Dubai : Dining at the newly-opened Mistral, located in the five-star Ibn Battuta Gate Hotel is a gastronomical adventure.
Indulging in their carefully planned out buffet gives one an indication of what the iconic traveller Ibn Battuta's palate must have been like. The cuisine served is a fairly accurate indication of all the lands he journeyed to and cuisines he indulged in.
For starters, my dining partner and I decided to skip the pumpkin soup (a nod towards Halloween we guessed) and gorge on the mix of nigiri, maki and California rolls instead. We chased our sushi with a shot of a tomato and orange shake, followed by salmon tartar and Arabian fare such as an okra salad, beetroot mutabal and baba ganoush, highlighting Ibn Battuta's travels to the East.
Moving onto the main, our eyes fell on the pizza station, freshly baked pizzas in a beech oven. Although whether Ibn Battuta ever visited Italy is arguable, Chef Salvatore insists that the Mediterranean was surely a part of the traveller's journeys.
Small portions
The idea behind the main courses is to not overwhelm the diner. All dishes are displayed in small portions, with the prawn biryani served in a small clay pot, and each serving dish concealing a smaller tray of food within.
"We pride ourselves on serving eclectic, freshly cooked, pan to plate dishes inspired by the Moorish Arabesque kitchens featured in the travelogue of the 14th century journeyman himself," says Chef Salvatore.
For the mains, we were spoilt for choice with an array of over 20 dishes to choose from, plus a live tempura station and a carving table of roasted chicken. For vegetarians, the choice is vast with nearly half of the buffet featuring vegetable dishes from various parts of the world. The honey-roasted sweet potatoes were an indulgence on their own, while the steamed asparagus wrapped in zucchini added a gourmet touch to the buffet.
Corn-fed chicken with spinach, a delicious seafood cataplana and the braised lamb were my other top picks of the day.
Despite the temptation to over-indulge, my partner, a man with the sweetest tooth I've ever seen, and I made a pact to save space for dessert. It was one of the smartest decisions I made all week. The white chocolate fountain alone was worth the visit to Mistral. Along with gorging on fruits and marshmallows in dripping, creamy chocolate, we loaded our plates with the Oreo cheesecake, the choux coffee pastries, a guava-jasmine tea mousse, crème brûlée mint (one of the finest crème brûlée I've had in Dubai) and the unique chocolate soup berries which, as the name suggests, are assorted berries afloat a thick chocolate soup.
A glass of sparkly and some strong coffee later, we realised we'd forgotten the cheese. The aroma of various cheddars, brie, gruyere, Roquefort, camembert, feta, kashkawan, gorgonzola and parmigiano were an aromatic reminder of what we'd missed.
But it gave us an excuse to go back for another leisurely lunch some day. And with the ongoing promotion of two for the price of one (Dh180) till the end of November, the journey back to Mistral is surely one I'm going to undertake.
