Before I say anything , I just have to start out with Oh My God!. What I witnessed today at Habsburg Restaurant at Rosewood Corniche Hotel, I have never seen before in any restaurant in my life, and I have to say that I have been to a lot of restaurants in different parts of the world from the USA to England and from Egypt to Dubai.

Before I talk about the food, the atmosphere, the price, and anything else, I seriously encourage anyone who has the interest in experiencing a dining experience like no other to try Habsburg. Once you enter the dining area you find tables of different sizes each of course placed accordingly to their size and number of chairs.

The furniture itself is both classy and very simple giving you a feeling of comfort once you step foot inside, not to mention the smile you are greeted with both at the door and once you are seated. We went during lunch time and sat at a sea view table making the surrounding just breath taking. Despite the hot sun at 3pm in the afternoon, we insisted on keeping the curtains open to see the view from our table as we ate.

Now to talk about the food, the restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, however, only applying a open buffet style of dining. However, they do have special themes. For example, on Wednesday nights they have a seafood theme night. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to try it, but I am sure that I certainly would like to repeat the experience of visiting this restaurant, and hope to make it on a Wednesday night.

You start off your meal with a warm cup of soup from two options, they had today lentil soup and cream broccoli soup. I tried the latter, and it was bursting with the unique taste of broccoli with a creaminess to it, but not too heavy like other cream soups. After soup, you have the appetizers, and this is where it all starts. At the appetizer table, you are accompanied by one of the restaurants staff holding a very chic little wooden tray for you to place your pickings on. Unlike other open buffets in other hotels in other countries for that matter, the appetizers are arranged separately per serving per plate. Meaning for example the shrimp cocktail is placed in a small plate with two pieces of large shrimp covered in sesame seeds and lying on a bed of cream dressing .

This is one serving, of course you are welcome to take as many servings as you like, but you do not need to dig into large bowls of food that have been disturbed by other guests time and time again. You are the first and only person to touch the plate of appetizer arranged and presented to you like the food you see in movies, and those fancy cooking shows.

Now that I have explained the concept of how the food is served, here is a few of the appetizers I tried. Green salad plate with a choice of three different dressings, Italian dressing, French dressing, and Thousand Island dressing. I tried the Italian dressing and it was just superb, not too salty, not too lemony and not too strong, it was just perfect. They also have sushi rolls on a bed of oyster sauce, one sushi roll per serving. Smoked salmon balls with a toothpick for you to hold with. A very different look for the typical smoked salmon fillets you find in open buffets. Sun dried tomato slices with cheese alternating with basil sprinkled on top. And I do have to say, this is my first time to try sun dried tomatoes and take my word on it, definitely not the last.

These are the appetizer’s I tried out personally, however, there where at least 6 other options. All this is of course not including the regular known salads such as taboula, homos, metabel, and fatoush, which are each arranged in these cute little dishes for you to take without anyone having touched them. For the main course, you take your plate and choose by your own, not like the appetizers, but with the variety of dishes they have, it would be pretty difficult for someone to keep up with every guest.

The main dish is made up of all the food groups to entice all different types of people and different tastes. They have the different types of meat, from two types of seafood, salmon and hamour, to chicken with a grape juice sauce, to lamb chops with olive paste, lamb cubes with mint and anise sauce to veal cordon bleu. Apart from the meats you have your carbs which vary from steamed rice to wild rice, from eggplant pasta to regular paste with tomato sauce to mashed potatoes with herbs.

Then of course you have to have your veggies which included steamed vegetables with cheese sauce. After I tried the steamed vegetables, on my home I stopped at the nearest store and bought a steamer to try to make this dish. And regular steamed vegetables without any sauces for those who want to cut down on the calories. Finally, there was dessert which was once again the accompanying waiter with the tray. Dessert ranged from fresh fruit to oriental sweets to French pastries to mini sized cakes each one with its own presentation. There was something for every palate. And all this was for the price of 161SR per person including service tax but excluding drinks.

Once again I encourage anyone who has the interest in experiencing this unique style of service to try out Habsburg. Not for the food, because tastes vary from one person to another, but the service and hospitality and personal attention to each individual guest, can not be debated by two people. No one would not love this kind of attention.

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This post was submitted by Noha Dessouky.

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