Chow down: Chi'Zen, Choices and Tiffinbites

Tiffinbites

Service: friendly
Food: Indian
Ambience: casual
Ideal for: simple, uncomplicated food

A weekend lunch at an Indian restaurant in a shopping mall in Dubai. On most days, I would find this about as exciting as watching paint peeling off walls. There are too many restaurants here serving ‘Indian cuisine' that's either too rich, too bland or too boring. So when the wife marches me to Tiffinbites, the only thing that piques my interest is the fact that the shapely Shilpa Shetty has a stake in this London-based chain.

Inspired by the tiffinwallahs of Mumbai, who bring lunch to office workers in metallic tiffin dishes, the promise of Tiffinbites is healthy, flavoursome food. And I'm happy to report that they deliver on all counts.

Our starter is a zingy Teen Bean salad - a medley of three beans tossed in a spicy Indian dressing. For the mains, I try the Jhinga Malai Curry tiffin, spiced prawns in a mild coconut-based gravy served with baby potatoes, cooked in a fragrant spinach gravy and pilau rice. My wife tries the Saag Ghost, a tender lamb curry cooked with baby spinach leaves, with cumin rice and a creamy black lentil curry.

Desserts? A splendid Gajar ka Halwa all washed down with a chrome yellow mango lassi. If I had to find fault, Tiffinbites is a bit pricier than regular Indian joints. But mercifully, the food's definitely worth it.

Tiffinbites, Mirdif City Centre.Meal for two around Dh200, 04-284-0305
— NN

Choices

Service: very good
Food: Italian
Ambience: casual
Ideal for: a friendly gathering

Are there any other Italian-themed buffets in Dubai where the selection is so varied and copious that you completely ignore the pizza and pasta? Probably not, which is why the long-running Mamma Mia night at the aptly named Choices has become a big favourite with the city's buffet cognoscenti.

The salad bar alone is worth a visit, with its cold meats and crisp, fresh vegetables threatening to ruin your appetite for the remainder of the meal by being so moreish. A couple of laps around the main section and you'll have a plate filled higher than the Duomo di Milano. Sure, there are dishes that are as predictable as an Italian football score, such as lasagne and ravioli, but there are also some neat Italian twists on Arabic cuisine to add local flavour. The marinated lamb chops were a particular highlight, the meat so melt-in-mouth tender it required the gentle mastication of a toothless geriatric. Save ample stomach space for the dessert station, though. There's a guy permanently on hand to blend your own sugary amalgam of ingredients, but if a bespoke dessert isn't your thing, go for the tiramisu or any number of tiny cheesecakes and fruit tarts that taste just as good as they look.
Mamma Mia at Choices, Al Bustan Rotana. Dh179, 04-282-0000
— CH

Chi'Zen

Service: fair
Food: Chinese
Ambience: smart, scenic
Ideal for: Oriental cuisine in a maritime setting

Considering its name alludes to Buddhism, Chi'Zen failed to provide any sort of enlightening experience, but if I were to visit again (perhaps after being reincarnated as someone with an immensely sweet tooth?) I would certainly go wild with the dessert menu. Forget the starters and mains (more of which later), dessert seems to be Chi'Zen's forte, with a handful of imaginative offerings that bested the sparse and slightly underwhelming main menu. I took very little time to opt for the homemade mango cream with pomelo, a delicious cold soup laced with sago, which I could have happily guzzled all night, and which atoned for the bland savoury offerings that came before it. Actually we say bland but one order - the duck appetiser - failed to show up, and when we queried its absence we were politely told we hadn't even ordered it! Still, undeterred by this accusation of collective amnesia, my partner and I rallied ourselves and shared the pan-fried beef tenderloin in Xo sauce, which was adequately tasty but perhaps overpriced at Dh85. The fried shrimp dumplings were also so-so, while my lychee lemonade, at Dh35, might just qualify as Dubai's most pricey fruit juice - even if it did briefly send me to beverage Utopia.
Chi'Zen, Festival City. Meal for two, around Dh300, 04-232-9077
— CH