Getting things done in Abu Dhabi, UAE

This hunt is actually taking on the aspect of a death march.

I try to keep an open mind, and let each coffee shop stand on it's own - but with SO many results thus far ranging from "Meh" to "You-have-to-be-kidding-if-you-think-that's-coffee" , the search for a decent cup has reached Arthurian proportions.

With that in mind, and my far too tolerant bride by my side, we stormed the castle of Marina Mall, following the holy (?) Abu Dhabi Week guide to great (? ? ?) coffee. This time the target was "Cafe de la Paix" - frankly I wasn't that interested in the "paix" part, as it's hard to accept that such peace can be found in a large shopping mall... but then a harder title to live up to would be "Cafe de la bloody great coffee" I suppose.

So, removing the "Insufferable coat of the cynic (+10HP +10ST -10WIS Class-ALL)" I acquired at a Dungeons and Dragons convention in the late 80's, I'll get on with the matter at hand, and attempt to leave my geeky parables behind.

Cafe de la Paix is on the ground floor of one of Abu Dhabi favourite shopping institutions, in through the front door and walk straight ahead until you hit what every United Arab Emirate needs in one of its shopping centres - an ice skating rink.

Yes.

I know.

Don't get me started.

Typically we were out and about in the early Friday afternoon - an excellent time to be looking for a seat in a cafe as most of the other shops don't open until 3pm.

Strangely the food shops open a little earlier, but what's the point in going to a shopping centre to pick up groceries and maybe a lazy cup of coffee if one cant look at Rolex.. or pick up a Blancpain handmade watch for cool 450,000 dhs? Put THAT in the bag with your doughnuts and corn in a cup... (Have I mentioned corn in a cup? It's corn, in a CUP. Corn in a cup. Genius)

Yes a digression, but you knew there was one coming somewhere in the post - going to give up apologising for them soon.

AAAANyway..

We were seated and had our order taken quickly and cheerfully - the staff are super attentive and pretty friendly. The added degree of difficulty was caused by Karma wishing to eat while we were there - so not wanting for her to feel like she was indulging on her own I had to throw myself over a club sandwich (which for the record was really good).

Everything came at once, food, coffee and tea all landing and expertly placed around our little table.

I've already mentioned the food, and the finance department commented that hers was great too.

Now.. to the point of it all - the coffee.

Pretty good. Slightly better than "Meh" but not knocking Charlene from her petrol fumed perch either.

It was okay - I'd go back for the staff before the coffee, but would rather hang out at Zyara, and it doesn't have the view of the cafe in the nearby tower, but it was ok.

Next and last in the guide's list of top 5 coffees is Idioms - and even though I have taken my friend Line to task (in this very blog) for being a liar, I have somehow managed to say yes to allowing her to accompany me to the place, although I am still concerned as she opened the conversation with.. "Oh I KNOW where Idioms is".

I kind of know where it is too, and even though I said after the Zyara adventure that I wouldn't...I'll let her direct just to see if she can snatch back any credibility!

Oh, while this review is based on the Cafe de la Paix in Marina mall - it's actually a chain, they can be found in various places throughout Abu Dhabi - give them a go, while the coffee is above the AD average the food is pretty good.

The list - getting pretty fat around the midsection - and so is this reviewer.

• ADNOC - ('big cups crisis' over)
• Zyara,
  Cafe De La Paix "Marina Mall"
• The One
• Le Brioche "Marina Mall"
• Starbucks
• Anything else, including but not limited to, licking tarmac
• CDR - Worst coffee ever - will post at a later date.

Have just got back from visiting 'Charlene' at the ADNOC... it appears that there are not currently any large cups.

One of the regular guys there saw me staring blankly at the machine trying to make sense of it all, and kindly informed me:

"No, big cup sir, only medium"

I stammered, "There..there will be more big cups w-won't there?" feeling that my and Charlene's relationship was about to take a turn that neither of us had been prepared for..

"No, No big cup sir.. medium only" he repeated, I guess to reinforce the fact that staring bleary eyed at the machine I loved so much WON'T make the large cups appear.

"Yes but... there are more on their way though.. more big cups come?" I was obviously distressed, and as a result I don't know whether his answer was based on the fact that there were more on order, OR that he feared I might fall to my knees, moaning.

"Yes, yes sir"

Then he moved carefully off while I attended to my MEDIUM cup.

So - Coffee Planet machine company of Dubai, if there aren't any yet ordered - the ADNOC on 30th near the end of 19th and 21st Streets needs large sized cups... NEEDS them.. and therefore so do I.

:-)

Number 2 on the "Abu Dhabi Week" magazine's top 5 cafes was Le Brioche, a small chain of coffee shops here in the capital.

The term "good, well flavoured coffee" was used in the brief description. A description that suits me fine; simple and to the point. I am usually wary of any reviews that over inflate the tyres of the venue being reviewed, so it was with high hopes a ventured out into the 44 degree heat to make the trip into town.

The directions that were to be found in the magazine were also brief - I guess when you only have a certain amount of column centimetres to use, one has to keep the information brief.

Frankly though I would have preferred a little more info on where EXACTLY the Le Brioche from the AD Week review was located.

"Hidden away on the Corniche in the cluster of towers at the end of Khaleej Al Arabi" put me in the suburb, but unfortunately that particular part of the suburb is also the site of a massive refurbishment. I drove by half-buildings teetering as they are prodded and poked into submission, probably in order to build a similar, but slightly more stable solution to what was already there.

I drove around, and through the area, figuring that if a car space could be found within 5 minutes walk of where the alleged purveyors of fine coffee should be, the expedition could then be continued on foot.

Try as I might, and I really tried, I could neither find Le Brioche OR a carpark that would allow a more in depth reconnoitre of the area - I did however get stuck in a dead end street for about 10 minutes unable to turn around OR reverse, due to a kindly bloke who followed me into the unsigned dead ender then proceeded to double park his car and wander off to attend to some pressing business. Of course I couldn't get too angry, I mean he DID put his hazard lights on - you can stop anywhere if you put your hazard lights on, it's the trump card for all things.

"I know it's illegal to park here, I KNOW I am parking you in, I KNOW that I'd be super-peeved if someone else were screwing up MY day by parking like a tool, but... I've put my hazard lights on....so... EAT IT!"

After a brief but unfruitful session of praying that one of the many cranes working in the area would drop a well used port-a-loo upon the offending vehicle blinking quietly behind me, it was off to Marina Mall, where there's a Le Brioche that is far more easy to find.

It's a nice enough place, as far as shopping mall cafes go - they all end up looking like "Central Perk" from "Friends" but heavily franchised. So the end result is an unrealistic franchise interior copied from a non-existent coffee shop, but still somewhat familiar.

Let's face it though - I'm wasn't there to be blown away by "designed-to-look-casually-placed-but-actually-bolted-down" nick-knacks - I was there for the coffee.

Same routine as the last coffee review - "No need for a menu, just a cafe latte will be fine" I said as I was shown to my table, where I sat, pulled out my book, and waited...

...for about 5 minutes, then my order arrived.

It looked to be the right colour - which was a great start.

My first sip though was a little confusing. It certainly had some flavour, it's just that I suspect that the majority of the flavour bandwidth had been taken up by the middle east's old favourite - coffee mate.

Those who haven't experienced coffee mate need not bother themselves by going out and buying a tube. It's an abomination. Sweet faux-coffee flavoured goop that, when added to hot milk/water, tastes like warm/hot faux-coffee flavoured goop.

The use of said booster in this instance was low, but you can't mask the after taste. The shame of it is that if coffee shops would simply buy better beans, they'd make better coffee and wouldn't NEED coffee-mate to boost "flavour". I won't bore you with all maths of it, but even if the good beans cost an extra 100dhs per kilo, the additional cost per cup would be negligible..

Enough..

The over all result?

"Meh."

That's the result.

Uninspiring,
Not as good as "The One",
Better than Starbucks.
Not a patch on the ADNOC secret.

Next up will be Zyara Cafe in Madinat Zayed - I'm still keeping my chin up - I am very much an optimist after all, but...

...Coffee mate?

Seriously?

Coffee - it's a real problem.

I have a secret to share - and I'm not proud of it...

Even as I am typing this I can imagine the looks on the familiar faces at the various cafes in St Kilda, an inner-south suburb of Melbourne, Australia. St Kilda (more particularly Balaclava) has a huge cafe culture and was my home for the 2 years prior to moving to Abu Dhabi. I fear the reaction of those fine folk, as they are informed of the awful truth of my stay here in desert.

The slick, young, hot, entrepreneurial guys from Medali Espresso, standing at the front of their hole in the wall shop with a gaggle of pretty young things all waiting for their coffee OR a whispered word with the barista. These guys, who I know well enough to wave at as I walk by, would turn away from me ashamed to be associated with one who had sunk so low.

As would the fine people just a little further up Carlisle Street, Balaclava, at Batch Cafe - also famous for it's coffee. In my mind I can see them quickly bringing in their little A-board sign upon my approach, closing the doors and peeping through drawn curtains until I was safely out of their sight, taking my dirty little secret with me.

I could then walk past 7 other cafes, all who serve world class coffee in their own right, to the one place where I might get some solace... Wall 280 - or just "The wall" to locals, where patrons sit on one long communal bench bolted to the wall, and surly wait-staff slouch toward you in their unsmiling cool-ness. I would enjoy a cup of coffee, sitting amidst transvestites, lawyers, stoners, police, audiologists, hippy-folk, artists (real, imagined and "as yet undiscovered"), Rock-Chicks, and everyone in between.

I could hide there until someone familiar came along.
Someone who may have heard rumours, but was going to offer me the benefit of the doubt.
Someone who was willing to empathise with the situation that drove me to do what I did.

The familiar face, would smile and then squeeze on to the bench beside me and ask - "So, is it true?"

I would take a deep breath and answer:

"Yes, in order to drink coffee that was even halfway decent, I had to buy .. it... from....* ** ***"

"I'm sorry Andrew... I missed the last bit. You had to buy it from where?"

"A petrol station. I had to buy coffee from a dispensing machine at the petrol station."

That revelation would echo through the little side street. Dogs would quiet. Spinifex would tumble by in the horrified silence.

The quiet would be broken only by one of the wait-staff, oozing toward me. She would then gently, but with no small amount of determination, remove the half empty cup of caffeinated nectar from my hand.

She would look over her shoulder on her way back to the cafe's single roller door, briefly, and say...

"F**k off, YOU are bothering the customers"

Given the some of the folk that occasionally hang around there - in the heart of a gentrified-but-still-dealing-with-the-problem-of-beggars area of Melbourne - 'bothering' other customers would be REALLY hard thing to do.

Admitting you drink coffee from a vending machine in that public space would, however, be enough to do it.

So...

The coffee here is really that bad. If, upon your entry into a shopping mall, Starbucks is leading the pack in the race for your coffee dollar - there just has to be something stinky going on.

Everywhere I go I look for a new cafe to try... I walk into each place with a tried an true method of hope, tempered with VERY low expectations.
Right now if a coffee landed in front of me that was barely average I'd dance on the spot.

No luck yet, but I intend to leave no stone unturned in my quest to not have the above story come true.

Coincidentally I have been given a short term focus on this very topic. This week's Free AD mag, Abu Dhabi Week, has listed the "5 best coffee shops" in Abu Dhabi.

The list though, and therefore the research phase of this project, is flawed.

The problem is that saying that these coffee shops are the best in Abu Dhabi is a bit like saying that I have the best butt in my street - it doesn't make my posterior a great one, is simply showcases the fact that there is not a lot of competition for the title.

Nonetheless, dear reader, I am willing to throw myself over this coffee bean shaped hand-grenade to see whether it is a fair list or not.

In the next week I intend to visit these funkily named establishments, one a day, such is the importance I place on finding the good stuff for this humble blog.

I know.. selfless I am.

I'll keep you posted as the search goes on.
Check back regularly, or subscribe to the feed for updates - first on my quest and at number 1 on the magazine's list - "The One".

In the meantime the directions below might be useful for those too desperate to await the outcome of the 'research':

Instructions on getting the best out of a coffee machine at ADNOC (Abu Dhabi's own petrol station chain)

I can only speak with absolute surety for the ADNOC on Khaleej Al Arabi (30th St) between 21st and 23rd Streets - inbound side.

1. Walk up to the "Planet Coffee" (yes.. "Planet coffee".. don't hate me) machine as if you are doing something else - like admiring the many colours of the hot-dogs rolling on the hot-dog cooker right next to it.
2. Get the biggest of the cups available - they are protruding out of the front of the machine. It's a 2 handed job, and requires a small twist of the wrist.
3. Place it in the obvious cup placement bit.
4. Admire the hot dogs again, who'd have thought you could call something with that little animal product in it "meat"
5. Press the 2 buttons on the left - extra shot, and large beverage.
6. Press the latte button.
7. Admire hot-dogs again (wonder aloud at how long they may have been slowly rotating there), this time accompanied by the soundtrack of hot steamy milk flowing into your cup.
8. Grab a cup lid from the dispenser (top right of the machine). It really looks like something automated should happen when you flip the cover back, but nothing does, just reach in and grab one.
9. Get a long stirrer from the machine (bottom left pigeon hole), grab your beverage and sugar it to taste, I use the sugar from the semi circular counter in front of the machine.
10. Place cap on to the cup, and head to the checkout, under no circumstance taking a hot-dog with you.
11. Be amazed at how better-than-average the coffee actually is then ask yourself - If a machine could do this, why can't human hands do far better?