Dubai Travel Guide
Strangely enough in Dubai, the booming metropolis in a region steeped in coffee tradition, specialty coffee joints are hard to find. The best seem to be tucked away in low-rise commercial or mainly residential areas of the Jumeirah neighborhood in central Dubai.
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Coffee
Mokha 1450 Coffee Boutique
Located in a strip mall in Jumeirah, this café is named after Mokha, the port city in Yemen through which much of the coffee trade passed until recently. A friendly, multicultural staff serves up a variety of single-origin coffees. Despite disappointment in the Jamaica’s Blue Mountain (their priciest brew), their Yemeni single-origin made up for it. Yemen is a renowned origin in the region that is extremely difficult to come by given the current civil war in the country. Their particular Yemeni beans are grown on a women’s cooperative and was very good.
Stomping Grounds
This large, full-service place is on the newer side with a great selection of brews. Extra points for carrying organic beans. We tried two organic single-origins from Indonesia and Guatemala and both were hit the mark. Stomping grounds is also tucked away in the Jumeirah neighborhood.
Beer
Dubai is cocktail city. A rooftop cocktail city. A rooftop cocktail-with-gold-flakes city. If you want a drink, go to any major hotel, they are the only ones with a tourism license and can serve alcohol.
Cannabis
DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
Chocolate
Dubai is so hot that any chocolate would melt right away. Seriously though, most chocolate we found in Dubai was of the “gourmet” sort that relies on heavy brand marketing and fancy packaging. That doesn’t mean you can’t get bean-to-bar chocolate in Dubai, but you’ll have to work a bit harder to find it. In our limited time there, we didn’t come across any.
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