channels - media rotana

small all-day dining restaurant for the media rotana hotel but good enough for the price you pay. tried their weekend brunch and believed this place is great value! go here for good deal of seafoods and sushi!

food is good. just enough selection but i dont find it to be a place that id come visit every now and then. probably they need to make it more memorable. improve on the taste and selection.

i was invited to channels for a birthday dinner with family and friends. on entering i would have to say the decor is simple and to the point. the buffet is like an island in the middle with the dinners sitting around it. this was great because it made it easy to keep going to your food without having to walk around for it.. yah i know its the lazy option but when you eat that much the last thing you want to do is walk to go for seconds or more. that said this isnt a fine dining buffet experience.
the theme of the day was mexican and it had all your usual suspects like the quesdilas fresh of the grill, chile con carnas, and a few new ones. i found the mutton shanks to be new especially for mexican. the mutton was good and soft. it was tender and fell of the bone. loved chewing the bone for the marrow so yummy. i was happy with this. there was decent vege options. the dessert was the real winner here. they had a yummy live choclate fountain, all kinds of cakes the chocolate cake, hummingbird cake and swiss roll was good. the salads which you find in any buffet was good. the salsa and guacamole was spot on so no complains. there was plenty of seafood, meat and vege options to satisfy everyones needs but i say the meat eaters have it better than vegetarians.
the service was hit and miss. we asked our server to get us a drinks menu and he had this blank look on his face before saying that we should go for the beer and local spirits. we told him we wanted to drink whatever we wanted and he can charge accordingly and after another lost look he took our order. the other server was very good a filipino chap i dont remember hjis name. we had one vegetarian and he went out of his way to make our person happy. he requested his cook to make burritos and anything else vegetarian.
overall a nice meal. i would say the desserts were more the winners than the actual main course with the exception being the soft and tender mutton shanks. the cost is 150 aed for unlimited drinks with price of alcohol being seperate if you dont go according to their list. the waiter will tell you " sir that is expensive" which was funny. i wouldnt go back for seconds the one expeiernce good enough.

visited media rotanas channels for their asian theme night! weren't disappointed at all! i enjoyed the buffet dinner so much i hardly had time to take proper images! (the husband as usual took no responsibility of taking any pictures cuz he waz too busy eating all that sushi, lamb roast, and fish tempuras-i think he almost made a century lol). i enjoyed the roasted duck and the biryani!
the prawn biryani was ahmaazing! lots of prawn and was perfect in spices (i love spicy biryani-thats how it should be) sushi spread was good(again the spicy sushi was love)
i didnt waste a lot of energy trying on salads (i wanted to have more dessert lol) but i did try the kimchi and mix sea food salad!
the desserts omg! i was craving for a good gajar halwa and it had it! i wish it were a lill more hot (i like hot gajar halwa with lots of khoya on top) but it was good! there was gulab jamun, rasgulla and jalebi! yaass!(husband almost had a heart attack watching me eat all that 😉) bliss! definitely would recommend it! we sat in a corner place (we were on a romantic dinner kinda mood lol-not) so the pictures came out bleh!

great food, great ambience, great service, great price! i can't recommend more. we went for the thursday evening's asian themed buffet. being asian myself, i'm very impressed with the array of dishes served. quality wise too! i was expecting just a small range of asian food at one corner, followed by the international dishes like pasta, lamb rack, pizza, roast chicken etc but boy oh boy was i surprised. there were singapore chilli crab, curry laksa, peking duck, dim sum, thai red curry, seafood tempura, fresh sashimi and sushi. loved the huge assortment of salad - aside from the usual fare, there were gado-gado, kimchi, spicy vermicelli salad, and even sesame leaves! for the dessert, there was a great selection of asian and western dessert. the asian dessert could do with some improvements especially the kuih ketayap (tasted funny with cinnamon & ginger in it), black sesame (too dry), mango sticky rice (too dry) and tab tim krob (tasted wrong). other than that, they were wonderful! i like the chocolate cake. the manager was very attentive too, coming to check on us twice and efficiently attended to our requests.

at 185dhs per person, it comes with juices, soft drinks and coffee/tea. if you use the entertainer voucher, that's half the price. real value for money for such quality and exciting spread. will definitely be back!

i have been here few times for breakfast & dinner. lots of variety during breakfast and ambience is good. service is fast and staff is very friendly. different themes for dinner also make this place very interesting.

average for a breakfast buffet but i super love the omelette and waffles and hash brown. the place is well ventilated, perfect for a morning coffee. 😉

this used to be a favourite of mine but i feel the hotel is struggling generally. they seem to be cutting the quality of offerings. on thursday for example the asian theme buffet offered chang beer etc which is in keeping with the theme, but now only budweiser and fosters, i mean who actually buys that? i wonder what else is being sacrificed. it's a similar tale throughout the other restaurants there, prices have gone up but not the quality.

decent. loved loved their salad selection. they have spicy sushi which was great, desert and mains are good but can be better esp the thai red curry and no sticky rice in the buffet! so eating thai red curry with basmati was odd. but full points for thier appetizers, prawnnn tempura! service and ambience is acceptable.

recommended.

great for family dinner and saturdays brunches. they have daily theme nights which i tried the most of them. recently i tired the lebanese theme night which was awesome and complete.

we had gone for their asian nights that happens every wednesday. and i was just amazed at the variety they had to offer . from my favorite variety of sushi to thai curries, it was all delicious. and what fascinated us was the super drooling variety of desserts. from their freshly baked cakes to chocolate fountain with marshmallows to so much more.
and most of all what we loved was the service. all their staffs take care of every guest and make sure they are happy and experience satisfaction towards the end of your meal.
i would highly recommend this place to everyone to have an exhilarating experience themselves.

arabic theme night, lot of food. well cooked. package with alcohol 259 (until 10pm). we went for dinner at 7:30 and only left there at 10:30 pm. variety very good, loved the starters. the staff very friendly and always available.

sushi theme night was good. good service

buffet selection of food is just about right, not too much but not limited. food is good plus drinks 👍. service is excellent 👍. ambiance is decent and the price is affordable, worth it.

the buffet and variaty are very good specially the sweets, but it is a bit overpriced but i guess it’s ok once in a while. their cinnamon buns are a must to end the meal.