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I am currently moving out of my apartment and still suffering from jet lag, but I had to go see Addi one last time before he returns to Iceland. So, Friday morning, I took a flight to Dubai for just the day. I met him and some other friends for brunch at Prime 68 - a restaurant on the 68th floor of one of my favorite buildings in Dubai - JW Marriott Marquis. It is currently the tallest hotel in the world (as a building designated solely as a hotel) but will soon be surpassed by a hotel in Mecca. Anyway, I always loved the architecture of this building - you can probably remember back to one of my very early blogs when I discuss it, well before it was open. "It" being two towers, one hotel. One thing I always loved about these buildings is they somehow reminded me of the movie, Labyrinth. When Sarah falls down the trap door and is caught by the heads and hands - the angled balconies just reminded me of giants eyes or something. Yes, maybe, I am weird!
Anyway, our new favorite type of brunch is instead of going to the gorge
fest buffet styles, we prefer the sit down tasting menus. Typically these are 5 to 7 courses of selections from the chef. Basically, they give you the amount of food based on your party size and it is a family style dinner. There is usually just enough food to try a little bit of everything without eating too much or unnecessarily wasting food. Prime 68 is a steakhouse with a jazz theme. This menu also came paired with specific drinks, which were actually quite strong. I first had the "Lindy hop" which is an iced tea with vodka, triple sec, and peach syrup, which was a bit bitter, but good. Then I got the "Razzamatazz" which is vodka, cointrou, raspberry syrup and lemon juice - this one was good and refreshing so I had a couple of those. The food was quite good - we basically got three rounds of appetizers. What we all agreed that we like about this setup too is that you try things that you would never do otherwise; for instance, the chicken liver pate - would I ever pick this? No. But if you don't like something, you can always move on to something else.
The meat dishes came out after a rest period - lots of beef! Along with some sides. Then came various desserts. We were supposed to be offered a cheese platter, but we never got this option. We sat around and sipped some wine until we decided on where to go next.
We went next door to "The Vault" - you take a designated elevator up but the 72nd floor didn't open until later, so you walk down one level where they were serving. We were seated at a reserved table with our promise to quickly move once the party came in. It was an amazing view and we enjoyed our wine (or frozen margaritas for Addi and Nikita) while catching up. Once the party came, we left and headed home to the Dubai Marina, where our next stop was Pier 7. This is seven floors of restaurants / bars right on the marina and just off the Address Hotel. The top floor was the first place we headed because their site said there was a happy hour. It was super swanky and open air - awesome. Alas, it was a minimum 200 dirham charge per person, so we went
to Cargo at Level 3 and spent the rest of the evening. I had to have a couple of Irish coffees in an attempt to stay awake. We all exchanged our favorite Addi stories and played some games. Then we headed to Jamie's place and spent the rest of the evening. I passed out around 10 and woke up at midnight to head back to the airport.
I am so sad to see Addi go - we were saying when I was trying to come up with a story that I don't have any crazy memories of him, but we have done so much together, so many trips. It's going to be weird without him here. But I will now have a compelling reason to visit Iceland!!!
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