A friend was raving about this new asian foodcourt/restaurant at The Pointe – they had gone for the 148AED unlimited dishes deal on a schoolnight and said the food was amazing. Checked the Entertainer and found that they had a 241 for their Friday Brunch – 255AED for two, including drinks. What a crazy deal 😉

Prior to booking, I tried to google and see what the reviews were like. Zomato reviews were either reaaaalllly bad, or good. Attempted to find more info about the brunch – was there a ‘brunch menu’? What time is it? Couldn’t find a website. Instagram DMs were ignored, messages left on their Insta-posts ignored, Facebook DMs ignored. Not a good start. Gave them a call and thank goodness someone answered the phone – booked a table for 4. Gotta give them a chance. Plus I was craving for some good chinese food in a new place.

Overall thoughts?

Food & Drinks

Sticky Rice with Mango

Beef and Lamb skewers

Sweet and sour Chicken

1. How does it work?  You can basically order 90% of the dishes in their ala carte menu. It’s like Shanghai Chic’s Unlimited Tasting Night, just better value for money 😉
2. What do you get? From the dim sums – chicken char siu baos, prawn har gaus, scallop and spinach dumplings, and they also have the sweet dishes – pandan, red bean and coconut baos.
3. They do have the bigger dishes – Thai pad thai, lots of different ramen dishes – seafood, beef, chicken, tempuras, sushi, Vietnamese pho, Singaporean laksa, Every asian dish you can think of 😉
4. How was the taste? No complaints. Loved it.
5. On drinks – for the brunch you get a drink menu. Busy chatting with our friends so I wasn’t in ‘blogger-mode’, didn’t take a photo, sorry. There were a few different cocktail options, red and white, tsing tao.

Ambience

The restaurant is huge. It’s like 8x that of Streetery. Basically like the asian food courts back home. Crowd was mixed – couple of families here and there like us, and then there were the usual grown-ups group.

Is it family-friendly?

I mean, foodcourts are always family-friendly yea? 🙂 It’s not aimed to be a “family-brunch” as it doesn’t have the Dubai-standard bouncy castle, face painting, arts & craft and the whole shebang. But, as there were so many quirky ornaments and decor, there’s lots of space for the little ones to explore anyways.

Note : No changing tables in the bathrooms. Suggest they install one.

Things that need to be worked on?

1. Please respond to potential guests on your social media channels. Not everyone is as patient as me 😉 If you don’t wish to interact with guests on those platforms, highlight the same i.e Please give us a call if you wish to get in touch. Do not send DMs on Facebook and Instagram, thanks.
2. Suggest to mention on your facebook (or if you plan to have a website) that all guests get complimentary valet at the East parking area. Maybe include a little map so they know where that is, as it can be quite frustrating for those who don’t go to The Pointe regularly to do couple of rounds along the palm to find where that valet is. Note : As you drive into the The Pointe, Asian District is on the right hand side (East area). Turn into the East drop-off area, the valet guy is there. 
3. Please at least have one person on your ground floor area to direct or inform guests that the main restaurant is upstairs. Or at least a sign that says that. I was literally going “Hellooooo…???” when I walked in. Note  : There is no lift once you get to the restaurant on ground floor, the lift is actually outside. Suggest to find the lift and go straight up to first floor if you’ve got your buggy. 
4. Possibly need more staff? Food was served even before water came to the table. We were all so sweaty and thirsty from walking to the restaurant in the 45degrees heat. Would be good next time to get water out straight away first.
5. On food, dim sums came out really slow as well. Never had an issue with speed at Shanghai Chic, suggest team to work on the speed whilst maintaining the food quality of course 😉
6. Install a baby changing table in the bathroom if possible.

Overall – we’ll still definitely return. It’s a new restaurant – lots to work on but the food is good anyhow.  I love the whole decor, feels like you’re actually in a large food court back in Singapore or Malaysia. I just hope guests don’t spoil it by ordering more than they can eat. I hate food wastage. I remember there was a restaurant that started introducing the concept of charging guests for leftover food? What a fabulous idea. That’s for another discussion, of course.

Please go to Asian District if you like your asian food. A must-try. And one place we’ll be returning 😉 At least now we know where to valet without doing a road trip through the Palm, and where the lift is to get to the first floor

• Pandastic Brunch at Asian District
• 12:00 – 4:00 pm every Friday 
• Deal : 241 in the Entertainer, valid for the drinks package only 255AED for 2. Otherwise 148AED for food only (cheaper to get the drinks package!)

Note : This is not a sponsored post. We paid for the brunch at Asian District.