Al Fresco
Crowne Plaza Hotel
Sheikh Zayed Road
Bookings: 04 331 1111
Situated on the first floor of the Crowne Plaza hotel is this little Italian restaurant. It has a small outside courtyard affair and the indoor part of the restaurant rather feels like being inside a cigar tube. There is an open kitchen at one end and it has a few oddities scattered around in an attempt to lend an Italian feel.
The menu offers the usual staple Italian dishes; there is pizza, pasta, risotto, and then grilled meats and fish etc.
The food is basic, very average and certainly nothing to get excited about, though a couple of things with my lunch last week really stood out.
First of all the bread basket came accompanied with a bulb of roasted garlic. Not a bad idea but it might have been worth actually roasting the garlic first as opposed to serving it slightly warm and still very raw.
Secondly I ordered linguine alla vongole which, when done well, is one of my favourite dishes. The dish was gritty because the clams hadn’t been cleaned properly and there is nothing more annoying than chewing through what feels like a pile of sand. Further there was so much garlic in the dish that as I crunched every mouthful all I could think of was how much my children were going to moan when I got home.
All in all a pretty poor experience and whilst it is not an expensive restaurant they still charge too much for the generally low standards they have set themselves.
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