To wrap up things in the UAE, we took an *abra ride across the Dubai Creek into Deira where we meet up with Frying Pan Adventures for our Middle Eastern food pilgrimage! I’m not very familiar with many Middle Eastern dishes and what is travel worth if you don’t experience the local cuisine?!
*Side note: I definitely recommend traveling by abra (the boat pictured above)– it’s different and inexpensive at just one dirham or 30 American cents!
While I’m not too keen on cooking for myself I have found over time that one of the best ways to get to the root, character and history of a location is through their food. Without giving too much of the menu away I have included a few highlights of the tour!
Kunafa- A Palestinian dessert made of cheese and noodles. Not typical dessert ingredients but the kunafa was so rich, creamy and crunchy you can’t even tell the difference!
Masgouf- an Iraqi fish dish made by slow-smoking a butterflied carp and serving it with pomegranate molasses, amba, sumac and tanoor bread.
Faloodeh- an Iranian dessert to complete the tour! A scoop of saffron ice cream atop of ice sweetened noodles and rose water and garnished with pistachios.
The tour was so well put together; small groups, hair nets, history lessons, a tote bag for the goodies you collect, water bottles, sani wipes, our tour leader was mic’d up and SO. MUCH. FOOD. Seriously, don’t each a meal before you go because we’re talking about four hours of FOOD.
Considering the tour was four hours long, this was also one of those times that I employed my money saving strategies and asked for the tour as a Christmas gift! Don’t get me wrong, you definitely get your money’s worth and a taste of six different cuisines, it just fell in the financial “splurge” column rather than “save”.
Mosques, malls and cuisine just about wraps up my quick visit to the UAE, so up next is South Africa! To be honest that content will probably get stretched out over the span of 2019 so I hope you’re ready for lots of Africa!
World Watching 