Taste of Dubai: A playground for chefs and party for food lovers
"I absolutely love these kind of festivals," says one celebrity chef
Dubai’s carnival of food, held over the weekend at Dubai Media City Amphitheatre, was a cacophony of sound – children giggling, influencers finding the best selfie spots, and others calling out to friends or relatives to try this or sit there – smells (of everything from jerk chicken to hot chocolate), and experiences.
As the sun went down, the excitement would take on a different hue – with people racing over the three days to win something (each booth seemed to have its own game of win this), catch a class or see a demonstration.
For Italian chef Gino D'Acampo, these sort of food fests are very, very important. He told Gulf News: “I absolutely love these kind of festivals .The Taste of Dubai is an experience that everybody should should [have], because this is the time that you can really socialise with people. We now live in an era where everybody's on social media, but there is nothing social about it. So events like this one, to me, are very important for humans to meet others - you meet friends, you do a bit of business or whatever, and you see children, different cultures. It's just magical.”
The festival-like atmosphere in the background dripping with food and laughter seemed to prove the celebrity chef’s point.
At Taste of Dubai though, one got a window into some of the best Dubai has to offer – from Michellin-starred restaurants serving delicate dining to mom-and-pop stores that are just starting up, At Mama Crumble, for example, a mum and daughter stood taking orders for an apple crumble topped with hot custard meal – a homemade special honed over years of trial and error by mum. “I’ve been making it for at least 40 years,” she told Gulf News topping up a crisp crumble with a syrup of custard.
New takes on old favourites such as peanut butter that can be squeezed out of a tube and fro-yo made using real laban were also on hand. As the 16 well-known restaurants served up not just popular dishes but also concoctions made just for the fest, even celebrity chefs were drawn into the queues. Irish chef Rachel Allen, who is a TV presenter and author, loved the ‘pathar gosh’ served by UAE’s Khadak and lamb dumplings at Lowe.
Meanwhile, Matt Preston, food critic and MasterChef Australia judge was pleased to see the way the food scene in Dubai is progressing. “I love this kind of growth and confidence in celebrating Emirati food. I always used to find it weird that I go to Hyderabad and there'd be more restaurants selling Emirati food, like mandi chicken, than there were in Dubai. So it's great to come in and now see this kind of emerging pride in the traditional food, traditional Emirati cuisine, because there's some great dishes, like the mandi,” he explained.
Another chef out in the field and ready to explore was Giggling Gourmand Jenny Morris, who said trying to pick one cuisine over another is like asking who her favourite child is. The prolific cookbook author and cooking school owner loves helping people discover food. “I love people. I love what I do – edutainment. When people walk away, they always have learned so much from me without really realizing it because they were having fun,” she explained on the sidelines of her masterclass.
Since food is about discovery and happy accidents with ingredients we asked Jenny what her favourite boo-boo in the kitchen had been. “You know what, it was the most embarrassing mistake, the tastiest mistake. I was taking a demonstration. And my demonstrations are hands on. We were doing Christmas in Africa, and so we're doing this beautiful, spicy carrot cake. And the ladies were throwing the ingredients in, and they were mixing it, and when we popped it into the oven, and the aromas were absolutely delicious. And they kept saying to me, when is the cake gonna rise? I got more and more nervous by the hour because nothing was happening. The cake wasn't rising.”
“So the most delicious mistake I made was that we forgot to put the flour in the cake. We had coconut and pineapple and carrots, and we made these gorgeous, little chewy balls out of it. It was like a halva, almost,” she giggled before making her way across Taste of Dubai – home to the best bites.
