The young Emirati founders of Meet The Locals – a start-up bridging cultural gaps between expats and Emiratis would love to befriend you.

Name one traditional Emirati breakfast dish.

Nope, shawarma’s not on the menu and knafeh is technically Palestinian.

If you’re an expatriate, the odds are you’re probably floundering and will resort to Googling the answer – instead of picking up the phone and calling or texting an Emirati friend.

That’s because the sad truth is that not many expatriates in the UAE have Emirati friends; we pass each other in malls, sit beside each other in movie theatres, drive past each other on roads, perhaps even chat with colleagues about the weather, or brainstorm for ideas in a meeting, but outside of work very few expatriates have an Emirati friend, if a 2012 survey conducted by 999 Magazine, the official publication of the Abu Dhabi Police and Ministry of Labour is to be believed. According to the survey, 72 per cent of 2,000 expatriates polled had no knowledge of traditional Emirati culture.

It’s a statistic that young Emiratis Khadija Behzad and Abdullah Al Mattar, have set out to change with Meet The Locals – a tourism start-up that creates opportunities for expatriates (both residents and tourists) to engage and interact with Emiratis. These meetups include informal meals (breakfast, lunch and ghawa sessions) in a traditional setting, and exploring the country’s tourist and heritage sites such as the Etihad museum under the guidance of Meet The Locals’ seven certified tour guides from all emirates of the UAE. They also conduct art tours, tours of Al Fahdi Historical District and extend their services to companies who want a cultural induction for new employees.

The innovative concept bagged the young entrepreneurs the award for the best start-up at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival last month.

Awards, however, weren’t the incentive that spurred the friends, who met through an entrepreneurship course a couple of years ago, to start the organisation.

‘Abdullah and I work in private companies where we interact with a lot of expat colleagues [only to realise] we were the only local person they knew or went out with. We realised that interaction between expatriates and Emiratis outside of the workplace is very limited. And at work the communication is professional, never cultural or personal,’ explains 32-year-old Khadija, who now works full-time on getting Meet The Locals off the ground; 27-year-old Abdullah has an HR day job that he juggles with Meet The Locals.

They started hosting weekly interactive events in August 2016, by posting details online; the company received its official licence in June this year.

As avid travellers, both Khadija and Abdullah seek out local families as part of their globetrotting excursions and share a meal with them to understand the land and culture through the eyes of its natives. Khadija, for example, has fond memories of her time with American and Scottish families.

These opportunities, says Khadija, are scarce for tourists who come to the UAE. Even the residents who have lived here for a long time don’t interact much with the locals.

‘Once, I invited my South African neighbour to one of our events and they told me it was their first time trying Emirati food. They have lived with us in the same neighbourhood for 22 years and so we were a bit surprised!’ Khadija laughs. ‘We know there are a lot of people who even today don’t know what Emirati food and cuisine is. They haven’t sat down for a meal with locals and we want to provide that opportunity.’

A typical Meet The Locals Emirati breakfast is a casual event that starts with a round of introductions. After that, Abdullah and Khadija, or one of their seven trained guides, will explain the menu to guests. ‘It’s like hanging out with friends,’ says Abdullah.

What makes a Meet The Locals spread different from what the many Emirati restaurants mushrooming across the UAE have to offer?

You’ll eat baidh tamat (Emirati scrambled eggs), balaleet (sweet vermicelli omelette) and breads such as khameer, regag, mohalla and chabab at Al Fanar restaurant, an Emirati restaurant modelled after a traditional house with the replica of a traditional souk in the courtyard. All meetups include an architectural tour of the restaurant to explain the design of a traditional house, followed by a tour of the souk where traditional items like a marash (a rose water sprinkler) and a mahafa (a fan made of palm tree fronds) and their purposes are explained in detail.

‘By coming to our events people can try the real Emirati food that my mother, her mother and grandmothers used to cook. It’s not some modern thing, it’s the real old food. And we [Emiratis] have a story behind each dish,’ says Abdullah launching into the history of how the local sweet batheetha (a mixture of dates, flour and ghee) was originally created because it lasts for months without spoiling, which meant it could be used by pearl divers who would be at sea for extended periods of time.

Abdullah’s favourite part is when guests ask questions about culture, religion and attire that they’ve been hesitant to ask. Some of the misconceptions make Abdullah laugh because of how far off the mark they are.

‘A lot of people think that those who wear the tarboosh – a rope-like accessory at the neck of the kandora [the national dress] are rich and the people that don’t are poor! We wear kandora to represent modesty, not [wealth],’ Abdullah explains.

There’s also a rampant misconception about the purpose of ghotras, says Khadija: ‘People have come to believe that those wearing white ghotras are single and those wearing red are married,’ she laughs.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of cultural stereotypes and misconceptions that Khadija and Abdullah have set out to dispel. ‘A desert safari and some of its activities like belly dancing don’t reflect our culture but a lot of tour organisers don’t explain that to tourists or even residents,’ Khadija laments.

In a bid to ensure no incorrect information is disseminated, every Meet The Local guide is certified from the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority or the Dubai Tourism Authority. The team is also in touch with other Emirati guides working for government organisations and takes their feedback and experience into account. ‘We have bilingual Emirati tour guides who speak Korean, Swahili, Hindi and Farsi apart from the Arabic and English that’s standard,’ Khadija says.

Has language been a major obstacle for 200 nationalities here to integrate with Emiratis, I ask?

‘Yes, in the early ’90s, an Emirati who spoke English was [extraordinary] for us then but now it’s normal,’ Abdullah concedes. And he doesn’t blame expatriates for not having picked up Arabic either: ‘Because we Emiratis are so hospitable we learnt English to capture the ways of the multinational community we live in. Plus, written Arabic is different from casual conversation so expats might find it hard to pick up the language.

‘Even within the UAE accents vary across emirates – people from Al Ain speak a little differently and the Ras Al Khaimah dialect is something that even I don’t understand,’ he chuckles.

Meet The Locals’ team abounds with these personal nuggets of information, which you would be hard-pressed to find online or in meticulously laid out guidebooks.

In Abdullah’s opinion, the main reason that a gaping cultural gap has existed between expats and Emiratis is because they’ve never really had reason to communicate outside of a working environment. ‘In the UAE you have schools that are for UAE nationals and schools for expats, the same applies to university. When I was finishing school I was craving that kind of interaction so I’d go malls and speak to the salesmen asking them about their day and their jobs.

‘And then we come together at the workplace where expats worry if they will be misunderstood or offend a local person with their questions.

His suggestion to those expats who are curious about the nationals of their substitute country is to just go up to an Emirati and speak: ‘We [locals] come from welcoming families that never say no to guests. My friend who was stopped by a curious American tourist ended up becoming best friends over a cup of coffee. Now he’s my friend too!’

Khadija’s advice is to err on the side of caution: ‘When you approach someone in the mall or a public place they might be wary of strangers, that’s why we host these meetups so people can communicate without inhibitions.’

The meetups have so far hosted 1,000 guests from over 50 countries, including a Russian expat who drove all the way from Ras Al Khaimah to the event in Dubai – and they want more people to join.

‘I feel bad when I hear expats who have lived here a long time, some who have even established families here and consider the UAE more of their home than their own country, say they haven’t met or interacted with locals. We should have done something before, something bigger a long time back,’ rues Abdullah about that fact that although expats and Emiratis have lived together for 46 years, the communities still aren’t fully integrated.

‘Meet The Locals is our way of fixing this. It’s our way of carrying forward the spirit and the legacy of the founders of the country who wanted everyone to live together happily.’

Meet The Locals’ two-hour breakfast experiences cost Dh130 per person. The tours of Etihad Museum are free and open to all; visit meetthelocalsuae.com.