Wet Market Day... (June 23, 2006)

Another weekend and very fortune that one of our power user, Kris, offered to bring us to a wet market since she knew that we always cook our food and we always buy it from Spinneys. She came to our apartment to pick us up at around 9 and we went straight to the market. I was quite surprised to see how organized adn clean the wet market here is. Actually, it's more like a department store. The shops (as I will call it cause it really looks more like a shop than a market) were organized and the place is very clean. There were like 6 to 7 shops selling seafoods, 2 shops selling live chickens, 2 shops selling meat (mainly beef and mutton), 3 to 4 general shops and maybe 7 shops selling fruits, vegetables and other cooking items. The seafood shops were selling a very wide range of fish, shell fish, shrimp and prawns, crabs and squid. It's quite surprising that the fish are quite fresh. Some of the popular fish here includes, king fish, shark, hamour or grouper, tilapia, milk fish, pomfret or "pampano" and snappers. It's my first time to see that much fish here in Dubai. Hmmm, actually not surprising since we haven't been to any market except Spinneys which is more of a grocery. In terms of fruits and vegetables, I still prefert o buy a Spinneys since the price and quality is almost the same.

The so called "Wet" market.

Shark...

Fish and crab...

Squid, shrimp and prawns...

Seafood shops...

Happy Suda buying her favorite seafoods.

Huh, after a grueling purchase.

Fruit and vegetable shops...

Sun Jun and Suda with our hospitable host, Kris.

Al Karama Market

The shops here are run by Indians and the funny thing is, they can speak Tagalog, you read it correctly Tagalog. I was quite surprised that they give prices in Tagalog and even call you "Suki" or "Pare", something I will not expect them to say. You can even tell them in Tagalog waht you like to do with your fish, sample would be for milk fish which is bangus, you can tell them "Daing" and they would know to cut it in the middle some of them even de-bone the fish. For beef, I heard some of them saying "Tapa" which means thin slices and for stewing. They can also differentiate if you are a Filipino or from other countries, or maybe I guess only locals and Filipinoes knows where to buy these type of foods. So now I can really say that this place is something like a small Philippines with a mixed culture.

After going to the market, they sent us home and I started cleaning the fish, prawn, chicnken and beef that I bought. I didn't really expect myself to do this when I was in Bangkok or in the Philippines, I mean I know how to do it but I will not do it since we have maids doing it. In Bangkok, I would rather go out and eat since food there is quite reasonable and good. No need to exert effort in cooking since it will cost you more. Thing is there's nothing much to do here except go to office. At home I rather spend time cooking and writing blogs :P than going to the malls. I think everything here is more expensive than Bangkok and I don't need that much stuff anyway.

After cleaning the stuff I bought, I cooked prawn and squid fried rice. It came out to be quite nice and, Sun Jun or Sam (as he liked to be called), my flat mate liked it. I was thinking of preparing it like the fried rice in Bangkok but it turned out to be something else, like Paella, nevertheless still good. It's funny how I'am cooking here. In Bangkok, everything is very easy, wake up buy food, eat and that's it. But here, we have to cook by ourselves. I also came up with new receipies in my almost one month stay here in Dubai. Some new addition to my culinary ventures are: my new prawn and squid rice (I will definitely do it again), my potato pan cake, tomato and hotdog omelette and the ever famous mixed stir fried tomato and cabbage. Hahaha, I eat cabbage and romanian lettuce almost everyday since these are the only vegetable we can buy. So I will just update you guys again on what is happening here in Dubai since it's almost 2 in the morning and I have to go to office tomorrow. I think 1 day weekend will be normal here in Dubai or maybe my entire single life. ;)

Dubai new observations listed below, not that much since I still spend more time in the office or maybe I'm not observing that carefully?

It's either the city is polluted or too much sand. A brownish cloud or fog is covering the populated area.
Many people but not in heavy concentration.
Should learn to cook since food is expensive. Not a problem for me though. :)
Very hot during mid day. When walking need to use sun glasses since the sun is very glaring.
Traffic here is also bad and you need to travel long distance to get to another place.
Taxi fare is very expensive, we normally spend 50 above dirhams to reach the office. That is more than 500 Baht, damn I can go to Pattaya already with 500 Baht.
Spinneys is still the best, no other place to buy grocery anyway hahaha.
I think the place is as safe as Bangkok.
Sometimes I cannot distinguish and Indian to an Arabian, ok most of the time.
Still a lot of Filipinoes and Chinese (from China), they I can distinguish.