Wine Dine and Play: Asail AlSham Sweets

Dessert In The Desert

Dubai, UAE

Dined in November 2016

By Sean Overpeck (CFE)

Dubai is a city of opulence, where money talks and BS walks. Luckily you have Old Dubai, a part of the city that is not in a hurry to catch up to the modern metropolis, where things move at a slower pace, with a lower price. This is where you will find most of your traditional Emirate cuisine. The area is called Deira, and for a sweet tooth you can stop in at Asail AlSham for some “Mastic” ice-cream.

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What is Mastic Ice Cream? Mastic is an ice cream with stretched and sticky texture. It is named after the "mastic" spice which is a resin that comes from the mastic tree grown in the Greek and Turkish Islands. There are two kinds of Mastic, Turkish and Arabic. It originated in Turkey and was kept secret until it was stolen by A Syrian trader and taken to Damascus, then later on to the entire Arabian Peninsula. Turkish Mastic is higher in fat content and needs to be cut with a knife and fork. The second Mastic ice cream is called Booza after the arabic which is much more elastic and sticky, melting at a slower rate then the Turkish. It is also much sweeter than the Turkish, where the resin is grounded down with a mortar, which is popular with tourists that come by.

I enjoyed a nice walk down the old city streets of Deira which is an area of Dubai that most tourists or business men coming into the area hear about. Though it is close to the airport and expand all the way to the dockside, most people go further south to the main area of Central Dubai or to the Marina where the Palm Islands are located. There are a few cheaper hotels in this area making it attractive to people on a budget, along with some great Emirati restaurants. The Deira area is where the working class of the city call home, so being that it is a lower income area, it brings with it the classic sights you see in most poorer areas of any city around the world. You see a heavier police presence, more crime, and a lack cleanliness.

Most places I have been to in the Middle East except for the areas of extreme wealth or heavy tourism, I see trash and garbage all over the place, as if sanitation and garbage disposal never exists. Deira unfortunately is no exception to that rule. There was trash and litter all over the sidewalks and streets. Across from the Asail AlSham ice cream shop there is a large open parking lot where Indian workers were playing cricket, while every two to three minutes a plane would fly over taking off from the airport.

Asail AlSham is a very small store front shop where the ice cream is prepared in the classic tradition for the tourism show grounded down with a wood mortar, where pistachios are added, then shaped into a roulade where it is cut, and served with extra pistachios. The entire process from start to finish takes about ten minutes, but it is well worth the wait and show to see how the resin is formed. It was a warm day in Dubai, and as I walked down the street eating the ice cream and suffering from a strong brain freeze, nearly fifteen minutes went by, and the ice cream roulade slices were still solid, with very little melting. Though much different flavors then traditional ice creams made in Europe or the United States, this Mastic is some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted.

Final notes and observations:

The staff was extremely friendly, and if you didn’t have time to watch the show and production you could purchase the ice cream from the freezers. If you had time you could also sit outside where a few tables were set up to enjoy your frozen treat. Be warned that people do smoke cigarettes out there, so that could ruin you're tasting experience. The Ice Cream cost 10 AED (Arab Emirate Dirhams), which is less than $3.00 American Dollars. They have a wide selection of items on their menu ranging from the Mastic priced above to others like a Mabroma Kajo Fostok for 120 AED ($33 US Dollars). When you plan your first or next trip to Dubai, add this little shop to your list of places to visit, then go to the Michelin Star restaurants and spend five hundred dollars.

Video on how to make Mastic ice cream:

Other Dubai, UAE reviews on Wine, Dine, and Play:

Frevo Restaurant, Palm Island

Pachanga Restaurant, Dubai Marina

Café Arabesque, in the Hyatt Park, Dubai

BiCE Restaurant, Dubai Marina, Dubai Marina

At.mosphere, in the Burj Khalifa Tower

Tirquaz Bistro and Garden Lounge, Bur Dubai

Safar Restaurant, at DXB

La Petite Maison, at DIFC

Zuma, at DIFC

Wellington’s Lounge, Bur Dubai

Reflets Par Pierre Gagnaire, in Festival City

Wheeler’s of ST. James by Marco Pierre White, at DIFC

Plantation Restaurant and Lounge, Dubai Marina

Rostang, The French Brasserie, in Atlantis, Palm Island

Napoletana Pizzeria, Dubai Marina

Roberto’s Ristorante, at the DIFC

Food Prices

(excluding, alcohol, taxes & gratuity)

$£€¥ - Under 50.00

$£€¥ x 2 - 51.00- 99.00

$£€¥ x 3 - Over 100.00

$£€¥ x 4 - Over 200.00

$£€¥ x 5 - Over 400.00

**Currencies chosen reflect the world’s major travelers and restaurant connoisseur’s**

My food bill:	Currency:	Price chart:
د.إ10	Arab Emirate Dirham (AED)	د.إ
$2.92	United States Dollar (USD)	$
$4.00	Australian Dollar (AUS)	$
£2.36	Great Britain Pound Sterling (GBP)	£
$3.85	Canadian Dollar (CAN)	$
¥20.00	Chinese Yuan (CNY)	¥
€2.75	European Union (EUR)	€

Currency rates as of January 2017

Review basics:

Restaurant style:	Casual
Reservations:	Not Required Walk-Ins: Accepted
Child policy:	The Restaurants reviewed on this site may have a child’s menu or cater to them; however for full enjoyment of food and wine, it is recommended for children not to be in attendance, unless they have been trained in proper etiquette. Hire a Babysitter!
Dress code:	Casual
Cuisine style:	Desserts, Arabian, Middle Eastern
Experiences:	Hole-in-the-wall, and a Neighborhood gem.
Payments:	Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express
Parking:	none
Wifi	The restaurants reviewed on this site may have Wi-Fi, but do not require you to go online, because the excitement of the food and wine alone will keep you too entertained instead of checking your social media and emails.
Noise level:	Low
Smoking:	Nonsmoking restaurant, with a smoking outdoor seating area
Patio:	Outdoor area

Asail AlSham Sweets:

65 Al Mateena St

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Contact Information:

Maître d or host:	04 2959896
Serving hours:	Daily: 10:00 am - 11:00 pm
Social Media & Accolades:	Facebook link
Social Media & Accolades:	Instagram

****

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Reviewed by:

Sean Overpeck (CFE)

Picture below was taken with James B. Mallory III, Major General (Retired);

CG 108th Training Command (IMT); Deputy CG

NATO TNG MISSION-AFGHANISTAN

About Sean:

I am based out of St. Petersburg, Florida working in the food service industry for the past twenty years, and am currently with the American Embassy as the Executive Chef in Basra, Iraq. Formally I have worked with groups contracting in Afghanistan, and Antarctica, also working in restaurants in and around Atlanta, Georgia prior to the wars. I have also owned a catering company and served proudly in the United States Army Food Service Program. The idea for Wine, Dine, and Play started in late 2012 after a trip to Jordan, when I was asked by friends to write down the experiences from a few Jordanian restaurants, wine from the region that I tasted, and locations of interest such as Petra. Since that time, over 250 articles have been written on restaurants, including fifteen from the worlds top 100 lists of San Pellegrino and the Elite Travelers Guide. There are articles on exotic world locations such as Victoria Falls, and South African Safari’s; food recipes & Grand Food Dictionaries; ethnic country cuisines such as Afghan, and Peruvian; tasting tours of world cities like Charleston, Cape Town, and Dubai; and of course wine from vineyards in California, Oregon, the Carolina’s, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, with much more to see and write about.

Who is John Galt?

“Culinary perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things,

But in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

-Angelique Arnauld (1591-1661)