I will keep the words to an absolute minimum for this post. Hope you all enjoy looking at the makeover below. Let me know your thoughts:
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Funky Town Cafe: Parsi style Dining in Dubai
We were randomly in the mood to try something new for breakfast in the vicinity this weekend so ended up searching on Zomato by area.
We came across this novelty concept in JLT, it seemed fairly interesting and close enough to try.
https://www.facebook.com/CafeFunkieTown/
We tried:
Gunpowder potatoes (4/10 - nothing new really)
Cheese Toast (Came on a soft bun or pav - 8/10, absolutely amazing)
Kurkuri Bhindi (5/10 - average)
Masala Chai (8/10 - pretty good for me as I am not a chai drinker since childhood)
The cafe has funky interiors that might make you nostalgic about Bandra. The Parsi owner has put some interesting heirlooms on display too. His personal attention is evident as we have seen him sitting on the sofa in the corner on two occasions :)
We came across this novelty concept in JLT, it seemed fairly interesting and close enough to try.
https://www.facebook.com/CafeFunkieTown/
We tried:
Gunpowder potatoes (4/10 - nothing new really)
Cheese Toast (Came on a soft bun or pav - 8/10, absolutely amazing)
Kurkuri Bhindi (5/10 - average)
Masala Chai (8/10 - pretty good for me as I am not a chai drinker since childhood)
The cafe has funky interiors that might make you nostalgic about Bandra. The Parsi owner has put some interesting heirlooms on display too. His personal attention is evident as we have seen him sitting on the sofa in the corner on two occasions :)
Sunday, 4 January 2015
Kitchen Renovation Part 2 - Kitchen Cabinets in Dubai
This can be quite tricky in the whole scheme of things. One starts to see pictures on Pinterest and read blog posts on Houzz/Apartment Therapy and starts to form a picture. The picture though is unfortunately not always doable in Dubai. Even if it is, you would either have to be very resourceful or be ready to dish out massive amounts of cash. We wanted to do neither of the two :)
We invited suppliers and suppliers to come over, measure the kitchen, do the drawings and give us an estimate. They came, measured and quoted upwards of 50,000 for cabinets and labour which was way over our budget. We were quite stuck when one of the interior designers invited us to look at one of her finished jobs. She had used IKEA kitchen cabinets with branded appliances and a Quartz worktop.
We were quite against Ikea at the beginning, we thought labour is cheap in Dubai and India is closeby - we would be able to find something in our budget. How wrong were we! Rents are extremely high in Dubai and all products/services are priced to include this rent. In contrast if you think about Ikea prices and Scandinavian design put together, its hard to say no to these drawers right?
We wanted a simple, modern design that would also fit the budget so we ended up with an Ikea kitchen. It cost us AED 20,000 and we are very happy with the finishing as yet. I will do another post after living in the kitchen for a few months.
On a sidenote, do you also find it very hard to find clean, modern home decor in Dubai on a budget? We either find excessive Golden/Silver decor or extremely expensive Ita-bloddy-lian straight simple furniture. I would love to see more stores sell my simple Scandinavian style, or God knows I will open my own store! Who knows.. :)
We invited suppliers and suppliers to come over, measure the kitchen, do the drawings and give us an estimate. They came, measured and quoted upwards of 50,000 for cabinets and labour which was way over our budget. We were quite stuck when one of the interior designers invited us to look at one of her finished jobs. She had used IKEA kitchen cabinets with branded appliances and a Quartz worktop.
We were quite against Ikea at the beginning, we thought labour is cheap in Dubai and India is closeby - we would be able to find something in our budget. How wrong were we! Rents are extremely high in Dubai and all products/services are priced to include this rent. In contrast if you think about Ikea prices and Scandinavian design put together, its hard to say no to these drawers right?
We wanted a simple, modern design that would also fit the budget so we ended up with an Ikea kitchen. It cost us AED 20,000 and we are very happy with the finishing as yet. I will do another post after living in the kitchen for a few months.
On a sidenote, do you also find it very hard to find clean, modern home decor in Dubai on a budget? We either find excessive Golden/Silver decor or extremely expensive Ita-bloddy-lian straight simple furniture. I would love to see more stores sell my simple Scandinavian style, or God knows I will open my own store! Who knows.. :)
Thursday, 1 January 2015
Happy New Year 2015
Happy New Year to all my readers.
Can't believe it is now a year and a half since I started working on this blog. It only started as a hobby on the side as I found a gap in knowledge when I moved to Dubai. I continue to write my posts with the single aim of bridging that gap and hope that you all enjoy it.
This year, my resolution is to achieve a state of overall Wellness - mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. It is only a way to kickstart the process and hopefully continue for the rest of my life. To be free of our own emotional constraints, emotional restrictions and resulting physical pain is true freedom. Amen!
What are your resolutions this year? Do you have any?
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Can't believe it is now a year and a half since I started working on this blog. It only started as a hobby on the side as I found a gap in knowledge when I moved to Dubai. I continue to write my posts with the single aim of bridging that gap and hope that you all enjoy it.
This year, my resolution is to achieve a state of overall Wellness - mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. It is only a way to kickstart the process and hopefully continue for the rest of my life. To be free of our own emotional constraints, emotional restrictions and resulting physical pain is true freedom. Amen!
What are your resolutions this year? Do you have any?
Thursday, 11 December 2014
Kitchen Renovation in Dubai - Part 1 - Where to Start?
So... I will be doing an "x" part series on our kitchen renovation in our flat in Dubai.The process has been so complex and long winded that I hope my posts will help other expats here who have no clue about any word in this post's title. The "x" is also deliberate as I do not want to commit to a certain number of posts, I prefer to pour my heart out with recommendations for your benefit.
Let us first start with the very basic of questions, do you know what you want?
A lot of us are first time home owners and we might or might not have a defined sense of style. What I find is when I see other people's houses, I generally like a lot of different options but when it comes to my own, I am fairly choosy. I am choosy and unaware of my own sense of style - double whammy.
To hone into this, I went on an extensive web trawling path going through Pinterest and Houzz. As you see more photos, you will start narrowing the options of what you would like to have in your own house.Pin some photos, make a mood board and then narrow these options further. In the end, we found the exact combination of scandinavian + industrial design that was easy to then follow.
Note of caution though: I assume you are fairly interested in interior decor to go through this hassle and this web trawling will suck you in without a warning! Every time you see a beautiful photo on Pinterest, you will be led to a blog post and then another and another - be prepared to devote that time at this stage.
Follow Dubai Doodles on Pinterest
Let us first start with the very basic of questions, do you know what you want?
A lot of us are first time home owners and we might or might not have a defined sense of style. What I find is when I see other people's houses, I generally like a lot of different options but when it comes to my own, I am fairly choosy. I am choosy and unaware of my own sense of style - double whammy.
To hone into this, I went on an extensive web trawling path going through Pinterest and Houzz. As you see more photos, you will start narrowing the options of what you would like to have in your own house.Pin some photos, make a mood board and then narrow these options further. In the end, we found the exact combination of scandinavian + industrial design that was easy to then follow.
Note of caution though: I assume you are fairly interested in interior decor to go through this hassle and this web trawling will suck you in without a warning! Every time you see a beautiful photo on Pinterest, you will be led to a blog post and then another and another - be prepared to devote that time at this stage.
Follow Dubai Doodles on Pinterest
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