Wine Dine and Play: Qwaider AlNabulsi Sweets

Sweet Dessert with Sour Service

Dubai, UAE

Dined in November 2016

By Sean Overpeck (CFE)

On the border of two separate worlds you have Dubai and Deira. Both are in the same city. Deira is a small unincorporated city to the north of the Dubai that you know from the shows you have watched, and articles you have read about. Dubai is the city of opulence with towering skyscrapers with amazing design, five star restaurants, and shopping. When you go to all these places, you see the servers, cooks, store attendants, and security guards. Most of them are third country nationals from India and Eastern Asia. They live in Deira, which is known as the workers city. Like most lower class neighborhoods in cities around the world, you will a sharp 360 degree difference between downtown Dubai and here. In Deira you have graffiti walls, trash on the streets, higher crime, buildings in disrepair, slums. It is also where you can find the cheapest deals on food, that has quality matching the five star restaurants in the city, with under a one star price. On the border between Deira and Dubai, a few blocks from the creek is Qwaider AlNabulsi Sweets, my next destination on what I came to call the Deira hop.

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Main review:

Some time ago while searching through Netflix, I ran across a documentary food television show called Girl Eat World, where the host traveled to ten cities worldwide, met up with a local food blogger, and explored the cities cuisine styles. In one episode, they visit Dubai. Being that I had come to Dubai many times in the past, and still pass through from time to time on business, I was curious to see where they would go. Most of their visit focused on the old city of Deira where the Dubai airport and port are located. The workers city of Dubai. One such location in the episode was Qwaider AlNabulsi Sweets. After watching the episode, there were a few places of interest, so decided to do a “Deira hop," visiting some locations from that show, plus a few others already on my list.

My wife and I love to restaurant hop through happy hours back home, and it would have been perfect if she could have joined me for this trip. Qwaider AlNabulsi is an authentic Arabic sweets shop that reflects the traditional Arabic styles of this cuisine plus a regular menu of Middle Eastern favorites. They have gained a reputation beyond the regional borders of the UAE catering to westerners while still keeping hold of their Arabic roots. Sweets such as Baklawaha and Kunāfah (Kanafah) are their main staples. As a result, the company has expanded in UAE and opened several outlets in Dubai, Sharjah, and Al Ain other that the main branch and head office in Abu Dhabi.

Their vision is to expand the business to cover the whole Gulf region and to offer customers a superb unmatchable product and quality. The one area they lack and need to work on however is hospitality and appreciation. When I visited their store front across from the Gargash Mosque, I asked to speak with the manager to ask permission to photograph and ask questions for this review. I waited until the call to prayer was finished as the speakers from the Mosque drowned out all other sounds. I was met with hostility and suspicion my the manager. He must have thought I was a food health inspector ready to shut down the operation instead of a restaurant reviewer. He contacted his head office in Abu Dhabi while I enjoyed some tasting, then not so politely asked me to leave. They could learn something from another sweet shop i visited a few blocks away called Asail AlSham Sweets. They had fantastic customer service.

Before leaving I did do a few tastings, so that when you visit, you can try some items of interest. Kunāfah is a Middle Eastern cheese pastry soaked in sweet, sugar-based syrup, typical of the regions belonging to the former Ottoman Empire. It is a specialty of the Levant and adjoining areas of Egypt and Turkey. It is believed to have been originated in the city of Nablus in the West Bank. My personnel favorite was the cheesy Nabulsi Kunāfah. They have two kinds, a rough (Krishna) and a soft (Nama). It is made with sheep milk cheese, with the rough being a firm texture and not as sweet, while the soft was a combination of sweet and savory.

Final notes and observations:

Qwaider AlNabulsi has an extensive menu of desserts as well as lunch and dinner entrees, catering to all walks of people that visit Dubai. If I would have come in as a customer I think I would have been treated with respect instead of being given the cold shoulder. I assumed incorrectly that they would appreciate the fact that I wanted to interview them, and give them more positive media attention. As a result of my experience, I can conclude that their sweets were wonderful, but customer service in my case was horrible.Their quality, ambiance, and presentation do receive much higher marks however, so judge for yourself and don’t let my experience sway you.

Other Dubai reviews on Wine, Dine, and Play:

Asail AlSham Sweets, in Deira

Frevo Restaurant, Palm Island

Pachanga Restaurant, Dubai Marina

Café Arabesque, in the Hyatt Park, Dubai, UAE

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, Dubai UAE

Napoletana Pizzeria, Dubai Marina

Roberto’s Ristorante, at the DIFC

Qwaider Al Nabulsi:

Al Muraqqabat Street

Dubai, UAE

Contact Information:

Maître d or host:	00971 4 2277762
Restaurant website:	Qwaider Al Nabulsi Sweets
Serving hours: hh	Daily: 8:00 am - 2:00 am
Social Media & Accolades:	Facebook link

Review basics:

Overall Star Rating:	1 out of 5 Stars: an Average Dining Experience
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:	Arabian, Middle Eastern, Vegetarian
Experiences:	Place for foodies, Rustic, Hole-in-the-wall, Tourist grabber, and a Neighborhood gem.
Payments:	Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express
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:	Medium
Smoking:	Nonsmoking restaurant, with outdoor smoking area
Patio:	Outdoor seating area

****

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Reviewed by:

Sean Overpeck (CFE)

Picture below was taken at McMurdo Station

Antarctica in 2014.

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)