Tentalising feast at Atlantis' Ramadan tent

Dubai: You've got to see it to believe it. This is an iftar unlike any other I've ever been to: And that's saying a lot coming from a foodaholic.

Naturally, I'm talking about the Asateer tent at Atlantis, the biggest, grandest, most luxurious iftar I've been to yet.

Set in a virgin white tent with clusters of crystal chandeliers, Arabian décor and station after station of endless food… And yet, none of it garish, over the top or grossly excessive. Tastefully measured, based on a reservations-only headcount, Asateer lives up to its billing.

With clusters of food stations serving everything from the traditional ouzi to the exotic live stations for shawarma, foul mesdammes, balila, and manakesh, the buffet leaves no stone unturned when it comes to originality. My favourite: the tahina fountain with falafel skewers, baby marrow, zaatar straw and sumac sticks.

For starters, my salad plate had everything from a couscous with beans salad to marinated roast beef with grilled onions and mushrooms, to lip-smacking laban-based dishes such as labneh bill zeit and khyar bill laban.

Catering to an international audience, the cheese rokkakat and meat sambouseks stood proud alongside the Chinese spring rolls, while the nearby table had a mix of every kind of bread imaginable: from Arabic bread to tandoor roti, butter naan, international bread rolls, baguettes and elle et vire butter, this truly is a buffet for just about everyone.

At this point, I was so full up with starters, I'd almost forgotten the mains were to follow. Nonetheless, one whiff of the Arabic mix grill and, miraculously, we could eat all over again. Stepping into a world of Arabian cuisines, flavours and aromas, we made our way through the traditional dishes, generously helping ourselves to everything from a green peas stew with lamb, hammour fish tajeen, vegetable biryani, kebbeh bil laban, eslaamboli polo rice with lamb, eggplant sheikh el mehsi and even stir-fried vegetable noodles and baked potato, among others.

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Dinner done, I couldn't wait to move on to my favourite part of the meal - dessert. From pyramids and trees of dates, strawberries, marshmallows and macaroons, to the chocolate fountain, exotic cakes and traditional puddings, one look at the dessert table and I knew I'd need to be on a strict diet after a dessert such as this.

Keeping up with the Arabic traditions of the month, there were assorted baklava, the ever popular umm ali and a sticky date and banana pudding. For me, I got to indulge in just about most of the sweets I love: ice creams of six kinds, crème caramel, a panacotta chocolate with caramel jelly, mango pudding with bitter almond bean curd, saffron rice pudding with raisins, peach trifles, mille-feuille, blueberry cheesecake, brownies…. With over 35 items on the dessert table to choose from, it's natural to feel a little overwhelmed.

My partner and I walked out compelled to go back before the month's end to sample all the goodness we had left out.