A Strange Little Coin

 I have a few theories as to why this strange coin shaped treat exists, but I don't know for sure. It's not the most pleasant thing I've ever eaten, so I can only assume it serves a purpose.

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New Junk Fud on the Road From UAE!

 In this episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Allison and Chris return to the UAE after a long time. They talk about the proliferation of western restaurants, Warner Brothers World and modern rules for Ramadan.

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UAE Highlights

 

I'm trying to think if there's any other country that I've visited more than the United Arab Emirates. I've mentioned many times in the blog that I have reasons for visiting places that have a lot of western stuff. I have, and currently live in countries that are a little off the beaten path. In fact, I've lived in at least two countries that have never had a McDonalds. Depending on your opinion of McDonalds, you might think that's a good thing, but what it means is that I've lived in countries that are often short on western comforts. While that gives me a great opportunity to sample what many would consider to be exotic goods, it also makes me miss some of the regular things I can normally get at home.  You might be wondering why I wouldn't just go back home regularly then, that's a simple answer, price and time. It's both expensive and very time consuming to get back home from where I am. Fortunately there are many countries and cities dotted around the world that offer some of the comforts that I'm used to in Canada, and when I have the chance I like to get my fill of comfort food.

United Arab Emirates is probably one of the best countries in the world to get wester comfort foods. I haven't been in a while, but I've found that's become even more true. It used to be a place that had all the regular places, with a few more obscure western restaurants. Now it's chock full of all the regular places, and plenty of very specific and obscure western treats too. Allison and I decided to take advantage of these, while still managing to make regular stops at one of our favourite places, Cheesecake Factory.

One of the stops we managed to make was at Dickey's Barbeque, which was fine. I believe Dickey's is a chain of BBQ restaurants in the US, but I'm not sure if it's made its way to Canada yet. It wasn't the best barbeque either of us had ever had, but filled the gap.

The strange thing about Dickey's is their obsession with their yellow cup. They really seemed keen that I not only get my soda in this yellow cup, but that I take the cup home. I'm presently using it as a cup to hold my paintbrushes, so I guess that's something.

We also managed to stop at 5 guys, which was a first for us. This is a weird one because this is a place that's actually fairly common in Canada, but we just never go. It's not that we have anything against the place, it's just that all of the 5 Guys locations near my house in Canada are in places where I have other restaurants that I love. If we're in those areas, it means we're going to those restaurants, and we never really try anything new.

That might change after this visit as the burgers and fries were pretty good. I also like the idea of getting peanuts before a meal.

We didn't just eat western food on this excursion, we also managed to sample a really famous and very tasty Pakistani restaurant. It was nice to go to a Pakistani restaurant since there really aren't that many around. Having lived in Pakistan for a few years it was some wonderful and familiar flavours.

While the food was great, the real highlight was the fact that they also sold custom Adidas... sort of. Apparently they may or may not be authentic, but I have my suspicions.

While we did eat a lot of foreign foods, we also managed to enjoy a few iftar dinners as well (since it was Ramadan). Iftar dinners are one of my favourite meals since they're often buffets and they also often have foods I've never tried before. The format allows for a great sampling of new and fun foods including amazing desserts.

You also can't go wrong when you start a meal with a delicious date.

The candy scene in the UAE hasn't changed much over the years. Plenty of over the top candy stores, lots of imports, but only a few treats that you could really call local. I can't say that I completely hate the fact that most of the treats in the UAE are imports as it's a great place to take a look at the popular treats from all over the world. It also lets you really see how exotic western treats actually are.

The candy and desserts you could call local are also always presented in a big way, with lots of pageantry. 

I do however admire their very modern candy machines found all over the place. Video screens make for a much flashier and fun place to buy snacks.

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Junk Fud on the Road in Qatar

This is the second part of our journey to the Middle East. In the first episode we visited Oman, this time we went to Qatar, although the focus is really on Doha,

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Tim Hortons in the Middle East

 For all of you Canadians traveling to the Middle East, know this, you will likely find a Tim Horton's near you. When I first started traveling to the Middle East (Dubai I believe), there were tales of a few Tim Horton's locations in that part of the world (I would seek them out whenever I could). Recently I went on a trip to Oman and Qatar, and there were Tim Horton's all over the place. I've actually learned that there are hundreds of Tim Horton's locations in the Middle East at this very moment.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, or why this is a little bit odd, let me explain. Tim Horton's is a chain of Canadian doughnut and coffee shops. I would argue that if you're in Canada, you're more likely to come across a Tim Horton's over a McDonalds. I've visited very small towns, large cities and even very rural truck stops with Tim Horton's locations. In some ways this coffee shop has become a part of Canadian culture, even if it means complaining about how it isn't as good as it used to be. 

Over the last few years, I've started to notice that Tim Horton's has decided to spread itself out into the world, including the USA, Thailand and apparently Middle East just to name a few places. The great thing is that it never looses its Canadian spirit. In the Middle East however, I feel like there's something extra going on. In most non-Canadian Tim Horton's locations, there's something about them that makes you feel like you're in a Tim Horton's themed restaurant rather than an actual Tim Horton's. Something that makes you feel like it's a place for people to have a Canadian experience almost like Epcot at Disney World. The difference is, in all of the locations I've visited in the Middle East, it feels more like a regular Tim Horton's, as if the people just enjoy Tim Horton's for being Tim Horton's and not a special Canadian place.

Having said that, there are a few differences between Tim Horton's in the Middle East and Tim Horton's in Canada, and I'm going to name a few.

The one thing I noticed is that they don't have a specialty doughnut feature, instead they have many special doughnuts all of the time. At Tim Horton's in Canada, I feel like there's one, maybe two special doughnuts available at any time, each available for a limited time. In the Middle East they have a bunch of specialty doughnuts available all of the time. This includes:

A very serious Oreo cookie doughnut.

And a tasty Lotus cookie butter doughnut.

On top of having a boat load of specialty doughnut available all of the time, they also offer a few unique treats as well. First of all they offer a pistachio doughnut that actually tasted pretty good. It wasn't just pistachio nuts sprinkled on a doughnut, they also flavoured the icing.

Did I mention that they offer many Timbit versions of their speciality doughnuts as well.

They also offer many different mint themed drinks, since mint is a very popular flavour in the Middle East to add to drinks. This includes this very tasty mint lemonade that was made with real mint and very mint forward.

They also have something called a Zaatar Croissant which is available on its own or with a halloumi cheese sandwich. Zaatar is the green herb you see on the outside of the croissant. I'm not really sure what it is, but it adds a nice herb flavour to the croissant.

One of the more interesting differences I found between Canadian and Middle East Tim Horton's is the way they glaze their doughnuts. In Canada glaze is pretty much a hard sugar crust on the outside of your doughnut. In the Middle East they seem to go with a syrup that soaks into the doughnut instead. While I wouldn't call it better than the Canadian version, it's pretty unique and worth giving a try.

I've been very lucky to travel the world, and sample Tim Horton's in many places. Some might find it a little weird to go into a Canadian doughnut shop when you're a Canadian traveling abroad, but I find it a little comforting. First of all I'm away from home more than I'm at home, so it's a little taste of home when I need it. Secondly it's nice to see that people appreciate one of the great Canadian traditions all over the world. In the Middle East they not only appreciate it, but I feel like they treat it very well. Every time I've gone into a Tim Horton's in the Middle East I see people just relaxing, enjoying their drink or treat, talking, or just contemplating whatever has crossed their mind.

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Eating in Qatar

I think Qatar has a really interesting food scene. Since it was part two of our trip in the Middle East, it's hard not to compare our time in Qatar to our time in Oman. While these two places have a lot in common, there seems to be some differences as well. If I was to describe the main difference I saw I would say it's about traditionalism. Don't get me wrong, both of these countries are steeped in their traditional culture, but my experience in Qatar was that of a place looking at outside influences a bit more, where Oman is looking more at its traditional roots.

I say all of this with some strong biases. First of all we never left Doha when we went to Qatar, where in Oman we traveled around a lot. Qatar was also just on the end of their World Cup show, and it felt like the city went through a very large transformation to prepare for it. I would say that Doha appears to be a little more modern and bigger than Muscat, we did plan our travel with that thought in mind. This is all to say that during our time in Doha we ate a lot of western food.

We did this because we no longer live in a western country, and when presented with western food it's a treat. I've mentioned this a thousand times on this blog before, but whenever we live overseas (as we are now) we often like to plan some time when we travel to enjoy western treats when we can. Doha offered us more than we expected, and we took advantage as much as we could.

Our hotel even offered us western fair every single morning. They had a waffle maker and an attendant at the waffle iron that couldn't get them out fast enough. It wasn't just me though, I would say that most of the guests at our hotel went for a waffle every single morning. The line actually got so long that I had a few breakfasts without.

The one thing however that we could not do without each and every day was cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. 

Allison and I are huge fans of this place, and especially their cheesecake.

It really serves us well as they even have a cheesecake that Allison can enjoy.

They also have many different cheesecakes that I can enjoy.

Which is great.

I probably could have written an entire blog about each and every night at the Cheesecake Factory, and our amazing server Chris, who got to know us and knew what we wanted to order each and every night.

At this point I'm just putting filler text between the many pictures of the different cheesecakes that we sampled.

We didn't eat every single meal at Cheesecake Factory, in fact we only ate one (we just always ate dessert at Cheesecake Factory). We also enjoyed meals at Shake Shack, TGI Fridays (which we had an issue with considering the Muslim weekly calendar is different than the western one), and even a few stops at McDonalds (I'll have more on that in a future post).

All was not dedicated to fast food either, we managed to try a few fancier restaurants as well. One such meal we were treated to an amazing view of the city on top of the torch that was built to celebrate the World Cup. The view was amazing and the food was very classy indeed.

Probably our most interesting meal was when we decided to wander to the Katara Cultural Village. We didn't know what to expect at this place but we knew we wanted to get lunch. What we discovered was a love for Armenian food at a restaurant called Mamig. To keep on brand with this blog, we got a couple of desserts that were both beautiful and tasty.

One was a wonderfully creamy pistachio dish the other was cakes filled with silky cream. I cannot tell you how great every part of this meal was, and how much I'm now a fan of Armenian food.

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that most of our meals on the Qatar leg of our trip weren't from other parts of the world. Maybe much like my home town of Toronto in Canada, part of Doha's culture is other cultures. This part of the world has been a hub of trade for thousands of years, and so there's a certain openess to other cultures, and cultural foods. While we focused on western food while we were there, that's only because we wanted to. There were so many other great places to eat, and fun foods to enjoy. From Fancy treats to simple pleasures, Qatar has some amazing food range.

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Eating In Oman

 Recently Allison and I went on a two week adventure to Oman and Qatar. Today I'm going to go over a few of the fun food discoveries that we came across while in Oman. We're both big fans of Middle Eastern cooking, but we also like that many Middle Eastern countries enjoy having western food available too. This is good for us because we often visit Middle Eastern countries while we're living in other parts of the world that may not have a lot of western foods to choose from. This allows us to enjoy a nice trip some place different, but also get a little taste of home while we're there. 

The one thing we learned about the local food in Oman is that the date is king. Dates not only play a role in the cuisine, but in the social customs as well. Traditionally dates were used a way of starting meals, as well as greeting newcomers. When people would travel through the country, they would stop in villages and forts as they traveled, and one of the ways people would welcome you is with a date. For important guests it would be a large platter of dates extravagantly displayed on a giant platter, but it could also be a simple offering as well.

The great thing is that this tradition lives on. At many of the local restaurants we would be offered dates as we came in or at the end of our meal. On one occasion we visited a small museum, we started up a conversation with the one person who worked there. At one point he mentioned the tradition of offering dates and his eyes opened wide. Suddenly he whisked away only to return with a bowl of dates. He offered us one and they were fantastic. He insisted we take a handful to enjoy for the rest of that day's adventure. It was such a kind gesture and really gave me an idea of what it was like for the travelers in the past being greeted by warm hospitality and dates.

Dates are also very common in the desserts found in Oman. One day we visited a traditional Omani restaurant, and as luck would have it they had a mixed sweets option for dessert. I'm always happy when traveling to find this kind of dessert because it gives us a nice variety of local flavours to try. Very often I'm stuck trying to pick just one local dessert that I have to hope is good, but in this case we were able to sample many locally made sweets, and they were all so different, but also very yummy.

The meal at this restaurant were pretty fascinating too. I tried an interesting porridge, and best of all the sauce was made with date syrup. After learning that date syrup was a thing, the first thing we did was headed to the grocery store and picked up a bottle. I don't know what I'll use my date syrup for, but I can't imagine that I would come up with something so creative as to use it with a vegetable porridge.

While I did enjoy my porridge, and the date addition made it work, the highlight at this meal was an eggplant dish made with a very garlic filled cream. The cream was light and the flavour was serious garlic. We've had other Middle Eastern dishes similar to this, but the coolness of the cream really made this version spectacular.

While we did enjoy a few more local delicacies, including many wraps and shawarmas, we also got our fix of western treats as well. One tradition we have when we travel is to try and sample the local McDonald's pies. Not everyone knows that McDonalds will often tailor their pie flavours to local palettes, and apparently in the Middle East they love having custard in their McDonald's pies. Fortunately so does Allison, and she was sure to pick up a few of these strawberry custard pies on this trip. One unique thing we found about the pies in Oman is that they seem to make them made to order, unlike other parts of the world where they're ready to go. This means you're always getting a fresh pie, a scorching hot fresh pie that is. The thing is, it was strawberry custard, and it was yummy. Eventually we learned to let them sit for a few minutes before eating them to avoid burning our mouths.

We got a few more western meals on this trip including a stop at Chillies, a cheesesteak, and some fried chicken. We also stopped at IKEA (it was literally attached to our hotel) and picked up meatballs one evening. I believe that the meatballs might be a little different than the ones you get in western countries since I believe (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that IKEA meatballs normally contain pork. It's funny because this aversion to pork comes across many different ways, in particular I found that many gummy brands only sold their vegetarian versions, due to the use of gelatin.

This trip was not just about food. We decided for this first Omani leg of the trip that we would rent a car and drive out to some of the sites outside of Muscat. We visited many forts, wadi's and other natural wonders. This meant that we had to be sure to have plenty of snacks for these road trips. Nuts were a staple, but I also really got into the various nut bars or chikki available as well. I made sure to have a handful of these with me at all times, and they were great for traveling. They didn't melt in the heat, and there was such a variety that I had a new treat every day.

We had a pretty amazing trip, and tasted some great local and comfortable western foods. While many of the meals were amazing, I feel like the generosity of the people giving us the food made it even better. From the nice man that gave me a band-aid at a rooftop coffee shop at an oasis in the middle of nowhere, or the amazing people that handed me a date just to say hello.

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Airport and Airplane Food To Oman, Qatar and Back

How do I put this, the food I ate while traveling to and from the Middle East was both very interesting and not at the same time. To be clear, we flew business class. While it seems like we've been doing this a lot lately, it has more to do with the current situation with airlines than it does with us being particularly fancy. First of all we found a really good deal with these business class flights, like really good. Secondly we had one overnight flight and several long waits in airports. This means we would get comfortable sleeping arrangements on the flight and lounge access in the airports. So it almost became worth the small amount extra to get business class... well sort of.

Our first flight was actually not business class, that's because the flight we took was a pretty short haul (prop plane), and they didn't even offer business class. This was also the most "interesting" meal we ate the entire journey. The photo does not give it justice because it just looks like a nice plate of butter chicken. The problem is that it was cold. When I say it was cold I don't mean it was heated up and then it didn't stay warm once it was delivered to me. This butter chicken was delivered to me as if it was a salad. Is this a thing?

Once we landed in Thailand (our first stop) we headed straight to the lounge... no we didn't. We headed straight to McDonalds. We went to McDonalds because the current place we live does not have a McDonalds. We seem to have a gift for living in countries that do not have the Golden Arches. Some might consider that a blessing, but I find that when I live in a place that doesn't have a McDonalds, I crave McDonalds all the time. So the first thing we did when we landed in an airport with a McDonalds is stop and get burgers.

We did eventually get to the lounge as we had a long layover and I picked up these absolutely beautiful desserts. The rose shaped tart was a mango tart and it was amazing. The cup dessert was the most fancy apple crumble I've ever seen in my life. It had blueberries and gold leaf added, which are both equally weird additions to apple crumble for completely different reasons. I'm starting to believe that apple desserts are considered fancy in South East Asia, even the ones we consider in North America to be very simple.

Somehow, after our first layover all we ate on the rest of our flights was breakfast. I think it had something to do with the long flights and how we were crossing over time zones. I'll be honest it was all a bit of a blur. We got onto our second flight of this adventure and prepared to sleep, which I didn't because I can't sleep on planes. I will however say, in good Candy Critic style, all of the breakfasts I selected were pretty much just desserts. It started with what I thought would be a couple of slices of banana bread (my favourite of all breads). I thought it would be a nice little snack to wake up to, instead it was probably the most over the top banana bread I've ever seen in my life.

It also came with a puck of butter. When I say puck, I mean the most perfectly round slab of butter ever created. I believe mathematicians could use this puck to calibrate their instruments.

I have a curiosity when it comes to sweets, so before getting off this flight I saw on the menu that as a snack they offered chocolate. There was no description of what kind of chocolate and how it would be delivered. At some point in the middle of the night the flight attendant saw that I was awake and asked if I wanted anything. Bleary eyed and confused I remembered that I saw the words chocolate on the menu, so I said "chocolate". She brought me back these, and they were pretty good. I mention this because it will come up again in the future. I also should mention that even though I wasn't hungry I ate both of these chocolates and while they tasted good, I don't think it was doing much for my health.

The third and final flight of this leg I decided to order waffles... and they gave me pancakes. I'm not sure where this breakdown happened, but everyone on the flight who ordered this got the same thing. I think it might be a language barrier or a simple mistake on the menu. As always my carbs came with a side of carbs and plenty of syrup and jam. Needless to say I was not feeling great after this.

We finally arrived in Muscat Oman, and had a wonderful time (I'll be posting about that later). After that portion of our trip it was time to head to Doha Qatar. This was a fairly short flight, but there were two things worth mentioning food wise about this leg. First of all I tried something in the lounge at the airport that I never thought about before, pineapple and mint juice. Adding mint to juice is a big thing in Oman, and I drank plenty of iced tea with mint throughout our trip, but pineapple juice? It strangely worked, really well. I would actually recommend giving it a try, but don't be stingy with the mint.

The flight offered a nice fancy meal, but the dessert (that round puck in the upper left hand) was amazing. It was some kind of custard treat that I could have eaten for the rest of my life. We arrived in Doha and also had a wonderful time (and once again I'll have more about that in its own post). 

After our great stop in Qatar we headed home (two flights). We left Doha at 1 am, so we decided to get to the airport around 9 and have a late dinner. Frankly the dinner in the lounge was okay, but kind of complicated. It was most complicated when the wifi didn't work for us at the airport and it turns out that if you want to see the menu of items at the lounge you "have" to scan a QR code. Fortunately they had a buffet with a few less items but it suited us well enough. While the food was fine, they had a few special items for the Chinese New Year including this beautiful and tasty orange dessert. I asked the person manning the dessert table which was the best, he said the chocolate cake was the most popular, but these orange desserts where a special for the New Year. I decided to go special over popular and I was not disappointed.

Our first flight home was another overnight flight that offered some kind of dinner at 1 am and then breakfast... again. I skipped dinner as we had just eaten in the airport, but opted to have breakfast. I thought I should get something sensible until I saw that they had a Nutella donut available. The thing about this donut is the menu said it was a "freshly made donut". I immediately assumed that they had a deep fryer on the plane and would be making them piping hot. I also assumed it wouldn't be gigantic. I was wrong on both accounts. While it looks very fancy, it was pretty average and cold in the middle.

I should also mention, on our flight back home that I ordered the mystery chocolate again, and once again it had no description. I had fond memories of the other chocolate I got on the earlier flight and I thought I would maybe get it again. I also should mention that I wanted some popcorn thinking it would be made fresh for some reason. This time however they gave me a Dairymilk bar instead of their fancy chocolates. I'd like to believe it's because they ran out of their fancy chocolates, but it also could have been how dirty and tired I looked on this last leg of our trip and the flight attendant just thought I wasn't fancy enough. The popcorn was also in bags and not fresh, but I did get both salted and caramel corn.

Our last leg we ate something that I don't really remember and I didn't get a picture. I was way too tired and just looking forward to going into my own bed. All in all the food we got while traveling on this journey was very fancy and tasty. We also got a pair of pyjamas to take home which is both weird but also amazing.

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