What Went Down at Global Village.

When I’m stuffed to the point of delirium, a wire in my brain snaps and I come up with these freakish doodles in my head. Ideally, the doodle dies before I get around to writing a post. But sometimes, it childishly sneaks its way onto my blog.

Delirium is what happens when you go to a fairground like Global Village with a group of foodies. All of whom have obviously come there specifically to eat.

Fellow bloggers from Fooderati Arabia — Didi, Dee and Mishti — plus my two buddies, Rads and Bellay (an endearingly nicknamed foodie soul mate whose trip to Dubai was well-timed for this binging excursion) all ganged up together to cover as much ground as we could…tasting, smelling, drinking, digesting (but miserably failing to digest anything because we’d always see some other TreatWeMustTry the second we’d attempt to stop eating.) A special mention to Nausheen, the Dubai Bites blogger who was there with us in spirit. Her post on the Top 10 Eats at Global Village was printed out by Dee and followed by us like the gospel. I think Dee may have gone on to laminate her (now grease-stained?) printed copy of that post.

Here’s a little round-up of most of the things we sampled or saw being devoured at Global Village. I say ‘most’ because my photo of the minced meat Turkish lahmacun looked like it had been shot in a dust storm and was incredibly unusable, even by my barely-existent standards. And because I never got around to snapping a photo of the addictive home-baked Butterscotch cake that Mishti had graciously brought for us to sample. I crammed the last butterscotch chunk into my mouth on my drive home — because clearly, all the eating at Global Village and delirium thereafter had not triggered the “I’m FREAKING FULL” signal to my brain yet.

Hit your left and right arrow keys to circle through the round-up.
[psst. don’t miss the captions at the bottom,  I’ve put my heart, soul and a crapload of brain cells into keeping, contrary to my usual rambles, the captions concise.]

[SlideDeck id=’5052′ width=’100%’ height=’880px’]

Other foodalicious posts on Global Village:

Author: InaFryingPan

With a family legacy of ingenious cooks, a nutritionist and chef-extraordinaire mother, and a father who introduced me to steak and caviar when I could barely reach the table, I had no choice but to acquire a keen awareness of food during my childhood years in Dubai. But it was only after I found myself on a college campus in Philadelphia – far away from home, too cheap as a student to spend on anything other than pizza, and with dorm rooms that had little rat-holes of kitchens if they even had them at all – when I developed a heightened appreciation of food. An appreciation of food that I once ate every night at the dinner table in Dubai, but that was now an entire ocean away. I lusted for the culinary treasures that lay outside the stale walls of my college dining hall, hijacked friends’ kitchens to try my hand at something, anything , remotely edible, and greedily raided different websites in search of highly-rated restaurants. With my move to New York to work for a consulting firm that secretly harbored self-professed foodies, my appreciation transformed into a passion, an addicition. I felt like everyone around me in New York was talking about food: where to get the best cupcakes, pizza slices, banh mi, kati rolls, pho, fried chicken, and every other food item out there that is just a plain old dish in some part of the world, but that’s become hyped to unforeseen proportions in New York. What fuelled my addiction over time was travel to different cities, both for work and play, which gave me unfettered access to the culinary havens of not only New York, but also of DC, Virginia, Chicago, Houston, Vegas, Austin, Seattle and even a little city called Bentonville (Arkansas!). After 9 years away from home, I’ve finally taken the leap to come back to Dubai – with not just an awareness, but genuine appreciation and passionate addiction for what I’d taken for granted as a child. Mom, I’m back to reclaim my seat at your dinner table, and to rediscover this city with its ever-expanding menu of international flavors.

17 thoughts on “What Went Down at Global Village.

  1. Raji says:

    OMG..I so much liked this post..your doodle is hilarious…it really shows how much food fun you all had :) your pictures are brilliant, they almost make me to reach out and pick some from the screen. It seems that even boring vegetarians like me have many many options there, and next time I go there, I will keep a bottle of hajmola ( digestive balls) handy to help make room for more and more :)

    Reply
  2. Nausheen says:

    Your drawing is hilarious. I love the photos. My DSLR was being repaired and I had to take my photos w/ a crappy point and shoot. (Not that my photos would ever be this good, even if I had a proper camera with me). This post confirms I need to go back to try Babaloni, and take some more photos!

    Reply
  3. Didi says:

    A lotta food went down..and we fell damn hard! Such a funny post! Best food trip evah! I can’t wait for later this evening :-) Wooohooo!

    Reply
  4. Dima';s Kitchen says:

    Arva your pics are amazing, but I especially love the honey picture, it is beautifully delicious!! Sounds like you gals had a great time :))

    Reply
    1. InaFryingPan says:

      @Raji – OMG. It’s been ages since someone mentioned hajmola. I NEED to buy me a stack of those digestive wonders so I can be EVEN more gluttonous in life.

      @Nausheen – oh hells yeah, those banbalounis deserve a glamour shot. And thanks again for the 10 worthy tips, it gave us some level of direction in that gigantic maze of food choices.

      @Didi – you are a STAR organizer. And my banbalouni buddy forever more now. Thanks for making this happen. HUGS.

      @Dima’s Kitchen – Thank you!! It was Girls (+ bellay) Go Wild at Global Village. Actually, THAT should have been the title of my post…

  5. Sally says:

    The doodle is great, the pictures are stunning. Please invite me to the christening when you name your children banbaloni! And thanks for the English teacher’s nightmare pic – started my day with a very big laugh.

    Reply
  6. Devina Divecha says:

    Nice pics…like the Yemeni honey one a lot.
    The falafels we had were from Palestine (unless you sneaked a Syrian one in when we weren’t looking haha)…oh and I was googling the sh*t out of "banbalooni" and found NOTHING on the internet (how is that possible), so I went looking for phonetically similar words, and found it’s actually called "bambalouni" … and it indeed is the Tunisian donut as Didi said it was.
    Oh and someone else has my greasy print out!!! They better own up, haha.

    Reply
  7. ninu says:

    all of a sudden i feel remorse… why oh why dint i name my child banbalouni? So perfect. So wacky. Here , this is my son – Banbalouni…Come here baby B.
    Dear old sweet stranger – What is your name dear child?
    BANBALOUNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII……. ( cant u imagine a child havign so much fun with a name like that? ….Either that or i can imagine him growing up forever closeted in his room doodling images killing me off for having named him that ….)
    Looks like i ll have to have another one fast. Although considering my dark circles another one might not be such a good idea for the next 5 years… maybe i ll just to Global village and eat some baby Bs instead…
    =) So glad to see you back in action Arva. =) And i love your pics. especially the honey one… and your artistry up ..so perfect… have you by any chance taken drawing classes? =D

    Reply
  8. farwin says:

    I can’t wait to get to Global village again just to taste these,braving the long walk with kids.Awesome pics,Arva!

    Reply
    1. InaFryingPan says:

      @Sally – you know, I was sniggering to myself and totally had your face in mind when I wrote that caption! hahaha…never gonna be able to look at choculute the same way again ;)

      @Devina Divecha – Ah thanks, corrected Syria -> Palestine! And darling, even though I like bums in banbalouni, it’s banbalouni all the way…at least as per Hello Tunisia http://hellotunisia.tn/albums/tunis/ ;)
      …and yay! now you can laminate greasy printout!

      @elainegan -aw come now, gimme some credit. I have graduated to digital media hun, it’s Paintbrush all the way ;)

      @ninu – aaah I have missed your funny comments! I think your child would have had a serious social integration issue with that kind of a name, kids are SO demanding these days. ;)
      And thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you liked the picks and doodle! I took drawing classes back in high school…but if my art teacher were to see this, I think she’d be quite…devastated.

      @farwin – Sally mentioned the concept of Segues to me last night. Methinks they should have segues at Global Village so you can cover more distance quickly. More distance = MORE FOOD.

  9. Sarah says:

    This is an amazing list, and I love the photos! Global Village reminds me of this convention that used to happen every year in the US when I was growing up. It was called SPRIFF and I have no idea what it stands for but that is where I learned to love eating lots of food from different countries. That and the World Showcase at Epcot in Disney World.

    Reply
  10. sabirahm says:

    Wow…that looks delicious! I would have to make several trips to be able to eat all that. I always end up being outside of Dubai during Global Village. I went when it first opened and it was pretty empty…so I didn’t really get to enjoy it.

    Reply
    1. InaFryingPan says:

      @Sarah – Thank you :) I love global taste round-ups, best way to teach children their geography in my opinion. Eat through the map. ;)
      PS. moms out there, take note. If someone had made me eat a banbalouni while marking out tunisia on the map, I would remember it for the rest of time.

      @sabirahm – …which is why you don’t make several trips, you take several ’people’ with you instead and do a teeny taster portion of each thing. More mouths to feed, more opportunities to experiment!

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