It started Thursday evening when we had dinner with some new friends. We met up at the Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina and the Spice Emporium restaurant where we had some of the best food ever. Our hosts insisted on ordering two bottles of a nice dry white on top of the glasses we had ordered for ourselves while we were waiting. So we had to abandon our poor little Peugeot and take a cab home. We got her early the next morning though, and the cab ride to the Westin gave us a good excuse to have brunch there.
After brunch, Beth drove us home. Now she’s a Dubai driver!
Later Friday night it was time to meet my coworkers at the Deira Iraqi restaurant for some authentic Iraqi fish. It’s slow cooked for an hour on a skewer set about a meter away from an open flame that is burning a particular type of wood. We have never had anything like it. It was beyond our wildest expectations. Whoever visits us will get the best dinner of his or her life when we take you to this place.
This morning we went to the Garden Center and got a Jasmine plant, a Gardenia and some other interesting local flowering plants to turn our balcony into a little paradise retreat.
And then tonight to top it all off, we are now enjoying the first bottle of wine that we legally purchased at the liquor store with Beth’s new license. When we stopped in tonight to see if the license was ready, we were so confused by the guy behind the counter. First he said that we would have to pay 50AED because we didn’t answer the phone when he tried to call us. Then he put a piece of paper in front of us and made Beth choose from a list of liquors on a sheet that had some information about how we could only spend 750AED per month on alcohol based on her salary. She picked Finlandia vodka and then he proceeded to place three bottles of the stuff on the counter. He also pointed out a couple of coupons for a free bottle of wine at the local bar and free coffee at Costa. So for getting our license we got three free 750ml bottles of vodka, a free bottle of wine and free coffees. No strings attached. So we picked up two more bottles of wine and got out of there before they could change their minds.
We’re enjoying some nice stuff from Lebanon right now. It has subtle black pepper tones with a medium dryness.
