A feast at home
Why go out when a catering company can bring iftar to you?
During Ramadan, I hope you have been following our daily iftar reviews and have been inspired to try something different. But we do understand that for many people, iftar is celebrated in the home — in fact, Gulf News polls bear that out, with most respondents saying they don’t go to a restaurant to end their fast as frequently.
So for this iftar review, I did something different: I asked Fait Maison, a Dubai-based catering company that has been around since 2013, to show me what they do — especially as they have created a special Ramadan menu.
It was a special experience that I would definitely repeat — despite being an avid home cook myself.
What’s the point of getting an iftar catered, you may wonder, when any number of restaurants will deliver any type of cuisine you wish to your doorstep? True — you could open up a few pizza boxes, and dump some hummous and kebabs on a platter.
But at my Fait Maison iftar, I had mouttabel in Martini glasses topped with fresh pomegranate, avocado-flecked hummous in little cups with sumac-coated bread “tortillas”, opentopped kibbe filled with crudites arranged on trays for diners to chose from, and I didn’t have to do any work, save loading the dishwasher.
I had thought catering was prohibitively expensive, but the service doesn’t have to be: An iftar is Dh150-190 per person, and it’s not just about the food: The chef-waiter will hang around as long as you need him, plating, serving and clearing. The company has catered corporate events, weddings, private parties and fashion events, including the recent launch of S*uce Rocks boutique in Galleria Mall in Dubai, for which they created jewellery-inspired desserts.
So how does getting your dinner catered work?
A rep for the company will come to your house and discuss menu options, then scope out your kitchen and serving space to see what they need to bring on the night. I got a text a half hour before the food arrived asking me to pre-heat my oven, and then my kitchen was taken over for an hour as staff unloaded the food, heated it and plated it. I have an openplan kitchen, so they brought a folding screen to block views into the kitchen from the dining table — a nice touch. I felt a bit like I was in a Grace Kelly film as I swanned off to put on a dress — I was just getting in the way, anyway.
A “paella-diyeh” — a paella-inspired version of the Arabic fish-and-rice dish sayadieh — was the best savoury dish of the night. The flavourful rice was topped with a herbed flaky fish, prawns and calamari. It’s on the Ramadan menu along with a kofta en croute, an Arabic interpretation of a beef Wellington, with herbed minced lamb inside a pastry crust, served with tahini sauce; and meat-and-rice-stuffed grape leaves and courgettes (warek enab and koussa mehshi). That number of dishes was more than enough.
The grand finale of the iftar had to be the dessert — a stunning kunafeh cheesecake (above), presented on a pretty glass cake stand. The tangy baked cheesecake sits on a base of shredded pastry, with more piled on top with cream, pistachios, candied rose petals and dried rose buds. It’s a visual treat and ridiculously good, as were the chewy halawa brownies (I would have liked bigger chunks of halawa, though). Other dessert offerings on the menu include Nutella maamoul and chocolate cake with tahini-rose frosting.