Finer Things: Gourmet food store in Umm Al Quwain

Gourmet food stores are always a welcome addition to any part of the UAE. The folks at Finer Things have sent in the following release and just by the sounds of their amazing selection of cheese, here's hoping their plans to open in Dubai are progressing well. If you are in the area, be sure to check them out.

" If you have not stumbled across “Finer Things” Gourmet Food Store located right next to Barracuda, it is worth a visit! It is the ambiance of our store and the uniqueness of our products that captures your attention from the moment you walk in.

We stock an exquisite range of artisan products from France, Italy, Austria, Spain, the UK,USA and Canada. Our adventure continues at Finer Things as we plan to extend our range with a lot more new and exciting products from all around the world. We source our products from highly named passionate producers across the globe; and want our products to be fearfully hard to resist!

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Pappa Roti goes big: second much larger unit in Dubai Mall

Fans of the "king of all buns" can now rejoice, no longer will you have to wait for what seems like an eternity for a table at Dubai Malls favourite coffee bun outlet. The aroma and taste of which has converted even the hardcore of naysayers into fans, as they have just opened a second store at the Mall.  

The new Pappa Roti is located on the third floor, right opposite Hamleys. No word as yet if they will be closing their original spot near the ice rink, but it seems highly doubtful.

If you haven't yet tasted this delicious bun and would like to know more, check out the excellent write up at Fork It Over Dubai.

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Pierre Hermé launches in Dubai

Pierre Hermé, the famed French patisserie has launched its first unit in Dubai. It seems, only a couple days ago.

Located on the ground floor of Galeries Lafayette they are currently serving up their extremely popular macarons and chocolates, but expect more to pop up soon if the statement from Tatweer Investments (their local partner) a couple months ago to the National is anything to go by.

Being a huge fan of their Salted Caramel macarons this came as pleasant surprise as I was walking around Dubai Mall, having fond memories of devouring them by the dozen in Paris. Here's hoping it's not long before they add their highly regarded pastries to the menu in Dubai as well.

If you like Macarons, get down there and try it out now - you wont be disappointed.

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Pizza Express Dubai 2-for-1 Foodie Voucher

Who doesn't like free food? I know I do! Now thanks to the attached voucher you get 2-for-1 on all mains at Pizza Express Dubai from the 24th till the 28th!

Please read the fine print for more info, but fear not - there's nothing in there to worry about.

Bumble Box Dubai Launches!

This past weekend saw the very first Bumble Box Market taking place at the Al Quoz Garden Centre and if the buzz.. (see what I did there?) on twitter and the net is anything to go by, it was quite the event! Sadly I missed it and if you did too, fear not.. it was the first I hope of many more to come.

Bumble Box Dubai is a great initiative providing those of us in Dubai with fresh, organic, local produce in the shape of tasty fruit and vegetable boxes.

 
' All of the vegetables are organic and local and will be hand picked that morning so you won’t be able to find anything fresher in Dubai! We will be selling small and large Bumble Boxes which will be pre selected with fruit and veg from our local farms. '

They hold a bi-weekly market at the Al Quoz Garden Centre on Tuesdays and Saturday's which starts at 9.30am and they also provide a delivery service of their Bumble Boxes which are brimming full of yummy organic fruit and veg at 80 AED for 2 people and 130 AED for 4 people.

Bumble Box can be found at http://www.bumble-box.com/

Paratha King: House of Paratha's with over a 100 varieties

A Paratha is an extremely popular Indian flat-bread, described perfectly and in detail on Wikipedia. What they don't tell you there is that we in Dubai have a small little place (and I do mean a tiny hole in the wall) directly opposite Karama Post Office, next to Baskin Robins, that offers us over a 100 varieties of these delicious, carbalicious treats! 

My first thought on hearing about this place was how on earth did they manage to come up with a 100 different varieties? Normal variations include stuffing them with different fillings such as boiled potatoes, cauliflower or other leafy vegetables, but a hundred? That's quite the achievement and naturally my second thought was.. where do I start?

Pictured: Chilli Milli

Thankfully they make all their Paratha's with sunflower oil instead of the usual fattening ghee and whole wheat flour. The Paratha's also come with a tiny side of yogurt, chick peas, daal (lentils) and small packets of  mixed pickle.

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800Pizza.. 'Thin crust' pizza at its best

When it comes to pizza, it can be a very personal matter.. Some prefer the thick crusted Chicago style deep pan, others prefer the medium crust and those like me want the super thin crust!

We certainly don't have any shortage of pizza options in Dubai be it the run of the mill chains like Domino's or Pizza hut or another slightly newer company that's been the subject of many a conversations recently due to their mass bombardment of media. Yes I might be talking about another certain brand touting their 'healthy' pizza all over Twitter and Facebook but having tried it, I would still say they I wasn't won over - still there are some who love it and think its the best thing since sliced bread.  One thing is for sure, whoever did their PR work does deserve a medal for spreading the word that quickly.

Margherita con mozzarella di Bufala w/ extra chillies

I personally love all kinds of carbs & cheese, but when it comes to pizza's, my preferred choice is a thin crust with the slight hint of crisped (i.e burnt) edges and I have yet to find someone who does it better then 800Pizza.  Everything from the traditional handcrafted wood-fired stone oven to the Mozzarella and Flour flown in from Italy - it doesn't get any more genuinely Italian than this...

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Geekfest Dubai Mobile Edition - The food!

While it was truly very nice meeting and mingling with a load of smiling and friendly faces at Geekfest Dubai Mobile Edition a.k.a mass gathering of twitterati's, what was also of interest other then the Zombie movie or the informative talks and the cool mobile apps by local developers.. was obviously the food! Provided by the nice folks at LimeTree Cafe, it was surprisingly quite nice. I say surprisingly as I have heard a lot of varied opinions about LimeTree and shamefully have still not been there, so it was good to finally try a small variety of their food. 

The banana cake and the vegi spring rolls with the mango inside were my favourite and judging by how quickly the plates were being emptied, its a safe bet to say most people there enjoyed the food too or was I too busy eating to not notice if it was just me cleaning up the plates?

Here's what you missed... anyone remember what the dish in the second picture was called?

 

Sarvana Bhavan - the only choice for South Indian food

A fellow UAE based foodie by the name of Devina Divecha a.k.a FooDee recently laid down the gauntlet by proclaiming on her site that if you wanted South Indian food in Dubai, the only place to go was some random place (added for dramatic effect, actually I've tried it and thought it was OK, but definitely not THE place) called Venus in Karama. While I love all kinds of food, the one thing that I truly consider myself of being an expert at (eating & cooking) is South Indian food.

So for me, the lover of all things South Indian, who has frequently gone out for idli's at 7 am - I naturally thought it was my duty to put her right. I immediately called her out on twitter on her preferred choice of South Indian eatery, and a foodie face/off challenge was laid out and accepted! The VadaWar battle will be coming to a FiA blog near you soon..

In the mean time, I bring you a few choice selections from my personal favourite; Sarvana Bhavan...

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MealSnap: Possibly the coolest foodie app ever?

When it comes to the Blackberry v/s iPhone battle, I have always firmly been part of the BB camp. That was until recently when I found out about possibly the coolest iPhone App! Might possibly be because it is food related..

The way it works is simple, take a picture of your food (which we all do anyway right - or is it just me?) and et voila it tells you what you are eating and approximately how many calories it has!

Is it wrong to want an iPhone just for a single app? If you've tried it, let me know what you thought! I am curious to know if their database of 500,000 foods has many Arabic or Desi specialties in it.

MealSnap: http://www.mealsnap.com