“Food Coma at the Brunch Republic”

Maybe dining at restaurants on land is getting a little boring. Well if you want to spice up your culinary experience, head over to Azraq at Banana Island Resort Doha, one of their many restaurants.

Firstly, the view and experience on the journey to the island itself is phenomenal. It’s a mere 30-minute ferry ride to the island from Doha, additionally the service on the ferry is superb! You get to pass by the Museum of Islamic Art and view it from a different perspective, and also get a great view of the skyline (I imagine that the view in the evening must be beautiful). Upon arriving on the island, you really don’t feel like you’re in Qatar anymore, which of course adds to the "exotic" experience.

Now let’s be real, when you go to any buffet your expectations aren’t normally that high. But Azraq exceeded any expectation I could have possibly had. The variety of dishes, AND cuisines, are numerous! You can choose from Continental, Arabic, Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, and Thai! I was so glad that I didn’t have anything for breakfast because I really wanted to try everything!

I wish I could list out all their dishes, but instead I’ll list the best items that I tried. For starters, the restaurant had a wide selection of different salads, soups, and appetizers. Their grilled vegetable dishes were simply delicious, particularly their potato wedges. They had a beetroot hummus, which was both new and tasted great! They also had a spicy chicken Indonesian salad, which is definitely worth mentioning.

If you’ve read my previous reviews, then you know I’m a fan of sushi, and their sushi chef sure can roll! They had a wide variety of different maki and sashimi rolls, as well as the option of having the chef make your own custom roll, which was both fun and sushi-tastic. The maki rolls I had were spicy, unfortunately they didn’t have names, but they were definitely unique.

From the Mexican cuisine, the best dishes were their barbecued beef ribs (which were cooked for three hours and fire grilled with barbecue sauce), their chili con carne, and jalapeño poppers. They were all so rich in flavor, and tasted like authentic Mexican, which is quite hard to find in Doha. The beef was super tender, and really cooked to perfection, definite favorite.

Our favorite dish from the Thai cuisine were their egg noodles! I’m not usually a fan of noodles, but these were particularly good! They went especially well with the condiments, namely soy sauce and chili flakes.

As a lover of Indian cuisine, I was really loving the butter chicken and vegetarian biryani. The spices were just right, especially the butter chicken! I would totally go back to have some more of that explosive dish.

Photo credit: Hanna Ahmed

We were really looking forward to dessert, especially after seeing all of it laid out and so daintily setup on the tables. We tried their different flavored sorbets, which on a hot day like ours was welcoming and refreshing. They came in mango, raspberry, and lime - which tasted like a classic virgin mojito but in the form of ice cream. Their cookies were great too! Chewy and chocolate-y, just the way I like it! A rather unique dish was their chef's special camel milk creme brûlée. We were a bit nervous to try it, but it was surprisingly light and delicious! Totally unexpected.

Overall, it was absolutely delightful! The scenery, atmosphere, service, and food all added together provided a really great experience for us. It is worth your while to dine at Azraq, as well as visit and experience the wonderful Banana Island.

If you wanna discover more about the island, check out ILQ goes to Banana Island! We've made a quick tour just for you! Enjoy!

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AngelPolacco

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