Dining in Dubai

To start our Chinese New Year holiday, we had a 19-hour layover in Dubai on the way to England. At first, it might sound horrible, but when you include the free hotel and the free buffet restaurant at said hotel, it's not bad at all. We ate lunch and dinner at the buffet, which was a nice mix of Western, Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine.

On the salad bar, there were lots of lettuce salad fixings, plus lentil salad, chickpea salad and potato salad, to name a few. There were cold cuts like pepperoni and mortadella, but made with beef instead of pork. But the best thing was the amazing hummus!

Like any other buffet, of course there were several main courses, along with soup and bread. There was a lovely dessert table as well, with fruit, puddings, cakes and cute mini baklavas. 

After a two-hour city tour, we spent some time in The Dubai Mall, which is an expat food-lover's paradise. There were more American chains than I could count, including Great American Cookie Co., Red Lobster, Cold Stone Creamery, The Cheesecake Factory, Cinnabon and more! However, we decided to get some donuts at Tim Hortons instead because they are very yummy, too!

On the way back from England, we had a much shorter layover in the Dubai airport. However, we still needed to eat something! I had a healthy and delicious veggie sandwich, just so that I could try some frozen custard from Shake Shack. It wasn't bad, but not quite as good as I'd hoped either :(