Ramadan and the blessings that it brings will always be special to us. To kick off this month, we delved into some scrumptious food by Centara West Bay Residences & Suites Doha.

We’re all in a state where we’re making the best of this situation. And while some days are a bit confusing as there is so much time on our hands, we were actually looking forward to Ramadan. The fact that there was going to be a routine because of the Suhoor and Iftar timings, prepping for Ramadan was all about being grateful for the good things in life.

Given our love for food, you know we’re always on top of things when it comes to the best deals in town. We began our Ramadan by breaking the first fast with our traditional homemade dishes but our love for the goods around town got the best of us and we planned our second Iftar the same time we were breaking our first fast – it’s always good to be prepared (and dream about food too, right?).

On the hunt for deals since a month now, we came across Centara’s Ramadan offer and booked it in for the second Iftar. As this is the first time we’re all fasting in quarantine, we have to admit that we were a bit worried about how they were going to manage the timings as the entire city is ordering everything at home. To stay on the safe side, we asked them to drop the food an hour before the sun set. At exactly 5pm, the phone rang to tell us the delivery was here. Oh.my.goodnes! The perfect timing for a memorable Iftar. Okay so now reality set in; oh yes, they’re good at this but we ordered food an hour before the sun set which meant that we were going to have it a bit cold – a compromise that our microwave oven was okay with.

Once we started opening our three bags, we were not expecting everything to still be warm a good 45 minutes later. The process of setting up the table was like opening matryoshka dolls! Honestly, we forgot the number of boxes as we started to take in the scent of the butter chicken and that was just the beginning of our mouth-watering treats.

The three-course meal, a combination of Iftar and dinner, consisted of Indian and Middle-Eastern delicacies that included hummus, tabbouleh, and fattoush to name but a few, gave us the feel of having a local Iftar at home, a tradition we have fallen in love with over the years. That’s the thing about expat life, you fall in love with the local culture to the extent that a Ramadan at home has to have an Arabic flair to it!

To make things better with a touch of Indian culture, we enjoyed the seafood twist to the regular biryani – rice tastes the best at Iftar! The ever-favourite butter chicken had us in a fix; to rice or to chapati it? The lamb fest had us on a roller coaster of all levels of spices; starting from the soup then moving on to the curry and then the good ol’ biryani – enticing enough for second rounds.

The amount of food that we indulged in had us in a food coma and by the time we came back to life, the desserts were calling our name! The nutty and sweet traditional Indian desserts, ras gullah and gulab jaman dipped in intensely sweet juice with edible rose petals in it; divine! We laughed as we fine dined in our pyjamas because life really has taken a new turn and we’re celebrating with the best.

The Iftar came at a reasonable price of QR149 for two with lavish family-style sharing which obviously means one thing; we’re going to be ordering a round two sometime soon! ✤

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