Have you ever tasted a kulcha? Do you know how to eat pani puri? What’s the name of Nepal’s most famous dish? What would you get if you ordered smoked chaas? Are you still in the dark? Well so was I until I went on a Frying Pan food tour – not in India – in the old part of Dubai…

Another question. Did you know that when guinea pigs get excited they make a high-pitched whistling noise? When my friend Arva from I Live in a Frying Pan asked me to be a guinea pig for her embryonic food tours and I nearly ran round going ‘wheeeb, wheeb, wheeb’ with excitement. Poor girl, I was so enthusiastic that I browbeat her into arranging it to coincide with my sister’s visit to Dubai.

Bur Dubai is not known for its plethora of parking spaces so sis and I hopped on the Metro. It was the first time I had taken a journey that involved changing lines and took us to the Khalid Bin Al Waleed station which is like Neptune’s palace. It wouldn’t look out of place in Disney’s Little Mermaid – check the pics here.

Soon a merry band of fellow guinea pigs were trailing after Arva through the back streets of old Dubai. Life in the UAE is very car-centric so it’s a real novelty to take a relaxing stroll and observe at pavement level. This instantly led to a close encounter with a coffee shop – a wholesaler not a cafe – the aroma was so inviting we just had to open the door and get them to show us what they were doing (weighing and bagging coffee). We also passed this sign:

I’ve lived in the UAE for 12 years but had only eaten one of the foods on the tour before – it truly was a trip for the taste buds and every other sense. In no particular order here they are – the words in capitals show the city or region where that style of food originates:

Continue reading on My Custard Pie…

If you are interested in a Food Tour of Dubai click here