101 - The One & Only, The Palm

101 located @ The One and Only on The Palm, is officially my new favourite restaurant!!


Why? Because the setting is just beautiful, service excellent and the food is simply divine.

Located on the Palm at the less famous of the two, One & Only's, which is in itself an oxymoron.
101 is a decked, jetty restaurant jutting out into the sea - with a spectacular backdrop of Dubai Marina looking like a mini Manhattan.

We went in the evening, by road but you can get there by boat from it's sister hotel, Royal Mirage - The One & Only on Al Sufouh Rd. I'd recommend going to have drinks at the bar there first and arrive at 101 via boat, as this is definitely the type of venue one should arrive at by boat, unfortunately we didn't do this.

I was expecting it to be lovely, reminiscent of it's sister hotels and a previous favourite (yes - I'm fickle!) The One & Only - Beach bar & Grill. I was prepared for typical Dubai high end fair, very respectable but just not that surprising or exciting.

However, the menu at 101 is a revelation, Spanish influenced Seafood is the stable and my do they deliver. We were in for a proper treat as even though the venue feels very Dubai and flash the menu and food is dare I say it.....soulful and quirky - which is a somewhat uncommon duet in Dubai.

I'm super excited because it's not very often I've found a restaurant in Dubai, with a chef that tries to be characterful and unique and doesn't just default to the same old crowd pleasing ceaser's, steaks and sea bass.

You can choose between the tapas menu with all the traditional tapas favourites like meatballs, Calimari, Manchego cheese and surprises such as 'Mejillones gratinados' - Gratinated mussels with garlic butter and 'Berberechos al limón' - Cockles in lemon sauce. Cockles in Dubai who'd have thought it!

We ordered from the Al a catre menu, which has a dizzing amount of choice, most of which I wanted to order.

To start I opted for Sautéed baby spinach - 55Dhs, Chicken chorizo, pine nuts and Manchego cheese.

The photograph does not do the dish justice it was eye-rolling-in-back-of-head amazing. And I loved that it arrived fresh from the oven in it's cooking pot.

I followed with the Seafood ravioli with Prawns, mussels, calamari and lemon sauce - 145Dhs. Lushness in every bite, zingy, fresh, subtle lemonyness, cooked to perfection both the pasta and the seafood which often gets overcooked to rubber.

My male companion (note not my husband!) had Veal chop ‘a la Milanese’ - 190Dhs, Macaroni gratin, sage and capers.

Now,  'Milanese' is to my mind a fancy word for a schnitzel and it would never occur to me to order a schnitzel in a fancy restaurant unless in Germany. However, I have to admit it was excellent, tender with a flavoursome accompanying sauce.

There were so many gorgeous sounding dishes it was hard to choose -  I also could have gone for the Casareccia 150Dhs  - Lobster, coco beans, ‘bouillabaisse’ sauce and Provençal butter! Coco beans?! and lobster?!....really would have loved to have been brave and tried that...



What I'd love to try is their signature dish to share, Paella with squid ink and calamari 155 Dhs per person. So I'm now fantistising about a languishing late lunch there -  arriving by boat, dressed in some elegant Jackie-O inspired outfit and endlessly grazing on tapas, a shared Paella and supping cold cava whilst watching the sun set!

That's it.... I'm going off to book that very thing right this minute, I'll update this post upon my return and try to get better pics.





 

Read More

Digital Photography Level 1 @ Gulf Photo Plus

As a Christmas gift my thoughtful husband bought me a course of photography classes since I've a fledgling interest in photography and since starting this blog I'd like to take better photos for you.

"Hooray!".... I hear you all rejoice! ;-)

Awesome Graffiti mural outside Gulf Photo Plus gallery  

My problem is I often have a vision in my mind of a picture I want to take, but unfortunately I don't have the technical knowledge to be able create it. We have a pretty OK digital camera a Sony DSLR we got as a wedding present, but due to lack of knowledge we aren't utilising it to it's functional capacity.

We could read the manual I suppose....but in all honestly who reads manuals!!!

GPP Gallery image from their website

Johan also has and interest in photography so enrolled us both on the Level 1 Digital Photography run by Gulf Photo Plus, as we thought it would be a cool thing to do together.

Gulf Photo Plus run lots of courses, workshops, free events, exhibitions and seminars with prominent international photographers.

The classes run from their Dubai Gallery/Studio on Alserkel Avenue in Al Qouz, this is somewhat of an odd location tucked behind Time Square mall, which is somewhat of an an odd mall.

The gallery is in an industrial compound which is quite hard to find, once you do however, you discover it's a small artisan mecca of urban galleries flanked by grafftti murals, who knew! The area itself seems to be trying to develop into and bohemian hub with the addition of the Ripe Organic market and Lime Tree Cafe at the nearby Courtyard.

Grumpy baby a subject for focus & lighting 

Gulf Photo Plus offer an array of courses with options to suit various levels and interests. The digital photography class we took ran over a weekend Friday and Sat, starting from 10am to 3pm.

Our lecturer's Toyna Colson, assisted by Musthafa were knowledgeable and kept a good momentum to the curriculum.

In level one you learn the basic foundations, understanding what all the programmes on our camera do and the fundaments of Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed which are the 3 cornerstones of photography.

Proper equipment care, focus and lighting are other key subjects on the agenda.

Tonya, managed our expectations that we wouldn't come away with portfolio of award winning photographs, what you do is simple experiments to practice fundamental skills.





Before you can get creative and progress to elements of composition you have to master the mathematics of photography, which to a novice is quite a lot to get your head around. Aperture is measure in F-stops, ISO in sensor sensitivity amount and shutter speed in fractions of seconds.

Each factor affects the outcome of the image and the difficult thing is each of the factors when changed directly affects the others, so you have to make a sum of your desired combination and figure out if it will work on the hoof. Not easy!

Learning about White balance

White balance is another key aspect where you determine what kind of colour you get. This is when you have to set the camera for types of light for example artificial, sunshine or clouds, you can also do manual adjustments to get the exact exposure tones required.

Correcting the White Balance!

Depth of field is studied in some detail as is the different ways to capture motion.

Experiments in Depth of Field

I also realised that my inability to take the kinds of photographs I want are mostly due to the limitations of my camera lens as well as my own lack of knowledge.

I had a few 'Eureka!' moments realising that no wonder I couldn't get the shots I wanted if I'm constantly in auto mode.


Plus, going 'back to school' with your husband is quite an interesting experience as we got competitive with one another and bickered about who was doing what right and wrong, it was funny.

Experiments in motion 

You get an home work assignment which you present and group critique the next day, so it's quite an intensive few days but that's good as you come away feeling like you've learned something.

The gallery/studio is a pleasant, practical and inspiring space as they have small exhibitions and you can peruse some of the amazing professional photography for sale. However, it's a bit stuck in the middle of no-where so can be difficult to get to and from if you haven't got a car as taxi's don't always know where it is either.


All in all this was an enjoyable and worthwhile 2 day course to give a structured underpinning of the more technical aspects of digital photography.

 All I need to do now is practice, practice, practice!

Read More