Mango Tree blogger lunch

[EDIT: This venue is now closed]

Having never ventured to Mango Tree in Souk Al Bahar (or in London for that matter!), I was only quite happy to accept attending the blogger’s lunch hosted by the friendly chaps over at Guild PR, who were handling the PR for the upcoming Taste of Dubai festival.

Here’s a quick look at what we had in store for us:

So on with the starters, out which I managed to try only one. And this was only because I was pre-occupied with a phone call and was unable to manage to eat much at that point! What I did manage to eat was the Som Tom Tod, which was a deep-friend papaya salad. And until someone pointed out that it was papayas, I didn’t realize that was what I was eating. I’d never realized you could deep fry fruits (shows how much I know). I did enjoy it very much, and was told by many people later that the salmon salad (Salmon Phla) was the best dish they’d had that day.

Then came the main course. I didn’t have the steamed sea bass (I’m not a massive fish person) but I did try the spicy lime sauce with my Khow phad pak (fried rice) and that was really good. The spice levels hit my taste buds all at once and I would not recommend it to anyone who cannot handle spicy food. But for spice-lovers, it’s a done deal. The beef mains was pretty decent; I had quite a bit of it. There was also some Bok Choi, which I didn’t have (not a massive veggie person either!).

Then Chef Paul Kennedy came out and had a chat with us, which was absolutely lovely of him. He spoke about how he started at Mango Tree and where he was before, and even gave a few handy tips about how to make mousse. A really friendly person, and it was great to have a chat with someone who was behind the meal we’d just had.

And then it was time for dessert! As you can see, I spent a lot of time taking photographs of the chocolate mousse with mango compote. It looked wonderful and I am such a fan of anything dessert. I was quite surprised that the chocolate mousse and mango went well; I wasn’t expecting that. The mousse wasn’t cold, yet had that balanced texture I’d want in my mousse. Loved the dessert.

A lovely meal with my fellow food bloggers, whom you can see here…snapping away like I was! A shout-out to all the foodies I’ve met through Famished in Arabia. We’re a group of food-loving nutcases, who will blog about absolutely anything related to food. We crowdsource our posts to the common website FiA, but have our own blogs as well, each with its own strong character.

If you’re interested in absolute foodie delights, from Mango Tree and many other restaurants, you’d do well to check out the official Taste of Dubai website, get yourself some tickets and indulge during the weekend of March 3-5 2011. We, from the Famished in Arabia group, will be there for the event and do check out our coverage of the same!