Sushi and Ice Cream, Dubai Mall

I love sushi. There is a Burmese saying that when one sees raw fish one throws away grilled fish. No part of Burmese cuisine involves eating raw fish, so I was never quite sure where this saying came from but it sums up my feelings on sushi. As for conveyor belt sushi, if combining sushi and instant gratification is not genius, I don't know what is. So, when we found out that there was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant called "Yo! Sushi" in the Dubai Mall, we had to go.

We took the bus to Dubai, which was cheap and comfortable, and hopped on a cab to the Dubai Mall. Little did we know that even more culinary happiness awaited us. As we entered the mall, we could not resist the bright neon siren call of sugar in Candylicious, so we walked in. And there it was, staring at us! Emack and Bolio's! Given that it is a small ice cream chain which started in Boston and is only in a few cities even in the US, we never expected to find it in Dubai. It was like running into an old friend from China in Pennsylvania. It brought back memories of happy afternoons when we would walk over to the Emacs and Bolio's on Houston St. and come out with cups, cones, or quarts of ice cream with hot fudge. Since it was the middle of the afternoon during Ramadan, the tubs were chastely lidded. Will they have grasshopper pie? I couldn't wait for sunset.

We got to Yo! Sushi about 10 mins after they opened and the restaurant was already two thirds full. We sat down and started grabbing the color coded plates. They ranged between 11 Dirhams (vegetarians rolls. Really, what's the point?) and 22 Dirhams. Each plate had 2 pieces of nigiri (e.g. salmon for 13 Dhs or tuna for 15 Dhs), 3 pieces of rolls (salmon and avocado for 15 Dhs or soft-shell crab for 20 Dhs), or 5 pieces of sashimi (salmon for 15 Dhs or tuna for 18 Dhs). The fish was fresh and flavorful and the rolls were well constructed. We tried various forms of salmon, tuna, eel, and soft-shell crab sushi and sashimi. The salmon was better (and cheaper) than the tuna. The only cooked thing we tried was miso black cod which was 22 Dhs for 3 small pieces, which was not worth the money compared to the sushi. I should have heeded ancient Burmese wisdom. (If you want miso black cod, go to Wasabi in the Al Diar Mina hotel in Abu Dhabi.) The stack of plates grew and in the end, we spent more than we had intended to but we left full and happy.

We walked around the Mall for a little bit and headed back down to Emack and Bolio's. They were open and ... had grasshopper pie (creme de menthe ice cream with chocolate flakes and oreo cookie pieces), my favorite. One scoop was 10 Dhs which is similar to NY prices. If you are in Dubai Mall, we recommend grasshopper pie, cosmic crunch, and serious chocolate addiction. If you are a peanut butter fan (I'm decidedly not), the peanut butter cup flavor is supposed to be good. Unfortunately, the hot fudge was still on its way from the US but to make us for my disappointment, the person behind the counter gave me a free scoop of grasshopper pie. There couldn't have been a better ending to the day.

We'll be back to the Dubai Mall and, hopefully, hot fudge will have arrived by then. The next adventure will be to search for the shop that sells H&H bagels.

Shakespeare & Co.

Location: Central Souq

A nice, new little cafe in the Central Souq, Shakespeare & Co. has a very ornate Victorian decoration, with lots of plush large chair to relax in. While it has a full food menu to chose from, what drove us there were the delightful frozen desserts, cakes, and pastries in their display cases - most excitingly lemon sorbet in a lemon, and tangerine sorbet in a tangerine (12 DHS each). Both were extremely tasty - the lemon sorbet very sour and refreshing, while the tangerine sorbet tasted like the concentrate juice of a sweet tangerine (NOT like concentrated orange juice in a can, which I don't like). Very clean cafe, with extremely attentive service. While admittedly little pricey (the Central Souq looks like it will be a high-end shopping mall when finished), the sorbets were a decent size and a very refreshing and tasty experience.