Business Lunch @ Nonya, Taj JLT Dubai

How about a 4-course lunch in a pan-asian fine dining joint somewhere close to home or work, for 99aed – which includes coffee or tea? Somewhere, with sweeping views of the Dubai Marina, and the Emirates Golf Course. Look further and you can actually see a teeny bit of the Burj al Arab. That’s business lunch at Nonya in Taj JLT for you.

We returned to Nonya one weekday afternoon in September to review their Business Lunch offering.

Getting there

We handed the car off to valet and got up to the 44th floor of the Taj JLT. The business lunch offer is Monday to Friday from 12-4pm, and at 1:30pm in the afternoon – the crowd was evidently those who had popped over during work for a leisurely lunch.

What do you get for the business lunch?

As mentioned, it is a 4-course meal.

Soup, a choice of starters, a choice of mains and dessert of the day with one coffee or tea. I was surprised it included coffee or tea which is a big plus, as most business lunches are food only.

Having sampled through their menu over dinner few months ago (read our review here), I was happy to see that they have picked the usual favourites on their business lunch menu.

My dining companion went for the scallop and chicken siew mai, and I – the satay ayam. Siew mai is always a tough one to do in a fine dining joint as they have to make it look good, and the ones with thinner skin sometimes fall off when you steam it. With that in mind, I can understand why they made it with thicker ones. As someone who eats siew mai most weekends (not sharing where we get our stock from hee hee) – it was good siew mai.

The mains

Loved the satay ayam. The peanut sauce, the spices on the satay itself, the slight charred parts – yum. Can’t decide if they do it better or if Nur Malaysia does it better. What do you think?

The buttermilk prawns came on a large dish – and if you were hungry I would probably say choose something else. Seafood – usually comes in small portions – especially in fine dining spots like this. Delicious though. My beef rendang was however, plentiful. The beef chunks (wagyu, apparently), the sauce. I actually finished my rice (blue, with butterfly pea essence?) – before I finished the rendang. More rice please? 🙂

Dessert

Dessert of the day that day is what I call ‘tong sui’ which literally translates to sugar water. We actually make that all the time, so it was nice to see something familiar – served in a restaurant here in Dubai. It also known as ‘Cheng Teng’. There’s dried longan, red dates, goji berry, snow fungus and dried lotus seeds boiled in water with rock sugar. I don’t know of any other restaurant in Dubai that serves this – so if you have never had it – go to Nonya for one. Or come to my place, haha.

Have a look at Nonya’s Business Lunch menu here

Overall Thoughts

For 99aed, it is a very well-priced business lunch offering.

Convenient with the comp valet, you leave with a fully tummy, and you get to relax in a nice restaurant with beautiful views. What better way to do lunch than this – before popping over for the hectic school run? 🙂 I’ll happily return.