The Mute Herald

Unlikely as it may seem the above words were the prelude to the best hotel experience I have ever had.

I booked us a couple of nights at the Atlantis on Palm Jumeirah to satisfy our desperate need for a short holiday, without the hassle of going abroad.  Having heard of many people who used it I decided to try booking.com for the reservations, and indeed found very good discounts.

We set off Thursday afternoon, after work, and after the inevitable last-minute packing.  In order not to lose time both my wife and I decided to skip the shower at home, so the first thing we did after settling in our room was enjoy a long hot shower each.  Later we pondered our dinner options and chose the Kaleidoscope (international buffet), not really knowing what to expect.

It turned out to be a really well-stocked and laid out buffet, and the selection boasted a Maltese dish (which was rabbit stew – no, we didn’t try it).  I will not bother to go into lengthy descriptions, I would not do it justice.  As is required in such occasions, we decided to take our time and take the small-portion-from-each-course-route.

Half way through the third course I received the fateful phone call from Guest Services.  Apparently the leak was originating from our room, but affecting the service areas.  Our room was still dry.  The lady went on to explain that the whole floor’s water supply had to be shut down until they could fix the leak, and could we please come asap to our room to move our stuff to another room.  Before I had time to explain that I had methodically unpacked and used every storage space available in the room, I was politely interrupted and told that we were going to be upgraded to a suite.

The weight of that immediately sank in, but I still didn’t want to let it go without a fight.  I thanked her and assured her we would have our things ready within the next 20 minutes.  Next I called for the restaurant manager, making a fuss about how we couldn’t continue our meal due to something that was beyond our control.  Without raising any protest or trying to sleaze out of it, the man made me pay only for the bottle of wine, and instructed me to call once in the new room to order items for room service delivery (together with our still-unfinished wine) at no extra cost whatsoever – I ended up not paying for any food at all.

We scrambled back to our room, half expecting to find an army of workers waiting by our door, with their arms crossed, tapping their tools impatiently. Relieved that it wasn’t so, we threw everything in our cases in record speed and waited. Ten minutes passed, nothing. I called, they would be there shortly. Another twenty minutes.  By this point I’m already putting together another complaint, about how we could have easily finished the meal and what was the rush. Then the porter came, took our bags and grinning said, “you’ll like your new room.”

And was he right.  Big living room, big bedroom, 2 TVs (one in each of the mentioned rooms), huge bath, shower, walk in closet, smaller closet, 2 toilets, big balcony, wonderful views.  I had to play the video-camera-tourist this time, so you can see for yourself:

From our balcony we could see the big aquarium, and it’s a truly memorable sight, at night seeing those fish and rays swimming in the back-lit water.

Atlantis aquarium

The aquarium doesn’t look too big from above, but to have an idea here’s the aquarium from the Ambassador Lagoon viewing gallery (which now costs AED 25 to access):

Ambassador Lagoon

View down the Palm

It had finally happened, we could no longer pout that the we were always unlucky in these sorts of events. We spent the following day at the Aquaventure water park, and still flush with the excitement of “it happened to us” we decided to take it a step further and booked a slot to swim with the dolphins.

My god what an experience! It felt like the fulfillment of a dream I didn’t know I had.  Together with a another group of 3 we spent 30 minutes swimming, hugging, kissing, stroking, dancing, and being pulled through the water (with the dolphin of course – her name was Alice).  It is highly recommended.  Forget the cost, where / when will such an opportunity present itself again?

House hunting is tough work, and by 2pm today we were ready to drop in on the first restaurant we hit, irrespective of how bad it looked.  This happened to be Pizza Pazza in Al Barsha behind Mall of the Emirates.  And no, it didn’t look (too) bad, there were actually people eating outside.

As we approached the door one the patrons stood up to greet us, so it was the staff having lunch.  With a relief the scale of which you cannot imagine, the guy talked to us with an Italian accent.  He ushered us inside and yep, spoke in Italian to other staff.  All of them Italian, it was probably family run.  From the three-legged emblem and various pictures hung up we could see that they hailed from Sicily, not the mainland.

We ordered pizza (of course) and it was delicious.  The dough was light and crunchy and the mozzarella really tasty.  For dessert my wife had ice cream while I ordered tiramisu.  I suspect both were home made.  I’ve never tasted ice cream so good and, well, creamy.  And the tiramisu was refreshingly not laden with sugar.

There are many bad things to say about Italians in general, Sicilians in particular, and this restaurant on this occasion – AC not strong enough, there were quite a number of flies inside, which one of the staff was killing with an electric swatter, service was so-so, etc.  But they sure know their food.  And to be immersed in an environment so close to ours at home was really nostalgic.  The restaurant also has none of that stiff sophistication common to many Italian restaurants in Dubai.

This will be definitely one of the “pros” when considering whether to move to Barsha or not.  Check out their menu here.

This is my first “I haven’t posted in a while because…” post, and I’m sure there’s more to follow. Well, I haven’t posted in a while because I was a bit under the weather and generally busy.  So in true Lifehacker style here’s a roundup of what happened this past week or so.

Last Saturday my wife took her RTA driving test.  The real thing, not the assessments / mock that driving schools put you through and on the basis of which subject you to further lessons.  Long story short she didn’t pass.  Not being there in the car with her I will stop short from saying that the examiner was at fault.  It is however very commonly heard that very able drivers are still failed and only manage to get their license after two or three attempts.

On the day I dropped her off at the driving school and, anticipating a very long wait (it turned out to be over 3 hours), I headed over to Times Square where I planted myself in Caribou Coffee and pretended to look busy on the laptop.  I enjoy doing this from time to time (wife permitting) – sitting unnoticed in a corner, just watchig people pass by, trying to guess what people do and if they are regulars. 

One such instance:  A couple of ladies strolled in, one behind an empty pushchair, the other (very visibly pregnant) holding an infant.  They were greeted warmly by the staff behind the counter, as always happens, and the manager (or so I assumed due to his lack of uniform and previous shuffling of papers) did the baby-talk thing and held out his arms.  The mother without any hesitation whatsoever obliged and handed over the package, to the delight of said manager.  He went on to croon and entertain the kid, going over to show him off to the other staff. They spent a good five minutes enjoying the baby’s laughter, after which it was duly returned to the mom. 

Now this is what surprised me – in this day and age of H’s and N’s, airport infrared checks, pandemic alerts, campaigns advocating less contact with strangers and fear of the almighty germ, this lady trusted her most precious possession in the hands of a stranger.  Granted, she could have been a regular and known the manager for a long time.  Also granted, working in a food preparation environment one expects a certain level of hygiene.  But still.  I doubt that I could have done the same thing.  It shocked me in a truly positive way, and left me feeling upbeat. Until I learned of my wife’s exam outcome of course.

On Thursday I had my first serious near-crash experience, through no fault of my own.  I was at the exit from Emirates road going to Qusais waiting for lights to change, when I see a Prado coming up fast behind me.  It skidded, missed me by an inch and ended up beside my car.  Don’t know if the skid took the Prado to the side or the driver’s skill.  These are the things that one risks on the roads of Dubai I guess.

Friday saw us meet up with a bunch of cool people I speak to on Twitter at Wild Peeta, for a #wildtweetup.  The company was great, met like-minded folk, and the food was brilliantly fresh – both in concept and in preparation.  It was the first time I saw an Emirati (actually two – they’re brothers) running the show AND working behind the counter.  Had a killer breakfast peeta (at 1pm) and a fusion cold green tea / juice comonly known as the Magic Juice.  Now if they can just confirm delivery to my office.

Today we went for the monthly supermarket shopping trip to the mall. Our pantry was devoid of anything edible, so we stopped by at Carino’s in Festival Centre. We had been there a while before, but my slate wipes itself clean every so often, so a refresher was due.

We were seated, took a quick glance at the menu and placed our order. Nothing complicated, chicken panini for my wife and fettuccine for myself. Within 2 minutes we were gorging on the hot bread they bring over, dipping it in olive oil, fried onions and herbs.

Half way through the loaf we see the waiter coming with our main. We were stunned. The restaurant was practically empty and it didn’t possibly need to turn over the table that fast. The dishes were spewed out faster than a McD special order burger would have been.

Definitely the place to go for a quality quick bite, but don’t be setting high hopes for a romantic dinner with enough pause for a drink and a chat between courses.