The Californian
Fans of all food from under the waves will absolutely love the Dusit Thani Dubai’s seafood-themed night, Deep Blue. Every Thursday the international restaurant offers up an unbeatable selection of all things fishy, from freshly prepared and grilled fish to made-to-order sushi and chilled shellfish. If it can be found underwater (and is edible), you’ll find it at The Californian.
As soon as we arrived, we knew we were going to enjoy the meal, as you’re greeted by an oh-so-tempting sushi counter with a chef beavering away to prepare made-to order Japanese bites for everyone to try. Before I knew it, I was tucking into some of the best sushi I’ve enjoyed in a while: the prawn tempura roll was particularly wonderful.
Then it was time to browse the rest of the buffet’s appealing options, and there was an awful lot to choose from with dishes inspired by cuisines from around the world including South Indian king fish curry, tom yum talay soup and the classic and always popular salmon en croute.
For our next course, we had our eye on the fresh fish, as the selection is laid out on a bed of ice, ready to be cooked. And there’s a huge choice, with the classics such as prawns, squid, hammour and red snapper, and types of seafood I’d never even heard of, like fasker fin and Sultan Ibrahim (both local and sustainable fish choices, hooray!) Under the guidance of the extremely helpful chef, we opted for a selection of prawns, squid, crab and fasker fin, which were all grilled to perfection with a simple, no bells and whistles approach that lets the fresh flavours do the work.
Post-mains it was time for dessert, and from the extremely impressive options we finally opted for a Mixed fruit pavlova and a sticky pear and caramel cake, although the chocolate indulgence cake and the apple sorbet were also very tempting. After dessert is was time to head home, pleasantly full, but also quietly regretting the fact we hadn’t had any room for the cold salad mezze options or the hot mains, which featured a tandoori red snapper fillet with green asparagus – but that’s all the more reason to go back! That said, we’re tempted to try another, night as the Deep Blue seafood evening is not the Dusit’s only themed night.
On Sunday evenings you can enjoy the Mediterranean Night, Mondays offer up a range of South East Asian cuisine and Tuesdays are all about the New Orleans BBQ. See you there.
Location Dusit Thani Dubai
Tel 04 317 4515
Opening Hours Deep Blue Night is 7pm-10.30pm, Thursdays; The restaurant is open 7pm-10.30pm, daily.
Tasty trio: Theme nights
Yalumba
Location Le Méridien Dubai, Garhoud
Timing 8pm-11pm, Sat-Thu
Tel 04 702 2455
You may be more familiar with their notorious Friday brunches, but Yalumba also have themed evenings throughout the week. Just as with their Friday extravagance, enjoy delicious all-you-can-eat-and-drink meals; we love their Asian offerings on a Saturday and the Indian and Arabic dishes on a Sunday. There’s also Mediterranean Mondays and BBQ treats on Thursdays, and a Chocolate themed night on a Wednesday: Dream-dinner alert!
Talk Restaurant And Lounge
Location Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach, JBR
Timing 6.30pm-11pm, Fridays
Tel 04 449 8888
If you’re more into evening brunches than the traditional Dubai all-you-can-eat-and-drink daytime sessions, you’ll like The Talk’s Simply Skewered nights. The impressive spread is made up of delicious kebabs in many international forms. Tuck into Brazilian, Indian and Arabic meat treats, as well as dishes from a host of countries in between – this is a must for anyone who takes kebab-eating seriously.
Channels
Location Media Rotana, Tecom
Timing 7pm-10.30pm, Sun, Tues, Wed-Fri; 6pm-7.30pm, Mon
Tel 04 435 0000
At Channels you can tuck into food with a different theme almost every night of the week. The culinary trip kicks off on a Sunday with a traditional Brit roast, then Mondays see the restaurant turn into sushi heaven. Tuck into hearty Mexican food on a Tuesday (something we’ll be dubbing ‘Taco Tuesdays’ and endeavouring to enjoy as often as possible). On a Wednesday enjoy Mediterranean fare, while on Thursdays and Fridays you can touch down in Asia.
