When I was informed that Sugar Factory was opening in the UAE at Dubai Festival City, it immediately piqued my interest. This Las Vegas-import is often visited by various Hollywood celebs from Rupert Grint to the Kardashians. They’re mostly known for their signature cocktails that are made with candy that bubbles and sizzles.
As soon as you enter the massive establishment in Dubai Festival City, you will first get the impression of a candy store. Numerous candy types right from your favourite jelly beans to smiley lollipops, they have them all. You will notice that the brand has a rubber ducky as their logo. This is owing to the owner’s fondness for rubber ducks, which is what we were informed by our server.
The restaurant has used the Hollywood heavy giants to its advantage, with pictures of them everywhere. A waitress informs us that they hold something called ‘Couture Pops,’ which is apparently a pop culture phenomenon and have made confections a celebrity accessory in America. The demand is off the roof for these, which is why they have refused to sell them in store until they get more stock. I got to remove the Britney Couture Pop out of mine (Kendall Jenner don’t mean nothin’ to me, I’m a honest to goodness 90’s kid.)
On another note:
We first ordered our fizzing, smoking goblets that are just a treat to the eye in their fun colours. Out of this, I really liked the green goblin one, it wasn’t exceedingly sweet as the others, tasted like green apple and was visually quite appealing. The electric blue and strawberry mojito we ordered were too sweet, but the electric blue had cute shark jelly beans in it. Aww, cute.
Food wise, Sugar Factory is classically American with gargantuan quantities. However, like most American franchises out here, it has a lot of scope for improvement. My favourites were the delectable fried mac and cheese and the very well-cooked and succulent beef sliders. The rest of their food game could really use an uplift in flavour. Their scallops and fish in lemon and butter sauce was pretty good, but their ribs were exceedingly salty. However, guests who were served the rib-eye were raving about it.
The chicken and mushroom soup served was very run-off-the-mill; they made a mistake by adding a fried bread with cheese on top which made the soup spill over once you tried to put your spoon on it. They did do a decent vegetarian pasta in Alfredo sauce, but I don’t think that was rocket science. Their sun dried tomato chicken pasta was confusing to taste with the cold sun-dried tomatoes and the warm chicken. Not particularly appetising.
For the dessert, they had a massive sundae with a variety of flavored ice creams and brownies. This was, again, average.
Overall, I would say go to Sugar Factory to check out their candy selection and try a smoking green goblet…if you have a particularly sweet tooth.
Disclaimer: I was invited to Sugar Factory to review the same. A complimentary meal was given in compensation.
LOCATION
Level 1 of Dubai Festival City, located a few meters to the right of Cheesecake Factory.