Shopping with Lulu
Finally, after months of anticipation, the new LuLu Hypermarket in Al Barsha opened its doors. Shame it is such a clone of the current dominant rivals, Carrefour and Geant, each a clone of the other, and both aped by the new Hyper Panda in Festival City.
Yet despite aiming at the lowest common denominator and falling short, the new Lulu does have a number of redeeming feautres. It really is worth figuring out the lunatic access route through backroad Barsha.
First up, fish. Here is a selection to rival any on offer at Shindaga, presented in much fresher and more hygenic condition by people who really do know what they're talking about. Fabulous turbot, Big sole. Brown, mud and spider crabs. Small Australian oysters, deeply flavoured and absolutely worth 2 dirhams a pop. Smoked haddock, properly un-dyed. Many, many varieties of fish I had never seen before, let alone know how to cook. This is going to be a long fun process.
Elsewhere, good to see such delights as fresh duck eggs alongside the usual plethora of hens'. Organic ones too, at a good price.
And talking of organics, go find the vegetable stall at the far end of the shop. Loads of choice, and again sensibly priced. Mostly sourced from nearby too, which is a (food miles) bonus. How organic is asparagus that's flown halfway round the world?
Good to see also some of the more interesting bits of beast. Alongside all the expected steaks and fillets, here were ox hearts and tongues, not fare for the squeamish, but a joy to cook, and imbued with unrivalled flavour.
Best of all was the fact that in all of the vast store there were only a few handfuls of shoppers, and yet every single checkout was manned (or womaned). So in, shop at leisure for interesting, inexpensive stuff, and leave without without uneccesary delay. Lulu's a star!
Yet despite aiming at the lowest common denominator and falling short, the new Lulu does have a number of redeeming feautres. It really is worth figuring out the lunatic access route through backroad Barsha.
First up, fish. Here is a selection to rival any on offer at Shindaga, presented in much fresher and more hygenic condition by people who really do know what they're talking about. Fabulous turbot, Big sole. Brown, mud and spider crabs. Small Australian oysters, deeply flavoured and absolutely worth 2 dirhams a pop. Smoked haddock, properly un-dyed. Many, many varieties of fish I had never seen before, let alone know how to cook. This is going to be a long fun process.
Elsewhere, good to see such delights as fresh duck eggs alongside the usual plethora of hens'. Organic ones too, at a good price.
And talking of organics, go find the vegetable stall at the far end of the shop. Loads of choice, and again sensibly priced. Mostly sourced from nearby too, which is a (food miles) bonus. How organic is asparagus that's flown halfway round the world?
Good to see also some of the more interesting bits of beast. Alongside all the expected steaks and fillets, here were ox hearts and tongues, not fare for the squeamish, but a joy to cook, and imbued with unrivalled flavour.
Best of all was the fact that in all of the vast store there were only a few handfuls of shoppers, and yet every single checkout was manned (or womaned). So in, shop at leisure for interesting, inexpensive stuff, and leave without without uneccesary delay. Lulu's a star!
posted by EyeOnDubai at 3:33 am
1 Comments:
The fish surprised me, lots of cold water varieties we don't usually see here. I saw monkfish tails, cod, turbot and so on.
In the meat counter the camel caught my eye too.
They also seem to have various spices and so on that the others don't have.
And I liked the fact that there are as many checkouts as they can fit into the space.
I did post about the ridiculous access, although that was really about getting caught in a sneaky Salik trap...
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