West 14th at Dukes Hotel, The Palm Dubai

 Arriving at the West 14th for dinner one cannot but help notice the lovely view of the sea and the skyline that greets you. While casual in setting there was clearly a busy feel about the place. Dorothy, the hostess who greeted us was professional and helpful throughout the evening. While a tad bit warm there were fans around, though would have liked our drinks to arrive a shade earlier, one settled in comfortably.

The menu was uncomplicated, while pricey, and was well set and balanced. Would like to see more vegetarian offerings and the waiter who took our order needed to be prompted by our questions to explain the food in more detail. The beef carpaccio starter was simply divine.

Personally one would have preferred a slightly larger helping given the price. For the quality of the starter one could not fault it, it melted in one’s mouth with the crispy Parmesan giving it nice crunch.

The main course of grain fed rib eye steak was well prepared, we opted for the blue cheese sauce which was well balanced and not over powering with the blue cheese. At Dh 190 for the steak one would expect at least one side order included, instead we had to order sides separately. The corn on the cob was just perfect. One of us ordered the Caesar salad without anchovies, it came with anchovies! After being replaced with the correct order one needed more Caesar dressing. The chef it would seem would need to work on the Caesar salad as it was average.

Pros

• Setting and view.
• Some staff really care, like Dorothy and Ramesh.
• Quality of the meat dishes awesome.

Cons

• Staff, other than the two mentioned, need loads of training. Like bringing main course before putting down the cutlery, no napkins, we had to ask for them.
• Salads need improvement.
• Pricey for the offering.

Would recommend it for a casual wonderful meal because the weaknesses are fixable and two of the three dishes we had were incredible. A return visit will  be made for sure.