Ever been to a dinner where you can take home the tables and chairs? Neither had we until last night. POP! dinner club aims to bring together the food and art of a chosen culture in one uniquely organized event. It kicked off the season with Kabuli POP! at Dubai’s H Hotel, featuring the designs of Dubai-based Afghani artist Maria Iqbal with Afghani food from Shahista Restaurant & Cafe in Garhoud.
About 50 guests mingled around Iqbal’s brightly painted oil drums, reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s soup cans, topped with glass shisha bases painted with her pop-art images and surrounded by chairs reupholstered with old Afghani carpets, all of which she’d designed just for the event.
The four-course meal, introduced by POP!’s suave ambassador of culture, Aziz Mulay-Shah, consisted of Mantoo (Afghani dumplings), Kabuli Pulao (a spicier version of Italian rice balls), Borani Banjan (eggplant) and Reshmi Kebab (lamb and chicken). All this for Dh200, unless you fell in love (as we did) with the furnishings. Many of the guests walked away with Iqbal’s shisha bases (Dh500), and we rode a mini-van taxi back to Abu Dhabi with one of Iqbal’s oil drums (Dh1,000) and a fetching neon-green chair decorated with traditional Afghani carpets and jewellery (Dh2,000).
The next POP! event, on Friday, October 17, features Swedish food/drink tastings and the art of Peter Skold, for Dh120, also at the H Hotel. For tickets, go to pop-culture.me
mgannon@thenational,ae
