Open air lounge at The Courtyard, Manzil Downtown Dubai

Iftar at The Courtyard of Manzil Downtown begins with cold mezze and dates found on every table. Traditional juices are constantly served as you need them. Followed by soup, hot mezze and a sharing menu, complemented by 4 live food stations serving Ouzi, Shawerma, Saj & Falafel. Plus, two main courses, four skewers of grills and let’s not forget the Arabic dessert of the day! accompanied by a freshly cut fruit platter. Sheehsa fans are going to love this place as it’s open air and the air conditioned courtyard keeps the temperature pleasant.

Time: Iftar – From Sunset to 9:00pm; Suhoor – 10:00pm to 3am

Note: I was invited to review the restaurant

On the table – cold appetizers(hummus, muhammara, moutabal) and salads

Every table is prepared with cold mezzeh spread. Ramadan drinks such as Jallab, Tamarhindi, Ayraan are brought to your table and is available further on request. Fresh juice such as are orange is also available on their compliments. The cold mezzeh such as the hummus, moutabel is really one of the best we’ve had this Ramadan. They make it really well. Hot breads are freshly made and they keep reaching your table as you finish them. Along with the appetizing salad, you have a very satisfying start to your Iftar at Manzil Downtown.

We picked the soups from the LIVE cooking stations. Both soups lentil and Harira were really good. There was this hot bread stuffed with salmon being passed around, which is scrumptious. The bread was really soft and fluffy which really was the best part.

LIVE FOOD STATION

LIVE station for Iftar at The Courtyard, Manzil Downtown Dubai

The LIVE food station is the center attraction of The Courtyard Iftar. Starting with Lamb Ouzi where the Lamb was well cooked and the meat was tasting young and mouth watering. There were three different types of SAJ available with cheese, meat and zaater filling. You had two types of shawarma which was chicken and falafel shawarma. You could also make your own Shawarma.

Preparation of the Mixed Grill platter set

Chicken molokhia, Beans with lamb in tomato Sause and Pasta

The mains are brought to your table. The mixed grill contained chicken, kebab, mutton cubes and prawns in skewers. I enjoyed the chicken skewer with spicy marination on it. Apart from the mixed grill, the pasta from the mains was very good. Infact I thought it was even better than the mixed grill. You need to have a different taste for chicken Molokhia. It’s chicken in a heavy dip of green leaves. It surely is healthy but not might be of everyone’s taste.

Dessert – chebab katayef and Fruit platter

Fresh cut fruits and an arabic dessert is what you can expect for dessert. I was actually expecting cheese kunafa but it turned out to be Chebab Katayef. Nevertheless it was one of the best Chebab katayef I’ve had. A fried pancake with luscious filling of cheese, an Emarati classic! Click here to visit their official website. Click pictures below to see them in full screen view: