Great value Arabic food, at your place or theirs

Palm Jumeriah Golden Mile Galleria is one of those secret little quiet malls that are kept on a need to know basis. The fact of the matter is, you DO need to know about it. Not least because it plays host to a dazzling array of eateries, and unlike other malls, the floor space bears almost no resemblance to the scrambling furore of the climax to the Pamplona Bull Run. Perhaps more importantly though, you have the opportunity to stumble across Studio Masr.

Studio Masr on The Palm, is one of four restaurants in the chain across the UAE, all of them subtly styled on the glory days of Egyptian cinema. The restaurant aims to provide tasty authentic Arabic food, superb service and incredible value. On all of these points, it delivers. No, but seriously, they do also deliver (I’ll just leave the contact number at the bottom, up to you where you go from there). Massive mixed grills, hot and cold sumptuous sharing dishes, all of your recommended daily allowance of tagen, the menu is huge. To really get the most out of this restaurant – It’s wise to go as a group, the portions are unbelievably generous and it’s the type of food that goes best when shared over conversation with friends at one of the al fresco dining tables.

If you fancy going alone or as couple, don’t feel obliged to enlist yourself in to a ‘Man Vs Food’ style challenge; the friendly and attentive servers will more than happily arrange whatever you can’t finish into handy take away paraphernalia, so when you make enough room for that one last mouthful of irresistible Egyptian bread and besara you won’t have to go too far. 

One of the best reasons to visit Studio Masr is the value for money. In Dubai it’s very easy to become numb to the cost of eating out; if you make, even a casual, habit of dining in the restaurants of 5 star hotels, looking at the prices on the menu we very rapidly and internally go through the five stages of grief until we reach acceptance. 

So isn’t it just blooming marvellous, when you have occasion to slap your own face in disbelief and ask the person next to you if ‘you are in fact seeing that price correctly’ for the right reasons? 

“Darling, that says AED 42 for a selection of tasty oriental appetisers” (tomeyeh, beef liver Alexandria, kobeiba, tabbouleh, sambousak, besara, hummus and metabel). And that dish could feed a family of four…elephants. Carnivorous gourmand elephants. Elephants that then doggy bag the meat dishes and bring it back for the lions as a peace offering to end the years of unpleasantness. 

The meaty Studio Masr Grill Shawaya at AED 119 comes to your table in a carnival of colour and charming chargrilled flavour, and leaves you wondering: why can’t all food taste like this.

If you’ve not tried Egyptian food before, I highly recommend starting your journey here.  It’s a great bridge between Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavours and the staff will wear any novice questions like “what is this green stuff, it’s amazing?” with a smile and a helpful insight not just into to the ingredients but it’s place in the culture. If Cleopatra was alive today, I’m sure this is the type of restaurant she would take her chums to, and she was the Queen of De-Nile. Get it? DENIAL. OK sorry, that was a terrible joke, but it’s probably still a fair-o claim. Sorry sorry. I’m going to finish now before I get taken away by the bad pun police. My parting words to you are, make sure you try it, they deliver right to your door and the fantastic flavours and value will have you doing it again. My inSphynx tell me so.

[sound of police sirens in distance]  

+971 (0) 4551 9862

Sudio Masr, Golden Mile, Palm Jumeriah

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