I honestly don’t know where to start this post.  I know I’ve said that before but this one really has me scratching my head.  I did think about not writing but I decided that I had to.  Someone had to anyway, and that may as well be me.

Before I go any further, all opinions are my own and I have PMS on top of having had a really rubbish week at work.

So, a good friend was back in town and naturally a brunch was organised.  I wasn’t part of the decision making and booking process, but was really pleased to hear that we were heading to Wanderlust at the JW Marriott Marquis.  Not only is it at ‘my’ end of town but I’ve read a couple of really positive reviews.

I got up early and tried to dry my hair pretty.  Failed, but that’s for another post.  I picked an outfit I haven’t worn recently and that was also comfortable enough to consume lots of yummy food as I had been (mostly) good on my diet all week in preparation.  I even broke out the liquid eyeliner.  That is how much I was looking forward to it.

But I should learn when I am looking forward to something that much, it is bound to be a disappointment. At least then I would then have been prepared.

The brunch started really well with a 20% discount courtesy of the Mr & Mrs Brunch app.  It was made even better by getting a glass of semi-decent bubbles to wait with, despite the brunch having not officially started.

Then the Dubai Wankers and Wankesses started to turn up in their droves.  Literally.  There was only a handful of people who didn’t think the sun shone from out of their behinds.  You know how I feel about them if you know me, or if you’ve read my former rant.  This was however worse than the crew ladened pool day.

Let me explain.  There was:

• the ones who queue jump and lean over you when you’re talking to the hostess to make sure they get to their table first because, of course, they are so much more important than anyone else;
• the ones with the fake boobs.  You know, the ‘I have paid for these so you’re going to see all but my nipples’ type;
• the ones with the beards, the patterned shirts and too much hair product, normally found boring on about the better health of vapers as they are pulling on a cigarette hypocritically;
• the ones with the ‘pussy pelmets’ that forget their underwear.  (A special shout out to the one who also had a split to her hip so each time she walked you got a flash of perfectly waxed white bits);
• the ones with the uniform of either khaki, navy or beige chinos that are rolled up, slip on shoes, and white shirts.  Don’t forget that loud ‘I am hilarious and you all need to know it’ laugh that pretty much always goes with them;
• the ones with all the tattoos – male and female, who then get offended when you stare at them a little too long because their inkings are fascinating and/or abysmal; and
• the ones in the bandau dresses and Karama bought Louboutins.

To name a few.  Really.  I’m not even kidding.  There was only a handful of tables without these braying assholes.  I wish I was mean enough to have taken videos or photos to share with you.  But I’m not.

Hello to the normal people btw who just want to have fun with their own group and not be the centre of collective attention.  I like you people.

I probably would like the other people one on one, but in these packs they become basically the image of why British Expats are despised. An impression not helped in the least by the severe lack of clothes that were being showcased by the women. Admittedly they aren’t all British, or weren’t today.  An alarmingly large volume were though.

And yes, by the way.  I am a little jealous too.  Some of these girls have absolutely amazing figures.  However, they still need to remember they live in Dubai and have a little bit more respect for the laws of the country.  Or at least the morality.

I need to stop now before I go off completely on a tangent.  But I think that sometimes it is really important to say what kind of people go to different places.  I mean, I would equally hate to be out for a girls brunch and have booked into somewhere that is super family friendly and be surrounded by kids all day.

But back to the actual brunch.

We were sat in the Peruvian section and the decor was fantastic.  I love the brightly coloured walls.  They are fun and pretty.

What I didn’t particularly like was the horseshoe shaped table seating for a completely un-served brunch.  Anytime anyone at the top wanted to move, the whole table had to as well.

On top of that the tables were huge.  Because of the incredibly loud club type music that assaulted your ears as soon as you walked in, you couldn’t actually have a conversation with anyone who wasn’t sat next to you without straining your voice.   I’m all for a party atmosphere but really this was too much.

My overwhelming feeling was that it missed its mark food wise.  Normally I am stuck.  I have too many options that look and sound too tempting for me to cope with.  I end up over eating and feeling rubbish because I’m trying to try every option.  This time, everything looked average – and picky.  I like a good picky dinner but you also need something to link it all together.  This just didn’t work for me.

They do have trays for you to load your little plates onto.  Great in theory but really difficult to navigate the quite narrow areas packed full of hungry brunchers. Also, people get really judgey about how much or how little you have on your tray.

There were a couple of highlights though – one being these divine Italian style cookies that I can never remember the name of: 

And the hot mini donut stand. With a donut wall next to it!  There was a lot of traffic around this area and I am sure that Instagram is flooded every week with people posing next to it either pouting or pretending to lick/bite them.

Then there was a very last minute find of shwarma, with caramalised onion found at the hot dog section.  P.S.  They weren’t hot dogs.  They were sausages in buns, and everything was so dried out looking I didn’t even bother trying them.  Anyway, the caramalised onion was really good.  As was the sour cream and guac from the nacho station that I decided to combine with my shwarma.  Yeah, I know it’s strange but it was the tastiest thing I ate until that point.  As another aside, why a) did the cheese sauce taste meaty and b) the guac never start to brown?

Another great last minute discovery was the popcorn chicken with firecracker sauce.  In fact, that was my favourite savoy dish of the day.  In fairness I am probably quite pleased to have missed this earlier.  I would have given the judgey people something to really judge me for because I would have kept going back for more.
There was a braised brisket sandwich which had the potential to be good except the meat was obviously very fatty to begin with and then hadn’t been skimmed properly.  Moisture is nice.  Grease isn’t.

(Yeah, I don’t know what the pizza looking thing was aside from not good, but I balanced it with hot donuts so the plate was saved!!)

One thing that I did really like (see – I can be positive too) was the branded drinks on offer.  It was quite fun really.

I didn’t get around to trying the desserts.  They looked incredible but by this point, my heart wasn’t in it any more.  I sipped at my drinks (because it was one of those days where they weren’t going down as well as normal) and just people watched.

There was plenty of car crash worthy people to watch by this point which is handy as that is pretty much all that my table did.  We also discussed the food and I was thankful to hear that I wasn’t the only one very underwhelmed by the offerings.

The problem (which isn’t really a problem but you know what I mean) is that we aren’t people who go to brunches to drink ourselves insensible.  We are the ones who go for the food and to have nice drinks too.  So it was agreed that there was really no reason to ever come back.  Unless the whole thing was given an overhaul and since this is pretty much the only negative review out there, I would say that is unlikely to happen.

Perhaps we just had a really unlucky break.  Perhaps it’s normally better.  All I know is that by the end of the 3hrs (which actually felt much longer) I was really thankful to get a message from my boss asking me to work the next morning which meant I could leave.  I was disappointed to cut my day with my friends short but I really also couldn’t take being surrounded by these people any longer.

I really would not recommend this brunch to anyone that I know.

Have some pictures though in case I haven’t put you off completely by now: