Tap Into Deliciousness With These Top Middle Eastern Food Reviewers
You know when you’re starving and craving a specific dish like koshari for example but you do not want just any koshari, you want it to be the best koshari in town. You’re also short on time and can’t be bothered to pick a random place and hope for the best. In such cases, a go-to solution is to rely on the ultimate experts and foodie extraordinaires known to everyone as food reviewers. Instagram and Tiktok have been seeing an overhaul of these foodie-centric content creators giving you their special know-how insight on different food spots across the region. Time for a special roundup of the top Middle Eastern food reviewers during your next restaurant hop.
Banoura Eats
Starting off as an architecture grad, Esraa made a total gear shift and jumped head-first into the world of food. The Egyptian food blogger has slowly climbed the ladder of content creation, making video after video of her food adventures across Egypt. Today, her account dubbed banoura.eats has 223,000 followers under her belt on Instagram and 231.1k followers on TikTok.
Her videos have a special style, unique to her brand where she would take us on a journey through every spot that she visits in the country. Whether on TikTok or Instagram, in each video, she’d narrate her experience at different restaurants and cafes where she would make sure to order an eclectic range of dishes from the menu to give us a well-rounded experience during each of her visits.
Her most recent trip was at New Cairo’s Delizia Gelato, a local spot that serves Italian gelato in many different flavors. In the video, she left no stone unturned by first giving viewers a quick lesson on the difference between gelato and ice-cream and following that by showing the full roster of gelato flavors on offer including Eid kahk flavor. In other videos, you’ll see her trying out a croissant wheel at Co or trying out McDonald’s latest new sandwiches. The diversity of her work pleases all tastes when it comes to food.
The Dubai List
When it comes to anything food related, you will find Haya Kaabar in the center of the action. Combining the world of entrepreneurship and food together, she not only founded two food spots: Nasty Dogs, the Dubai-based Korean eatery specializing in corn dogs, and Jellyfish Bubble Tea, the Amman-based bubble tea store. She is also the creator behind thedubailist, a Dubai food and activities blog that took Instagram and Tiktok by storm; having been previously selected by Tiktok as one of the Top three Food Creator accounts.
Traveling across Dubai, she hits up different restaurants and cafes, tries out their food then creates a post about her top dishes and top recommendations for every place she visits. Through her account, you’ll be introduced to Dubai’s newest and hottest foodie spots like Roll Play specializing in Indian comfort food with its reimagined rolls like the Makhani Chicken Tikka roll.
Beyond one-on-one visits, she also shares round-up posts where she compiles the top spots under a certain category. Recently, she made an entire post dedicated to her top three Italian spots she believes everyone should hit up; including Bussola as well as Cucina which is known for its open kitchen setting were guests can watch chefs make fresh pasta. So, if you are ever in Dubai and want to know which places to hit up, the Dubai List has got your back.
Ramy Soli
With his Instagram bio captioned “a full-time foodie with a goal to make you drool” it makes sense why Egyptian content creator Ramy Soliman has amassed a huge following of 297k followers on his ramysoli account. Just like Esraa, Soliman was a former architect who followed his passion and love of food to become a full-fledged food blogger, reviewer and chef. Through his account, he ventures into many of Cairo’s food spots to uncover its hidden gems and hottest trending restaurants and cafes.
In one of his videos, he drops Wingo a visit, a new chicken wings establishment that launched recently. As with most of Egypt’s latest new dining spots, Wingo offers something fresh and fun serving up wings in unconventional sauces including their tahina & molasses combo or their signature alfredo sauce. As with any food reviewer, Soliman made sure to also try out their non-wing options including their buffalo chicken burger and cheese stuffed burger sandwich. With any place Soliman hits up, he makes sure to give viewers a well-rounded look at what the restaurant or cafe has to offer.
Fajer Eats
The Kuwaiti-based foodie Fajer Hayat is unlike the others on this list as she specializes in a unique type of foodie content, that of professional eating and tasting. In all her videos, you will see her sitting behind an assortment of dishes, ready to taste each one and give a simple remark or comment after her meal. It’s simple, she documents what she eats daily and her viewers devour her content. Today, she has over 210k followers on her Instagram account dubbed fajereats.
She has tried everything imaginable on her channel, making sure to showcase the plethora of options available at Kuwait’s hottest food spots as well as local food brands including chips and drinks. Juicy burgers from cool joints like Lets Patty specializing in simple classics like the infamous mushroom burger or stuffed vegetables aka mahshi from local joints like Malekat Al Dolma. Viewers get to learn about all these new places while being entertained as there is an addictive quality to watching Hayat munch on all those delicious meals.
Fat Pat
For a little playful mystery, meet Fat Lab, a Lebanese content creator by the name of Patrick Khattar, who at the start of his food blogging journey concealed his identity until he recently shared his name on Instagram. Focusing all his attention on the main star of his channel dubbed fatpat; the food is placed center stage in all his videos as he hits up restaurants and cafes across Lebanon. Narrating all his videos, we take a journey with Khattar as he tastes the juicy ribs of Smoak that get cooked for a whopping 12 hours or the strawberry cream croissants served up at Mont Croissant.
Beyond his videos, on his Instagram account, he has a special collection of stories and in one of them, he surprised viewers by including a face reveal. So far, he has proven that he definitely knows his way around Lebanon’s food scene; so if you ever hit it up, you’ve got a foodie expert to help you get around.
Now that you have learned about some of the region’s top experts when it comes to all things food-related, you have a go-to whenever you and your friends need a new place to hit up or if you’re craving a specific dish but want to avoid disappointment.
