Digesting the best of the first Taste of Abu Dhabi

We chew over the picks of Taste of Abu Dhabi, which completed its successful inaugural festival in the capital yesterday.

A range of dishes were served at Taste of Abu Dhabi. Pawan Singh / The National

The capital’s first Taste of Abu Dhabi festival drew foodies out to Yas Island’s du Arena by the thousands over the weekend.

While the three-day event, which wrapped up last night, featured live music, cookery demonstrations, a very busy kids’ zone and street theatre performers, the star was the food. Stalls around the festival were packed with people waiting to get a taste of signature dishes from 18 ­restaurants.

Crowd favourites included Carluccio’s lobster lasagne, Safina’s Wagyu sliders, Caramel’s TNT shrimp (its Kobe-beef sliders were also a hit), Avasa’s chicken tikka, Belgian Beer Cafe’s chips and creamy mayo, Flooka’s sayadiya (a fish-and-rice dish), as well as its prawn croquettes, and Sho Cho’s rock-shrimp ­tempura.

Nestled among the festival’s exhibitors was another crowd favourite, Love Doughnuts, which offered up an array of sweet gourmet doughnuts for Dh14 each.

Nolu’s Cafe was started in Al Bandar by the ­Afghan-American Marjon Ajami and specialises in healthy food options, American salads and burgers and some of the most popular dishes from Afghanistan.

Participating in the Taste of Abu Dhabi festival was a welcome opportunity for Ajami to win over more fans, which will be important when she opens her second branch at The Galleria on Al Maryah Island in the coming weeks.

“Opening the new restaurant has been the biggest roller coaster ride of my career,” she says. “I guess nothing good comes easy. We are hoping to open the doors by the end of November, so my fingers are crossed.”

The Food Network star Reza Mahammad had just finished filming two new shows – Reza Spice Prince of Thailand and Reza Spice Prince of Vietnam – when he arrived in Abu Dhabi. Both shows will debut in ­January on OSN. "It's hard work," says Mahammad. "It can be working for 10 to 12 hours a day. We were filming just before the monsoon. It was so hot and humid. We were actually filming in 45-degree heat."

Though it was Mahammad’s first time in Abu Dhabi, he does have a strong connection to one restaurant here. Hiba Kosta, the owner of Flooka, and her family are lifelong friends. “He’s such a sweet person,” Kosta says. “He’s a dear, dear friend.” Mahammad says that he learnt a lot about cooking from Kosta’s mother and that the food she served in her house “is as good as you’d find in any Michelin-star ­restaurant”.

Taste of Abu Dhabi’s organisers are planning to make the festival an annual event, bringing it back to the capital next ­November.