ArtParis-Abu Dhabi and the Jazz Festival

Friday was a culture day.

It was the last day of the ArtParis Abu Dhabi art fair, 57 galleries from 22 countries represented at the Emirates Palace. It was a lot of art. Probably better to spend a couple of days wondering around but I was determined to see it so we did it in one go.

It was quite a thrill to see the work of some artists well represented that I'd only seen glimpses of in the flesh, or hadn't seen in the flesh at all! Keith Haring, including his BMW, and Warhol stand out for me as the highlights of the day but I was very impressed at the number of Middle Eastern artists that were displayed. Not all of it was good (and frankly, I'm no one to judge what is "good" art) and there was a lot based around Arabic caligraphy, some bad and some wonderful.

All in all it was a nice day and I particularly enjoyed a walk around the Emirates Palace garden where they had installed a sculpture exhibition, turning it into a monumental garden. There was a band playing softly as we strolled around in the fading sun.





After the art fair we hot-footed it over to the Beach Rotana for the annual Abu Dhabi Jazz Festival. It's held every year (this was the fifth I think) around this time, when the weather gets better anyway.

Now I'm not the world's biggest jazz fan (slight understatement) so I wasn't counting the minutes until it began, but it was actually really rather lovely. Bit overpriced to get in, and the food and beverages were similarly overpriced (and on that silly voucher system, why do they do this?!) but all in all it was worth it. Sitting outside on a nice warm evening with good friends and new friends listening and chatting is a wonderful way to spend some time.

Highlight for me would have to be Natalie Williams - so much so that I think I may investigate buying her album. Fantastic voice and a lovely energy and spirit on stage. Also pretty good were Colour of Rhythm. The evening ended with a less than average rock band and by the time they were half way through their set most of the crowd had departed. Possibly a smart move what with needed to get cabs, etc.

But a good cultural day in all!

Moving In

After 10 days in the Shangri La and loads and loads of shopping trips we have finally moved in to the flat.

It is all a bit echo-ey with the lack of furniture but it is very nice to be in at last.

We moved in on Saturday and luckily our mattress arrived promptly along with a nice screen and our balcony furniture. We went to Marina mall to buy a few bits from Ikea and do a supermarket shop - as well as getting me a pay-as-you-go sim card for my new, local, phone. The supermarket visit was cut rather short due to the ridiculous queues at the tills and O needing to get back so he could go paintballing, so essential essentials were bought and then we rushed back. With O paintballing I got my exercise while I cleaned our bathroom (not a small task I might add) and unpacked the toiletries delivered in the air freight in preparation for the next morning’s showers.

On our first night we went to the Sheraton Khaldiya for food and to watch the football so not having done a big shop was not such a biggie. The next morning I went across the road to a French café (La Brioche) for breakfast and got myself a Subway for lunch while I waited for some more furniture to arrive, after which I cleaned the rest of the kitchen and unpacked the kitchen stuff that had also arrived in the air freight.

A brief aside: On the day we left Derby movers came and packed up our flat. It was incredible to watch, they were like a whirlwind and since we found ourselves mostly in the way we went out for lunch and a last wonder around the shopping centre. I’m so SO glad we didn’t have to do it ourselves because we would have made a terrible job of it, however upon unpacking the kitchen stuff I noticed a couple of little amusing results. We have mugs, glasses and cutlery but no crockery. We have some of our pots and pans but only one lid, and not the pot that that lid is for. Much amusement and only mild frustration at having to buy new crockery since we were going to do that anyway but were trying to decide which ones to get. Anyway! Cracking on…

We actually managed a proper shop on Sunday, after another Ikea trip – yay!, and it was quite an experience. I’d already gone for a stroll around this Carrefour so knew pretty much what to expect but it was still rather fun. The fruit and veg section is huge with the origin of the products displayed clearly above the crates and punnets piled up. The fish section is also huge and beautiful with the fish carefully and lovingly displayed on giant ice-filled stands that stretch way back. The whole supermarket is immense, it not only sells food and the standard UK supermarket sort of fare, but also household goods, furniture, garden furniture, computers, white goods, TVs, hi-fi equipment, shoes and clothes. It would be easy to lose a few hours in there, but once again we had to get a move on because the man with the gas canister was coming to hook us up between 8.30 and 9. We were set up but I was exhausted so we went across the road to the Arabic restaurant/shisha café that we can see from our balcony and is, luckily, pretty good.

Yesterday I tackled the balcony. It is glorious, giving a panoramic view of the Corniche (the rather pretty road running along the coast) all the way from the harbour up to Marina mall but it was dusty. Really dusty. It is also rather large so I knew it was going to be a big job. Doing the railing and wall-bits around the balcony was the worst, the wall bits especially because they are almost pebble-dashed only without the pebbles. So a lot of dabbing with a damp sponge was required to get all the dust off. Then it was the turn of the floor of the balcony and I filled a bucket with water, got my squeedgie-broom that O bought on our first trip to Carrefour and began at one end. I threw a couple of buckets of water on the first trip across the balcony, squeedgieing and sweeping the water along till I reached the drain on the far side of the balcony, which I then discovered was very slow in draining so I pushed the water back again. Then I did the whole thing again starting from the slow draining end finishing with coaxing what was left of the water down the working drain. I left it to dry while I had a spot of lunch and then positioned the plastic sofa, chairs and coffee table we had bought for sitting out in the air and relaxed for a bit. It looks infinitely better and is a real joy to sit on now.

Our first home-cooked meal in Abu Dhabi was delicious, grilled mackerel with rice and stir-fried veggies, followed by dates and Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. I didn’t even mind the washing up this morning.

A.

Spinneys

Just like in the UK, there are different supermarkets dotted around Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Co-operative Society is probably the most prolific, though I’ve not been here long enough or travelled far enough afield to know for sure

What is interesting is that the different ‘brands’ of supermarket offer slightly different products. The ADCS, from what I can tell, is mostly local with a lot of products having only Arabic writing on them (or more prominently displayed Arabic writing anyway). There is Carrefour which has a lot of French products, there is another that has a lot of American products (though the name of it escapes me) and then there is Spinneys.

When O and I first met he used to tell me about Spinneys and so it has been in AD for a good long while, though now there are two of them rather than just the one. Spinneys is the English supermarket, and sure enough, when O and I went for a little wonder around after errands nearby, I did spot rather a lot of recognisable brands. Like Waitrose biscuits, for example! Having been told previously, by someone other than O, that it is the Waitrose equivalent in AD I was a bit surprised by the general averageness of the goods sold (excepting the Waitrose biscuits of course) and I was bitterly disappointed to find no hint of Marmite anywhere, only Vegemite.

What is interesting about Spinneys is that it is the only place in AD that you can buy pork and pork products. Knowing this there was no way I could resist having a look around when we were in the vicinity. Sure enough, as I had been told, there was a separate section at the back of the supermarket, behind an automatic door with a large sign in English proclaiming “Pork products. For non-Muslims only!” I can only assume the accompanying Arabic sign said much the same. I went through the doors and was confronted by a small-ish room stuffed with pork and pork products of all kinds – a lot of which were frozen and that you won’t find in the UK. Pig trotters being one that immediately springs to mind. One product concerned me greatly. On the shelves, nestled between packs of Pepperami and instant noodles, were strawberry flavour Poptarts – the sweet American breakfast food that you pop in the toaster and has frosting on top.

Hmmmmmmmm.

A.

The Restaurant Game

The restaurant game is played between two people, ideally over three rounds. It can be played over two rounds but the danger of a draw is higher.

The rules are simple. Each player gets a menu and makes their selection of starter and main, the winner of each round is the person who ordered best. If after the first two rounds there is a draw, do not worry, because the third and best round is following shortly. The desert round is so often the decider on the overall winner of the restaurant game, unless your opponent is so intimidated by your game-playing skills that they order the same thing as you in the final round, tsk.

A few nights ago I lost the restaurant game, absolutely and completely. Without question I got my arse kicked.

Can you tell I don’t like losing the restaurant game?

For dinner we went to Pearls and Caviar, a restaurant/lounge here at the Shangri La. Despite the pretentious name, it trumps any other form of dining this hotel has to offer. Incredibly opulent and beautifully decorated, it is a seafood restaurant and definitely one for those special occasions. The menu is also a little pretentious (the main dishes are described as ‘pearls’ with the non-seafood items being ‘land pearls’) but very, very good.

To start with O had soft-shell crab that came with some tomato salsa and a polenta cake. It looked absolutely stunning. I was convinced he had won the first round until we each took a bite, at which point my scallop carpaccio with lemon zest, artichoke and pomegranate gave me that first point. It looked very boring on the plate – just a flat square made up of the carpaccio with a couple of bits of artichoke – but the taste was incredible! There was enough pomegranate pods (or is it seeds?) to have one with each bite and that was just perfect, any more and it would have been too sweet, any less and the sourness of the lemon juice and zest along with the artichoke would have completely overpowered the scallops. Delicious! O’s was ok, but despite looking very impressive the tomato salsa was quite plain and the polenta cake was crumby whereas I like my polenta smooth. The first point was mine!!!

The second point, oh how I weep for you! This is where, despite actually winning the first round, I picked so horrendously that O was declared the out and out winner on the spot, never mind what happened in the third round. *sigh*

I dithered about for ages with my order. I was initially drawn to the ‘pearls and grains’ section of the menu where the seafood was served with pasta or rice of some description and I was torn between the risotto negro with lobster or the langoustines with angel hair pasta and chilli. Then I noticed that that section was particularly small (merely a third of a page) compared with the ‘charcoaled pearls’ section (a full page!) and decided that since the charcoaled page was so extensive this must be what they make most often and so is probably where the best dishes are to be found, rather than the smaller sections which they might make less often and so might not be as good. I went for hallowayu (a New Zealand white fish) with saffron sauce and gnocchi with some asparagus on the side. O went for the langoustines with angel hair pasta.

Oh the disappointment when the plates arrived – mine was a couple of sad looking fillets coated in a curried flour and then lightly fried (the fish was perfectly cooked, mind) with a too heavy sauce and the gnocchi was basically mashed potato vaguely shaped into little dumplings and also drowned in some kind of rich sauce. O described it as a fancy fish and chips and he was absolutely right. His dish was glorious to behold and to taste. The langoustines were fresh and delicious. The angel hair pasta was black with a perfect mix of garlic, chilli and oil.

We both went for the chocolate desert which was a nice brownie (though the menu said fondue and I was disappointed in the lack of that), a bad chocolate chip Um Ali (I’ll have to explain that one another time), a fantastic scoop of cookie ice cream and a heavenly chocolate truffle encased in milk chocolate that looked like a small, brown bar of gold.

I know where I went wrong. I broke two cardinal rules of ordering by going against my instincts and not ordering locally. Always order local, Anna! Always order local.

A.

An Update on 25th February 2010

O and I went back to Pearls and Caviar, for the third time, last night and I have to say I was desperately disappointed.

The menu has changed completely and is now impenetrable and unappetising to say the least. Gone are all of the options for seafood with rice/pasta, the interesting sides (now you have a choice of two kinds of rice, courgette "fries" in batter, a salad and mushrooms), the grilled fish section and the pages and pages of interesting looking creations.

Last night we were faced with a tiny menu in which we struggled to find anything that we wanted to eat. Far too many dishes came with unnecessary and off-putting experimental pairings and I was not able to finish either my starter or my main course.

Do not go to Pearls and Caviar, unless they change their menu back.

I do have it on good authority that the lounge bar of Pearls and Caviar serves very good tapas, so it would seem that all is not lost.

Internet at last!

Apologies for the three week absence, since moving in to the flat it has been near impossible to get online for any decent length of time and communication with home along with the job hunt have to take precedence of the wonders of blogging.

However! I have now... "found"... a nice little scrap of the interwebs and can now update with a few posts that I have written over the past few weeks, even though I've not been able to get online.

A.