Big screen blow-out
Following a movie marathon, James Fryer tucks into a less than blockbuster burger at Oscar’s, the cinema’s adjoining diner.
The second of the diner’s top 10 rules reads ‘thou shalt always treat thyself to a big meal at Oscar’s’. This sounded like a good plan to me, a three-hour stint watching a big ape swing around the screen had left our stomachs well and truly rumbling. We slid our way into one of the bright red leather-effect booths and began to scan through what must be the craziest menu in town.
It wasn’t the food menu that was barmy, although an advertising ‘creative’ had clearly put his two dirhams worth in, giving dish names a movie-makeover and ending up with kiddy-meal creations such as ‘Beef It Like Beckham’ and ‘Hot-Diggity Dogs’. We started out with cheap-tasting shrimp spring rolls and cheese sticks with extremely stretchy mozzarella to dip in a great, fiery salsa. This really wasn’t gourmet food – not that it pretended to be – but we were amazed at the speed in which it had arrived. We didn’t even have time to complete one of the ‘guess the actors with the Oscars’ challenges on the while-you-wait paper place mats that adorned our table.
Soon enough it was onto the feature presentation and a best stunt-man dish comprised of a generous portion of saltier-than-the-Dead-Sea greasy chicken, covered with slimy tinned mushrooms, pretend cheese and accompanied by bland vegetables and a ramekin of cold sweetcorn. I could only manage a single bite of my chilli sauce burger – not because it was too spicy – but because of the overwhelmingly gristly texture of the meat. Even the fries (surely the easiest thing to get right) were resonant of a cheap B movie. Anyway, onto the real talking point – the comprehensive comedy of a drinks menu.
Despite the generally unhealthy nature of the food on offer, large sections of the beverage list had been dedicated to giving health advice, recommending an array of tonics to cure various ailments. I went for the watermelon blend after reading how the fruit is known to ‘flush out the accumulation of uric acid in the system’, as well as ‘combating eruptions on the surface of the skin from eating too much fried food’. A load of watermelon had basically been chucked into the blender before arriving at the table, and it was excellent. The blueberry delight was just as good and benefited from the addition of creamy yoghurt.
And then there were the coffees – ‘a drink from paradise, available on earth’ read the Black Canyon brand advertising. There must have been a hundred varieties of hot, iced, sweet, strong, tall and short varieties of the caffeine fix. I opted for a Vienna – ‘creamy coffee, tasty formula of the Viennese people since their ancestors, a cinnamon stick spices destroying the unpleasant taste of cream, specially and incomparably fragrant’ – and even though I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, I was happy with my choice (which came complete with savoury biscuits and a shot of jasmine tea, naturally). My booth-buddy had gone for the mocha glacier – ‘will remind you of the cold glacier in the ocean. Authentic!’ – and was glad she had. It was a chocolatey, creamy, ice-cream coffee delight.
Any semblance of sentence structure and grammar has been well and truly thrown out of the window at Oscar’s, as has the idea of subliminal messaging as Coca-Cola is scrawled everywhere instead of, and disappointingly so, more movie-themed décor. I certainly won’t be following the diner’s seventh rule – ‘thou shall bring thy friends along to Oscar’s’. Random menu descriptions make a great read but the poor quality meals aren’t so enjoyable. But, if you do have 10 minutes to spare before, after or during the intermission of your movie, do drop by for one of the award-winning standard drinks.
Oscar’s, CineStar, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai. Tel: (04) 3414222.