Dining in the United Arab Emirates

Overview

Long before the discovery of oil off Abu Dhabi's shores, the native Bedouin tribes who lived in the desert subsisted on traditional desert fare – camel meat and milk, dates, and occasionally, fish.  These limited ingredients meant that the local cuisine didn’t develop well, and when expatriates from other Arab countries like Lebanon and Syria, began to come in, they brought with them a greater variety of traditional Arabian cooking.  So what you'll get when you order Arabic food in the UAE is not actually local cuisine, but the foods of the various Arab people who live here. 

However, Bedouin cuisine does have a few native delights (or horrors depending on your eating habits).  One such creation is a whole camel stuffed with a lamb, which in turn, is stuffed with chickens, which in turn, have been stuffed with eggs, the entire preparation spit roasted on a slow flame.  The dish is believed to feed around 100 people and is supposedly served at weddings of the sheiks.  However, you probably won't be able to see what a dish like this looks like on your medical tourism trip, since no one seems to have eaten, or even seen the gargantuan delicacy.

Arabic Food

Most Arabian cuisine is sourced from Lebanon, Morocco, and Iran.  Specialties you won't want to miss on your medical tourism vacation include a spiced dish of lamb with rice called Matchbous, Harees, which is wheat and lamb cooked in a large pot on a slow flame, a delicately flavored chick pea and spice dip called Humus that accompanies almost every Arab meal, and Ghuzi, a whole roasted lamb served on a bed of flavored rice and pine nuts.

Seafood is another specialty here.  With a lengthy coastline to explore, the country's fishermen who venture out into the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean in their traditional dhows, bring back plenty of fresh lobster, grouper, snapper, prawns, tuna, and kingfish.  These make their way to restaurant tables across the country in the form of grilled pomfret, lobster bisque, Schezwan-style grouper, fried noodles with fish, and steamed sea brim.  Whether you like your seafood fried and crisp or delicately favored and creamy, the country's restaurants work with the freshest catch to deliver. 

For a sweet touch to your meal on your medical tourism trip, try some traditional Arab desserts which make heavy use of milk and dates, and are liberally favored with rose water and garnished with pistachios and other nuts. 

Global Flavors

The main cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have an extensive selection of international restaurants that serve up flavors ranging from Thai and Mexican to and Lebanese and French.

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