saturday asian lunch buffet. this is a restaurant opened in a fairly new hotel property at rayhaan by rotana in al ghurair centre, deira. we decided to eat lunch this saturday with friends and decided to have a lunch buffet and liwan. it's an asian lunch buffet with elements of indian, sri lankan, international cuisines.
the restaurant is on the 3rd floor and you would have wished it was on a few floors higher so you could get a better view of the city. there are very few places that actually have window access and i would love them to be located much higher in terms of viewing pleasure. the restaurant is big and spacious which allows free movement between stations and between tables. they have not cluttered the area just to get a few more pax into the restaurant. they have a small kids playing area, which is a plus considering many families who want to go for lunch / brunch with younger kids can have a place where their kids can be and the families can also have a good time.
we arrived at the restaurant at about 12 45 pm. i suppose there was a shift change that was happening as there were not many staff present in the restaurant and none of the stations were complete. the lunch timing is from 12 30 pm. it took a while to get us seated and we were pretty delighted with a few elements they have taken to given to deck up the place. an old fashioned juicer to juice sugar cane is kept at the drinks counter / section. spices in a bunch are kept in one area which shows case different spices.
the sections are divided into 4 mainly, with desserts covering 1 area, salads / sushi / wontons in 1 area, mains in 1 section and drinks are prepared in another section. the advantage is that the servers would provide you the drinks on your table. kind of helps you not roaming around with a drink to your table. the food spread was decent. the main section is the sushi / salad / wonton section. it is filled with indian starters, sri lankan salads, arabic salads, sushi, wontons, and international salads. this section has the most variety and spread and one will probably spend most amount of time as the choices are a lot. the sushi was the reason i had decided to eat here. they have about 4 varieties of sushi rolls which consist of vegetable, mango, cucumber options in filling. the wasabi is designed very well which allows you to take how much you want and the chopsticks are kept for people to use if they are familiar to eat with. the indian section has limited options in terms of a curry and dal. they have indonesian spread in terms of nasi goreng but it was just about ok. they have more options in terms of tempura and thai curry which adds to the selection anyone who would want to try. the carving station for roast beef gives beefeaters more option to divulge in. the sushi to me was a tad dry. i felt that the rice should have been more moist. most of the food options are actually a tad bland. the flavors are not as much as they should appear as a few salad options (olive salad, tandoor chicken) were a little bland. they have options of fresh juices and mocktails which one can choose if they have a package which is above the normal soft drinks and canned juice package. the mutton rogan josh has good gravy and the mutton is soft. it is not chewy and has been cooked perfectly.
the dessert section has options of filipino, international, indian desserts. gulab jamun was a soft and broke while serving in the plate. the coconut cupcake was very nice and so was the red velvet pastry cake. they had a couple of puddings which i was unsure of but both tasted very nice. 1 had a toffee pudding flavor to it and the other option had vanilla flavor option topped with brownies.
an overall experience was made better by the captain (azhar) who kept checking on us to see if all is going well. indeed helps always when you know there are people out there who would once in a while share an eye contact and not come to you to know if all is fine.