Yes, I want all the sauces! Sweet and sour!

Sometimes the brain doesn’t want to admit
what the eye can see.

Dubai is a city that attracts every walk of life, from the conspicuously clueless – under-travelled package holiday types on their annual week’s escape from the working class drudge – to the conspicuous consumption of the worthlessly wealthy.

The Fish Market restaurant in Deira is a great place to observe them all. It’s one of those restaurants with a gimmick, which to my tastes gets in the way much more than its meagre charms justify. But its payoff is in being able to watch that social melee off-guarded by it.

We have no menu here

The “big thing” with The Fish Market is that, rather than ordering from a menu, the diner is escorted to a sort of uncooked buffet, where the server picks up a needlessly affected wicker basket and walks their charge down a market stall of starter and main course ingredients. One selects the light-bites for an appetiser and then the weightier fish for the entrée along with any accompaniments.

Where this breaks down of course is that, for so many diners, what they want isn’t necessarily on the market stall. At a fish restaurant I rather like to start with a light bouillabaisse, which you can of course have at The Fish Market with a variety of ingredients and any degree of spiciness. But it’s neither on the faux market stall, nor on any menu, you not only have to ask but think to ask. Lobster? Yes, but again not on the stall – elsewhere in the restaurant awaiting sentence in a large glass tank. Rice rather then vegetables? Most certainly sir, and again cooked to your pleasure in a wide variety of styles but not unless you ask and you think to ask. I’m no chef (though my reheating skills are par excellence) and finding what I want, when I don’t necessarily know what I want and still less what goes into making it, is a little easier with a list of complete packages as opposed to a partial selection of potential ingredients. This place just makes me work a little too hard and leaves me feeling a little under-satisfied.

To be fair though, once you get past the rather obstructive ordering process, they do provide an excellent meal.

I’m not alone

And of course I’m not the only person who finds this ordering process a little awkward. So if you manage to get yourself a seat near the counter it’s a great place to observe people handling that in their own particular way. For seeing class stereotypes and national stereotypes thrown off their guard it’s a real winner. The intimidated trying to get through it as painlessly as possible, the egregious making asses of themselves, the Americans turning ordering for a party of five into a complex and fully co-ordinated operation worthy of their duly respected military, the Australians whining about splitting the bill and the English trying to get through it all as politely and inoffensively as possible. All walks of life and all nations of birth must take the fish bar test, and can be joyously measured as a result.

Denial

Like any healthy, red blooded male, I dislike the idea of any man getting a threesome when I’m not; so when a swarthy, middle aged Mediterranean chap was seated at the table in front of me with two joyless looking Amazons I was keen to run all the alternatives before ceding to the inevitable. Mother and daughter? Nah, their ages were way too close. Two daughters? One blonde and western looking, one dark and slightly oriental, and both a clear foot taller than him, again no. Business colleagues? Nah, they weren’t even trying to play the business dinner game, neither really looked like they wanted to be there, nor more importantly trying to look like they wanted to be there.

I admitted defeat when this seedy little man was arranging the starters for their meal, the closest point at which they were in my earshot, and in an unguarded moment he over-reached himself. As the long suffering server finished with the fish selections and tentatively asked him if he’d like any sauces, he immediately remarked “Yes, I want all the sauces. Sweet and sour!”

No other explanation for this scene to me then, and fair play to you ladies – a good meal, a few quid, and at least he’ll probably finish quickly and let you get off to a good night’s sleep. Bon chance girls, I just hope you’re not in the room next to me. But then I doubt you’ll be keeping me awake for too long anyway.