Chamas Intercontinental Hotel Al Bateen Street Abu Dhabi Tel: 02 666 6888 Average price for two: Dh370 In Anthony Bourdain's book A Cook's Tour, one of his most enjoyable passages describes a Brazilian churrascaria restaurant where, in a joyful display of excess, waiters bear giant skewers of freshly barbecued beef to the table, one after another, slicing them onto your plate until you beg them to stop. Even the indomitable carnivore Bourdain was floored by the sheer quantity of succulent, irresistibly charred meat being placed before him. Thank goodness, I thought as I read, this place is all the way out in Brazil, far from temptation, for I have always been weak before a bloody steak.
Alas, while I never made it to Brazil, I did come to Abu Dhabi, which offers just such a carnivorous dining experience in Chamas, at the Intercontinental Hotel. And while the exotic scents and sounds of Latin America might be missing in this large hotel restaurant, they are more than made up for by the glamorous upstairs bar and the lively buzz downstairs of diners marvelling at the parade of delectable meaty offerings. Even the enthusiastic and somewhat over-amplified Latino/Filipino band, seated on a high platform overlooking the room, can't drown out the convivial noise.
Chamas is one of Abu Dhabi's hottest eateries, which means that getting a spot on a Thursday night is not as simple as phoning up on the day. After two failed attempts, I finally succeeded in booking a late table, a full four days later, so expectations were riding high, and by the time we had endured a detour around the back corridors of the hotel as we tried to find the poorly signposted restaurant, my dining partner and I were in no mood for reticence. We tucked straight into the bread then made a beeline for the salad buffet. Big mistake: even as we recalled a friend's advice to skip the starters and piously reminded one another to be hold back, we were busy piling on the build-your-own-salad ingredients, until we returned to our tables, plates piled high with crisp, fresh and completely mismatched appetisers. Mmmm, we nodded to one another. Very nice. We congratulated each other on our restraint. Of course, at this point we had no idea what we were in for.
No sooner had our scraped-clean plates been replaced with fresh ones than the meat began to arrive. First off, chicken hearts. My more timid companion shook her head in horror but I, in the adventurous spirit of Bourdain, tucked into the five or six tiny organs, which were surprisingly firm and sweet, without that pungent sliminess that so often accompanies innards. Yet even as I sliced into the second heart, another waiter approached us, this time with barbecued chicken wings - perfectly nice, though probably best left to the few red-meat-objectors who somehow make it through the door. If you're here, you're probably here for the beef, so filling up with chicken is a pointless exercise.
Still, we didn't have to wait long - maybe 20 seconds - before the next offering arrived: a skewer of slow-cooked beef, fibrous, rich and tender, and enhanced by one of the powerful little sauces provided. As another waiter loomed into view, we started to panic. Make it stop, we begged. He looked sorrowful as we rejected his meaty advances, but kindly pointed out the little signs on our table: green on one side, meaning "fill it up", red on the other, indicating imminent bursting. As long as we had our signals on green, our plates would be filled to overflowing. We hastily switched to red, until we saw a young man approaching with a skewered pineapple. This was exactly what we needed - refreshing, sweet, just the thing to cleanse our palates for the next rounds of a fine piece of lamb and some sublime slices of juicy, rare, marinated beef. At which point, we called a halt to the proceedings. Enough. After all, what about the desserts? Not a chance. As we waddled out and struggled up the stairs, I called to mind Monty Python's explosive sketch about the fatally greedy Mr Creosote. This was dangerous dining. And we wanted to do it again.