Middle Eastern Flavours at Café Bazza

City Walk, an amazing concept by Meraas, is the ultimate lifestyle experience for the complete family, offering unique choices in food, entertainment and living. City Walk offers a variety of food from across the globe and it is always a matter of pride to dine at any one of its restaurants. My recent visit to City Walk was to Café Bazza, a Kuwaiti outlet, that grew out of Kuwait and serves traditional Kuwaiti and Middle Eastern dishes in a modern yet traditional way. It is located near the newly opened Coca Cola Arena.

The café has an outdoor and indoor seating area and there are two televisions inside that were playing cartoons the whole time there, probably to keep the kids entertained and it did work 😊 The indoor area has some artefacts like sewing machines and pretty pots and the walls have Bazza written all over in calligraphic style. There is also an open-plan juice counter where the walls are adorned with many bottles of Vimto, a popular drink among the Arabs.

My visit was during lunch time with my lil one and friends. You know how the summers are here in Dubai, so to cool down, we ordered the absolutely cold items they had on their menu like Rose Slush, Vimto (also slushy), Mango juice and an Almond drink. Those who like Vimto will love the Vimto slush, for me it was just ok as I’m not fond of Vimto. The Rose Slush was overpowered by the rose flavour and the almond drink (forgot its name) could have been my favourite if it weren’t too sweet. Mango juice was the winner for my kiddo and me 😊

Starters were aplenty with Hummus with Meat, Chicken Shawarma, Falafel Salad, an Eggplant salad and Barbecue Chicken Legs. The Eggplant Salad with curd and topped with diced tomatoes, fried shallots, roasted pine nuts and coriander leaves was drool worthy. If you love aubergines, you have to try this. The Falafel Salad was also a cold salad and the falafels were tasty. Hummus had a good consistency and recently I’ve fallen in love with hummus with meat and pine nuts. The winner on the table was definitely the Barbecued Chicken Legs, juicy and slathered in barbecue sauce, be prepared to get your hands dirty 😊

After trying such an elaborate appetizer menu, we slowed down on the mains. We had their famous Chicken Biriyani and Fried Shrimps. The biriyani smelled amazing and looked appealing with the garnished fried shallots, cashewnuts and raisins. It tasted different to the Indian biriyani (obviously, duh!!) but it was good. The shrimps were coated in some thick coating and deep fried and served with ketchup. The coating was too crispy and oily.

Finally, it was time for dessert and we went with their suggestion and ordered Tanoor Bread Nutella and Oreo Pudding with Ice-cream. Tanoor Bread Nutella is plainly nutella spread on tanoor bread and also drizzled with some Nutella. It’s served with a warm milk-like mixture in which you have to dip this Nutella bread and devour. The pudding had layers of oreo, cream and ice-cream, perfect for this heat.

The staff, though not very fluent in English, were helpful and took care to understand our requests and suggestions. Would love to go back again and try some of their other best-sellers.

P.S.: They’re on Zomato Gold!!