We went to Boqueria this March. After we decided to move to Dubai, and we learned that my husband’s company was going to pay for the container shipment from New York to Dubai, we started doing a lot of shopping. There was this one day where we first went to West Elm, then to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and we got hungry after all that shopping. Yelp offered great help and pointed us to this restaurant called Boqueria. It was a very delicious surprise! We decided to go with the tapas menu, and everything we ordered were super tasty.

I especially recommend the peppers, the shrimp and the squid!

Here’s what we had:

Pimientos de Padrón (Blistered Shishito peppers, coarse sea salt)

Espinacas a la Catalana (Sautéed spinach, garbanzos, pine nuts, garlic, raisin)

Txipirones (Baby squid a la plancha, frisée, romesco vinaigrette, tomato confit, crispy scallions)

Gambas al Ajillo (Shrimp, garlic and Guindilla pepper in olive oil)

Bombas de la Barceloneta (Three beef and potato croquettes, salsa brava, garlic allioli)

I recently got this recipe from my aunt. Originally it has plum sauce in it as well, which makes it even more delicious. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find plum sauce anywhere yet, so I had to try the recipe without it —it was still very tasty. This is my new favorite salmon recipe now, after Giada’s salmon with citrus salsa verde. 

Here’s how to do it:

For 1 piece of salmon:

2 teaspoons pesto sauce

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon toasted, thinly sliced almonds

Black pepper, to taste

These are definitely not exact measurements and you can easily increase or decrease them according to your own taste. 

You first spread the pesto sauce on the salmon, and then the soy sauce. Lastly, sprinkle the almonds on top. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the salmon on the sheet. I cooked mine in the oven at about 180°C (~360°F) for 20 minutes. (You can add some salt to taste —the soy sauce was salty enough for me, so that’s why I didn’t add any extra)

Bon appétit!

P.S. Normally you spread a little bit of plum sauce on the salmon first, before pesto and soy sauces. Everything else is the same. I’l try that as soon as I can find the sauce :)

My husband and I wanted to go to Nobu for years now, but somehow never got the chance. Finally last weekend, we decided it was time and went to the Atlantis Hotel located at the Palm. Well, we also had an Entertainer coupon (when you order a main course, you get another one for free). 

It was one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to. Honestly, some of the dishes were so delicious that I wanted to go there the next day as well!

Since it was our first time, we ordered a lot of food to taste a variety of dishes. With the help of 130 dirhams of discount from the coupon, we paid 750 dirhams, which is around 205 dollars. It was worth every penny. 

Here’s what we ordered:

Drinks:

Coconut & apple lemonade and Grapefruit martini

Food:

Tuna tempura roll

Crispy rice with spicy yellowtail

Wagyu gyoza (dumplings)

Black cod yuzu miso

Toban yaki - Beef fillet

Nobu cheesecake

Selection of mochi ice cream

Nobu chocolate (complementary)

Listing all these food made me realize that we ended up eating A LOT —but, I would definitely do it again :)

The highlights of the night for me were the crispy rice with spicy yellowtail, the black cod yuzu miso and the Nobu cheesecake. I also thought the presentation of the crispy rice was very creative. The black cod was so tender that we could barely hold it with chopsticks and it literally melted in your mouth. Apart from the food, the drinks were very tasty as well. Apparently they just added the grapefruit martini to the menu and it was a great choice for me —the taste of the alcohol was not overpowering, and it had a perfect balance of sweet and tart.

So, I guess everyone already knows what a great restaurant Nobu is, but you should definitely definitely try it if you haven’t yet!