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The uniform room attendant hands me a chef's tunic, an apron and two long strips of fabric with plastic nipples sprouting from each. I raise an eyebrow. "Buttons. These are your buttons," she explains.
Holding the tunic and strips in front of me, I try to imagine how the three could possibly combine into the smart chef's outfit I'd seen others wearing here at Zuma. "Are you on trial?" asks the lady. "No, I'm a journalist; I'm here to write about the restaurant."
Five minutes of fumbling and I still can't work out how it all fits together. Looking up, I see that Zuma's executive chef, Colin Clague, is now leaning against the door frame.
"If you can't even dress like a chef, I shudder to think how you'll handle a knife," he grins.
At my request, Colin's kindly taken me on as a trainee for a day. The idea I pitched was to give a fly-on-the-wall account of Dubai's hottest new Japanese restaurant, although my ulterior motive was to learn a few new culinary tricks. "So you've worked in a kitchen before?"
"I used to be in room service; our kitchen was full of English chefs who would abuse at us all the time."
It's hard to imagine the chefs at the DIFC restaurant breathing fire; many are migrants from Zuma London, the celeb hotspot Colin helped open six years ago. There's a lot of chirp and camaraderie among the staff and they say it's been an easy transition moving to the UAE, arriving with ready-made mates.
Zuma's cooking areas comprise a regular kitchen (located back of shop), a grill area and handsome sushi counter, which are both in full view of the restaurant's patrons.
"You'll start at the sushi counter," says Colin, introducing me to Kondo San, a young Japanese chef whose stare fillets me on the spot.
As I approach the counter, Kondo San's co-workers all nod a greeting then plunge back into their work prepping fish and cleaning prawns. Not wanting to annoy a group of guys highly proficient with knives, I observe them at work and wait for my directions. Soon Kondo San appears with some sea bass fillets and beckons me over. Angling a blade, he bunches the fish slightly and slices through it with the meat of the knife.
After several cuts, he hands me the blade. Now to my eyes, I repeat exactly what Kondo San has just done, slicing the fillet at a slight angle. Kondo San then frowns and points at my knife.
"Down, down, down!" he exclaims. Down? I am slicing down. I'm certainly not slicing up. I repeat the cut and he scolds me again. And again. And again. After I have finished, I am relieved of my knife. From the way Kondo San then ignores me, I am quite certain the Japanese character for 'loser' has settled, figuratively, on my forehead.
After watching a man sculpture king prawns for 10 minutes, Colin appears. "Come, let's take you to the grill section," he says. Kondo San and his crew make respectful half-bows and I am led away.
This isn't my first time at Zuma. A month earlier I'd come here for a chat and was treated to lashings of its delicious menu in the making. The food was fresh and flavourful; the tuna was so tender you could practically drink it through a straw.
Zuma's trademark is traditional Japanese cuisine that often features untraditional, yet totally compatible, ingredients. On that day I was presented with the sea bass, which was crisp on the underside, housing a bed of soft, tender flesh. Totally sublime. Zuma's founder, Rainer Becker, took one look at it and said, "It's not crisp enough. It has to be perfectly crisp."
The folk at the grill area were the culprits on that occasion and I'm now in the midst of their workstation – a flame-belching charcoal grill surrounded by benches. Chef Ben Orpwood is the guy responsible for this area.
"I remember when I came for a trial at Zuma London, I had never cooked on charcoal before. It was a totally new experience. You have to learn to manipulate the coals to get the right temperature; sometimes you want a grill effect; other times a more oven-like effect."
My first job is preparing the beef fillet, which hails from Australia's Ranges Valley. To give it a cylindrical shape, the fillet is tightly wrapped in cling wrap then left for several hours. This I find fairly easy. Ben watches the first time and says, "Yeah, that's right." At last, I've done something right. Admittedly, it's not rocket science but it's something I can do for my next barbecue.
"Now you're going to prepare sea bass," says Ben. "First debone it, then make some small incisions in the underside; this will prevent it from curling over on the grill."
First I debone the fillet with a device that resembles a fingernail clipper (which I dearly hope isn't its alternate purpose). After I pull out several bones, Ben nods his approval. I flip the fillet over then start making incisions in the scaly underside. "No that's too deep. Again, too deep. This one will have to be for staff lunch!"
Sensing that I'm not such a deft hand with fish, Ben steers me to another section where the most enormous crab legs I've ever seen are piled in a grotesque heap. It's like something from a Salvadore Dali painting.
"These are from giant spider crabs, you see them on National Geographic documentaries; they live deep in the Atlantic. They're absolute monsters. On the menu, we call them king crabs – giant spider crab doesn't have the same ring to it."
The routine's simple: crack the legs at the joints and leave them. The larger legs stay at the grill, the smaller parts go to the main kitchen where they're boiled then deep fried as tempura.
After I'm finished, Ben shows me the various sections of the grill, where the charcoal is now glowing. Dishes like chicken yakitori need to slowly glaze while staying tender, so these are done high above the coals in the 'medium' section, he says. The hot air circulating acts like a convection oven. Sea bass, prawns and crabs all require intense heat, so are done quickly, closer to the coals.
By now, my brow's thick with sweat and I'm pleased to see Colin appear again. Just as he's about to lead me to the main kitchen, he gets a ring on his mobile.
"You're lost? Just ask someone to point you towards the Karama Post Office... no, no, don't keep driving, you'll end up at Garhoud. Hang on, how much chilli sauce have we got Alex? Enough? Don't worry about the chilli sauce... and ask someone for directions, will you?"
Colin says the restaurant sometimes uses ingredients from a Korean supplier in Karama. Yet asides from hammour, practically all their ingredients come from overseas, wherever the quality's the best.
The main kitchen's a jovial place and the centre of much of the mirth is Ravin Thangavelautham, tempura chef and 'grandfather' figure. A 50-something quirky Sri Lankan, Ravin met Colin on the Tube many years ago and joined him at Zuma London. After a year of retirement in Thailand, Ravin agreed to rejoin Colin, this time in the engine room of Zuma Dubai.
"You're in the geriatric section now," one of the staff tells me, winking at Ravin.
Ravin takes the comment in his stride and leads me to the tempura area. The oil is still not hot enough to begin. At this point I ask Colin if anyone's ever cooked in his kitchen before. "We used to get a lot of the footballers coming to Zuma London and a couple of them came in and tried doing tempura," he says.
An Arsenal supporter, he admits that any member of the Gunners who pitched at Zuma always got looked after. And the Chelsea players? "We didn't turn them away but I'd have to say they didn't get any special treatment," he answers with a laugh.
As the oil heats up Ravin splashes some batter in, which sizzles. "It's almost ready."
Tempura was actually a result of foreign trade, says Colin. "The Portuguese introduced the technique of deep-frying to Japan. But the Japanese, who dislike oily food, found a way of making it lighter and healthier."
Ravin uses a thin, watery batter and light oil, which is drained and changed after every shift. He then demonstrates the process. "See, you first cover the vegetable in flour – just very lightly all over, then dust it off. Now you swish it through the batter then float it into the oil," he says, sending an asparagus spear sizzling through the oil.
Now it's my turn and I repeat the process, flipping some bok choy into the oil, which sizzles and spits. After a short period, Ravin scoops the vegetables out and deftly arranges them on a plate. "Now try them." The vegetables are divine and unwilted by the deep frying. Ravin instructs me to do some prawns, which I coat in flour and batter then swish into the oil
"Keep flicking batter on them," says Ravin and I splash great dollops of batter into the oil, which spits and bubbles. I can see why the footy players like tempura.
Ravin removes the prawns and examines them. "The batter is too thick. But they're okay." I try one of them. Not bad. At last I've made something edible, but I suspect asking for a job wouldn't be too wise. And I don't want to put Ravin out of a job, after all.
Located at Dubai International Financial Centre, Zuma is open from Sunday to Friday 12.30 to 2.45pm and 7pm to 11.30pm, call 04-4255600.
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