Best Italian in Abu Dhabi? Quite possibly ... Il Porto

Tucked away in the corner of the Break Water (Or as I call it .. Marina Mall!) area, opposite Emirates Palace ... is this excellent Italian restaurant.

Add: Il Porto Restaurant

Break Water Area, Abu Dhabi

Located: Above the popular Lebanese restaurant, Mirage Marine

Tel: +971 2 236 3549

I was impressed by the service right from the start, as well as the waiter's / maître d's great knowledge of the menu. Freshly baked bread for starters with an olive tapenade and yummy sundried tomatoes ;-) Perfect! No alcohol, but the Granadine juice (25 AED) rocked!

Spinach ravioli ... true heaven!

Fettuccine al salmon ... Such a generous portion, served with both salmon flakes and full cuts of salmon over the top. Pretty good too.

Chocolate profiteroles with ice cream ... Daaarrrn good too, fantastic chocolate sauce. Love the pastry as well! All in all, a great meal! Best italian in town? Quite possibly!

Lexar 4 GB SD Memory - Tips!

SD or Secure Digital memory cards are so common place (and cheap!) these days that I simply take them for granted ...

But here are a couple of useful tips I picked up from Lexar ...

1) After shooting your last shot, count to 5 before turning the power off. This will ensure the camera has finished writing to the card (especially large files) and helps avoid possible corruption.

2) It is recommended to use one Lexar memory card in each camera model you have. Using one card between different cameras models - Canon 20D vs. Canon 1Ds Mark II and others - can result in possible data corruption.

Tean's Gourmet : Malaysian Traditional Chicken Curry

Not all "sauce packets" were created equal ... Tean's rocks!

Glad I brought back a few of these packs from Malaysia ... easy to prepare ... add in any vegs you like, my preferred choice being sauteed potatoes and sweet corn, and halved button mushrooms (Sometimes I put in sliced carrots too!), with about 1 kg of chicken ... and half our later ... voila, a delicious comforting meal!

Jones of Abu Dhabi - Brunch time

Good morning from Abu Dhabi on a weekend (Friday-Saturday here) ...

Abu Dhabi isn't all about huge S-class Mercs and Toyota Landcruisers, there are more "modest" cars such as the Clio Renaultsport 200 ... and Nissan Altima taxi's :-)

Add: Al Mamoura Building B , Ground Floor 06/07 , Corner 4th Muroor & 15th Street , Abu Dhabi, UAE

Tel: +971 2 4438 762

Opening hours:

Sunday 8:00am - 5:00pm

Monday - Thursday 8:00am - 9:00pm

Friday - Saturday 9:00am - 9:00pm

The best way to spend a weekend has to be at Jones ;-) near Al Nahyan Camp. Gotta start with the best cappucino in town!

MD had the excellent Cornbread with side of Rocket and Tomato salsa, so very good!

I chose the Spanish eggs en Cocotte, which is a baked dish of 2 eggs, spinach, Jones tomato relish and Veal bacon. Its served a generous slice of sourdough toast. Ahhhh... Nice! Next time I would choose for Chef to make it a wee bit runnier!

Konkan Abu Dhabi - Possibly the finest Indian restaurant in town!

Located: Behind Emirates Plaza Hotel

Area: TCA / Tourist Club Area

Tel: +971 2 676 0588

Konkan originates from the state of Karnataka in India, in Mangalore.

Mmmmh .. what a great start. Masala Popadoms ;-)

We shared ... Goan curry Fish (Excellent!), Tikka Masala Crab (Really good too!), and I loved the Curry Mushroom. Excellent Mangalorean cuisine!

This about sums up the restaurant ... brilliant customer service, nice quiet ambience, clean, damn good food, and excellent value (Eg. the large basket of mixed naans below was only 8 AED or RM$6!). The Vegetable Briyani was even more delicious!

This meal came up to about 30AED or RM25 per head. Gooood value!

Besides the TERRIBLE PARKING situation in the area, I would strongly recommend this place as would MD and JT ;-) Take a taxi, you won't regret it!

Jones the Grocer at Abu Dhabi has been refurbished!

Another good meal at Jones the Grocer (Near Al Nahyan Camp / Asteco Properties), late one evening with some friends who had just moved to Abu Dhabi and two makan buddies. Was surprised to see the extension / refurbishment completed at Jones, there is now a bigger sandwich bar and more seating :-)

Hot Chocolate, and not Cappucino (the best in Abu Dhabi!) for a change ... it was late, and I wanted to make sure I could sleep! Really rich and yummy ... 20 AED.

MD had the grilled salmon, served with a fancy Baba Ghanoush dip ;-) The salmon was perfectly cooked!


Ahh ... bliss, my Wagyu burger with Olive oil fries. Nice!

Fancy artistic flair to the ketchup too ;-) New chef?

ps - They even serve fancy Venezuelan choccies here!

Tanqueray Ten v Bombay Sapphire - Gin & Tonic!

Some like Tanqueray (I like "Ten"!), and some like ... Bombay.

A generous helping of Tanqueray with half a can of Tonic water ... bliss, the perfect after work drink!

Added a dash of lime too ... Perfect.

Brahims - Malaysian Spicy Tomato sauce to the rescue

One tip for ANYONE (especially Malaysians!) moving to Abu Dhabi or the UAE ... do your own cooking ;-)

I brought along Brahim's Kuah Masak Merah (Spicy Tomato Sauce) from my last trip home ... heaven-sent :-)

Not very many minutes later (Well, 35 minutes to be precise) ... Chunky-cut onions sauteed in a wok, throw in some chicken and sliced button mushrooms ... and pour the sauce over and simmer for 20-odd minutes, and voila ... delicious! A meal for three :-) , Me + Myself + I.

Cho Gao, Crowne Plaza - Asian fusion at Abu Dhabi

Would you believe ... this venue is in ... Abu Dhabi :-)

Hotel: Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi

Tel: +971 2 616 6149

Opening hours: 12-4pm , 7-11pm

Located along: Hamdan Street

The Asian / chinese-y style theme continues when you walk to your desk, and when you are presented with the menu.

I did think that the items on the menu looked rather interesting, but I was starting to worry ... would this place be style over substance?

Whilst we were waiting for our food ... I had a draught Tiger beer. Magnifique! Good value at 24 AED, or about RM 20 too :-)

Kwai-loh style food ... This was supposed to be Pad Thai. The noodles were decent, but it was hardly pad thai except for the small sprinkling of crushed peanuts!

The overcooked ... My kicap-manis (Sweet soya sauce) steak, which was definitely not done "medium". More like well done :-( And the Ahi-Tuna. Overly firm :-( and again over-cooked too!

The decent ... Thai style young-mango salad, with tempura crab :-)

The poor! Uh ... the over cooked theme continued with the prawns, which I found to be rather poor!

Met new friends this evening, JT and J ... Cheers guys. And no, J, you can't eat a steak with your chopsticks however hard you try!

The damage? Using two Entertainer vouchers, we paid about 90 AED per head for the food and drinks. Reasonable by Abu Dhabi hotel standards, but I will only ever return for drinks (Tiger!) in the future ...

The conclusion ... Yes, style over substance :-(

Prego pasta sauce - Good stuff!

Hmmm ... I wonder what it says on the jar :-)

Yes ... when one is not bothered to make his own pasta sauce ... there's only one choice, bottled pasta sauce. Prego is one of my fave's :-) Its made by the Campbell Soup company, but I dunno what "Heart Smart" means! Ha!

Two quick shots before I devoured it all ... served on a bed of fusilli and a small slice of Carrefour baguette on the side :-)