- You go to Rome to have best Italian food
or you go to Japan to get the best Japanese food.
You would come to Dubai, you get best of Italy,
you get best of Japan, you can get best of India.
I would say Dubai is the most exciting city
you would find across all the cuisines.
- [Ching] Wherever I am in the world,
food is the focal point of everything I do.
My name is Ching, and I'm a chef and food writer.
My taste journeys have taken me all over the world
in search of great flavors and new recipes.
Finally, it has brought me to Dubai
and I can't wait to explore it's rich and varied food scene,
one bite at a time.
Growing up in a Taiwanese household
meant I ate a lot of spice,
so I'm excited to discover what spice combinations
Dubai's street stalls have to offer
with another fellow spice enthusiast, Himanshu.
- [Himanshu] Hi, my name is Himanshu Saini
and I am a chef from the last ten years.
Currently, I am working for two restaurants,
Trèsind and Carnival by Trèsind.
They're both in Dubai.
And the third one is in Kuwait
and the fourth one is about to open in Mumbai.
- Hi! Chef? - Hello, are you Ching?
How are you?
Welcome to Dubai. - Good, how are you?
- [Himanshu] India also there is a food truck culture,
but here it is more elaborate.
There's a place called Last Exit and they have 10, 15 trucks
from waffles to hot dogs to burgers.
Street food is one of the key philosophies at Trèsind.
The experiences that you get at the street counter,
this is something which we want to give to our diners
in a fine-dine set up.
My first initial memory of food,
my mother along with her six sisters,
who used to cook together in a very big house
feeding almost 50 people a night
and that is how I got the first impression about food
because that gives everybody a great joy.
My parents are very proud of what I have done so far,
and I feel very proud.
The true meaning of chaat is to lick.
The chaat is so spicy and tangy that people
usually they lick their fingers off.
So this one is the modern version of the chaat,
so they've added corn, so they've added potato, tomatoes.
The corn really makes it interesting.
- [Ching] Yeah, it's got so much texture as well.
- Yes, I think we should round off this meal
with a cup of tea?
- [Ching] Perfect, let's do it.
There's a heart to the cuisine here in Dubai.
I didn't realize that you could have
such a vast array of choice.
So this is Project Chaiwala
and they've got a secret cinema art house experience
here in Dubai.
- It's very interesting that they brought in
professionals from India.
They've been making teas for years.
Chai is such a basic thing,
but nobody has given such emphasis which these guys have.
It's really great to see a product from India
being made in a city like Dubai.
- [Ching] But Dubai's street food scene
is vast and very tasty,
and naturally it's time to get to see
Himanchu's take on street food.
- You've seen the traditional version of the chaat
at the chaat counter, but we do a very modern version of it.
We're going to paint this canvas with the chaat ingredients.
Just splash the chutneys.
- [Ching] OK.
- Brilliant.
And then we have these spinach fritters, some crackers,
and now we're going to top-
- [Ching] That looks beautiful!
- [Himanchu] -top it again with some more chutneys.
And now we're going to freeze this in liquid nitrogen.
Once we freeze it, it becomes very brittle,
and then we crush it on our chaat.
We mix it gently and then we supposed to have it.
- That is beautiful!
- [Himanchu] And then we can get the texture of the papri,
the palak patta, the masala, there's so much going on here.
- Thank you so much, chef, you're amazing.
- Thank you so much, thank you.
Food is one common language across the world,
it's how it travels from one country to another.
I think my heart is in India, but I feel home here in Dubai.
- [Ching] I've come to Dubai because I want
to really experience Dubai culture
and for me the best way to explore any culture
is 100% through food.
So there is so much to experience here.
Dubai really is a place for food.