Bistro Romain in Jumeirah, Dubai - Restaurant Reviews

Bistro Romain

Affordable Italian food on the Jumeirah Beach Road 1 Reviews

Wandering the halls of the newly opened and chronically vacant Beach Park Plaza can be a bit of a dismal experience. As Arab clientele filter in to Burj Al Hamam – the one restaurant that seems to being doing any business – hostesses at the other venues linger outside with desperate pleas to try their fare. Bistro Romain, a decent locale for cheap – if chainy – Italian fare, is no different. The space has the kind of decor that seems kitschy to diners and depressingly classy to owners: faux Roman busts and an oversized mosaic of part of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, just to name a few. It’s the kind of place you could picture yourself on Valentine’s Day, weeping alone into a bowl of Italian wedding soup.

Though the atmosphere is hardly conducive to romance, if you want to cater a break-up with decent and decisively non-flash grub, this is the place. A warm goat cheese salad makes a light starter with middling, though reasonably priced, ingredients. The cheese itself is a bit on the bland side, though is brought to life a bit by the standard combo of pesto and sun dried tomatoes. When I paid the restaurant a visit, the waiter pushed the beef carpaccio on me, assuring me it was their ‘specialty’, in spite of the dish’s ubiquitous presence in Dubai. While the dish wasn’t exactly special, it did come with blissfully pink, thin slices of beef and crisp shards of parmasean that all tasted very pleasant together.

The waiter also pushed an order of branzino – sea bass – which, despite being a little anaemic (though I suppose is to be expected of a fish that clocks in at less than Dhs60), was simply grilled and served with a topping of grilled and lightly seasoned vegetables rather than some claggy sauce, as is all too often the case. Porcini mushroom risotto, on the other hand, suffered from an abundance of cream and a lack of mushrooms. As a result, it came out a clotted, overly-rich mound.

For dessert, my date and I shared the ‘concerto gourmand’, which was basically an assortment of different flavoured custards. Though they didn’t exactly live up to the definitions on the menu (crème brulee and panna cotta had an identical texture and differed only in that one had a caramel topping and the other a strawberry), still made for a cheap and satisfying dessert platter that could be shared.

In a town where finding an Italian meal that clocks in at under Dhs400 for two can be a feat, Bistro Romain – for all its decorative eccentricities – is rather refreshing. It may not exactly be four-star dining, but for the price, it not only does the job, it does it reasonably well.

The bill (for two)
1x Large water Dhs16
1x Goat cheese salad Dhs37
1x Carpaccio Dhs59
1x Risotto Dhs52
1x Branzino Dhs59
1x Concerto gourmand Dhs39
Service Dhs26.20
Total Dhs288.20