We should get this out of the way first: we’re not huge fans of buffets. Sometimes, however, you are left with no choice but to partake of the smörgåsbord of congealing sauces and chunks of industrial grade rubber masquerading as pieces of steak, or fish, or whatever.
On this particular occasion, we were very fortunate in our choice of going to the Al Wahda All Day Dining restaurant in the Grand Millennium Al Wahda. It was a lunchtime, so the restaurant was fairly quiet, which gave us the chance to have a look at the décor. Soft greens and creams, interspersed with dark brown accents dominated. There is a huge variety of seating available in the long, narrow room – from intimate tables for two or four to long banquette-style sections for larger parties.
At first we were a little taken aback by the comparatively small size of the actual buffet. The soup, breads, salads, desserts and main courses took up very little space in the dining room – however we did spot what appeared to be cooking stations at the back, which may have been operational during the busier breakfast and dinner services.
The salad bar was particularly small – but all of the cut vegetables seemed fresh and didn’t have that wrinkled, wilted look of larger stations, plus the mixed salads all looked freshly prepared and hadn’t had a chance to dry out or congeal.
There was one soup on offer, a lamb broth, and it was so good we were hard pressed not to return for a second bowl – but we resisted and instead visited the other cooked mains. Again, this section was smaller than we are used to, and had a few dishes that we didn’t even consider going near (steak in a sauce left over a burner to be kept warm is just asking for jaw ache trying to chew through it). Instead we sampled a few of the Arabic mezze options (cheese pastries and spinach fatayer) which were very good, an excellent vegetable curry and a truly fantastic yellow dhal. We also found a few dishes that you don’t often see on buffets, such as chicken molokhia, which we had to try and were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the preparation.
Finally, we couldn’t resist a trip to the dessert counter, which is quite cutely set up in chilled cabinets behind sliding doors, so you can help yourself. Lots of little, bite-sized bits of cakes and dessert that look very pretty were laid out, along with platters of fresh fruit and traditional Arabic desserts such as Umm Ali and mohalabia. Special mention has to go to the mini lemon meringue pies that were so good we went up for seconds (and fruit, you know, to balance it out).
All in all, a good place to head if buffet is the order of the day.
The bill (for two)
Buffet lunch x2 Dhs145
Total (excluding service) Dhs290
