Dubai First Impressions

Such an early morning start today to catch the flight to Dubai, the taxi ride takes us past the herd of cows sleeping near the main village, in the middle of the road of course and on to the airport. There’s mist around this morning and as soon as we take off Hong Kong disappears. The arrival into Dubai couldn’t be more different, a vast flat, sandy landscape with a dust haze stretching into the distance making everything hazy and somehow secretive. We’re met at the airport and start the journey to the hotel in a luxurious car. The driver does his best to point out the sights as we travel along but frankly we’re just amazed at the size of the roads, 7 lanes each way on the main motorway only going down to 1 lane just as we reach the hotel. There are cranes and building work everywhere, no sign now of a global crisis here.

The hotel is in a great position at one end of the marina so we can see both the marina and through the other buildings the sea, it is air-conditioned luxury. We set off to discover the marina area, it boasts 7Km of waterside walkways plus numerous shops and restaurants. To be honest at first everything looks to be either under construction or closed for renovation, an area in its infancy but as we walk we begin to find places that are open, they’re just hidden inside vast buildings accessed by a discrete door. We pass the yacht club and find the Dubai Marina Mall with all the glitzy shops. From here we discover Pier 7, a huge round tower like building overlooking the marina. Each floor is one restaurant some funky urban spaces, some very dark, another very modern, we decide to come back tonight to try one of these. A walk back to the hotel makes us realise we’re hungry now so a quick snack and a refreshing drink at Angelo’s sorts that out.

The restaurant we decide on is on the 4^th floor, a choice made mainly due to very loud thumping music coming from 3 of the others, it’s only as we go into “Scene” that we realise it’s Simon Rimmer’s restaurant. We join the small queue at the desk to ask for a table, there appears to be 2 young ladies and they’re both busy. “Can I help you?” says a male voice, it appears that Dubai has speaking reception desks! Not sure how to respond we look at each other, the voice repeats the question “Can I help you?” and a head appears round the side of the desk at about hip height. “Could we have a table for 2 please?” “Of course, this way”. What appeared to be someone on his knees turns out to be a dwarf, who leads us to a table talking as he goes. Now it’s very difficult to hear someone talking away from you, over loud music and 3 feet below you, do you crouch down and ask him to repeat all that or smile politely and hope this is the right response, being British we do the latter. The restaurant is a funky mix of distressed mis-matched furniture, low lighting and beano wallpaper! The view of the marina is amazing and the food is pretty good too, slow roast lamb, crispy leek, mushroom and  smoked cheese pancake followed by sticky toffee pudding to die for, yummie….