The ONE Thing You Must Do On Your Trip to Dubai
Dubai can be a hard place to explore and it can easily feel like unless you want to shop there isn’t much to do. However, one of the best things you can do is to take a food tour in Dubai with Frying Pan Adventures.
The first tour I took was at the recommendation of several people who had taken and loved the tours. Now, I am a huge fan and love everything this company has created.
There are great Dubai restaurants but I wanted something else. I wanted traditional food. Trust me when I say finding authentic Emirati food in Dubai is TOUGH! So I chose the Middle Eastern Food Pilgrimage. Frying Pan Adventures offers several tours but this one fit my schedule and wants the best. My stomach completely approved of this choice.
All of the stops were great but the first and second were really my favorite. Here we ate some of the best Palestinian food I’ve ever had in my life. These falafels are magic balls of goodness. They’re made fresh, served hot, crunchy on the outside and perfectly smooth on the inside with loads of flavor.
Get the additional fried eggplant and cauliflower and magic garlic sauce to create the ULTIMATE vegetarian sandwich. They’re so good I’ve really considered going back to Dubai just to eat at this place again. Seriously!
Here we also had masakhan and fatayer. Both were good but I was too busy dreaming about these falafels. I knew there was more to come and even though I really wanted to eat more, I stopped myself.
Next it was on to something sweet. We went into the kitchen where they were making my very favorite Middle Eastern dessert – knafeh I don’t even have many good pictures because I was THAT excited to eat it. If you’ve never had knafeh then that’s reason enough to take this tour.
It was literally made in front of us so that everyone could see the start-to-finish process and we ate it on the spot. I’m sure everyone else on the tour thought I was a freak because I was that excited to eat this. Talk about a behind-the-scenes treat.
To balance all the food a coffee break was in order to Arva, our guide and company owner gave us a history of Arabic coffee and how to drink it along with maybe one or two more cookies. We couldn’t have the coffee be lonely could we?
There were two more stops left though I was tiring out and had a really early morning flight so wasn’t sure I’d make the rest of the evening. The second to the last stop however was a restaurant that promised REAL Emirati food, or at least as real as it gets if you’re not at someone’s home. I couldn’t wait and had no idea what to expect!
There were three main things that we had while being served and eating traditionally, sitting on cushions on the floor. First was a lentil soup that was very good. The second was rice with a goat stew and a fish stew. Not surprisingly seafood does play a role in traditional Emirati cuisine. The dishes are eaten communally with rice that is dolloped with yogurt as the utensil. It’s a bit like how some people eat couscous in Morocco by rolling a ball with their hands.
We each had our own plate so if you’re worried about this – don’t be! While I really loved the experience I can’t say it was my favorite stop – but I learned a lot and am really glad to have tried it!
The final stop of the night was for Iranian ice cream but sadly I had to leave the group to get back to my hotel, pack, and catch my 2 am flight. But, I am sure the next time I go to Dubai I’ll do another tour!
Overall, if you’re in Dubai I think this is something you really should do. The food was excellent, the tour is well planned and informative. It offers a much deeper look into the culture here and of course the food scene as well.
The tour is on the expensive side, at 419 Emirati dirhams (a little over $110) per person. If you’re someone that really loves food and wants to know a bit of a different side of Dubai it’s well worth it.
