Dubai Dining During Ramadan

Well pretty much everything I read about Dubai's restaurants being closed during the day during Ramadan were true.

S and I arrived in Dubai and checked into our hotel around lunch time on Saturday. We decided to go out looking for some place to eat lunch. Within a few blocks of our hotel, we found probably 20 to 30 restaurants...the only one open...Burger King. Just my luck! BK would be the last on my list of places to eat...I guess once you get food poisoning at a place, your stomach never really has a desire to eat at that place again. Well, we walked past it figuring we would find another place open...nope, BK was it. So, we go in and order. We get our food...and I guess we should have taken the clue that they gave us our stuff in a to-go sack that we weren't suppose to eat in there. Well, we didn't and sat down and proceeded to start eating. Well after a couple of bites, an employee comes up and kindly asks us to leave. I guess if someone would have seen us eating in there, the BK would have received a large fine. OK, we left...kicked out of BK. I guess it would have maybe been too much to ask to maybe have put a sign on the door "open for take away only," or I don't know...maybe they could have told us when we ordered that we were to not eat in the store. I guess everyone is just suppose to know this. It's not like Dubai is a big tourist city or that we were staying in an area with a lot of hotels or anything like that.

Anyway, we left and took our food back to the hotel room. Not a big deal really...however, there was no way I was going to show my face in that BK again while we were there.

We made sure to ask the front desk what time breakfast was being served...I didn't want to get up to find out that they had stopped serving before sunrise. No problem there...they were serving until 11am. The way they got around this is that they had huge curtains up that we had to go through to get to breakfast every morning.

The next two days it worked out that we were back in our hotel room at lunch time, so we just ordered room service. The first day we tried to order a pizza from room service but were told they were serving sandwiches only. However, they called back a few minutes later to tell us that we could in fact order a pizza. It was pretty good. The second day of room service didn't go as well. We decided to order a turkey sandwich...well when it came it was some sort of steak sandwich (which we never could find on the menu, so not exactly sure what we ate).

Now on our fourth day in Dubai, we had what S is calling the highlight of his trip...we got to eat lunch in a mall bathroom. After a very adventurous taxi ride to get to this mall (future blog post about this), we decided that we had better kill a bunch of time in this mall before leaving. Well as we would find throughout our trip, once again all of the restaurants were closed. OK, so that's a small lie, there was another Burger King that was open. Come to find out, all the BKs we saw all week were open for business. Well, this one had all of the chairs up on the tables, so we knew for sure that it was carry out only. We decided that we were going to have to eat in the bathroom. Luckily, this was a brand new mall and the bathrooms were very nice...and honestly, if I was going to have to eat in a bathroom, I would prefer to have it be a nice one. However, we decided that smelly fast food would not be good to eat in a mall bathroom. Attached to the mall was a mega store similar to Super Walmart, so we just bought some pre-made sandwiches and diet Pepsi, and we were set. Fine dining sitting on a toilet...how much fun are we having now?

On the last day in Dubai, we were once again at another mall. This time however when we were hungry, we were ready to leave anyway. Besides another BK being open, there was also a Subway, KFC, and Krispy Kreme open. We got a couple of subs and just went back to our hotel to eat.

Now come sun down, it was a totally different story for dining options. Dubai has about everything you can imagine when it comes to restaurants. We ate at Chili's one night. They also have TGIF, Applebee's, Starbuck's, Cinnabon, and every fast food place that you can imagine...plus a lot more non-chain places. It would be so nice if Chennai got any one of these places...only in my dreams.

Well one late afternoon, we were in yet another mall (OK, Dubai has a ton of malls, and even though we really didn't buy much, we went to I think 5 different ones...it was awesome just being able to walk around in a clean environment to look at stuff). We decided to go to a movie. Well we had a little bit of time to kill, and we were thirsty. Well luckily, it was around the time of sundown, so I figured that the food court would probably be opening. Sure enough, it was open for business...it was very strange though. There were a lot of people sitting at the tables with their food and drinks in front of them. However, no one would eat anything until the precise time of Iftar (when the sun is down and the breaking of the fast begins). Everyone kept looking at their watches and at the exact same time, everyone started eating.

Well, I got our drinks from McDonald's, but I had to also get a pie. Now, it's sort of an inside joke about me and McDonald's pies. To make a long story short, when we were on a trip in China, I ate a green bean curd pie and a pineapple/taro pie from McDonald's. Well, the local pie choice in Dubai...date pie. I guess the palm trees that we were seeing around town are actually date palm trees, so the date is like the national fruit or something. Anyway, I can't wait to see what type of pies McDonald's will have here in Chennai. The first McD's in Chennai is currently under construction...I'm guessing maybe curry pie (that just sounds gross), or maybe mango pie (that could be tasty)...now tradition says that I will have to try one of whatever flavor they come up with.

Besides not eating and drinking during the day during Ramadan, smoking is also not allowed. Now S and I don't smoke...however we were talking to some Australians who do smoke. They said that they were out one day and were dying to have a cigarette...so finally they asked someone if there was anywhere they could smoke. The guy took them down this dark alley to a stairwell for them to light up. This same couple was telling us that they had ran into some Scottish people who were having a hard time finding any alcohol...yep, no alcohol even at night during Ramadan.

Anyway, S and I didn't starve. We made do with the situation. I honestly can't see how the people who observe Ramadan make it through a whole month of not eating or even drinking one sip of water during the day. The heat in Dubai alone would make it almost impossible to leave the house knowing that you couldn't have any water...and maybe that's what they do. Night time did seem to be a lot more active with people on the streets.

Well, it's lunch time for me...maybe I'll go in the bathroom and eat today. I need to practice for the next time I have to do this!