Al Bayt Al Baghdadi Restaurant in Deira, Dubai - Restaurant Reviews

Al Bayt Al Baghdadi Restaurant

Iraqi food and speciaity fish in Deira. 2 Reviews

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It felt like my very own Mission Impossible: a summer of vocational eating had left me longing for something simple, something light, something steamed, yet work had called me out to an Iraqi restaurant in Deira. Sure that it was going to be full of drooling kebabs and fatty yoghurt dips, I felt my waistline and occupational duties were bound to be at odds. So it was with a heavy heart (and heavier belly) that I entered Al Bayt. There wasn’t much happening in the restaurant – did the two-storey venue, my dining partner and I wondered, ever fill up?

As it was, the lack of customers made the space seem that much more gaping and huge, even if the owners had tried to create some character. The walls – painted stone-wash beige – seemed meant to resemble an old fort. Arched windows were stuck sporadically throughout, as if they had accidentally been dropped in the cement foundations. Across from us, weeping plastic plants draped the walls, which gave way to several antique-style rifles.

On first glance, the menu didn’t seem to betray any national identity beyond standard Middle Eastern mezze. As in any good Lebanese restaurant, one could chow down on shawarma, fattoush and tabouleh. But then, towards the end of the menu, I spotted several unfamiliar names, like maskuf and zbaidi, which, I was delighted to learn, were fish dishes. When I heard the maskuf was cooked on a bed of coals in traditional Iraqi fashion, I had to have it. Not only was it authentic, but it would be blissfully absent in all the oils, creams, fats and dips that had defined my summer dining in Dubai.

After placing our order, we were directed downstairs to the register to choose our fish. The cashier hauled a two-kilogram behemoth on to the scales and looked at us expectantly.

‘What type of fish is that?’ I asked. He replied by way of a shrug, adding, ‘Irani fish’. We nodded our approval and he took the beast into a room we had failed to notice; through the window we could see it boasted a four-foot wide basin of burning coals.

The fish, we were told, would take 45 minutes to cook, so we held back our hunger with an order of fattoush and moutabal. Even with the layer of fried pita chips that make any good fattoush so irresistible, this version of the standard Lebanese salad actually felt light and healthy. The simple addition of tomatoes and pomegranate seeds made me feel I was doing penance for a summer of overeating. The moutabal, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly rousing – while creamy, it had a slightly bitter under-taste.

Finally, the waiter laid the fish – a glistening slab of some of the juiciest meat I have ever seen – on the table, alongside servings of raw onions, lemon, Arabic bread and some tongue-tinglingly sharp mango chutney. The cooking technique had been basic, and the seasonings on the fish minimal, yet there were a myriad of options for how to consume what was outwardly a seemingly simple dish: we could eat the fish plain and relish in the moist, salient morsels. We could have it with a squirt of lemon, make it into a sandwich, douse it in chutney. Best of all, no matter what combination we tried, the fish always tasted fantastic, complementing every condiment that came with it.

By the end of the meal, I was completely stuffed, yet didn’t possess the guilt I have typically when I overindulge. It had been a lot of food (two kilograms of fish is challenging to fully consume, even between two), but it had been so refreshingly elemental and so straightforwardly prepared, that, as unlikely as it seemed, I swear I left the restaurant a little lighter than when I entered.

The bill (for two)
1x Bottle water Dhs3
1x Fattoush Dhs10
1x Moutabal Dhs10
1x Two-kilogram fish Dhs120
Total Dhs143