Review: Arrows & Sparrows

This might just be the perfect place for a breakfast boost during sundown

It's a bit strange to eat a bowl of granola with acai berry (pronounced /er-sigh/ not /er-kai/) for dinner. At a café. Strange, because it's the kind of meal one shakes out of a box when there's no food at home. But this was dinner at Arrows & Sparrows in The Greens (Emaar Business Park), and cereal was the starter. I love cereal - and this was right up my alley, nice and cool, too.
Arrows & Sparrows opened in September last year, and I've wanted to check it out since then. As far as I'm concerned, any place with trees around works, and this place has lots of greenery. The interiors, with its copper lampshades and rustic, plastered wall, have a lovely feel.
Back to the "breakfast at sunset". Before the cereal-starter, we had juice. One Very Green smoothie (kale, OJ, parsley, cucumber, celery, lemon juice) and one other not-at-all-bitter, yet life-extending elixir called Good For You (spinach and more gut-pleasing stuff).
Juices to me all look basically the same, whether in a nice glass or with a piece of fruit wedged into the rim. But it was the presentation of the granola bowl that was lovely. Try as I do at home to play around with blueberries and flax seed and chia seeds and amaranth for breakfast - hey, even goji berries! - my homely granola can't compete with the (let me just admit it) 'aesthetic superiority' of the bowl they serve here. Edible flowers (yellow pansies) and de-hydrated banana slices - I mean, come on, how do I even stand a chance? Arrows & Sparrows and More are breakfast pros. Their professional granola is simply at a higher floor while mine waits at the reception.
Because there was so much else to try and after (sadly) wasting half the bowl of granola and er-sigh (the nuttiness of which tasted like chocolate to my dining companion), we were served 'Breakfast with Colours' (Dh40): two poached eggs with peas, quinoa, beetroot labneh and grilled halloumi cheese (I'd order this again). All very bright, Instagram-able dishes that taste good. I could do with some of that grilled halloumi now, come to think of it.
Again, because there were more dishes to try - we were hoping to move on to lunch-type offerings soon - we wasted more food and apologised to our server, James.
The vegan rolls were a bad idea. Raw ingredients are fine to start with but carrot sticks with sesame wrapped in rice paper isn't something you can have midway. Vegetables need to really have their own flavour for a dish like that to pass muster. I thought I was chewing straw. Possibly organic, farm-raised straw with interesting texture, sure, but straw nonetheless, and I probably wouldn't eat this again.
We also tried some of the other can't-go-wrong-with dishes: Truffle Fries (Dh12), Asparagus Pasta (Dh42), and a big Korean Chicken Bowl (Dh54) - Korean kimchi (long live fermented food!), fresh mango, avocado slices, marinated stir-fried chicken breast (over salted). Arrows & Sparrows and More love their avocados. And no one's complaining.
Last item on the agenda was dessert. We had the carrot cake that, honestly, left some to be desired. But, on the bright side, an uneaten piece of carrot cake is calories saved. And it was nice to sit outside on the last of the cool evenings and sip that cappuccino from a red cup. Also, I find it sensible when restaurants don't fuss too much about sugar containers and just up-cycle old jam jars. It's sweet.
ACAI BERRY - smoothies for champions
So, acai berry is really popular in the jiu jitsu community in UAE. Some time ago, when I visited the Emirates Jiujitsu Center in Al Quoz, I came across a father-son duo. Son, with nice floppy blonde hair, was bounding all over the place. Father, wearing well-aged dreadlocks, was running after him with an acai smoothie, trying to get him to be even more energetic. A great post-workout drink - all those phytochemicals and anthocyanins and what-have-you make it a super food. No wonder it's a breakfast staple. More factoids: the berry is native to the Amazonian rain forest. And, yes, it does kind of taste like dark chocolate. In our humble opinion.
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com

• Food and Dining