I take great joy on my day off to try new restaurants here in Dubai; Anise at the InterContinental Festival City is my second visit to this huge restaurant on the ground floor. Apparently designed by Super Potato from Japan, there are elements which reminds me of his design. He uses glass, wood and different textures to create a unique place, every section looks different. Food wise there are four main sections, two are placed in the middle of the restaurant and two are on the side where the hot range is located.

The four main sections of the buffets a re quite large and one has a great variety to choose from. The chefs behind those counters are mostly knowledgeable and friendly.

Great atmospher and that is not all that easy with such a huge restaurant like Anise!
InterContinental Dubai Festival City

Tel: +971 4 701 1111

There is not much one needs to run a blog on WordPress; a computer of some sort and a ADSL connection. That’s about it. However with the years going by one has to build on to some specific requirements; so did I. My computer table is from Ikea and believe me is now worth in gold almost. I brought it at Ikea in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia years ago and this table has been with me in five countries! (Not many table do!) The chair, I must admit is in its final stage, faithing out slowly by falling apart in its element. I got it about 15 years ago in the Philippines! The computer was custom build by my dear Palestinian friend Ryan in Cairo, a 2.4 Hrz & 3 Gb RAM machine, ASUS motherboard, firewire and two internal 500 Gb hard disks. Two more hard disks of same size allow me to store all the images. BackUp power is from a small UPS by APS. ADSL 4Mb by Etisalat, Anonymizer Total Net Shield protected and of course, the full verison of Adobe CS3! My Blog on WordPress is hosted by Network Solutions and I use them since 13 years! Never had any problems apart from the frequent network maintenance. A Toshiba Laptop with 2Gb RAM I brought in Tokyo does the job while me on travel.

…despite all the computer power and software; this book is the brain!

Adam Mathis sent me those pictures from Manila, Philippines. Adam is the Executive Chef at the famous Peninsula Hotel and sometimes functions also as a SWAT chef, like when the cops drive a tank into the lobby of the hotel.

Adam and me we met the first time in Riyadh, KSA and later worked together while at the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Adam, a bloke from Down Under is regarded as a gifted chef with some brilliant qualities I will not name it here. All I can mention is that he is a dear buddy to me and I really hope to meet him soon again in the next few weeks when I have to visit Manila for a recruitment trip.

Adam Mathis, Executive Chef

The Peninsula Manila, Philippines