I ate at Al Hambra, the Spanish restaurant at the Al Qasr hotel in Dubai over the weekend and was thoroughly impressed, as I was the first time I visited about six months ago.
I went there for pleasure rather than to review and had a really great evening. I like the relaxed, welcoming atmosphere, love the fact that you can sit outside overlooking the waterways of Madinat Jumeirah, with live Spanish playing music in the background and I think that the menu is pretty well priced (Dh70 for two tapa, Dh135 for four, Dh195 for six), particularly considering the prime location.
We eschewed the selection of paella and a la parrilla dishes, in favour of ordering tapas aplenty. I really like to try little bites of as many different dishes as possible when eating out, so this is my favourite way of eating.
I enjoyed everything that we ordered, but particularly good were the marinated mushrooms on toast, the lovely big garlicky prawns with lemon and parsley and the special of the day, a plate of crispy deep fried sweet breads. The wheel of warm bread that was served at the start of the meal with diced tomatoes and nuggets of chewy, shredded beef was great too.
Service was lovely. Our considerate waitress brought over a pashmina when saw that my grandmother was cold, happily obliged when we asked to make minor changes to a couple of dishes and just generally looked after us really well.
All in all, a really great meal and a restaurant that I will return to in the near future - which is something I don't say very often at all.
For reservations call: +971 4 3666730
