Grand Grill

At least the boerewors sausage with polenta and chakalaka sauce is as firm and ruddy as Ernest Hemingway’s sunburnt forearm 1 Reviews

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From Time Out Dubai Eating Out 2007

The Habtoor Grand’s South African steakhouse, with its bustling open kitchen adjacent to the entrance, and serene dining room that’s half wine cellar, half Oxbridge library, ticks all the decorative boxes for a fine steakhouse. And if you’re a carnivore by blood, on the prowl for a piece of meat that could start a civil war, you’ll find yourself well at home here. Sadly, not all the appetisers are the perfect prelude to a great hunk of meat: the traditional bobotie yields a beguilingly tasty banana curry ice cream next to slivers of too-chewy lamb and a mound of meatloaf; a confusing mesh of tantalising flavours and bland chunks.

At least the boerewors sausage with polenta and chakalaka sauce is as firm and ruddy as Ernest Hemingway’s sunburnt forearm. The brawny 500g Aussie rump steak is absolutely magnificent, taking the prize for sheer size and flavour. This slab of meat is so big and bouncy that even after eating half of it, you could curl up and sleep on the remainder, and the tender, rare flesh isn’t so much cooked as impassioned.

It’s a shame that the seafood esperada – a skewered stack of scallops, pink salmon and king prawns – is so average in comparison. After demolishing a block of beef the size of Johannesburg, go ahead and tackle the zesty honey-drizzled cheesecake; it’ll bust the top button on your trousers, but go on, treat yourself.

• Previous reviews
  • 13 July,2009- reviewed by Daisy Carrington
  • 30 March,2009- reviewed by Time Out Dubai staff
  • 26 March,2008- reviewed by Time Out Dubai Staff
  • 04 February,2008- reviewed by James Brennan
  • 18 October,2006- reviewed by Time Out Dubai Staff

Time Out reviews restaurants anonymously and pays for meals. Of course, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or independence of user reviews.