Designer Dining in Dubai

We were in Dubai again weekend before last (yes, we are rather jammy and spoiled) and once more we tended to hang around the Burj Khalifa. This time we even stayed in The Palace hotel (which is one of The Addresses) which is next to the Souk al Bahr and where Asado is situated.

On our first night we were taken to the Cavalli Club for dinner.

Having been completely oblivious to its existence before that Thursday night, and also having been told it was the “Cavalli Café”, I did not expect to be greeted with a red carpet and white-clad bouncers behind the velvet rope at the back of the Fairmont on the Sheikh Zayed Road.

We had to ascend a completely closed and close black velvet lined stairway, lit only by pin-points and purple strips along the stairs, that felt like an ostentatious birth canal before we emerged into the club. The main floor was taken up, predominantly, by dining tables of varying size with “coffee” tables interspersed among them for people early enough to nab one but not dining.

Huge great swathes of Swarovski crystals on string dangled from the walls like really extravagant net curtains, hanging between and around the larger dining tables around the edge of the room and also surrounding the numerous chandeliers which looked very much like oddly shaped upside down salt shakers wrapped in strands of yet more crystals.

The dominant colours of the room are black, purple and zebra, with flashes of white and gold. It is just so unashamedly and hilariously bling that it is difficult to be offended by the tackiness, while at the same time difficult to miss the fact that it is very, very tacky. I spotted at least two bars, one of which was surrounded with varyingly sized bottles of Roberto Cavalli vodka – the grains for which, I have no doubt, Mr. Cavalli harvests himself by the light of the moon and keeping only thoughts of beautiful women in mind while he does so.

All pretentiousness aside (and there was A LOT to set aside) the Cavalli Club is a surprisingly good restaurant. The atmosphere is all about the fun and fabulous but it feels neither too predatory nor too bitchy and the music is spot on. Our reservation was for 10 which, for a dinner club, is a dangerous time if you are hoping to be able to hold a conversation with your companion(s) but the DJ kept the volume just right so that the diners could converse while still feeling a club-vibe. From sometime around 11:30/midnight the volume slowly but steadily increased until the venue was definitely more club than dinner, but the raising in volume was so gradual that we didn’t really notice until we found it difficult to hear the person next to us, and by then we had all finished and were ready to leave anyway. Aside from a terribly bourgeois moment when the “sommelier” got lambasted for not knowing what was in a dish (I don’t know because I’m the sommelier. “But if you don’t know what’s in the dish how can you recommend a wine to go with it?” I can recommend based on if it’s a light meal or heavy, if you are having meat or fish or chicken. “So, basically, you can tell me that red goes best with steak and white goes best with fish?” Yes. Maitre D' – “He’s new.”) the service was fab. Efficient, quick but not rushed and patient. We were a party of seven and the waiter did not even look vaguely irritated when a number of us changed our order a couple of times.

So! On to the food. The food was very good. Really. I was impressed. Unfortunately I can’t remember what everyone else had (not even O! For shame, for shame!) but almost the whole table had the same main dish.

The prequel was an amuse bouche. A rather blah, teeny, round, cheese and potato croquette, served with a smudge of marinara sauce. It did not forecast the meal to come in any way, being somewhat uninspired and flavourless.

I started with tuna tartare that was served on a chunky olive tepanade and topped with very white crab meat. It was served with bitter green leaves dressed in a very subtle truffle oil which managed to enhance every other flavour in the plate and hold it’s own at the same time but at no point was it overpowering. What a clever little truffle oil! It came with a bread lance (to call it a “stick” would be far too modest) speckled with white and black sesame seeds which was a welcome bit of crunch to a largely smooshy dish.

The main was quite simply divine. A “mille fuille” (yes, really) of beef tenderloin and garlic sauteed spinach, topped with a fat but dainty slab of pan fried foie gras. Though I asked for the beef to be medium-rare (as is my wont) the layers were made up of such thin pieces of meat that it was impossible for it to be anything but cooked through. It didn’t matter though, the tenderloin was – indeed – tender and soft. The foie gras was lovely, a gorgeous addition and the richness of it was counterbalanced by the assertively salted baby carrots and asparagus that graced the plate along with some very nice sliced and griddled new potatoes. As is so often the case, it was a bit part on the plate which made the show: the garlic spinach was so subtle but so integral that it would have been the element that I didn’t know was missing, had it not been there. It all worked so wonderfully together and each element was able to stand alone. The accompanying sauce was nice and savoury, I would have said it was a red-wine reduction had we been in any other country, and I didn’t want to ask the long-suffering waiter after he’d been so considerate to our table already. Perhaps it was juniper berries…?

For the sweet, a few deserts were ordered and did the rounds of the table. Being so stuffed and satisfied after my main I was reluctant to indulge (I know! ME!!) but I did try some of Os caramel tiramisu, which worked well when you tried to escape from it being a tiramisu. Very creamy but not too heavy, nice caramel and dense spongey bits, the coffee in the form of a scoop of real coffee ice-cream nestling on top of the glass the tiramisu was served in. Other deserts were an exotic fruit platter (which I didn’t bother with though it looked very pretty) and a selection plate with a fantastic almond ice-cream and an oozy chocolate fondante.

We took the fur-lined lift down to street level on the way out at about 1 in the morning as the club was just heating up. Absolutely a place to see and be seen, but with the right people and for the right reasons I would love to go again, have dinner and stay for the festivities into the night.


The next day, instead of relaxing and hanging out within walking distance where much entertainment could be had by all, we piled into our cars and drove out to Atlantis. Sited at the epicentre of the outer-rim of Dubai Palm, in order to reach it you have to drive up the trunk of the palm, past roads leading off to the “fronds” and a multitude of identikit apartment-blocks-that-kinda-look-like-hotels which brings to mind Barrett Homes: the Dubai model. Turning a bit of a corner and Atlantis appears, shouldering itself up to the sky, in all it’s pink and green “glory” it looks somehow embarrassed to be there. With more than a whiff of Disney-does-Arabia already present, Atlantis somehow made me think of those poor souls who dress up in the character outfits at EuroDisney for the little kids whose dreams of the real Disneyland were only recently crushed and who stare, distinctly unimpressed, while they cavort and jape in the rain.

We ate in Rostang, (allegedly) a traditional French brasserie from two-star Michelin Chef Michel Rostang. Looking back, I wonder how often Monsieur Rostang ventured to his namesake restaurant, particularly at lunch time. The entire meal was a farce, from start to finish. Having arrived behind the rest of our party we had to ask for menus and call the waiter over to order our drinks. To be fair, we were seven people dining, some having starters, some not, ordering drinks and, I dunno, FOOD. I know that can be a little confusing. However, this is a restaurant under the name of a two-star Michelin chef, I would expect the staff to have had a wee bit of training and to know that neither a croque monsieur nor a club sandwich count as “starters”. Oh yes. These two sandwiches came out with the starters, along with one wrong starter and one missing starter (can you say a missing starter was brought out? Probably not, let’s just move along swiftly, shall we? Good-o). After a bit of disagreement with the waiter who kept trying to assure us that sandwiches are starters and whose only response to my question of what does one have as a main course following a sandwich starter was to keep offering to bring me the menu, the sandwiches (which came with chips!!) were taken away and the Maitre D' came over. We explained the wrong starter and he went off again. Came back with the correct one and then asked if everything else was fine. No, we are also missing another starter. The first course took about an hour. By this point I was ravenous and very much looking forward to my wild mushroom fricassee with penne pasta in a creamy sauce. Wild mushrooms my arse. The pasta was that quick-cook rubbish that has the texture of old crumbly rubbers and the creamy sauce was cream that had been heated through with a bit of onion in. The limit was reached when O found something that looked like an ex-winged beastie in his salad. On closer inspection it appeared to be some salad roots or something, but it showed that the garnish hadn’t been washed properly and, for me, enough was enough. I couldn’t eat any more after that – and I’m not a particularly fussy eater when it comes to unexpected items in my food. The Maitre D' was summoned again and we complained about the whole sorry show. I would absolutely NOT recommend eating at Rostang which is a real shame because it is a lovely looking restaurant, a breath of authenticity in the wholly cynical church of tourism that is Atlantis.

The rest of the weekend, by turns, passed slowly and quickly with good and bad food (notably another fantastic meal at Asado, how spoiled am I?, and a really disappointing brunch at More) and the impulse purchase of a pair of canary yellow roller-blades because they were half off and I felt tubby after a weekend of eating.

I felt a press of sadness walking past the McQueen shop and perused the shoes, bags and jewellery in Chanel before it was time to pack up the car and head back to real life in Abu Dhabi.

A weekend in Dubai

Times have been a little stressful recently at Foreigner Towers recently.

It’s complicated, and boring unless you’re in the middle of it, but there was a period of about three months where O and I weren’t sure if we were going to be able to stay in Abu Dhabi or if we were going to be told to pack-up and ship-out without too much warning. I should clarify at this point that the push would come from work sources and no other.

To be waiting, powerlessly, to hear a final decision that is always promised tomorrow but never comes leads to a great deal of tension and I, for one, felt an awful lot of anger.

The decision finally came. It wasn’t the one we hoped for, so there is still a lot of anger on my part, but at least we are no longer living with a weight dangling over our heads. And we are staying, which is brilliant.

After such a stressful time, O and I needed a bit of a break from it all, so he booked us into a hotel and we spent the weekend before last in Dubai.

It was just the two of us, we needed a little time just with each other, and we had a simple plan: Check out the Dubai Mall. Conveniently, there is a lot to do in and around Dubai Mall so we were well entertained. The Burj Khalifa (nee Dubai) elegantly dominates the surroundings, which includes a handful of hotels, the Souk Al Bahr (one of the new-old “souks” that seem to be cropping up everywhere) and a waterway out of which a fabulous water-show is propelled every evening after the sun goes down.

Having driven up on Thursday night we were able to get an early-ish start on Friday. Early enough for brunch anyway. There are a myriad of places to eat in Dubai Mall and unfortunately we decided to have dim sum at Ping Pong. I’ve heard less than amazing things about Ping Pong in the UK, and the branch in Dubai lived up to the low reputation. The service shuttled from obnoxious to surly and from non-existent to intrusive. The food was strictly ok.

After eating we strolled around outside, enjoying the sun and the water and the view of the Burj before taking the plunge and entering the mecca of consumerism that is the Dubai Mall.

What is so good about this particular mall is not only the size (which is immense) but the organisation. After you have solved the mystery of the dual floor-numbering system for the mall and car park (FAR more complicated than anything in this world needs to be, brain surgery has to be easier) and are able to actually get in to the mall it is particularly easy to find your way around and find what you’re looking for. All of the high end designer shops are in one section, the accessories are in another. Jewellery has its own area, as does electronics, and near by is the book shop of wonder – Kinokuniya. A Japanese book shop it is the largest I have come across in the UAE and, so far, the best anywhere. So well organised, and intuitively so, it was a joy to browse and I can only imagine that if you are after something specific it will be easy to find. While there is a food court, there are far more interesting places to eat or stop for a coffee dotted around and amongst the shops.

Needless to say, we killed a lot of time there.

After resting our weary legs for only a short hour back at the hotel, we donned our gladrags and headed out for dinner at Asado in The Palace hotel. An Argentinean restaurant, it gets its name from the open fire that the speciality is cooked over. That speciality? Spit roast baby goat. There was really no option for me and I had to have the goat, while O went for a steak. The steak was good, but the goat was amazing. We’d ordered sides but barely touched them and I whole heartedly recommend the empanadas for a starter, O had a beef and onion one that tasted like the most perfect Cornish pasty in the world. We were both too full for desert.

It was still early so we headed around the Souk and across the bridge to one of the Arabic restaurant/cafes that had a lot of pleasantly cramped seating outside the ground floor of the mall for coffee and shisha, both very nice. While we were there we were able to get a much better view of the fountain display.

There is a very shallow waterway separating the Burj Khalifa from the mall, souk and hotels. Once the sun goes down the water show begins! Every 20 minutes or so there is a flurry of water shooting up into the air in a delightful manner, accompanied by some rhythmically and atmospherically appropriate music. Every hour or so there is an extra long, extra delightful show and everything stops for a short while to watch.

Having had our fill of watching water being projectiled into the atmosphere, we moseyed back over to the souk and settled on Karma Kafe (yes, I absolutely HATE the name being spelled that way) for a couple of beverages, primarily because is by the same people as Buddha Bar. It was nice, the music a little on the loud side though and appeared to be mostly geared up for eating. The décor was fun in that red Zen way but the best bit was, just as we were deciding to go, the floor show started!

There was a buzz of activity behind the bar and then the music was cranked up even higher while the bar staff indulged in a little fire play for the benefit of the customers still remaining. There was the spinning and throwing (and dropping) of Molotov cocktails, fire breathing and a little touch of fire poi. All good fun, though I fear the performers needed a lot more practice since O and I slipped off our bar stools and took a couple of steps back to a slightly safer distance!

Brunch on Saturday morning and another brief spin around the mall (where I may or may not have finally maxed out my credit card) before we headed back to Abu Dhabi and reality.

It was a lovely weekend. I had a great time exploring a part of Dubai that I didn’t know at all before, and shopping is always fun.

Dubai is a fun city to visit, but for me, I wouldn’t want to live there. While I’m not a restrictivist, there seems to be a distinct air of Anything Goes in Dubai, which I can’t really get behind. Without going into specifics, there were a few moments when O and I looked at each other and said “you wouldn’t see that in Abu Dhabi” and I certainly felt glad of it.

Dubai moves a lot faster, is a lot more hedonistic and has a lot more westerners. Which is fine, absolutely, but I’m so glad that I live in Abu Dhabi.

The end of a looooong chapter

At the end of last month I went back to London to attend my graduation. Along with many other “graduands” that month I had my moment where I walked across a stage, shook a hand and sat back down as a “graduate”.

However, this was not my first time. Oh no. Not for the first time did my poor parents have to sit through a multitude of boring inspirational speeches and a long list of unpronounceable names (miraculously pronounced correctly – I have always wondered just how many days the announcer spends practicing those names) just to see those few fleeting seconds that stand to mark the time, effort and – lest we forget! – money that went in to earning that particular academic diploma.

This was my third graduation ceremony and I can now legitimately call myself Dr. Foreigner (PhD, please don’t think I can help if there is some kind of heart related emergency). Aside from the red and blue gown and the ridiculous floppy hat the ceremony was much the same as the previous two – except it also wasn’t.

Pretty early on in my path down further education I knew that I wanted to be a lecturer. I loved the subject I was studying, it engrossed me and I found my most of my lecturers utterly inspiring. It was the perfect life! The university environment is dynamic and exciting, colleagues and peers are interesting, students are enthralled, the holidays are good and research in exotic locations is the cherry in the amaretto sour!

So I did my BA and found my groove. Pursued said groove into an MA straight after that and then got offered funding to do a PhD right back at my home uni with one of my favorite lecturers from my Bachelor days. Perfect. And it was… for a while. The subject area wasn’t exactly in my groove, but the region was (Africa baby!) and the future looked bright, shiny and right on target.

I had a lot of fun studying for my PhD. I met some firm friends, I lived in a wonderful part of the world for a heart-wrenchingly short time and had some experiences that I would not trade for all the world. I also learned a lot about myself and one of the things I learned is that academia is not the right place for me. Or rather, I am not right for it. All of things that I loved about being an undergrad were still there, but the more time I spent in the university system the more I came to understand how it really works.

The interesting colleagues and peers are also competitive and not exempt from office politics as I had previously fantasized. The students are very often there for the cool or because it’s what you do, innit? (apart from the Trustafarians who are going to save the world as soon as they finish this joint), not because they are on a quest for knowledge. The holidays are spent in the office, catching up on research and writing that there is no time for during term-time because of all the admin that comes with teaching. Then there’s the research. While the locations are exotic, you need a certain something to be accomplished when it comes to research. My sister told me that if you don’t have an axe to grind it will always be a struggle, and she is absolutely right.

I do not have an axe to grind, and that coupled with all the above eventually led me to the conclusion that academia is not the place for me. I loved the teaching, but I am simply not cut out for the rest of it. The revelation came to me about 2/3rds of the way in to the whole shi-bang – far too late to quit, after all the time and money, but too soon for it to be nearly over.

So there began the struggle to the end. I won’t go into how bad it was (very, very bad), but I will say that I’m amazed O stuck with me through it since he basically propped me up, emotionally and mentally, day to day and it was not an easy job.

I completed. The thesis was accepted and I got my diploma.

Looking for work before and after we moved to Abu Dhabi was a little… stressful. I hadn’t yet (and probably still haven’t) come to terms with the fact that I am not going to be using my degree. I am not going to go in to teaching/lecturing. It is difficult to let go of the plan that an 18 year old girl had and worked for, even though the girl is now 10 years older and in a different place in her life. It is difficult to let go of all the hours of studying, writing, wringing of hands, pacing of floors, tears, tantrums and little glories when a chapter/paper/article was finally finished. Lots of highs but so many more lows. All of this had to be put aside and I had to start thinking about what I could possibly want to do (didn’t have too much of a clue), what was I qualified to do (not very much) and what could I bear to do until I found out what I actually wanted/could do (my job search criteria included “job description doesn’t make me want to cry”).

We landed in Abu Dhabi and after a couple of months I landed in a job. It isn’t an ideal job *understatement* but it pays me a wage which is so vital out here. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life and I look for jobs every single day.

Nearly a year later and I returned to London to attend my graduation ceremony. As I said, the ceremony was much the same as the first two – overly long speeches, uncomfortable temperatures (too hot for this and the first, too cold for the middle one) but this one was without the sense of excited anticipation that the previous two had. Before, when I walked across a stage and shook a hand, I was about to enter into a new and exciting phase of my long-term goal. I had a goal! I was moving onwards and upwards and very much looking forwards. This time there wasn’t so much anticipation, excited or otherwise. I felt sad for what wasn’t right for me and what I wasn’t right for. I looked backwards at what I was leaving behind with a certain measure of regret but knowing full well that, despite any romantic notions I might still hold on to about being an academic, it is not the life for me. Full stop. So walking across that stage and shaking that hand wasn’t the start of a new stage in my life (as the inspirational speakers so often suggest). It was the end of an old one. The closing of a chapter. Maybe even of a book that I have to put on the shelf now, for once and for all.

Despite this sounding very maudlin, and for which I apologize but is the way it is, I had a wonderful graduation trip. I hadn’t seen my family or friends in an age and I got to spend four whole days back in my fabulous home city. I had a lovely celebratory dinner with the family (lovely in spite of the food I might add) followed by drinks and a little bit of dancing in my fancy graduation clobber – though I left the gown behind. The rest of the time I mooched and munched, went to the museum with my dad and shopping with my mum. Aside from the whole graduating thing I had a list of three tasks and I completed each with aplomb: I ate my body weight in dim sum, attempted to drink my body weight in Café Nero (but didn’t succeed, which is probably a good thing for my blood pressure!) and splurged in All Saints. However, I didn’t see enough of any body and cried my heart out on the plane home - which was doubly embarrassing because we had cashed in some air miles and got ourselves upgraded to business class baby yeah! (very nice, but definitely not worth the cash cost!) and I had wanted to seem terribly sophisticated and like I belonged there *sigh*

I am proud of my achievement – but I am also very aware of what I went through to achieve it, and I can’t help thinking that if it was meant to be it shouldn’t have been that hard.

Basically, what it all comes down to is that it is Dr. Foreigner to you – got it?

So here's a fun thing

Our internet has been cut off at home.

It had been acting funny in the evenings and then over the weekend... nothing. So I called up our internet provider (there is only one, got to love a monopoly!) and the conversation went a little something like this:


Foreigner: I'm having trouble connecting to the internet, could you have a look and see what the problem might be?

Call centre man: Certainly madam... ah yes, we have cut you off because you didn't pay your bill.

Foreigner: We haven't received a bill.

Call centre man: I see that we have no records of your address on file, that would be why you have not received a bill.

Foreigner: *head implodes*


Thaaaaat's right. And instead of attempting to make contact with us by any other means (the same company that provides internet are also one of only two companies to provide telephone services - both mobile and landline - oh! And they own half of the other company as well), they just cut us off.

Luckily, it is easy to remedy and after making a quick stop in branch to pay them some money we should be reconnected within a few hours. My guess is that this happens so frequently they need the remedy to be easy and quick.

Grrrrnnnnaarrrggghhhh.


On a more positive note (because my dad - hi dad! - is worried that I'm not happy due my latest bloggings being grump-driven) I broke-in my sexy red mixer over the weekend. I made oatmeal and raisin cookies, except I used currents instead of raisins because I like them more. The mixer works like a dream, is disgustingly easy to clean and the cookies weren't half bad either.

I'd like to say I only ate one or two, but that would be a lie.

I ate loads.

Firstly it was because I wanted to test how long to cook them for, but after that it was just because they tasted good. I need to add some cinnamon and possibly a smidge of nutmeg and then they'll be perfect.

I also went shopping on Friday. I've been inspired by The Sartorialist to put a little more thought into the way I dress, rather than just relying on the usual jeans and black vest. So to that end I bought a bunch of new stuff that is a little off the beaten track, for me. The sort of things I would want to wear but which required too much thought to put together - but now I'm prepared to put that thought in and went shopping looking at how things would work together, shape, colour, details and trying to look just that little bit more stylish.

Exciting stuff. Wish me luck!

I have to thank Cover Girl over at Sandy and Danny for indirectly introducing me to The Sartorialist - he's on her blog list and I'm nosy.


UPDATE: Since I'm sure everyone will be terribly concerned about this internet issue I'm letting you know that it is all better now. Hurrah for being able to lounge and surf.

It's the little things...

Joy upon joy! I have my sexy red mixer. Hooyah.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago and, as is my way, um-ed and ah-ed over it for a week before deciding that I actually really do want it, that I’m not a student any more, that I am earning money, that I can actually spend it on things I want rather than things I need and it’s on sale anyway so I can feel that little bit less guilty.

So I dragged O along last week to be my muscle when it came to carrying it to the car. But! Woe upon woe – they were out of stock. My world was rocked to its very core and all my weekend baking plans promptly flew out of the window. A sad day for all, I think you’ll agree.

So, wiping a tear from my eye, I wrote my name and number in the sales assistants little book with the promise that he’d call me when they got more stock in, and that it would still be on sale.

I waited. As patiently as I could (not very), whinging as little as I could (at least once a day) about how I wanted my mixer and wanted it NOW! I trawled through websites and cookbooks listing all the things I wanted to make. I bought bundt pans and mini-muffin tins. All because I didn’t have my mixer. It was starting to become a bit of a problem.

Then yesterday! My phone rang and a lovely man told me that my mixer was in stock and that they’d hold it for me until I got there after work.

Since O is away this week I made my own way to Marina Mall, having been assured when I popped in to the shop last week that I’d be able to carry the mixer on my own. Once there however, the sales assistant had other ideas. Having persuaded him that I didn’t need one of the shop men to carry it to the taxi rank for me, we then attempted to get the thing in a bag. The biggest bag they had ripped. I tried to explain that I’d like to wrap the box up using the ripped bag and some tape and that I’d carry it by the handles in the box, but the sales assistant did not approve and insisted on someone helping me. The fella turned up with a flat bed on wheels for heaven’s sake! All for a little mixer! I felt very silly walking behind him as he weaved his way through the mall and we both had a laugh about it – I think he felt a little silly too.

I managed to wrestle it out of the cab and into the flat where I unpacked it with all the excitement of a four year old at Christmas. After oo-ing and ah-ing for a little while, I put all the removable gubbins in the dishwasher, read the instructions and spent the rest of the evening trying to decide what to make first.

So here it is, my sexy red mixer. Standing proud up on the counter and waiting patiently to be christened with some batter-delight or other. I’m thinking chocolate chip cookies.


I noticed, as I was putting it all together, that our kitchen has inadvertently become a Kenwood kitchen. Completely by accident we have a Kenwood food processor, hand blender, deep-fryer (not my purchase choice!), rice cooker and now mixer! No one would believe that we aren’t a Kenwood-loving couple and that it is completely accidental – but it is! Truly and honestly… now where was that Kenwood catalogue again?

The Kenwood Krew all lined up

Busy busy busy!

Even though we finally have the internet now - which is fabulous! - what with working and everything I've been completely cream-crackered and have not had the energy to come up with something interesting to write!

Yes, I be working now - after a good few months of nothing at all and spending my savings up a storm I am in gainful employment. It is very nice to know that there is a wage coming in and to have something to do each day! Although I must admit, I'm not overly fond of having to get up at silly o'clock every morning and I do miss being the mistress of my own time. But as I've said, what is the point of having all the time in the world if you've no cash to do anything with it? And believe me when I say that out here, without the moolah you are really stuck for things to do.

In recent news, we've had horrible weather lately! Lots of rain and there's been a sandstorm hovering over the whole of Abu Dhabi for about a week and a half. So it's been a week of gritty teeth and the glorious balcony is now somewhat less than glorious. I just haven't had the inclination to get my bucket and giant squeedgie out to give it a good ole' clean. Will have to tackle this at some point after we return from The Weddings (TM) - more on that another time, with photos I'm sure.

I am on a quest to find the perfect pair of shoes to go with the perfect dress (for which I paid £70 more than I would have in the UK!) which is proving fruitless so far, and there is only one more mall to try - will it have the shoe of my dreams? Or will I have to risk it and drag my poor, long suffering mother out on a mammoth shoe shopping trip on my one day in London next week?

I almost can't bare the suspense!

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.

Christina Aguilera and the "joy" of shopping

The last few days have been busy busy busy!

In Abu Dhabi pretty much all properties are rented unfurnished (we did see a couple of furnished places while we were looking but they tend to be let by hotel groups and look just like hotel rooms so they were an instant "no"). When I say 'unfurnished' I actually mean 'empty shell'. Let alone the lack of furniture, there is no kitchen. That's right, no fridge, no washing machine, no cooker.

So we've had to buy everything, and we did it all in one go in a fantastic magical place known as Costless - and it certainly does! Well, compared to the one other place we looked anyway. It's very difficult being a foreigner because you simply don't know where all this stuff is sold! In the UK I'd know exactly where to go and could reel off a list of names for you, but here we need to rely on friends to tell us where to go (friends have been fantastic by the way, always answering the phone when we call to ask annoying questions, even if it's in the middle of the working day, and for that I salute them!).

The difficulty is compounded when adding the no-car factor into the mix, we have to rely on the taxi drivers to know where we mean when we give the vague directions we have, and then we have to rely on there being one there to take us home again when we've finished! I feel a headache coming on just thinking about it.

But! We have got all the white goods our little hearts could desire and a glorious cooker with 5 gas spider burners and a huge fan assisted electric oven (it's 90cm in width - we did measure the space for the cooker, thankfully, and it will fit). I'm itching to get my hands on it and start concocting totally inedible creations until I get used to the way it works.

Yesterday was another monster shopping day, allbeit productive because we now have our dining room chairs (I was agonising about those - our table is a little... unusual and I was worried we wouldn't find any chairs that we liked to fit with it) along with some other bits and pieces that I'm praying will look ok in the flat.

Are you wondering about the Christina Aguilera bit? On Friday we were invited to a private party in the club at Emirates Palace (the theme was "Bling") and who happened to be playing her first UAE concert at the self same Emirates Palace? That's right! Miss Aguilera!

Much of the evening was spent observing the rest of the club engaged in a mass meerkat impression trying to get a look at her and there were constant stage whispers regarding whether or not she had made it into the club yet or not.

No, I didn't see her and no I wasn't particularly looking either. I did hear that the concert was pretty terrible though.

A.

In the beginning...

First blog. First post in first blog. Second night in Abu Dhabi as a "resident" rather than a tourist/house hunter.

We arrived last night and we are staying in the rather swish Shangri La which has only one downside: the cabs don't want to bring us back here because it is so far out of town. I should explain that everywhere in Abu Dhabi is no more than a ten minute drive away. The Shangri La is fifteen minutes. Yes, my eyes are rolling around and around in my little head.

We ate in the Vietnamese resturant in the hotel last night, it was pretty disappointing to say the least - O had freshwater prawns which I thought tasted pretty nice but he wasn't happy, I had quail and it was cooked well but completely smothered in allspice. The vegetables and black rice were delicious though!

Room service tonight was terrible.

Anyway! I can report that Ikea is tiring in any language and that I am cursed when it comes to Ikea sofas, lifting them causes injury - of the annoying rather than debilitating variety. I am currently two for two and will not be testing the theory any further.

Priorities at this juncture are getting a car so there are no more death-defying cab rides, various bits of furniture so we can sit and sleep in the flat and visas all round. Woohoo! This living abroad stuff is fuuunnnn.

That being said, my flip-flops are well and truly cemented to my feet, my sunglasses are permanently attached to my head my jumpers are safely in storage so if it sounds like I'm complaining know that I've got a great big smile on my face.

A.