From Time Out Abu Dhabi Eating Out 2010
Simple and effective. These are probably the best adjectives to describe the backstreet Al Hawamir restaurant. The interior is neat in a fastidious kind of way, like a tidy housewife who makes the best of her surroundings. Paintings of the sheikhs glare down accusatorily at diners, while the owner or manager can normally be found flicking through the sports channels early in the evening. There is a no smoking area (well, there’s a sign), but it appears to be about two feet from the smoking area, so unless they have some invisible barrier, it seems rather pointless.
To the rear, boothed seating signifies a family area, but the welcome, all in all, is rather friendly. The food is clearly aimed at large parties. Sweet-smelling seafood broths make up the bulk of the appetisers, with crabs, oyster and shark all making an appearance. For the mains, everything pretty much comes in servings of no less than a kilogram, with the full range of local seafood, such as sultan Ibrahim, huge lobsters and the ever-popular hammour on offer. The latter is at least available in smaller fish and chip format, smothered in thick batter, or simply grilled. Watch out though, there is no deboning, they literally just dump the fish in the fryer, egg sacs and all. So unless you want a mouthful of bones and offal it pays to be picky.
