Istanbul Flower -- Turkish Food in Dubai

burj khalifa view from the restaurant

turkish tea

Istanbul Flower Restaurant

Lebanese restaurant in Abu Dhabi

turkish coffee

Burj Khalifa Dubai -- the tallest building in the world for now

arbic shawarma from Lechâteau Abu dhabi

is this two words mean castle in French of one word in other language?

FYI, the website doesn't exist

map for direction

My impression of shawarma was sliced meat put on top of a bun or inside pita bread drizzled with some dressing. It was eaten with some vegetables. Then my brother-in-law pointed out that is called Lebanese shawarma. There's arbic version which is really good too. Among these arbic shawarmas he ate, he recommended this one.

menu

The area is hard to find a parking spot. I was being dropped off to order take-out.

It is a long wrape and grilled on top of a pan.

variety of condiments

Shawarma was buried under a pile of French fries. It comes with garlic yogurt sauce and some pickles. I really like the pickles, but it was so salty. The very garlicy sauce goes well with French fries, but kids don't like it. My niece cannot eat her fries without ketchup, basically ketchup is the sauce for everything and she would love to swim in the ketchup pool. Since the restaurant doesn't have small ketchup packages, the waiter gave her a bottle. Even though it only had half left, it still made her the happiest person that day. The food was so good, we eventually went back for second round when we finished the first one in the car.

It's Lick's time! (not Miller time) Mmmmm.......................

A while ago, someone gave me coupons for lick's burger. I heard good things about the place, but never had chance to try it. Even though I havn't tried it yet, I've stepped in the place a couple of times. Friend of mine is a fan. I looked through the menu and it is a little pricy compare to McDonald's burger meal.

Since the coupons is gonna expired soon, it's a shame for me to waste this chance to try the good burger. I had beef burger the other day in the store near by my apartment. It was quite juicy and not drying out. With the price less than what I used to pay for McDonald's combo mealI, money was well spent. One thing I really like the place is they offer sweet potato fries. Not too many hamburger joints offer sweet potato fries. I know one of them is Barley's in Cambridge located on Mass ave. They also have pink lemonade.

I thought it would be nice to change to another venue for my second try. Like the line from "sex and the city" -- change fengshui, change luck. This time I ordered turkyer burger.

I like onion rings a lot and this is a place also offers it. Hard to miss.

Yes, the onion ring's container is taller than my drink.

This branch located in a really nice neighborhood which I like it a lot especially during summer time. Whenever I feel like needing a piece of quite, I come here for my zen thing. As much as I like this area, the property value here is way way high. One time I went to see an open house for a 2-family house, onlye 1/2 of the house, the price tag was $800,000. Wow.......

interior

street outside

freezer fun

picture taken from internet

The whole thing started when I was in college. I don't have a rich pop (no, my dad is not one of the rich dads or poor dads, he's in the middle), so I have to live under tight budget. One thing about me is I love bargains. Every time when I buy something on sales, I like to peel off the stickers and see what's the original price. If I score pretty good, it makes me really happy. It feels like I really saved a lot of money.

Somehow it became my ritual on Sundays, checked out supermarket fliers and clipped coupons from papers. Later, it switched to Thursday because supermarket started sales early on Fridays. The fliers arrived on Thursdays. It actually made my shopping excurison much easier. I only buy things on sale. Supermarket also give double coupon redeem, that makes me really happy. One time I went to a personal financial lecture, the speaker said that she collects coupons too. She even has a little competitions with her siblings and girlfriends every month to see who saves the most that month. Yes, I am aware that there's a show "extreme couponing" on TLC. I don't go that extreme because I live in a small place. There's no way I can stock up all the toilet paper, toothpaste or can food. Plus, these items actually have expiring dates. I do not want expired toothpaste put on my teeth or swallow expired can food in my stomach.

I hate to waste food. To me, all these groceries are like farmers' accomplishments. People go to work and earn money. Farmers grow food for us to put on the table. Dumping grocery into the trash is like spreading money on the street, not for the homeless. When I got big bulk of food on cheap price and I couldn't finish them, it seemed like freezer was the only way. I freeze cheeses, leftover rice from take-out (i packed in small packages and microwave it later or make to fried rice.), garlic, ginger, cooked root vegetables (well, we get frozen vegetables from freezer section.) and even coffee. When Dunkin Donut was still selling 2 lbs coffee for $5 during Christmas, i will get few lbs and put in the freezer. I know my Mexican ex-roommate does that too. She is a heavy coffee drinker. If that's fine for her, it should be find for me.

Frozen ginger is easy to use. It can be grated for marinading meat or defrosted for ginger juice. My friend who never freezes anything tried to freeze garlic once. He said he put frozen garlic in microwave for 10 seconds before using it (I don't microwave it, I just chop it.), the whole kitchen smells really wonderful. I guess it's a good way in modern time to scare off vampires instead of wearing garlic necklace. He said he saw Nigella on TV freezes eggs after I told him to freeze leftovers, he started to do so. Eggs I haven't tried yet, but I think I will try to freeze some egg whites since I have so many whites left after making custard dessert.