🥘Lunch Time! 🍗
14 September 2017.
After almost 2 hours of travel and going around Dubai doing crazy stuff like blood extraction for medical fitness exam, what's a better way to treat yourself but with an "Eat All You Can" buffet of Filipino dishes?
It was my first time around that area in Al Karama, Dubai. Though it is widely known to be an area with lots of Filipinos here and there - I remember my Pakistani driving instructor from many years ago even said that:
"you can turn a stone upside down and find a Kabayan underneath".
"Kabayan" is how Filipinos are referred to here in the UAE and I think I can safely say, anywhere else in the world.
Much to my gastronomic delight, there was a whole ground floor of Filipino restaurants in my new company's office building. A majority, if not all of them, have "Eat All You Can" buffets! Goodness! I envy my Dubai officemates already. LOL.
Eating Time. Finally! 🍴
As soon as you enter the building, you will be treated with a mouth-watering aroma of Filipino Food. You'll pass by the restaurants with smiling Kabayanstaff inviting you to come in.
We decided to go into 365 Restaurant, which was strategically located near the entrance.
Their buffet had a range of chicken, beef, seafoods, vegetables, desserts and bottomless drinks (soda, juice or iced tea) all for AED 29 ($7.88). For my son (8 years old) I paid AED18 ($4.89).
They had Crispy Honey Chicken and Fried Chicken, which were of course a hit to my son. He also loved the calamari to go with his rice.
As for me, I loved the pancit bihon/canton, chop suey, battered crispy shrimps and chicken sisig. They were just so tasty! I also tried the laing (dried taro leaves in coconut milk) which I could not help but compare with the laing which hubby @kennyroy cooked just the night before. The laing was too salty for my taste - I was prompted to eat it with steamed white rice.
I would have loved to try the crabs if it only it will not be messy. They also had bopis (beef) which I did not try since I do not eat innards (eewww, sorry!)They also had goto and lomi, for which I was already too full to even see. What I regretted was the fish kilawin which I only noticed when we were already about to leave the restaurant.
DeSSert!
The word dessert is rightly spelled with double "S". SO SWEET. My favorite part of the meal! I always leave a space in my tummy of desserts.
They had halo-halo, which got its name from "mixed together" since it is a combination of different sweetened fruits, jelly, beans, etc topped with ice shavings and evaporated milk. Personally, I thought that it would not be nice because it lacked sweetened banana which for me is the "heart" of halo-halo. However, since I was free to put as much sugar and milk as I wanted it still ended up delicious, thanks to the purple yam too!
For my son (ehem, mined too), I tried to mix the buko pandan and sweetened macapuno with the halo-halo... Aww, I could still taste the sweetness!
That smile of satisfaction.
It was a task for me to keep awake all throughout the drive from Al Karama to Al Barsha Heights (we went to enroll my kid for homeschool) then home to Abu Dhabi. It felt like I was in food coma all that time. Thanks God for keeping me alert and in control behind the wheel.
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