Ripoff UAE - Dh20 for a bottle of water?

Last Friday, my husband and I met four of our friends at the

, on Hamdan Street, to partake in the Dim Sum Friday brunch held at Cho Gao Restaurant and Lounge.

I had been looking forward to the event all week: the venue is unique and cosy, all wood panelling and flickering lamps, a contemporary chic feel that is coupled perfectly with an ancient Asian aesthetic. For Dh99 per person, the buffet features a variety of cold Asian salads, a piping hot soup with some prawn crackers (it happened to be seafood soup that day), jasmine rice, vegetable fried rice, some hot dishes (my favourite had to be the red curry chicken in coconut - absolutely sublime) and of course, the buffet's crowning glory: dim sum galore.

The dumplings come in all shapes and size, with a variety of fillings, nestled in bamboo steamers and accompanied with soy sauce or sweet chilli sauce. It was a lovely brunch date with our friends, really, as we leisurely sampled our way through the flavoursome, steamed dim sum.

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Our choice of beverage on the day was plain and simple: water. There were six of us, and we easily went through three bottles of water. Each time we would order a bottle, one of us would pipe up: "A local bottle, please."

There's a reason for that, especially in the UAE. Imported water such as San Pellegrino or Evian is priced exorbitantly, and who wants to ruin the pleasure of a Dh99 deal with a Dh40 bottle of water? Not us, which is why we settled for three 1.5-litre bottles of local

. Delicious and refreshing, it did the job.

Imagine our surprise, then, to be presented with a bill that priced each bottle at Dh20, for a bottle of water that can never cost more than Dh2 at most in an average grocery store.

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There has been

in

The National

about the Ministry of Economy's warning that overpricing water in food and beverage outlets in this way is illegal. The Ministry of Economy requires restaurants to sell local water for the same regulated price as shops. Consumers were urged to call the ministry's consumer protection hotline on 600 522225 to report a restaurant that overcharged them.

On Friday, I couldn't for the life of me remember the hotline's number, and we had had such a pleasant brunch experience as a group that we didn't want to let this mar our day. Instead, we chose to kindly inform our server that their water prices were illegal, and that perhaps they should look at changing that, and soon, before someone did report them to the Ministry of Economy.

It seemed our server had no idea what we were talking about, and after conferring with her manager, said one of the bottles could be removed from our bill if that would appease us.

We tried to explain that that was not the point, and that we were just trying to do the restaurant a favour and help them avoid getting fined in the future.

We do hope their food and beverage manager learns about this, and soon. Dh20 for a bottle of water is most definitely illegal practice.