Galeries Lafayette Gourmet Experience, Dubai

What happened when I met up with a bunch of like-minded, passionate food bloggers in Dubai and we got invited to sample the culinary delights of Paris's most opulent department store?

I have recently been invited to join a lovely group with the fabulous title of Fooderati Arabia, a collective of fellow food bloggers in the region. Until now, I have not been able to attend any of their events due to reasons I won't bore you with, but this week I finally met up with the group at the Dubai Mall branch of Galeries Lafayette, the beautiful French department store, where we were invited to a gourmet food tasting! In my previous life as penniless student, I whiled away many an hour in their Berlin food hall, longingly admiring the produce on offer, clutching my coffee for dear life, making a single cup last hours. As you can imagine, I was ecstatic to visit their Dubai branch and see how well they had replicated continental Europe in the desert.

The food hall is reminiscent of Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh and Selfridges in Manchester, effectively combining supermarket, coffee shop, deli and restaurant. Whether you want to nip in for a coffee and a girlie gossip, discuss business over tapas or spend some quality time over a quality meal, Lafayette Gourmet has all bases covered. They even offer outside catering which we also got to sample.

Us bloggers were greeted with fabulous mocktails before we got down to dissecting the menu- my personal favourite was the Mojito but the Tropical Fruit long mocktail was a close second:

Perfect cooler for a muggy Dubai heatwave:

The Amuse Bouche were brought out which consisted of buffalo mozzarella with cherry tomato and goats cheese moneybags with honey for the veggies, whilst the omnivores devoured Foie Gras bonbons and smoked salmon. The mozzarella had a fleshy, velvety texture that melted in your mouth. The moneybags were delicious,but I believe they should have been garnished with cranberry sauce for them to be experienced at their best. In the below pic, you can see the mozzarella and next to it is a chicken and lemongrass appetiser devoured by my fellow bloggers:

After digesting the appetisers, an internationally eclectic range of hot dishes were brought out. Moroccan Lamb Tagine was popular but with me being veggie, I opted for the plain couscous- its soft, silky texture heightened by pine nuts and cinnamon:

Street food was even represented with both Thai and Yakisoba noodles, served in authentic noodle boxes with chopsticks- the Thai noodles consisted of chicken and tofu, the Yakisoba noodles with sesame sauce, peppers, beansprouts and duck for the meateaters. The noodles were satisfactory but lacked the X-factor- less oil and more chillies or a flavoured sauce wouldn't go amiss.