Food Blog | Zuma Japanese Restaurant Dubai
Trendy, hip and wildly popular, Zuma Dubai combines traditional Japanese tastes with a contemporary twist, making it one of the hardest places to get a table in Dubai. Promising of high quality ingredients and vibrant atmosphere, this is definitely one of the best eats in Dubai for a reason.
Crispy fried squid with green chilli and lime
As usual, unedited photos on here, edited (sometimes) photos on my IG @bibzeats . Context: came here to enjoy their executive lunch set with my family (5 people) for my sister’s birthday. (Apologies for not taking photos of the ambience)
Maki (With the Set Lunch) Zuma Dubai
Where it Is?
Zuma is located in the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), near the stunning Burj Khalifa. More precisely, it is on Happiness Street, and the way I would suggest you make your way there by car would just be to follow the road and see an “Empower” sign on the building opposite and turn into the car park.
Immediately upon entering, you’ll see a Zuma lift and valet service on the left. Just turn in, and you’ll have free valet parking if you’re eating there!
PS. you pretty much need to book in advance - at least call in, because this is ridiculously busy. (Lunch for two people seems easier to get a walk-in for though)
Address: Zuma Dubai, Gate Village 06, Podium Level - Happiness St - Dubai - United Arab Emirates
You can move the map around - zoom in, out and move about!
Operating Hours:
Saturday - Wednesday : 12pm - 1am
Thursday, Friday : 12pm - 2am
Sashimi Zuma Dubai (From Set)
What it Costs
They have a really good set lunch (or Ebisu as they call it) for a reasonable price of AED137. What you pretty much get with this set would be a miso soup to start, a choice of 2 appetisers (really small in general, I wouldn’t really say that they are suitable for getting let’s say 8 different ones and sharing between even just 4 people) and your main.
What we did was basically get one starter - crispy fried squid with green chilli and lime for AED63 - five lunch sets (we got 2 unagi donburis, 1 sashimi chirashi, 1 Australian grilled wagyu ribeye and one grilled seabass with red yuzu pepper). I’ll basically detail what the appetisers are using the pictures.
Beef Tataki (With Set) Zuma DIFC Dubai
For desserts we got 2 - and this one is great because you save extra money by getting a dessert. I believe a-la-carte they are more than AED 60, but with the set lunch, you can get desserts for AED41! We got the Passionfruit Souffle with Ice Cream and the Hokkaido Milk Ice Cream.
We got some local water as well (AED25 x 2), bringing out total up to AED880. Averaging out for 5 people, AED176, which I honestly believe is really reasonable for the quality of the food you get from Zuma Dubai.
Nigiri Sushi Zuma Dubai
How it Tastes
Starting with the miso soup - I don’t really want to say too much about this because I mean, it’s miso soup - the content is good - the seaweed, tofu, etc.
Onto the appetisers, personal favourites would probably be the prawn and black cod gyoza and the sashimi. I personally liked the prawn and black cod gyoza quite simply because it is filled completely - like literally no free room inside there, so you have a lot of filling in there, which I really enjoyed.
Black Cod & Prawn Dumpling Zuma Dubai
The sashimi was really nice - my sister even got a sashimi and then a nigiri - both of which she enjoyed. In general, the beef tataki, tempura and the seabass (which they changed from the salmon because there was some sort of menu change). Overall, really nice desserts, but I feel it’s better to stick with the basics here.
For the only a-la-carte starter, the crispy fried squid is one of those things whereby once you start eating, you really struggle to stop. I wouldn’t say it’s the best fried squid I’ve had, but I would say it is definitely one of the better side.
Shrimp Tempura
Depending on how much you eat, I feel like the main in itself is a little bit on the smaller side. It is almost hard to pick which one is my favourite. My top 2 are the unagi donburi (with avocado), the grilled seabass with yuzu peppers. I would say the chirashi don is still really yummy, but the grilled wagyu fell a little bit flat.
Unagi & Avocado Donburi | Really Yum!
Unagi don wise, really nice combination of the unagi, avocado and rice. The sauce is also really nice as to eat on itself with the rice, so it makes for a really delicious dish as a whole. The grilled seabass is really YUM! I would say it almost tastes a little bit like cod fish, but the sauce and seasoning are really nice with the seabass.
Chirashi-don wise, tasty as a whole, but I almost feel as though I would rather just take it in the appetiser first and then pick something else for the main. The wagyu was a little bit disappointing because you think of soft, rich flavours when you think of wagyu, but this one was a bit meh.
I would say that whilst the souffle was really nice flavour wise, but the texture was a bit too soft for my family’s liking. It almost became this soup-ey consistency. The other dessert was an okay-ish dessert as a whole, my parents did enjoy it though (and decorated really well upon special request from my parents for my sister’s birthday).
Star Rating
8/10. Really nice place with an excellent ambience. Flavours are really nice and just a really nice place to come for lunch! Way too many photos, so I’m going to just throw in the desserts in all at once with all these photos. Hope you enjoy them!
Passionfruit Souffle Dubai
Passionfruit Souffle
Hokkaido Milk Ice Cream
