Sheikh Attack was the cry throughout the vast kitchens of the recently opened Madinat Jumeirah. This hotel was the latest addition to the Jumeirah International group that is based in Dubai.
The hotel is a city in itself, with around 1000 rooms and over 40 food and beverage outlets which employ some 400 kitchen staff. In 2004 I was the chef de cuisine of the main kitchen, and one of my most important responsibilities was to be ready to put out a lavish buffet anywhere in the hotel at 20 minutes notice. The sheikh usually arrived unannounced, day or night, with an entourage of 10 to 15 people, but we would have enough food ready for at least 100 people. This time it was just a drill, of which there were many during our preopening period.
I had Indian, Chinese, Arabic and Western sous chefs, who all had their own tasks to carry out while I coordinated them with the service staff when we went into sheikh attack mode. It was interesting how all the suits popped out of the wood work during these times, all eager to look as if they ran things, and it was interesting to see how the pressure of the situation could reduce some of these grown men to blubbering idiots.
I had trolleys loaded with luxury food items in the cool room that were completely replaced every 48 hours regardless of whether they had been used or not, all the food just went in the bin.
Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum was the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of the emirate of Dubai until he died in 2006, while staying in Australia, at the Palazzo Versace hotel on the Gold Coast. The sheikh was everything in Dubai, and the amount of power that he wielded through extreme wealth was totally incomprehensible to someone like me, let alone the masses of human labour that were brought from places like India and Pakistan to build these super hotels. I lived in a luxury compound across the road from the hotel and in the morning at 6 am the back of my neck would get sun burnt as I made the 300m walk to the edge of the hotel. I would then walk for a further 16 minutes through the grounds until I reached my kitchens. Along the way I noticed these migrant labourers working in the extreme heat, and it took me a couple of weeks to realise that all the plastic bags lying in the sun next to the workers contained their curries for lunch. They were being heated to almost boiling point in the sun. My biggest problem was that the pool cooling system in my compound was broken so it was impossible to use it.
A couple of years earlier I had been stationed in Dublin, Ireland where I was executive sous chef at the Four Seasons Hotel, a Canadian based group which also owns the Regent brand. Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of the Saudi Royal family is a major shareholder in this company and the latest addition to the group at this time was the Four Seasons resort at Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Prince Al Walid wanted to host a Middle East conference there to impress his uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, as well as heads of state from Egypt and Syria. The entire entourage was close to 400 people. There was also a security team of 300 Egyptian soldiers. These guys all carried automatic weapons and all seemed to be at least seven feet tall, there were so many of them that we were literally dodging them in the kitchens. Because the hotel was not quite ready for such a hard opening at this stage, the Prince had organized for a task force to be put together from various sister properties throughout Europe, and flown down. He hired a jet and the entire resort hotel next door, to put up the 200 or so people. I headed up the team from Dublin and of course my role was to assist in the kitchens.
It was a tough, chaotic week; I think that I worked about 38 hours straight at one stage, before I had a break. It was this first afternoon that we did over 500 covers in room service, which is a lot of club sandwiches for what is really only a relatively small 200 room hotel.
That night, I organised a very large, private buffet for Prince Al Walid. He finally came through the restaurant at about four am with a few people, picked at the food and walked out again. The Prince likes to eat very late as it is, and no matter where he is in the world, he sleeps according to the time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After throwing most of the food in the bin I took a short break to sit on the hotel terrace and watch the sun come up over the Red Sea.
As if it wasn’t all bad enough, most of us podgy, pasty expats were suffering from what later became infamously known as the sharm el shakes, a very severe stomach upset contracted by drinking the local tap water, which I must have done by mistake in the shower. This condition actually made you lose control of your bowels, so it kept you running to the toilet very 20 minutes or so. Combine this ailment with the heat and hard work of the kitchen and I am sure you can understand that the chaffing was extreme. Those in the industry know that corn flour is very good under these circumstances, but it seemed that every time I went to the toilet to apply some, there were 35 Muslim Egyptian soldiers in there, washing their feet in the sink before they were about to pray. I am not sure if they new what to make of me and the cornflour in my hands.
At the end of the 30 something hours all of the task force staff including the chefs, were asked to line up beside the long driveway to show support for the King as drove away. We must have stood around for at least 45 minutes waiting for him. By this stage offcourse we are beyond exhausted, most of us are somewhat dehydrated and very sore as a result of our stomach condition, and the glare coming off all the white jackets under the hot dessert sun was painfully blinding. I still managed a smile and a wave of course, even though, and I am not to proud to say it, that up until now, I had managed to keep my underwear empty. Joy.
As I slowly walked with my legs spread far apart the 400m across the hot sand to my hotel room for a shower, I remembered that today was the day of my 30th birthday. I will never forget it.
Babaghanoush
Ingredients:
2 big eggplant
2 tbs tahini
1 lemon squeezed
2 tbs natural yoghurt
1 clove garlic crushed
Make a slit in the skin of the eggplant and place under a hot grill until the skin blackens on all sides. Leave it to cool and put in a colander for a few minutes to get rid of excess liquid. Puree all ingredients with eggplant and season. Serve cold topped with some olive oil and chopped parsley. Eat with toasted Turkish bread.
Christian Hauberg is the chef and owner of Pulp Kitchen at the Ainslie shops |
