Etihad Mall

Posted by Kanga.

We stopped by Etihad Mall to check out Kan Ya Ma Kan (Once Upon a Time) bookstore. It is a lovely little store with Arabic picture books.

I can hardly wait for the English translation of Maitha Al Khayat’s new book, The Runaway Louse. That’s one energetic looking bug.

There are a few malls that are not targeted at tourists. Etihad Mall is one of them. The signs of this are the traditional clothing stores and tailors, perfume shops, and dish shops, like this one.

I don’t know what that big green thing is for. Boggles the mind. (May be used to infuse clothing with incense.)

This rather impressive tea cup rack shaped like an Arab boat caught our eyes.

And, in the food court, you will find choices like Umm Saqeem Traditional Kitchen. I would tell you what was available, except that the menu pictures were labeled only in Arabic. It appears it is likely to be Ma’louba, Margooga, Harees, Machbous, etc.

Pizza, Oh How I Miss You

Posted by Kanga.

In addition to Mexican food, it is also hard to find good pizza here. This is our latest attempt – Pizza Express.

Yes, those are green peas on a pizza. Six, six olives!

The crust was thin, soggy and floppy. The toppings were thin, too. It tasted okay, but was nothing to rave about.

Magic Corn

Here’s the Magic Corn van. Magic Corn is a snack sold at kiosks in the malls and probably elsewhere. We finally stopped and had some the other night while we were at a mall. It is sweet corn that they mix with flavorings. We had butter, garlic and lemon juice on ours. Yummy. They serve it up in a paper cup with a spoon. There you go!

I’m easily amused

I love WordPress and should have moved here earlier. I can see statistics of visitors to the site and if someone arrives at my site by doing a search, I can see what they searched for. Someone searched for “is kfc home delivery free in dubai?” I’m afraid they didn’t find the answer on my blog. However, I think most delivery here is free or for a very nominal fee. Everyone delivers. There are few drive throughs, but there is a lot of curbside service, where drivers just pull up to the curb in front of a restaurant, honk, the waiter comes out to take their order and later brings their food to their car. It causes a significant amount of traffic problems.

I haven’t had KFC in a very long time and I haven’t had it here in Dubai. (The one and only Burger King burger I’ve had here was very tasty and way better than any American fast food burger, so I suspect that the KFC might be better, too.) But, I say, screw KFC, I am hooked on Marrybrown chicken sandwiches. It’s not chicken patties, but actual chicken breast, breaded, on a bun with the works and HOT. So yummy. I haven’t had sushi in about two weeks because I’ve been distracted by Marrybrown chicken. Now that is saying something!

Now for something completely different.

Bus stop to nowhere

I took this picture because it so aptly portrays the wonder that is Dubai. A bus stop bench in the middle of a construction area advertising the Mega Mall. It doesn’t get any more succinct than that.

Permanent sign about temporary road layout

This, too, is iconic of Dubai. This sign is metal and firmly planted in cement. Road diversions here seem to go on forever. With the economic crisis causing construction postponement and slow down, I’m not sure if there will come a time when roadways are stable and construction is rare. I hope so.

Results of a blow out

Unfortunately, another characteristic of Dubai is automobile accidents. We witnessed this one and pulled over to check on the driver. Amazingly, he had only one scratch on his arm. He was in the roadway you see in the background when his front left tire blew. He was in one of the left lanes and traveled all the way across to the right and then rolled and flipped when he hit the curb/flower bed. His car is wrapped in the irrigation hose. The temperature is heating up here and people are encouraged to have their tires checked because the increased heat of the pavement often causes blow outs like this one.

So, this entry ends on a not so amusing note. We are thankful that he was not badly injured and that he did not collide with other cars. It is amazing to me that more accidents don’t happen here, but most drivers are very defensive drivers constantly on the lookout. That makes all the difference.

Three totally unrelated things

Cars here have strange names. This is probably the cream of the crop – the Nissan Sunny SuperSaloon.
Here’s the KFC and Pizza Hut signs somewhere between here and Ras Al Khaimah.
How did we know what floor of the shabby parking garage we were on? Why by the “2” drawn in crayon on the wall next to the elevator buttons, of course.

"Fast" food

This is Paul’s chicken sandwich from the mall food court restaurant. Notice that it is two real chicken breasts, not a reconstituted chicken patty. It cost a whopping Dhs 18 ($4.50).
Below is my large pizza. The dough was hand tossed and it was baked fresh for me in a brick oven. Cost me Dhs 35 ($9.50). The crust is the thinnest I have ever had. It is crispy and almost like a cracker. Yum.
Who needs to go to the food festival? Every day is a food festival in Dubai.

Aquarium and mall redux

We went back to Dubai Mall last night and ate at Taco Bell again. As you can see by the line, it is popular and not particularly fast fast food.
Below are our “cheesy fries” which are just fries with nacho cheese sauce poured over them. The fries were good and crunchy and would be much much better without the cheese.
Below is Paul’s expression when I take pictures of our food. He thinks I am crazy and is probably embarrassed to be seen in public with me. I know you are all dying to see what we are eating, so I suffer his scorn to satisfy my audience.
A toddler at a neighboring table climbed out of his high chair and proceeded to run away. An extremely observant busboy caught him and put him back. Only then did we realize that there was no one else at the table, just a purse and some shopping bags. No parents of this boy to be seen anywhere. The busboy hovered around keeping his eye on the boy and looking for the parents. People at a neighboring table signaled him to move the boy over to their table and they began to take care of him. We left before the parent(s) of this child returned. I hope someone tore them a new one for having left him unattended, but I suppose that is unlikely. We tipped the busboy. He definitely deserved it.

We went through the aquarium. It has two parts — small tank areas with different fish, reptiles, otters, seals, penguins, etc., and the big tank area with the walk through tunnel. There is a serious design flaw, however. You can enter either section, pay once and your receipt will get you into both. The parts are completely separate though. We entered the upper floor with the small tank displays and walked all through it. It exits through the gift shop and back out into the mall. You then have to walk back around past the entrance to the escalators that take you down to the lower floor where the big tank is and you have to walk back around to the far side in order to enter the tunnel. The tunnel entrance is directly below the exit of the upper section, so why they didn’t just design it so that you didn’t have to exit the top floor walk all the way around and back again, I don’t know. A simple elevator or escalator where the gift shop is would have done the trick very nicely.
These are pictures of the giant groupers they have in the big tank. They are quite impressive and these pictures don’t do them justice. They can grow to 9 ft in length and these guys looked to be at the 7 ft range. They are related to hamour (brown spotted reef cod), the very tasty fish that is common on menus here. If you get fish and chips, it is most likely to be hamour.