Neighbourhood Food Hall (NFH) Dubai

Al Naqa Lao Kebab House opened in Neighbourhood Food Hall around June 2024. Tiffany and I went as she knew “AJ”, and I only ever heard of him. I trust Tiffany emphatically on matters of the stomach.

Al Naqa would not work in lesser hands. It teeters between worlds that are disparate and almost estranged from each other but with AJ as a thoughtful guide, he is able to stand back 35,000 ft to see the broader strokes that unite Laotian, Persian and wider Middle Eastern cuisine and then slide into the details that serve each other almost naturally, like they were always meant together, like fingers that find the grooves of a glove.

Al Naqa is a brave, but AJ has ability and humility is spades.

To be clear, this is street food. This is budget dining in a food hall I’ve once described as a gentrified abattoir. (It’s honesty great, go! I make it sound terrible but it’s easily one of my favourite places and I’m fortunate to live close to it.)

It is the kind of eating people want not only because it’s delicious, but it’s recognisable. It’s the kind of stuff I would cook myself if I had the time, and abilities.

It’s what Dubai’s Michelin Guide is missing—a publication so bent on fanning tourists towards Dubai’s next shiniest thing that it blithely overlooks what it needs.

We don’t need another mortgage-threatening opening. We need to celebrate the diaspora of those that make this city better than great; they make it delicious.

Al Naqa sits among them and, if Michelin won’t send you here, I will.

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Weekend 15 comes and goes. I spent much of it catching up on those things that eluded me during the week.

Work things, by far. Family things. Italy things. Personal things. These two days that buttress the week like a bookend are a scramble. These were the highlights.

Greek wine is largely unknown to me and versus other wine producing countries often stocked in Dubai, they present good value. So I’m on the hunt. @avantisestate produces this Malagousia, a grape otherwise unknown to me. Rounded, aromatic, expressive—with plenty of stone fruit.

We continue to explore things my son will eat. The latest: pomegranate seeds. He’s a fan.

@neighbourhoodfoodhalls is a Motor City favourite that I’ve neglected as of late.

@alnaqakebab by @ajsavanh has a special menu on right now, so I took my laptop down to eat a few things while breaking the back of my inbox.

The Tahini Caesar Salad is deliciously light, 38 dhs (the before and after featured here). The Special Hat Yai Dubai Fried Chicken quarter leg delights with its glassy, crispy skin, garlic chips, crispy onions and a pineapple habanero so good, I ordered a second portion of it. Run full pelt this month.

I’m sad to see @big.oli.pasta left NFH. @funkcoolio takes its place, and offers pizza by the slice (smart). The spicy duck pizza will be loved by most, but I’m never a fan of that dynamite shrimp type sauce. 65 dhs for 10 inches.

A moment of zen outside, even if it is pushing 40 C.

Good luck all for the week ahead.

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