Market Place – JW Marriott Hotel Dubai, Deira – Iftar Buffet

My first post for Ramadan had to be about an Iftar program. Here’s also my first post on a restaurant of JW Marriott Hotel Dubai. Ever since I was impressed by Kitchen 6 at JW Marriott Marquis I wanted to try more of their restaurants. Unfortunately I didn’t carry my camera to share you my KITCHEN 6 experience :(.

Anyway, this one’s located adjacent to Hamarain center in Deira which is 5 mins away from our house and is definitely a good spot for us. Some of my friends have good words to say about Market Place in JW Marriott so I thought it would be good to try them out.

I like the entry to JW Marriott Hotel Dubai. There is something grand about the hotel. Once you are inside Market place you realize it’s a nice family oriented restaurant serving international cuisine.Their menu for ramadan keeps changing but mainly they serve a variety of arabic dishes(hot and cold mezzah) with LIVE cooking stations along with traditional ramadan beverages besides the usual fruit juices. The Iftar buffet at Market Place is Dhs 165 for an adult and AED 60 for children between 6 – 22. Sometimes you can find discounts for this buffet in either groupon or entertainer vouchers.

As soon as you enter Market Place you notice a stretch of their dry fruits and juice section. I also found an old cash register machine(refer to pictures above) which I found interesting and it was in a working condition too 🙂 so I played around with it a little to understand how it actually was used once upon a time! Just behind this counter, one step below is where we sat. By the way, one point surely I appreciate about Market Place at JW Marriott is that they provide excellent service. They were very friendly and always was there to help us when we needed them at our table.

Every table had dates and dry fruits such as figs, apricots readily spread as part of Iftar. We ordered juices such as Orange, berry and mixed fruit. The Jallab which we picked up ourselves from the entrance was the best of the lot. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We also tried the rose milk which I assume is part of their ramadan menu but it was a bit too sweet that I had to stop half way. After the dates and drinks, the first item I had was their cheese sambousek. I liked it so much that I just forgot to keep space for the rest of the buffet. Even the meat kebbeh was good.

Their Hot and cold mezzah is impressive. So good that majority of my stomach quota was taken up by the hot and cold mezzah. I remember how well the vine leaves tasted. Its’ not something I normally enjoy but it’s made well enough that I could appreciate it. After this I went to their LIVE cooking station where we choose the type of pasta as well as the ingredients and they make it for you LIVE at their cooking station. They can also bring it to your table so you don’t have to wait there standing.

The old lady who was a manakish expert was very sweet. She would always be smiling and bringing you hot bread. She made us fresh Manakish with cheese and zaater in it and it was yum! The bread was thin and hence it was easier for us to finish it.

Next to pasta you can also find their grilled meat section where you can have a variety of their grilled meat. By the time I reached here I was already full. I normally do only sampling but I guess today I was hungry that I didn’t do any math while I was eating. There was lot of Indian dishes like the paneer tikka, dal tadka, Chicken biriyani, kebabs. I don’t see myself reducing any kilo this ramadan 🙁

I did however try their Roti like the butter naan and I must say the need some improvement here. Even though it was just made hot out of the oven it was very elastic and difficult to chew. I think they need to get their roti formula correct here. I like their biriyani as well as the Lamb ouzi. My wife enjoyed the paneer tikka and kebabs.

They’ve got a lavish collection of desserts. But the only sad part is not all of them gets an A. You might find some that you like but majority of it was more sugar than anything else. Atleast it wasn’t happening for me. But like I said they’ve got a big collection and you should be happy with something in here.

By the way, they keep changing their menu for Iftar so you might get something more interesting. All the best!

To enjoy pictures in full screen view please click on any of them below.