Dubai: Thursday night iftars are the best. I can eat all I want, be as lazy as I want, and not have to worry about the consequences. With such luxuries ahead, my partner and I had to ensure that the venue would live up to our carnivorous expectations for the night.
Azur, the lavish restaurant at Raffles Hotel, does just that. With easily 100 dishes in the iftar buffet, ranging from starters and mezze to mains and dessert, the choice was as vast and plentiful as I'd hoped for.
At the sound of the iftar prayer, we dug into our divinely delicious drinks: Jallab (grape molasses with dates and rose water) with pine seeds and raisins, Kamarudin (apricot juice), tamarind and laban with ginger. I list all, because, naturally, I had to sample all these exotic treasures.
Starters were an interesting mix of Eastern, Western and Arabian influences, with usual suspects hummus, moutabel, tabouleh, fattoush, baba ganoush, kebbeh, sambouseh, fatayers and falafels heading the list. So far, nothing unusual there. However, the Japanese influence of soba noodles, tuna sashimi and assorted sushi had me impressed.
Further down the starters queue came the Mediterranean influences of marinated stuffed olives and grilled vegetables. Moving on, I bumped into a traditionally Indian dish: prawns tikka with fried onions, to be followed by the very international smoked salmon, grilled aubergine with cheese and various salads.
If there was a united nations of food to be observed, surely this was it.
The mains didn't stray from the evening's fusion theme. From Arabic style chicken Mograbia, to a Lamb Tagine and Fish Sayadia, we had a taste of the traditional before moving on to the international pastas and meats.
A tangy vegetable jalfrezi, spicy biryani rice and mild herb roasted potatoes proved a welcome choice for vegetarians. For the rest, the buffet offers just about every kind of meat in the market — duck, chicken, lamb, beef and mutton — all inclusive.
Not to be outdone by variety or quantity, the dessert options proved just as international as the main courses.
While my partner travelled the Arabian route with his selection of umm ali, Mohalabia, Tunisian cookies, semolina pudding with dates and berries and assorted baklava, I journeyed in the opposite direction.
Plenty of strawberry macaroons, coffee bombs, cream caramel, cheese cake and chocolate mousse later, it became glaringly obvious that the per head price of Dh175 was money well spent.
