Teatro - Restaurant Award Highly Commended in Towers Rotana, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai - Restaurant Reviews

Teatro - Restaurant Award Highly Commended

Dine between 6pm and 7.15pm and get 50 percent off your bill 9 Reviews

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This promotion is proving to be very popular. When we arrived at 6.30 there were already quite a few early birds tucking into their dinner; dining in Dubai rarely happens before 8pm.We could choose any items from the menu; a nice change not to be restricted. We began with two salads. My green salad with sherry vinaigrette should have had marinated tomatoes and a goats’ cheese croute with it. Instead it had several halves of fresh cherry tomato and the merest crumbling of fresh goats’ cheese in it – no sign of a croute. The wonton salad with wild mushrooms was a modest pile of leaves between crispy wonton wrappers with a few disconcertingly sweet mushrooms at the bottom of the heap (and by the way, button mushrooms are not wild, and strictly speaking, nor are shitake.) We located no truly wild ones. The assorted Naan breads that we ordered were neither assorted nor were they properly cooked; they were extremely heavy and doughy.

Moving on to our main courses we had stir fried chicken with cashews, ginger and peppers served with steamed rice and the four cheese pizza. My small portion of chicken was topped with an astounding fifteen halves of dried chillis, the dish itself had little flavour. The pizza had a stodgy base, not the thin and crispy one promised and the Thai basil used on top imparted a most unusual flavour to the topping. The service was obliging if quite slow. We were surprised that the chopsticks were cleared from the table and replaced with cutlery just before the chicken arrived. We shared the dessert sampler which included warm banana spring rolls, pineapple tarte tatin, chocolate mousse and mango sorbet – all tasty but nothing sensational. The stracciatella ice cream had a rough texture and the Thai coconut tasty slightly soapy.

In general the food was acceptable, but it was not memorable. Our suspicions were aroused by the meagre portion sizes and scarcity of some of the promised ingredients in some dishes. When our bill arrived we realised that as our dessert had been ordered just minutes after the 7.20pm cut-off time they were charged at the full price; brisker service would have allowed us to complete our meal within the allotted time. Never the less, this early-bird offer is definitely worth a try.

By Carolyn Robb