Other main dishes favored by the locals of Dubai are hareis (combination of lamb and wheat), biryani (an Indian-style fried rice cooked with lamb or meat), and the lentil soup called shurba addis.

Five star restaurants inside the hotels sometimes give complimentary Arabian breakfast to their VIP guests. It is called ful madames which is comprised of beans, yoghurt, tomato sauce, eggs, pitta bread, and other local condiments. For local snacks, you may chow on the fried pastry filled with spinach and cheese called fattayer.

But the most delicious local foods of Dubai that can be ordered at restaurants or eaten at the streets are the charcoal grilled meats either of big fishes found in the Arabian Sea or lamb such as hamur, beyah, and chanad. The dish called shawarma, an Arabian food that has spread in most neighboring Asian countries like virus, is the most popular of them all. It is roasted lamb or chicken cut into small pieces and wrapped in warmed pitta bread and served with vegetables as well as onions and white or red spicy sauce.