Friday Brunch

WARNING. This is a long, mouth-watering picture filled post. I recommend reading it with snacks or glass of wine (remember its always 5 o'clock somewhere in the world)

Friday dawned and Tilly and I hopped out of bed with excitement for 'The Brunch'. Charlie had told us a while back this was happening and who doesn't love a good brunch.

I've had lots of brunches in my life. New York is pretty famous for its Sunday brunches and they do it well, I can positively testify to that fact. However, nothing had really prepared me for a Dubai brunch.

Charlie had hinted to the fact that this was a pretty big deal, the food was incredible and all the rest of it. If he had told me exactly what was going to be laid before us I wouldn't have believed him.

We got ready and hopped in a taxi to the Park Hyatt. As we were lead to meet the rest of our party we were treated to another different view as walked outside onto the deck over looking the marina. Yet another pretty face Dubai had for us.

We sat at our table and soon the first cocktails were arriving. Mojitos and Bloody Mary's.

There was a wonderful buzzing atmosphere as groups of friends and families arrived and greeted each other.

Soon the start of the meal was upon us. Charlie lead the charge and took us into the seafood room for our starters.

Mussels and smoked salmon with fresh bilinis

Plates of sashimi

An ice pit of oysters

Tiny quiches

the start of the tiny magical pots of goodness. These were things such as chicken liver parfait with caramelised onions, horseradish panacotta with smoked salmon, mushroom soup.

My favourite was the foie gras creme brûlée, which is that little dish you see above, spread on hunks of fresh crusty bread

Our plates were filled with what we shall call starters. I say it like this because if I'm honest I lost count of how many courses I had. I could guess at a number but I wont as its borderline embarrassing...

After demolishing these plates it was time to get stuck into the main event(s) in the other room.

Off we strode, past the suckling pigs....

and into what I can only describe as my fantasy room.

With a kitchen in the middle, the food is laid out all around the edge. Tilly turned round and said my face was priceless as I just stood and gawped at the beauty of it all.

It's easy to see why Traiteur Restaurant at the Park Hyatt have won all the awards they have. The attention to detail is just outstanding.

I honestly didn't know where to start. Imagine someone presenting you will all of your favourite dishes in one go. What would you do?

I tell you what, you would make that heroic attempt to eat everything.

Which is exactly what we did....

The miniature pots were back. This time with more variety.

My highlight of these pots were the deconstructed Tuna Nicoise salads

the tiny steak tartars

Cold fruit soup shots

A chef was there to make you a fresh Eggs Benedict with lobster hollandaise

Beauty, again, in a tiny pot.

This was the middle kitchen with the stations around it. There were chefs on hand everywhere to make sure everything was as fresh as possible which was important in the heat.

There was fresh calamari and the pots behind filled with coq au vin and beef bourguignon

The salad bar had everything you could ever want on a salad.

There was another hot counter I missed out that had pastas and risottos and roasted vegetables.

There was a grill section with lobsters, prawns, filet steaks and spicy fat chorizos

There were roast joints of lamb cote de boeuf and duck, not forgetting the suckling pigs outside, with sauces and gravy to match everything.

Chefs were on hand to carve off big juicy hunks. The duck was just outstanding. I may or may not have had 2 helpings of this...

There was the cold meat table

I also missed out the whole salt baked salmon and the chef frying up bit fat chunks of foie gras with a rich cranberry sauce

This was just one of my plates. I sneaked some green on there but mearly so it made a prettier photo.

Tilly and I decided that vegetables and potatoes would just slow us down so we stuck to the meat.

After many trips we finally the main room had been conquered

We leant back in our seats groaning as we sipped on wine contemplating the next stage of the meal.

We decided that however amazing the cheese table was, we would give it a miss.

I have always made a solid declaration that I'm not a pudding girl. I sat at the table and said that was it, I was done. I wasn't interested in pudding.

Everyone round the table insisted I needed to go and look.

So I followed Tilly and Charlie, to the dessert room. Yes, you heard me, an entire room dedicated to the desserts.

Dessert canapes