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DUBAI – A new restaurant located near Sheikh Zayed Road will satisfy your craving for oriental cuisine.
photo/provided
Anyone who has lived in the UAE for a long time and has a strong craving for Southeast Asian dishes that remind you of home cooking, look no further. A new casual restaurant along Sheikh Zayed Road offers a delicious mix of Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean and other authentic specialities from the region.
We’ve been savoring Southeast Asian cuisine for years, but it’s always been a joy to try home-style dishes, and Jade is right there.
The restaurant was founded by two women with no hospitality background but a passion for food, who wanted to support women, which is why the place has several female staff in key roles, including the chef.
The stand-alone restaurant is located on the first level of Safestway, easily accessible from the filtered road adjacent to the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway. The crescent-shaped interior, the seating around the open kitchen is warm and comfortable, and the dim lighting adds to the serene ambience. It’s a sight to see flames jumping out of the pan as chefs artistically flip dishes with their wrists.
Now Southeast Asia is famous for its exotic dishes with different ethnic influences like Chinese-Malay-Indian-Thai etc. The main attraction of the dish is its delicate blend of herbs, spices and other condiments.
Following the chef’s suggestion, we enjoyed a mix of Malaysian and Thai. Although Thai food is more popular globally than Malaysian food, we found some similarities as both dishes have several ingredients. Thai food is fragrant and rich in flavor due to the heavy use of herbs, but it is not as spicy as Malaysian food.
We started our Southeast Asian food tour with Malaysian specialties such as Tauhu Goreng, Mee Goreng (fried egg noodles with chicken), Beef Rendang (dry beef rice with curry) and Ang Ku Kueh.
Of these, beef rendang is one of the most popular dishes in the country that caught our attention. Tender, boneless strips of meat coated in a thick curry-like gravy, made with a blend of coconut, chilli and spices, pair well with steamed rice. There’s also Tauhu Goreng or deep-fried tofu with bean sprouts and a Malaysian sweet and sour peanut sauce for a light, healthy appetizer.
Another surprise is the dessert – Turtle Cake or Ang Ku Kueh. We’re not sure how many diners wanted to nibble on a turtle at the end of the meal. However, if you follow the Chinese proverb “eat the turtle, long life, good fortune and prosperity”, then you will overturn all your reservations about it. Ang Ku Kueh is made with glutinous rice flour crust and stuffed with a delicious chewy sweet sauce. After finishing, we moved on to try Thai food. The Thai menu includes Crispy Chicken Thighs (the meat is tender on the inside and crispy on the outside), Chicken and Egg Fried Rice, Thai Chicken Green Curry and Mango Sticky Rice (Sweet Coconut Rice with Fresh Thai Mangoes) and Kha Nom Tom or Thai Coconut Balls (cooked rice flour dumplings stuffed with shredded coconut, palm sugar and coconut milk) for dessert.
No one can make green curry better than the Thais, and it was one of the highlights of our meal. The rich and creamy coconut gravy, enhanced by the use of aromatic oriental herbs like basil, lemongrass and galangal, is divine. Mix it with steamed jasmine rice and you’ll be sure to eat it again. Tom Yum also deserves a special mention, as its lemony, spicy flavor refreshes our taste buds.
Are we going back? To be sure, whenever we want to break the monotony of our daily meal.
Jade’s meal for two costs Dh150-200
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