I recently posted about Seychellois bat curry and iguana stew.
No, we did not eat flies in butter.
Marita went to her physical therapy session at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi which of course provided another excuse for us to follow our new custom of having a good meal after every hospital visit. This time, we went to L’Eto restaurant.
We did not order anything remotely exotic. For me, it was turkey with quinoa and a salad of apple, beet root, cranberries.
Rather bland compared to the fiery South Asian fare we’ve been accustomed to. Absolutely no heat at all. Zero on the Scoville scale. But delicious. A palate-cleansing meal, if you will.
Marita ordered some chicken patties with sweet potatoes and beets. For drinks, it was green apple juice for me and carrot with apple juice for Marita. All excellent.
There was a pesky fly that was bothering us that somehow got stuck in the soft butter that came with our breads. Marita carefully smothered the trapped fly with a blanket of butter.
Of course, we ordered another batch of bread and butter and had the waitress take away the original batch with the beurre-buried fly.
Why is it that we have not seen any flies when we’ve visited restaurants in down-market Madinat Zayed and instead encountered them in high end restaurants attached to hotels like the Four Seasons?
We’d bought a big rock melon from Jordan a few days ago and decided to try spicing it up. I’d read that putting pepper flakes or cumin would make a huge difference.
We tried both. We didn’t quite like the results. The melon slices were best plain. You know what they say about “gilding the lily”.
My absolute best melon experience was in Gemenos, a little town in the south of France. There was a small motel in Gemenos called Climat de France (which sadly has disappeared) where Marita and I had some of our best meals.
I still remember when my waiter at Climat brought me a cavaillon melon with the seeds scooped out and poured some chilled Muscat de Beaume de Venise into the cavity.
It appears I have to be careful with the use of the term “spice melon”. According to Urban Dictionary:
UNRetirees 