6 January 2012
If you read anything about Dubai, it will more than likely say that Friday brunch in Dubai is something of an institution. The summary of a Friday brunch, is restaurants provide all you can eat and drink (prices vary between restaurants and if you have soft drink or alcohol) usually between the hours of 12.30pm to 4.30pm.
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| View from The Observatory |
My stars must have been aligned - luck had it that my birthday this year fell on a Friday, and my bestie Jess would be in Dubai with me that week. After much researching online and from Dubai brunch connoisseurs, we decided on going to The Observatory, at the Marriott Dubai Marina. It was 450dhs (around $120AUD) and well worth it!
We arrived to be greeted with a glass of bubbles, and shown to our table to be met by our friends Gareth and Sam who had already arrived. Eager to go off and explore we grabbed our wines and ventured clockwise around level 52 to see what The Observatory had to offer. Where to start! There were buffet stations with seafood's, meats, desserts, salads, cheeses (to Jess's delight, I am sure she got cheese on every single plate she came back with), then stations where you could choose lobsters, prawns, salmon, fish, scallops and more cooked to your liking plus an a la carte menu on top of that with steak and pasta and other items I forget. The list I have provided does not give the food any justice either. There was everything you could imagine. And then the drinks. On top of the bubbles being topped up every sip you took, and being able to order anything you wanted, there was also a mobile cocktail station that went around the room - although it spent most of the time in front of our table as we refused to have anything less than 4 drinks at 1 time.
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| Lobster! |
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| Singing and clapping and cake |
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| The standard drinks for our table |
Sneaky Jess had emailed the restaurant the previous day and arranged a birthday cake, it was such a surprise, and after I got over being angry at her admitted that it had turned it in to a proper birthday for me. After we had eaten ourselves stupid, we moved around to the other side of the restaurant where there were tables set up to look out over the marina and the palm. Jess and I gasped as we saw a skydiver plummeting towards the earth, then at the last minute suddenly slow down and land perfectly. We had thought we were about to witness someone dying!
We had all thought we wouldn't make it past 4pm (Gareth had been passed out at 3.45pm for his birthday brunch!) and when it came to 4.30 it was time to decide what to do next. I had been waiting to take Jess to Barasti, and since we could literally see it from The Observatory we decided that would be our next destination.
Barasti turned out to be the perfect choice. We found ourselves a beach lounger and ordered 4 jugs of mojitos, and enjoyed the beautiful Arabian sunset. Once the sun dropped though, so did the temperature. We ventured upstairs to try and get a table, but the place was packed, so we were up to deciding where to go again. We had been at Nasimi Beach on New Years day and it was another place that I had wanted to show Jess. It is a beach club out on the plam at the Atlantis, and it was our next destination.
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| Jess and I at Barasti |
We got settled on our next beach lounger at Nasimi, complete with a bottle of grey goose vodka and a sheesha. All of a sudden I see a group of Russian girls (it was a themed night, apparently a big thing in Dubai as we'd almost ended up in a Persian night a couple of nights earlier) glowing as they were walking towards us. What was that they were singing and clapping to? And what what that glowing? It almost sounds like they're singing "happy birthday", and is that a cake with sparklers coming out of it? JESS!!! So thank you Jess for my 2 birthday cakes that day.
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| Jess and I at Nasimi |
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| The Russians at Nasimi Beach |
We managed to last until around midnight. Was not only one of the best birthdays, but one of the greatest days ever. Thanks Jess, Gareth and Sam!
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