Food for Thought

Roast rules

I look forward to Ramadan every year. For me it's one of the best parts about living in Dubai. I love the social/ cultural part of it- lovely family meals, drinking copious amounts of Moroccan tea and playing cards into the early hours. The one issue I have is the amount of food that goes to waste. I can't help but feel that the extravagant Iftars hosted by five star hotels around the city are fueled by greed when Ramadan is actually about giving. Ofcourse food waste  happens all year round but it seems especially wrong for it to be happening now. Food is piled high and thrown away at a time when we're supposed to be thinking of those in need.

Get your roast on

Tom & Serge is an example of a restaurant that's put a bit more thought into their Iftar offering. Granted, it isn't traditional fare and you do have to queue (gasp) but I really enjoyed their Ramadan Nights Rule the Roast concept. Who doesn't love a roast dinner? The standouts for me were the beef with a generous dollop of the spicy mojo and the roasted pumpkin. I also heard good things about the lamb. The price point is reasonable at AED 80 for a regular plate or AED 95 for a larger tray and the portions are generous but not over the top. The communal tables and the aforementioned queuing force you to interact with strangers. This can be good thing. I sat opposite a Norwegian surfer who claims to have caught the best wave of his life in Oman  a couple of weeks ago. Socialising aside, my favourite part of the Tom & Serge experience is that they give you a little take away box so you can take any leftovers home. It's a small gesture but an important one.




I watched a documentary a couple of years ago called Dive about people who forage for food in dumpsters. These people are desperate or hungry. They have homes and jobs and families but they choose to source their food from what supermarkets throw away. Granted, it's a bit of an extreme lifestyle choice but it's all perfectly good, mostly still packaged food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

We  partake in a culture of excess where taking and consuming more than we need is the norm. I'm not saying that people should forgo supermarkets or that you should go out and become  Freegans but we could all commit to producing less waste, to taking only what we need and being more conscious with our choices. According to sustainability experts WRAP UK,  60 per cent of all household food waste could be eaten and  FoodCycle estimates that at least 400,000 tons of usable surplus food could be saved from supermarkets each year.These are UK figures. I shudder to think what they are in the UAE.

Food for Thought

Jamie’s Italian

Last week some girl friends and I went along to Jamie’s Italian in Festival City. I was excited to go and try it out. I’ve been a Jamie Oliver fan since his Naked Chef days so this was a big deal for me. As we walked in, we were greeted by the usual suspects- exposed brick, wood burning oven and fresh produce on display. I had a good feeling about the dinig experience that awaited us. We sit down and the first thing we notice is that there’s no bread basket (gasp). The manager did his best to explain that there’s an issue the bread recipe and they can’t get the right flour and they have to import it. I zoned out due to low blood sugar. I hadn’t eaten yet. We decide to put the incident behind us and order. Our waitress seemed nice enough but she walked off mid order to attend another table and then wandered back to us as if nothing had happened. The starters were great but the service and the food got progressively worse. The food wasn’t awful but if you’re paying Dhs 90 for a burger, it should be spectacular and it wasn’t. Also, there was no tiramisu as there are yet to obtain the required license.

In spite of all this I haven’t given up on Jamie’s Italian just yet. Next time we go, we’ll probably just order a bunch of starters and share them. They’re much better than the main courses. Also, it might be better to wait until after they’ve actually launched. Hopefully they will have ironed out their kinks by then.

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Jamie’s Italian