Time to eat some food with a glass of wine this time!
Wine-makers often like to pair food with their wine, so I thought it was the right time as the weather gets better to think of an outside venue to take a couple of friends from out of town to enjoy our lovely weather, a decent meal and of course a good couple of bottles of wine.
As my friends were staying in the Radisson Blu, Dubai Media City, we met upstairs on the eighth floor for a sundowner or two. It had to be beer at this stage, as it was still quite warm, and a bottle or two went down very well.
We were then meeting another friend, originally downtown, but the horrors of Sheik Zayed Road convinced us to stay in the area — so we headed off to The Westin, swayed by talk of the nice wine bar, Oeno.
Well, don’t try that one on a Monday night! I have been on a Tuesday night before and parted company with AED90 (US $25) for a glass of Wither Hills — but no such luck on a Monday, as the bar was in fact closed.
(This begged the question: if you give away all your sparkling wine on one night of the week, do your regulars desert you on other nights to such an extent that you have to close?)
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We decided to wander across the lobby to the Senyar Bar, which advertises vodka galore, but in fact encouraged more beer to be consumed as the main entertainment was watching Liverpool finally get that elusive win, and over Manchester United!
So on to the main course for the evening, and the four of us sat down outside on the terrace at Hunters Room and Grill.
I have eaten at Hunters before and the only issue has been the speed of service — especially when you eat outside, for some reason.
Happily, they seem to have resolved this and we were well looked after by a helpful and knowledgeable waitress who had lots of suggestions for what we could both eat and drink.
The only issue she was struggling with was availability, as we seem to choose every wine which was not available! It took three choices to get the white wine to start with, the first two being unavailable — but for once the importers were not blamed, just a clear statement that the wine was “unfortunately unavailable”.
(I know that difficult times have forced hotels to cut down on their inventories as well as the importers’, but does this mean that only one in three choices being available is a regular occurrence?)
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