Bait Al Nakhla is an Arabic restaurant located at the Palm Islands. They serve middle eastern cuisine in general and we were here to try out their signature family sharing style dinner. The sharing style dinner would consist of unlimited cold and hot mezze, main courses, desserts, traditional arabic drinks, tea, and coffee. The restaurant is not just about eating food but they have also arranged a mini souq inside the restaurant along with traditional Majlis to experience the classic Arabic traditions. Ladies can get a complimentary henna artwork. There is also a sand artist available at the restaurant who could make you a customized sand art(usually with your name in it) on order.
There are many parts to the restaurant. A souq, a classic majlis, a modern lounge, a henna counter, sand art & painting station. On our visit, the restaurant was really quiet. I thought it was a good spot for a group of friends and family who were looking for a nice warm private space for dinner. Considering the hotel is quite far away at one end of Palm, there isn’t much occupancy in the restaurant except for the hotel guests if any. The souq is quite interesting. There were lots to see and pricing of the goods were reasonable. Sand Artwork was quite interesting to see, who could incorporate any kind of message with colorful combination of sand. It’s amazing how they managed to have all this in a restaurant to give an authentic experience. The Majlis is pretty relaxed with signature dates and gahva available at the entrance on their compliments.
We started with their welcome drinks. There were 2 kind of Arabic drinks and you could have as much as you wanted. It’s the usual Arabic drinks that you would find at Iftar dinners such as the hibiscus and Tamar hindi. I remember one being really sweet that I really enjoyed while the other one was more sour in nature. Then came the exciting platter of cold mezzeh accompanied by warm homemade brown bread. The brown bread was pretty satisfying by itself. We loved the dippers that was found in this set especially the Hummus beiruti which was my favourite from the lot. Salads like Tabouleh was well made and refreshing and there was an added bonus to the classic Fattoush by having avocados on top which is rare.
The soup was nice and warm. It was different from the usual chicken soup which came with vermicelli and felt good after having it. The minced Lamb was neatly spread on a thin crisp bread which made the lamb manakish enticing. The grilled halloumi felt extra salty but still enjoyable as you’d expect from a grilled halloumi. The outer crust of the shish barak was harder than expected which made it little less appealing. The grills were just wow especially the chicken which was very well marinated and had a great flavour to it. The meats were cooked medium well so they remained juicy and eating those chunky piece of meat was just a different pleasure. The fries on the side were a nice add on and was a perfect companion for the grilled meats.
There was 2 kind of rice. One was Lamb Majbous and the other was Chicken Maklouba. The Lamb Majbous had a special yellow rice in it. The rice was extra delicious that you could just eat it by itself, maybe it was the touch of saffron. Ofcourse the tender lamb is the main star on the plate, the picture should speak for itself. The chicken  in the chicken maklouba was even more tender than the chicken we found in the grilled plate. The chicken was extra soft and best part of the rice was the loaded with nuts and dry fruits. The taste of both rice were very different from each other but they were just amazing.
We also had seafood as part of our mains. The salmon was nice and soft, whereas the grilled fish was hot and tasted fresh. They came with accompanied sauces, there was a yellow saffron lemon sauce that went very well with the fishes and a chef special red sauce that could probably go well with anything. The Vegetable curry was a surprise winner here. We’ve seen this vegetable tagine many times but it never tasted this good. I would say they make the best vegetable tagine here.
Desserts were a little disappointing to me. For this package I expect more collection of homemade desserts instead of just one umma Ali (which was superb for sure). They used croissants in it which was dipped in warm sweet milk blended with nuts, enjoyed the whole experience eating it. But that was only real dessert. The other one was just fruits and the baklava wasn’t homemade either, so nothing really special about it. I think they could very well increase their offering for desserts and make it as enticing as much as their starters and mains. Click here to visit their official website. Click pictures below to see them in full screen view:
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