Fuddruckers @ Wahda Mall, Abu Dhabi

I belong to an odd breed of the female species - the kind that enjoys steak. No no not those fake chicken/fish steaks they have going around these days but the old-fashioned sirloin, T-bone, rib-eye and the like - the stuff of old cowboy stories.

I've been suffering intense steak cravings for a couple of weeks now - my body must have been signalling a necessity for red meat. Abu Dhabi's not particularly world-famous for its steakhouses and Fuddruckers being primarily a burger-joint, I wasn't expecting much from it on my visit there the other afternoon. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and finding steak and shrimps on the menu was the decision made right there for me!

The staff at the Al Wahda Mall branch were incredibly professional, quick and polite and I enjoyed the experience much more than I had anticipated. We had a lovely welcome by the waitress at the door who quickly placed us at the perfect spot, and didn't mind us being picky at all. Afternoon lunch rush was handled with ease, and not only were they attentive and quick to respond, the manager even popped by our table just to find out if everything was to our liking and if anything was needed. After my week of dealing with...let's just say not polite people, this was a refreshing change, and needless to say I was impressed.

My iced tea came first, and after tasting one too many overly sweetened drinks, this one was a welcome refresher. Syrup on the side, and a fresh lemon wedge allows you to get your drink perfectly attuned to personal taste; something impossible to achieve with a readymade drink.

We requested for a quick-as-possible service, and although we definitely didn't expect to be given preferential treatment just because we asked, we were pleasantly surprised to find our meal arrived at our table relatively quick with no compromise on quality whatsoever.

My long-anticipated steak was absolutely amazing, with just the right amount of spices and cooked to perfection, still juicy yet well-done, with the brown glaze of meat that had been taken off the grill at just the right time. The shrimps were smaller than I expected in size, but made up for that by quantity, and although I expected them simply grilled, they came with a most tantalising sauce probably made up of tomatoes, peppers and spices drizzled over them. The steamed veggies had a good variety and a very interesting spice powder sprinkled on top. The powder was sprinkled almost completely on a single courgette slice, and I would have much preferred it to be evenly distributed, but in view of the meal as a whole, I let this small inconvenience slide. A surprise treat awaited me under my veggies - perfectly transparent, sweet and savoury grilled onion rings and I shudder at the thought that I might have missed them completely had I chosen to not eat my veggies! The garlic bread was highly boring, too soft, mildly sweet white bread. I couldn't say it was bad-tasting but it definitely left room for improvement in terms of the type of base bread used.

The baked potato was absolutely massive, and definitely provided an amazing first impression based on looks alone. Perfectly browned skin, and piled on high with cheese, sour cream and bacon. I'm quite happy the sour cream was too sour for my taste, the bacon bits were too crunchy and the cheese seemed to lack taste - I ended up eating just the potato which was perfectly cooked and quite flavourful on its own, saving myself some guilt.

My lunch partner ordered a chicken ceasar salad, which was average as far as ceasar salads go - I definitely felt they could have had more variety in there. The quality of the chicken was what made the salad - moist and soft with a lightly crisp brown glazed top at just the right temperature. The extra-large croutons added crunch and flavour and completed the salad so that we ended up feeling very satisfied with our meal.

I'm already planning my next expedition there - I'm hoping it comes soon, and next time I hope I remember to carry my camera and  remember to take pictures before the food disappears!

Location: Al Wahda Mall, Airport Road. Top floor of the food court

Price Range: AED 100-150 (For two)

Qian Zhou Hotpot

I've finally gathered enough inspiration to write about my discovery on Najda St in Abu Dhabi - the delightful little chinese family-run hotpot place that's called Qian Zhou.

In short, I'm addicted to the place. It seems the more often I go there the more often I want to go! I seem to discover new taste thrills on every single expedition.

Expedition seems to be the right word for it, as the entrance to the place is as dodgy as dodgy can get. (See picture)

The dilapidated old escalators look as if they belong to a building that is to be demolished in a week. All the dodgy men lurking around the entrance and the internet cafe cum billiards place at the top all add to the feeling you're entering a secret lair and nothing good can possibly come out of this exploration.

Bravery is rewarded however, and as you spy the flashing lights and colourful interior of Qian Zhou you experience a wave of relief that you have indeed come to the right place.

The restaurant itself is neat, the ambience simple and unpretentious and the staff (though lacking a great deal in english skills) pleasant and helpful. You start by ticking off a soup base (my favourite is the spicy) and size on an interactive menu. The staff accordingly bring in your soup and bowls and set it up on a hot plate while you tick off your ingredients. Once the menu is submitted, you take your personal bowl off to the sauces and condiments counter and mix and match according to taste.

Now, one should never underestimate the mixing process - it is best to take your time, smell (and if you're brave enough to risk looking rude - taste) your sauce mix till you've reached perfection. 

It took me a good couple of visits before I learnt the art of sauce mixing. There's just too much to choose from and no matter what anyone says - simply tossing a little of everything in does not work! The last time, I asked for extra bowls and did a bit of mixing and matching at the table through the meal - it worked well.

By the time you've perfected your sauce and return to your table, your fresh ingredients are ready and waiting.

In the picture is a large spicy soup base with beef strips, spinach, fish balls, mushrooms, chinese cabbage and bamboo shoots. The seaweed and peanut bowls are complimentary starters.

The seafood soup base comes with a crab in it - which is great fun if you enjoy crab.

I definitely recommend what's called 'fat beef' on the menu instead of the plain beef - it's more tender and barely has to touch the boiling water to cook perfectly. It can be identified by the white stripes among the pink. But really, anything on the menu we've tried so far is nothing short of delightful. I haven't been brave enough to try the really scary stuff - and believe me there's plenty to choose from!

One item that's not on the menu but is truly not to be missed are the dumplings. The only thing to arrive at your table cooked, they are also the only items that can be done as a takeaway.

 These are basically soft little packets made of flour and filled with minced meat or chicken and vegetables. I find the best dipping sauce for the dumplings is a very simple mix of soy sauce, vinegar and garlic (I also tried adding a spoon of tomato puree which added a very pleasant twist). Best eaten hot, these are very delicate and soft. Chances are if you're not good with chopsticks, you'll either end up having them slip through your chopsticks or being cut in half by them. They don't fare much better once you manage to get them into your mouth. The salty/sour of the sauce gives your tastebuds a real kick just before you bite and the mildly-spiced, meaty interior offers just the right amount of comfort straight after. You're as much not in control as you were with the chopsticks - all you can do is lean back, close your eyes, chew and savour the contrasting flavours, and before you know it - Poof it's gone - just as it slipped out of your chopsticks when you were trying to grab them. There's nothing left to do but to grab one more! :)

It's always quite a handful to make sure your ingredients don't overcook, to make sure you add ingredients at the right time, to watch and quickly pick out food that's cooked, to remember to wait till they're cool before dipping and eating. Spend too much time enjoying your dumplings and you're bound to forget something else. But therein lies the true beauty of this meal - it can never get boring, and it's only as different and as exciting and as crazy as you want it to be. The meal's in your hands and all you have to do is take control to totally enjoy yourself and come out feeling happy and full. 

Speaking of happy - I just have to mention an amusing story from my last visit. A television screen at the restaurant usually plays chinese tv programs, and if you don't understand Chinese, pretty soon your ears forget about the sound in the background. I was thus immersed in my world of soup and cooking and munching when my dining partner asked me to look at the screen. I did and the resulting scene left me rubbing my eyes and shaking my head with disbelief! It was a popular indian TV serial, complete with colourfully overdressed characters and heaps of melodrama...but in Chinese! I was absolutely flabbergasted - I would never have imagined those serials being so popular with a non-indian crowd...

Departing piece of advice - Don't go to Qian Zhou if you plan to catch up with an old friend - although the meal does stretch a bit, unless you're an expert - talking takes second place. And there's no waiting time involved!

Location: Al Markaziyah West, Najda St., National Cinema Building. Up the dodgy escalators and U-turn to your left.

Price Range: AED 150-200 (For two) Be sure to carry cash!

~~

Till next time folks!

Do Looks Really Matter?

Reading the paper this morning, I stumbled across an interesting article about a young mother who went from being a CFO in New York to taking care of her young daughter full-time in Dubai and in the process discovered a passion for creating food that is worthy of being called art. Healthy food is seldom appealing to kids; I have a young friend who won't go near anything that looks like a vegetable with a 10-foot pole!

Her ideas aren't new, but interesting all the same. Her belief? Present healthy food in a fun, colourful, imaginative way and kids will willingly finish everything on their plate.

The article highlighted how kids react to food presentation, but it made me think about how we as adults make food choices too.

I still remember the time, years ago when we had guests over for dinner, and mum made a huge variety of food. Our guests were mostly non-Indian and so most of the dishes took this into consideration with spices being toned down a huge deal. There was one curry that looked very red on the table, and we noticed that nobody touched it. Why? The mental mould that red must equal hot and spicy, especially in an indian house. After a bit of convincing, and a few brave ones taking the plunge, everyone found they enjoyed the dish so much, the pot quite quickly emptied itself. What food looks like impacts a great deal on what we think the food will taste like.

Makes sense really - imagine a plain green salad vs one where the green contrasts with black olives, white soft feta, yellow capsicum, red tomatoes, purple onions. The green salad could have an absolutely scrumptious secret dressing on it that kills the colourful salad in a taste test. But if given a choice, most would opt for the colourful salad. Variety is the spice of life and that applies to food presentation too.

The same goes for soups - Thai soups where green coriander contrasts red chilli and pink shrimps or white chicken look so much better than a dull sweet corn chicken soup. Only someone who has a prior affinity to the sweet corn would opt for the latter (or someone who hates spice!)

Or take for example, a food court in a shopping mall. We see it so often, people walking around in circles, looking at images of food or displayed food in an attempt to decide what steals their fancy today. And how many times do people make bad decisions because of it? That crispy fried chicken on a beautiful sesame bun with fresh green lettuce on the picture looks so good, till you actually order it and realise the slightly sweet but mostly tasteless bun has about 4 sesame seeds on it, the lettuce is so soggy it feels like it came out of a soup and the fried chicken has a terrible stale oil taste - if it isn't also soggy.

Which brings me to thinking about fast food. Out here in abu dhabi, 'free home delivery' is one of the sad realities of life. We get daily flyers at our door with menus, complete with tantalizing images of everything you could possible order and have hand-delivered within the hour from every fast food outlet and restaurant in the city! The vegetables on the pizza look like they might have been freshly grown and picked that morning from a garden at the back, or fried chicken looks so crisp and fresh and non-greasy, it would be close to sacrilege to call it unhealthy. Flipping through those harbiners of doom brings on cravings instantaneously, and the next thing you know you're feeling grease-filled and guilty and vowing you're never going to order fast food ever again. It happens to the best of us, and it's all to do with false imagery.

Imagine for a second instead, the fried chicken picture with a soaked-to-the-bone-in-oil kitchen towel below it. Or that burger with the soggy lettuce and bread. No sane person in their right mind would order takeaways, would they?

I just thought of that time I burnt my cake and covered it with chocolate frosting. Everyone cut themselves huge slices; the cake just looked that good! And everyone must have enjoyed the taste of burnt cake that day - I got so many compliments :)

On that amusing thought, I'll say adieu and leave you with the link to the article I was talking about:

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100323/LIFE/703229978/1239

Till next time folks!

The Chocolate Poll

I'm interested in finding out which chocolate is the most popular. Considering the fact that I have a fairly small reader base at the moment, this poll might not accurately portray the feelings of the world, but I thought it would be fun to get opinions anyway.

I'm starting at a high-level - chocolate manufacturers. Once the most popular company has been chosen, I'm thinking of starting another poll drilling down to chocolate brands. Let's see how this one goes.

Feel free to spread the word and invite friends to vote!

I've only listed the most common and what I feel are the most popular. Anyone feels like this list is incomplete or a particular manufacturer does not deserve to be in the list, feel free to let me know! I can't guarantee it, but I will take your opinion into consideration.

I might even do a write-up on the most popular choice in the end... :)

Till next time folks!

Edit: Just to remind everyone - Nestle makes Kit Kat and Kraft makes Toblerone :)

The Queen of Desserts

Crumbly sweet biscuit base, rich creamy dense middle and a perfectly glossy thin fruity topping with a small whoosh of whipped cream on top...ahhh the cheesecake had me pining away for almost a month for this wonderfully decadent dessert...

I finally gave in this afternoon and took a trip to the office cafe in the hope of finally satisfying my long-time craving. Peering into the glass display case I see chocolate mousse cake, carrot cake, marble cake, even a strange looking lemon sponge cake...but to my dismay not the one slice of what I was looking for. With the saddest puppy eyes I could muster, I ask at the counter "No cheesecake?". Looking around, the lovely waitress at the counter locates something of interest in the refrigerator, and comes back to ask me the best question I've heard all day 'We only have blueberry, is that okay?'

YEA of course that's okay! It took most of my daily quota of self-control to not grab my precious bounty and do a little pirouette in the foyer...

I'm crazy about cheese and savoury stuff, and never really cared much for sweet things. I'm generally pretty picky about my desserts. The cheesecake is one desert that balances the sweet and savoury perfectly. The cheesy center is just mildly sweet and creamy with a barely noticeable yet oh-so-essential tang (which is beautifully accentuated by the fruity spread on top); the smoothness of the cheese being perfectly complimented by the crunch of the biscuit. My favourite kind of base is one that is salty-sweet, sort of like a digestive biscuit flavour...mmm....

You might wonder why I called the cheesecake the queen of desserts, being so crazy about it and all. Ahhh that's because there is one single dessert that I rate higher than the cheesecake...one that also heavily relies on cheese (of course!) in its recipe, but tastes as different as different can be. You're welcome to guess, but I plan to wait for sufficient inspiration before I get into an in-depth discussion of the king of desserts :)

Till next time folks!

An Introduction to the Chinese Hot Pot (火鍋)

I promised a few posts ago that I would take you on a journey through a wonderful invention of the Chinese - the hot pot, also sometimes known as a steamboat. The reason I postponed this post for so long is that I hoped to enliven my description with some pictures of this variety and colour-filled meal. Alas, that plan never worked out. So without much ado, let me take the plunge and get started - hopefully there will be pictures to accompany this at a later point in time...

My first meeting with the hot pot brings back most wonderful memories of sitting around a massive dining table with the family (chinese of course) of one of my good friends back in New Zealand. The perfect dark and rainy night - the guests came in soaking wet, shed their soggy shoes and overcoats and walked into a warm and cosy home with good company, plenty of laughter and good cheer. Too busy chatting away to watch the process of setting up the table, once it was all ready, our eyes were treated to a most wonderful feast set out at the table - two pots (four if you take into consideration that each pot was divided into two) of boiling broth at the table surrounded by a countless array of little dishes with more variety of food than I have ever seen at a single meal! Fresh green leaves, white and brown spherical things, yellow fish shaped things, white cubes, yellow cylindrical things,mushrooms, raw eggs, raw shrimps (beady eyes, whiskers n all!)....the list could go on...

The food was completely uncooked and it seemed as though our hostess had laid all her ingredients out and was going to start cooking. Imagine my surprise then as everyone began to take their seat around the table!

As the meal progressed, I learnt that the colourful spherical things were meat and fish balls, the white cubes were fresh tofu, the yellow cylindrical things were bamboo shoots, the green leaves were spinach and bok choy, and the pink and white strips were paper-thin slices of beef and chicken. I learnt that eggs had to be broken gently into the simmering pot, watched carefully and picked out quickly lest an enthusiatic friend pops his chopsticks into the pot and your wannabe poached egg dissolves into the common soup! I learnt that you mix and match sauces into your personal bowl according to your taste and dip everything that comes out of the hot pot into the sauce mix before popping it into your mouth. I learnt (painfully) that food pulled out of boiling soup should not be tossed straight into your mouth, no matter how tasty it appears. Boiling soup = heat = mouth burn. I learnt that you use different sets of chopsticks for handling raw and cooked food and finally that you're best starting slow (tough for me!). The soup gets more flavoursome the further the meal progresses and as more ingredients go in and out of the soup base. It's actually quite ironic that the meal tastes best at the point when you're too full to eat...

The meal is immensely filling and satisfying, not to mention 100% guilt-free - there's just so many veggies in there and no oil! Finishing up with a most aromatic cup of jasmine tea, this was one of the best meals I've ever been invited to - although I had to cook it myself! Walking out that cold, rainy, miserable night I could barely feel the cold, my overcoat seemed way too bulky - there was just so much fuel in the furnace the cold completely vanished!

Soon after came the move to Abu Dhabi and I all but lost hope of ever enjoying this meal again. I considered investing in a hot pot and a portable burner many times, but never managed to find something suitable. Imagine my surprise and delight then when a friend of mine mentioned a local discovery - Qian Zhou Hot Pot!

Since this post is entitled, 'An Introduction', I shall leave my comprehensive review of Qian Zhou to my next post...and maintain an air of mystery about this unique experience. :)

Till next time folks!

Edit: I've added some pictures I managed to dig up from my first hot pot experience!

mmm...

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." --William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

I wrote earlier about the manaeesh and all its endless possibilities of toppings, among which is a most wonderful herb mix called za'atar (زعتر‎). I found myself waking up to za'atar cravings this morning and enjoyed a simple yet immensely satisfying breakfast of a za'atar manaeesh...and it inspired me to write about this wonderful middle-eastern topping. Za'atar, per se is simply dried thyme, but za'atar in the middle-east takes this humble herb to a whole new dimension. Nobody knows for sure what's put into za'atar and many have a highly secret recipe that you're only welcome to enjoy not replicate. From what I can see and taste and have been told however, it primarily consists of dried thyme, oregano, possibly mint, sesame seeds, salt, oil, spices and possibly lemon (some za'atar mixes have an lovely tang to them). The mix is also sometimes called za'atar wa zait; zait meaning oil in arabic. Dried herbs are often underestimated, and most people (myself included) save the dried stuff only for that emergency meal when the fresh stuff has run out and there's no time to run to the store. So really, za'atar is quite a surprise in the intensity of flavour that it hits you with! It might have something to do with the spices (I still haven't figured out what they might be). The ones I like best are usually mildly salty and tangy with a texture close to crunchy (possibly comes from perfectly toasted sesame) and a strong herby taste. Za'atar wa zaitoon (olives) is another perennial favourite - the delicate black olives perfectly compliment the strong herb and spice mix. Finally, adding some fresh parsley or mint and tomato (za'atar wa zaitoon wa khodor) just balances the equation perfectly with the cool, thirst-quenching properties of the tomato and fresh herbs refreshing the palate in between bites of the strong, salty, tangy herb mix....ahhh pure bliss....

Sometime last year, I discovered another less widely known use of za'atar - as a tea (also known as thyme tea)! It all started when I turned up to work with a cold, and everyone decided they had to offer their personal remedies. I'm not sure if it fits the bill for the long sought after remedy to the common cold, but it did make my office smell like a fresh herb garden, and I suspect my nostrils cleared up just to indulge in the wonderful aroma. With a touch of honey, hot water and a za'atar tea bag you can almost feel your office whooshing away and yourself transported into a beautiful swing overlooking a sunny garden, with a cool breeze blowing in your hair and birds chirping in the trees...

"Where the wild thyme blows"...Shakespeare sure got this one right...

Till next time folks!

The Unassuming Vegetable Soup Unveiled

I've always been of the opinion that vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose unless accompanied by a good cut of meat. So imagine the folks' surprise one evening when I come home with a bagful of fresh veggies and announce that I was going to make vegetable soup that evening. I have to be honest, it was the mushrooms' fault... I was only planning a quick run to the store to get some milk but ohhh the medley of brown n white cups n buttons in the vegetable section called out to me and pulled me towards them all the way from the dairy section. So off I went, literally floating towards them, all the while imagining what I could possibly turn them into.

And then my eyes fell on a most glorious sight - fresh, green, leafy bok choy and the decision was made-Vegetable soup it was! I'm still exploring chinese vegetables and although I've been told it can be used in anything from stir-fries to pickles, bok choy is something I only think of in connection with soup. I personally enjoy it best just lightly dipped into hot water till the leaf wilts - too much cooking kills much of the flavour.

Some fresh celery here, some brocolli there and I was done.

I decided to make my own stock, so I picked up a cooked chicken and separated the meat from the carcass once I came home. (Umm....yea....of course my soup just had to have some meat in it, it wouldn't qualify as Abi cooking otherwise!) In my defense, it barely made up 10% of the soup...

So, on to the stock! Chicken bones, hot water a bit of salt and oh wait... I remembered I had some lemongrass n lime leaves in the freezer, so out they come and go into the water. A few semi-crushed cloves of garlic to take away that boiled chicken taste, and pretty soon the kitchen was starting to smell heavenly....

While the stock boiled away I quickly chopped up my veggies (including a carrot and some cabbage I found in the fridge and some onions - the best part about vegetable soup is you can quite literally put everything and anything into it!). After straining the stock, the carrots were the first to take the plunge - they do take the longest to cook and you do not want to have crunchy carrots in a soup! The mushrooms and bok choy I leave for the end, they're the most delicate both in texture and taste and overcooking is the surest way to ruin them. Someone once told me that vegetable soup should never be allowed to boil, always maintained at a light simmer so that the nutritional content of the veggies remains intact. Nutritional content aside, the taste suffers too due to over-boiling.

A deep whiff of the soup almost makes my knees go weak.....the lemongrass has really blown its aroma into every molecule of the soup and the medley of veggie flavours is tantalising in its sheer variety. Needless to say, the end result was highly appreciated and my massive pot quite amazingly almost emptied itself by the end of dinner...

Simple, hearty, satisfying and guilt-free - what more could you want from a meal?

***

Speaking of guilt-free, the chinese got it bang on when they invented the wonderfully unique communal meal commonly known as a 'hot-pot'. Quite literally a hot, pot, it's basically a boiling pot of soup at your dinner table. Piqued your interest? More to follow on this one...

Till next time folks!

Clearing up misconceptions

Some of my friends have suddenly conjured up in their wonderfully imaginative minds a picture of me as a exercising, dieting health nut and I honestly have no idea where they got that idea from (honestly!). So here I am today to do the world a favour and clear up popular misconceptions.

Number 1. I do not diet. Yes, I do try, just as I try to work out on my treadmill and cycle everyday and try to keep my room spotless everyday. Dieting is a feat only the bravest and strongest and stubbornest (is that a word?) of the human race can succeed at (yet everyone tries). Food is a gift. And we weren't created to diet, we were designed to enjoy food, relish it, smell the aroma and savour the flavour, cook and stir wonderful concoctions of raw foods bursting with flavour and experiment till they turn into a most wonderous taste experience with an enticing whiff that can motivate the world's biggest TV-addict to come running into the kitchen asking 'What's for dinner?'

Funny that my question mentioned just dinner. A sad fact of modern life is that most people don't have time in their busy lives to sit down and enjoy more than one meal a day, that meal usually being dinner. The perfect day in my world is a 3-meal day. Hot breakfast - pancackes, bacon n eggs, manaeesh, mum's dhoklas or rava-dosa or even idli-sambar, a hot lunch with mmm maybe rice n dal or a nice curry or biriyani or mahashe and a pasta/lasagne or taco/fajita or even a super-simple roti/sabji for dinner. Sigh - there are too many combinations I could list above and it pains me to only choose a few. Additionally, a nice glass of wine or a martini somewhere in there wouldn't go amiss...

I'm a hot person (pun not intended) I like my food hot and steamy, be it pasta, rice, shawarmas, manaeesh, meats or even the lowly sandwich! The only thing I'll settle for cold is a salad, and if it has chicken in it, i'm the weirdo who would pick the pieces out and stick em in a microwave before starting on my salad. And of course, dessert has my permission to be cold.

I digress...

But I've lost my steam for clearing up popular misconceptions and so off I go on a tangent again...

How many of you have ever eaten mushrooms? And no, I don't mean the soggy stuff you get on top of a pizza, I mean real honest-to-goodness fresh portabella or those giant holland cup mushrooms or even the humble button!

I introduced a friend of mine to the magic of eating mushrooms raw recently and even I was taken aback at her enthusiasm! Needless to say, she's officially converted to these wonderfully nutty, spongy, earthy fungi and I have to remember to bring along extra supplies the next time we cook together because by the time we've finished chopping, a good amount of veggies have mysteriously disappeared... :)

Most veggies can be eaten raw, and it's a whole new cooking experience to taste the ingredients raw first and then again once they're combined. To experience how heat changes flavours and how flavours interact with each other in something akin to a perfectly choreographed ballet....aaahh now that's art...

Leaving with those thoughts, and contemplating how wonderfully designed this planet truly is, I now officially begin the countdown to my weekend. An hour to go as of right now....yipeeeee! :)

Till next time folks!

The irony of joblessness

What's worse than a foodie on a diet?

...a foodie on a diet with nothing to do!

Oh ...were you expecting the punch line of a bad joke? Right, so let me make one thing clear - if there's one thing I don't possess in my literary repertoire, it has to be humour.

So, moving on let me answer the obvious question. Yes, I am trying (Note: Keyword - trying, implies not necessarily succeeding) to control my diet. Shouldn't really come as a surprise considering I had major fried stuff cravings yesterday. I've been drinking my 8 glasses of water a day and as far as possible restricting my work-time snacks to fruit. Not to mention attempting at-your-desk exercises every hour or so in the hope of burning calories. Most days I try to limit myself to an early dinner and survive on fruit, juices and water during the day. Of course, the odd day comes in when the office orders manaeesh or fatayer...

Sigh....manaeesh - one of the most versatile breakfasts in the arab world. Warm, freshly baked bread with cheese, zaatar (a blend of oregano, thyme, sesame, olive oil, salt and spices - a topic for a whole new post!), vegetables, meat - any or all of the above! We have a bakery right next to the office, so when we order the manaeesh comes in steamy hot right out of the oven, the bread quite literally melting in your mouth and the fillings quite nearly causing first degree mouth burns - but that's the best way to go! :) And fatayer, the miniature form comes in a plethora of shapes while retaining a similar bread with toppings theme - good for those days when you just cannot decide and want a whole mixed-up plateful of delightfully warm bite-sized snacks to get you through the work day.

I digress...

Work's slow these days, and although technically I don't really have nothing to do (or atleast I shouldn't admit it!) I have some days where I just desperately want some way to pass the time! What is the most natural pasttime of a foodie? Food of course! Days filled with meetings, deadlines or at the very least an addicting error in your code that you just have to fix; they're okay. You can forget about food for a while. Ironically, those busy days get your metabolism up too, and although you could probably get away with snacking, you don't. But days when boredom leaves you no choice but to munch to pass time....brain needs no energy, body needs no energy (you still need to be seen sitting at your desk all day, typing away!) and yet you're feeding yourself. Little wonder the world faces an obesity epidemic...

With those thoughts, I shall return to my water-drinking and fruit-eating and desk-exercising and hope that today I am not seduced by the enticing manaeesh....

Till next time folks!

First Post

So, here I am finally at my first blog. I've been thinking about starting one for much of my young life, but could never decide what to write about. Are my thoughts really worth reading, I wondered? Recently, however I've discovered a passion for describing food. Well recently isn't right, I've always had a passion for describing food, let's just say recently I figured I should do more than make all my dieting friends miserable when I tempt them with food descriptions :) I'm also hoping it helps me with my serious cravings - what better way to get cravings you can't satisfy out of your system than to write about it!

So, what's on my mind today? Deep fried mars bars...

Yea, I know what the uninitiated among you are thinking - chocolate and deep frying - how much more artery clogging can you get?! I had the same thoughts when I was introduced to them, and it took quite a bit of convincing before I tried it. Although I do not recommend these as a daily dessert, they are a brilliant pick-me-up for a cold rainy, miserable day. Today is one of those cold, rainy (not so much miserable - it's rain in Abu Dhabi!) days and it's triggered cravings....serious ones and I'm convinced there is no place in Abu Dhabi that makes these mounds of chocolatey goodness that are so hard to make :(

Goodness? What kind of goodness can you find in an oily chocolate bar, you say? Ahhh my friend, but therein lies the secret of the deep fried mars bar....Mock me all you want, one bite of this and I guarantee a true gastronomic delight that can kill even the most guilty conscience!

Imagine biting into it......the crunch of the batter first, then the hot chocolate on the outside, moving to a warmer chocolate inside n then when the first bite is in your mouth, chewing it to blend the warm mush and crispy exterior into perfect chocolately harmony that's ohhhh so amazingly good you can completely forget it is even remotely related to unhealthy eating.

And on a cold, rainy day, there's officially nothing better than crispy, crunchy warm chocolate that stands in total contrast to the weather, yet seems so perfect for it all the same...

I've been told the recipe depends a lot on the temperature of the oil and the mars bar, and since I'm not on the best terms with oil (I've deep-fried maybe twice in my life!) I'm not trying this one at home. I'd be very interested in the results of anyone else's experimentation though...

The sun's starting to come out now and my cravings are just that much on this side of controllable - so I reckon this is a good time to sign off.

Till next time, folks!