Food Sheikh

Last night at Gymkhana I ate a dhal that was so delicious I wanted to pepper it with questions. Where are you from? What’s that smoky thing you’re doing and how much of you is butter?

But there was nobody to ask. I could have asked our waiter, but was still recovering from our ordering process, and The Serb’s entire knowledge of Indian food comes down to one question, which we’d already asked him forty times. (See previous post for context)

Wine gets a sommelier, someone in a waistcoat and a vocabulary that includes “quaffable”, who will happily talk you through a bottle for as long as you can stand it.

Food, some of the most complicated stuff humans have ever made, gets a waiter passing on a message from the chef who suggests you eat it in one bite, which is more of a dare than an explanation.

So how about this - a culinary sommelier. Someone who sits with you through a tasting menu and tells you what’s actually going on, from the technique and textures to the history and why that spice rather than the other one.

A very well-read dinner guest who really knows their stuff and doesn’t try your dessert.

Would I pay for this? Maybe. I’m also aware that paying a stranger to explain my dinner is how a food writer goes from “one of us” to “unfollow” in under 200 words.

Is this a brilliant idea, or have I reached peak pretentious? Less

Some days you pick a restaurant and some days the news picks it for you.

Three by Eva is a Jordanian restaurant. The food of Jordan and Palestine shares ingredients, dishes, histories and family tables that don’t always fit neatly within borders.

Tonight, with Palestine on my mind, this was where I wanted to eat.

We had an amazing Fattet Shishbarak – little dumplings resting on warm yogurt, with grilled lamb, pine nuts and chili oil. Thinking about it, Shish barak makes no commercial sense. Little fiddly dumplings with too many folds, too little margin, yet here it is.

Some dishes survive because someone decides they’re too precious to lose. Preservation, it turns out, requires a little stubbornness.

Eva learnt to cook from her mother and grandmother; today, her daughter Emilie leads the kitchen. Recipes move through this family from one generation to the next. Restaurants are peculiar repositories of memory. Recipes are passed down, names retained, techniques repeated.

Perhaps that’s why food matters so much when other things are being lost. Memory is a counterforce to erasure.

And the menu itself is editorial in nature. Carefully chosen. When we ordered the Fattet, our waiter was delighted for us. It’s a new dish on our menu, he proudly announced, validating our choice. Menus are full of decisions about what deserves to stay and what can disappear.

Don’t order something for long enough and eventually it gets replaced. Leave something undefended for long enough and eventually people stop asking where it went. Silence has a cost. Silence, after all, is a position.

But the star of the meal was the humble bread – the Jerusalem (Quds) Ka’keh, a warm loop of bread covered in sesame. There is something important about calling things by their proper names. A name carries meaning and history. It tells you where something came from and asks you, however briefly, to acknowledge it.

Some truths become harder to ignore once somebody finally calls them by their name.

I don’t imagine Eva, Emilie or Lillian intended their dinner to carry so much meaning for me tonight. But that’s the amazing thing about restaurants, isn’t it? Less

Ramen is a dish engineered for solitude, which is why I went to @shiogensui_dxb alone. And not in a tragic, “man abandoned by society and the Serb” way, but simply because ramen does not tolerate the social diner.

It has no patience for anecdotes, social preambles, or people who say, “Let’s wait until everyone’s food arrives.” As soon as that bowl hits the pass, the ramen is already dying. The noodles are softening faster than a Spinney’s avocado. The broth is cooling. The egg is sitting there like a small golden accusation. Every second spent in conversation is an act of culinary vandalism.

“Table for one?” Ai asked, as I stepped into Shio Gensui, the Osaka import that’s just landed in Dubai.
“Yes.” I said, happily. I meant it.

And so, I sat alone at the counter, faced forward, and entered the private domain of a good bowl of shoyu ramen. I stopped talking, put on my Spotify ramen play list and grabbed my chopsticks.

Sometimes sharing is not caring. No performative ‘have the last gyoza’ democratic bullsh*^t. Sometimes it’s OK to be selfish. To want something all to yourself. A ramen is there to support that state of mind. And a ramen needs no supporting acts itself - it is the ultimate complete meal - nutritionally, emotionally, self-sufficiency in a bowl. My bowl.

But here’s where the democracy does come in - with ramen, you need know nothing. No Tampopo level of analysis. There is no need to forensically analyse the fat to salt content of the tare or check the hydration levels of the noodles (sorry @astoryoffood !) or the horoscope of the menma.

A good ramen is a good ramen. It only needs to impress you.

And Shio Gensui’s ramen certainly impressed me.

Welcome to Dubai. Hope you fix your AC! Less

I was invited to @theraredxb Brasserie & Bar, a restaurant that tries very hard not to be classified as a steakhouse. I was there to try some new, ahem, steak from the world-famous Bodega El Capricho – a place in Spain that has become near-mythical among meat aficionados worldwide.

One of the star dishes on the menu that night was the beef satay. The dish was made from the tender, highly marbled and flavourful meat that is found between the ribs, marinated in a rich tangy peanut sauce.

@thesahilanand explained that he had this same dish on the regular menu, and it never sold. The reason? Its name. He named it after the technical cut, so on the menu it read:

“Beef Intercostals, coconut satay, pickled shallots, crushed peanuts.”

The dish just wasn’t moving – and in fairness, I don’t think I would normally order beef intercostals without encouragement. So Sahil changed the name. Simply called it Beef Satay. Guess what? It flew off the grill. Same thing happened to another dish. Another well-marbled and tender beef cut. He named it:

“Oyster blade steak, Salsa pebre, Amarillo chilli”

Again, didn’t sell. “Nobody wanted ‘oysters’ with their steak,” Sahil explained. So again he used another name it is commonly known for – the Flat Iron steak. Bingo – people connected with it and started ordering it.

As he was telling me this, I was bouncing up and down, desperate for him to finish, so I could crowbar my favourite story into the conversation. When he paused for a sip of wine, I saw my chance.

“Patagonian Toothfish!” I blurted out enthusiastically, proud as punch and delirious with excitement that the conversation had led me to my favourite story. Sahil took another calm sip of wine, and nodded.

“Exactly,” he said, “Chilean Seabass.”

I said nothing and ate some more intercostal satay. Less

Many things to write about so I must be brief with my words.

A zeugma is a linguistic trick where you join two mismatched things together - like ‘holding the door and a grudge.’

El Primo Taqueria is built entirely on this tension. It serves authentic carnitas and mid-century nostalgia with equal conviction.

To honor that friction, I’ve gone for a strictly old-school flat lay style - a visual echo of a place that exists somewhere between a Mexico City street corner and a 1980s diner.

The room radiates a specific cinematic grit. I half-expected to find Dominic Toretto at the counter, muttering about ‘family’ over a lime Jarritos. I know it is a culturally incoherent fantasy – he is a Cuban-Italian paradox in a drag-racing franchise - but in this specific lighting, it feels entirely appropriate, and I’m sticking with it.

The music transition was wild – starting with Celia’s Oye Como Va, and moving through to Return of the Tres, by Delinquent Habits and Si Senor by Control Machete. You basically travel from a 1960s dance hall to a 1990s East LA house party in the span of 3 songs. Love it.

Shout out to Valeria, our taco consultant, who showed elite emotional intelligence - subtly moving to block an aggresive sun beam to my face, while walking us through the menu. She also suggested the salsa macha (Not Matcha, as the Serb quickly found out) for the shiitake tostadas and validated our two-dessert strategy without a trace of judgment. It is a rare luxury to be in the hands of genuine hospitality.

As for the food, Chef Jon Collin (LPM, Zuma) brings the ruthless discipline of fine dining to the chaotic joy of street food. Success is rarely an accident - this is decades of technique & hard work distilled into a single corn tortilla.

We worked through the pastor, the beef cheeks, and the shiitake truffle tostada. Did I mention the desserts. Plural. The execution was “correct” - a technical term for absolutely without fault. Delicious & delightful.

It managed a rare paradox: my mouth danced with flavour, yet my soul felt grounded by a deep, ancestral comfort.

A taqueria with serious intent & zero pretense. The kind of place that upgrades your week. Less

Dinner at the Strudel House in Budpest - the type of restaurant that seems to attract wide eyed tourists and seasoned locals in equal measure. I was obviously a tourist, having spent a total of three hours walking around the freezing city, regretting my choice in clothes.

However, I want to write about this little table in the corner. Because when it comes to restaurants, I am definitely a seasoned local.

And this little table worked hard tonight. When we arrived, it played host to a couple drinking coffee and playing cards. Then it lay empty for a few minutes, until a tourist couple temporarily stayed, sharing a strudel and a few moments respite from the biting cold outside. Then, finally a solo diner sat there – a local man enjoying a late night steaming bowl of goulash soup and sour cabbage.

And I was suddenly struck by a sense of how the stories and humanity imbued in an inanimate object can seemingly bring it to life. It transcends wood and glue.

I’ve become a little obsessed with these special demarcations of privacy in semi public spaces. A temporary space that holds so many iterations of life.

And there must be tens of thousands of these tables across the city.

Cities express themselves not just in plazas or grand cafes, but in these tiny, adaptable squares of surface area - where strangers become temporary owners for a few minutes. The table’s loyalty is indiscriminate.

The city flows, people pass, plates are served and cleared, coats shift from hooks to shoulders to hooks again. But the table remains - as infrastructure for connection, as basic and essential as a doorhandle or a bench.

Tables like this don’t change the city, but they let the city change around them. They are indiscrimate - they don’t really create the moments, as such, but let them happen.

Their only philosophy is availability. And that’s probably enough. Less

I am having dinner with some colleagues at Brasserie Colette Tim Raue in Munich. It is below freezing outside and the dining room is warm and inviting.

The food is excellent, but that’s not what grabs my attention.

Because the food has triggered something in my comrades - instinct, ego, curiosity, guardianship.

I’ve always known food is as much as social instrument as sensory pleasure, but tonight, it is heightened, or maybe I am more tuned into it. Perhaps it is the weather.

One colleague takes the responsibility of choosing the wine for the table. And instantly he becomes the steward of our pleasure. He studies the menu, cross-checks our dishes, consults the waiter and places the order with consideration. When we raise our glasses in approval, he relaxes, his satisfaction is affirmation of his role - curator, protector of group experience.

This fascinates me.

For another collegue, taste is information as well as flavour. I am watching curiosity expressed socially and this also fascinates me - his need to understand each dish.

He sniffs, stares and separates components, guesses ingredients, challenges himself, and us, and insists the waiter check with the chef to see if he is right. He embodies epistemic drive.

The joy of guessing it was clarified butter in the pomme puree was infectious.

It can easily slip into pretentiousness (my radar is finely tuned for that) but it never does. It comes from such a good place – genuine passion, enjoyment and curiosity.

But tonight, I’m not drawn to the passions themselves, but to what those passions reveal about people.

Hospitality compresses so many things - psychology, culture, ritual, status, curiosity, pride, interpretation - all into one table.

Tonight, food is human behavior in concentrated form.

I find it fascinating because it reveals character - in a setting designed exactly for that purpose. Less

Wagyu Hambāgu Donburi by @itadaku_dubai - One of my best dishes of the year.

We literally stopped mid conversation to acknowledge how good it was.

The wagyu hambagu arrived with a glistening crust, the meat inside impossibly tender — a texture that held together only long enough to surrender.

Even the rice was next level - each grain was glossy, plump and individual - yet part of the whole. The egg yolk - the colour of a setting sun - seeped between the grains coating them with subtle silkiness.

And the teriyaki sauce had that impossible Japanese balance, elevating the wagyu to a better version of itself, if that is even possible.

It is the sign of a true master that can make the difficult seem easy and the complex seem simple. Arigato, Chef @masaru.sakagami Less

The middle child, (according to ChatGPT), usually creates their own identity, acts as a natural mediator, stays adaptable, reads people well, and is quietly overlooked.

Let’s see how Middle Child in Alserkal stacks up.

Independent:-
Not just a restaurant, but also a well-stocked bookstore, showcasing dozens of culinary titles - from McNally’s I Regret Almost Everything to Lopez’s The Food Lab.

Add to that an eclectic range of gourmet pantry items with quirky handwritten labels and suggested recipes, and you start to see the shape of its personality.

The menu is actually quite simple, almost café fare - a contrast to the abundance of culinary inspiration living on the bookshelves.

A club sandwich, cheesecake, roasted potato salad, Labneh Yuzukosho - comfort food that did the job - not trying to impress, just doing its thing. Totes independent.

Diplomatic:-
Middle Child was full of the most eclectic mix of diners - from the conservative to the flamboyant, a full spectrum of religions, cultures, professions, and beliefs - as if we were all about to star in a Benetton advert.

Only a true middle child could smooth tensions, connect opposites and read people this well.

Empathetic:
The soundtrack alone told you Middle Child understood people - a blend of lo-fi groove, soul, and cosmic cool that dialed itself in perfectly to the room’s collective mood.

The Serb and I were showing our age; one of us (can’t remember who, but it wasn’t me) commented on how loud it was. Then, in a brief pause between tracks, we discovered they also own the world’s loudest blender.

Adaptable:
7 p.m. and Middle Child was full. Maybe people waiting for the traffic to die down, but Middle Child’s ability to respond with the day is undeniable.

Coffee stop, counter lunch, makeshift office, dinner with friends, retail browsing, quiet read, quick takeaway - Middle Child has found the sweet spot.

Overlooked:
If middle children grow up fearing they’ll be overlooked, Middle Child at AlSerkal can rest easy. A cool, casual little spot, with bags of personality and charisma - no one’s overlooking this one. Less

I first reviewed @pitfirepizzadubai Pitfire back in 2017 and it was one of the first places that made me realise great food didn’t have to be backed by a massive corporation or imported in from abroad.

That perhaps the future of great gastronomy in the city was home grown.

Those garlic knots are proof that something simple, when done with care, can shape a city’s tastebuds.

Fast-forward 8 years and I’m so pleased to add Pitfire to the @tabaq54 family.

The Palm Pizza is Michele and Bill’s ode to the UAE - The Palm brings together the unexpected in a way only Pitfire can.

Pizza is a global food, and such, is unconstrainted by cultural borders.

The Palm replaces a traditional tomato base with olive oil - an ingredient that’s flowed through this region’s kitchens and trade routes for millennia – a thread connecting us all across time.

Generous ribbons of bresaola nods to desert preservation methods and dates, of course, need no explanation - they are the Emirates’ original sweetener, carried in pockets and offered in welcome.

Rosemary hints of a mountain breezes from Jebal Hafeet to Hatta and the gorgonzola and balsamic glaze is bold, unexpected and ambitious - perhaps the strongest nod to Dubai’s character.

Get this pizza a golden visa already. Less