Al Ustad Special Kabab

Charcoal and a Queue

4 of 5

Forty-seven years of charcoal, one road, around forty seats on two floors. Al Ustad Special Kabab is a family-run Iranian kebab house in Bur Dubai, and its walls are covered with celebrity photographs going back four decades. They did not come for the decor. They came for the koobideh.

Order that first: hand-minced lamb, raw onion, salt, the kitchen's secret spice blend, grilled hard. Add joojeh, the saffron chicken, a Shirazi salad to cut the richness, and mast-o-khiar, yogurt with cucumber. Dishes run from about twelve to thirty-eight dirhams, with a typical bill somewhere between twenty-five and eighty per head. Where To Eat Dubai's reviewers call it the best charcoal kabab in the city, which is a claim I would not argue with at this price.

Rules of the house: cash only, no reservations, no alcohol, halal. Thursday and Friday evenings run thirty to forty-five minutes of waiting, so plan around it. This is what the word institution should mean. A cook, a fire, a plate of meat, and a room full of strangers who all know exactly what they ordered. Go and be one of them. Walk in with cash, share a table if asked, and pay no attention to the photographs. The only celebrity here is the grill, and it has never missed a night.

Order this: Lamb koobideh special, Joojeh kabab, saffron chicken, Salad Shirazi, Mast-o-khiar
The damage: $
Go: Weekday late lunch. Thursday and Friday nights mean a queue
Find it: Khalid Bin Al Waleed Road, Al Mankhool, Bur Dubai (near BurJuman)