A few weeks ago, my lovely friend J invited me along to a girls lunch at Gaucho.  I’m pretty much always up for any kind of lunch or dinner, but this is one that really excited me… Not only do I not see enough of J (I still have both her Christmas and birthday gifts on my dining room table!), but it was for the roast dinner at Gaucho!

As you may have noticed by now, I do love my roast dinners and Gaucho’s one has been praised to the roof tops and back again.  I was so ready to have a glass of wine, a gossip and a good feed!!!

Sadly I was fighting off a fever on the actual day so I had to skip the wine!

The roast dinner however was absolutely what I needed to help me over whatever bug it was trying to give me a cold or a flu or something which I refuse to get!

We sat down and ordered a very exciting round of drinks – water and diet cokes.  Turns out that I would have been the only one with wine if I had ordered it, so I didn’t mind not having any quite as much as I though!!  We were also bought over some very delicious bread… which we asked for seconds of as that didn’t hit the sides!

The menu was a bit confusing for me.  I am blaming the aforementioned fever.  I was expecting a roast, but it turns out that you pick a steak to go with your roast dinner trimmings.  What a fabulous idea!  I love steak even more than roast beef!!

I chose the sirloin out of habit.  I have found in Dubai generally that the rib-eye can be a little overly fatty for me.  I like the strip of fat on the edge like sirloin has. Even better than a having a steak with your roast veggies is the fact that the gravy was actually a Malbec (red wine) jus!  Genius!  Like, serious genius!!!!

It tasted every ounce as good as it looked!  The veggies were crispy and a bit caramalised.  The potatoes were fluffy on the inside and had a bit of crunch on the outside (could have had a bit more but they were still good!).

Now, if you’ve read any of my previous Roast Diaries posts (week 1 here, week 2 here and week 3 here) then you will know that I am very critical of the Yorkshire puddings.  They are the icing on the cake, but it can really put a dampener on things when they go wrong.

Gaucho’s Yorkshire Puddings are the best of the ones I have had so far!  Absolutely gorgeous!!  The only fault I had with them is that there was only one on the plate!!!!!!

Because it was four ladies lunching, there was a pudding.  I even joined in.  Any pretense of having given up sugar was long gone.

This is my only area of ‘complaint’ about Gaucho…. Pretty much every dish has nuts of some description in, which is very unfair if you have a nut allergy like me.  Thank goodness I can have some wheat again or I would be stuck eating a bowl of ice cream like a child.  Or a plate of fruit like a miserable dieter!!

I went for the Chocolate Tart, which the manager came by and told me very soon after he took the order, contained nuts.  He did offer me a chocolate fondant.  That always works!  He then came over again and was profusely apologetic because actually they didn’t have any chocolate ones left, so was it ok to have a Dulche Leche one instead?  Was it ok?!  Hell yes!  I love that caramelie goodness nearly more than I love chocoalte!  No need for so much apologising!

Served with a caramelie flavoured cold custard stuff (yep, I am a wordsmith today!) and a ball of the most silky and delicious vanilla bean ice cream.  I wanted to lick the plate.  I actually looked around to see if I would get away with it.  Not so much!  But it was so good I could easily have done!!

If you’ve not been to this roast lunch before (actually served until 10pm or something) then you really should.  It is well worth the AED 185.  So worth it, it’s very nearly knocked The Scene off it’s No.1 spot for me!

Enjoy!