What a Dubai kitchen can and cannot do for you

If you live in Sharjah, Ajman, Abu Dhabi or Ras Al Khaimah, start with the boundary. Shaun the Sheep is a Persian kalle pache kitchen in Jumeirah, Dubai, and delivery runs across Dubai only. We cannot send an order to an address in another emirate, and it is better to know that before you build a morning around it.

Three routes are open to you instead, and all three work at any hour, because the kitchen does not close. You can sit down and eat here in Jumeirah. You can order ahead for a time you choose instead of the time you happen to arrive. Or you can send an order to a Dubai address you are going to anyway: a hotel room, a relative's flat, an office you are visiting. The rest of this is about choosing between the three.

Eating in, at any hour of the day or night

Kalle pache is traditionally a dawn dish. Lamb heads and trotters go into the pot the night before and simmer for something like fourteen hours, so the broth is ready as the sun comes up; in Iran the old kalle pache houses opened before the bakeries did. That is worth knowing, and it is not a rule you have to keep. We are open twenty-four hours, every day of the week. For a reader coming in from another emirate that is the most useful line on this page: you do not have to fit your travel into a breakfast window. Three in the afternoon works. Two in the morning works.

Sitting down is the route that suits the food best. It arrives hot with sangak bread, torshi, lime, onion and green pepper, and those are at their best immediately: the bread while it is still warm, the broth before it cools and sets. If you have not eaten it before, our first-timer's guide walks through the order of things at the table.

Ordering ahead for a set time

A pre-order is the tool for a day that is already timed to the minute. You set a future time and the kitchen works to your clock rather than the other way round. That helps whether you mean to sit down at the hour you set or have the food sent to a Dubai address at that hour; call 04 321 8882 if you would rather arrange it by phone.

Two practical notes. Payment on the website is card prepay only: the order is paid for when it is placed, there is no cash on delivery, and nobody pays a driver. And settle what you are ordering before you set out, because that is the part that takes thought. The menu is short enough to read in one sitting.

Sending an order to a Dubai address

The third route is the one for when you are not the person eating in Jumeirah: a family member staying in a Dubai hotel, a cousin's flat in the city, a colleague's office. Any Dubai address works, and the emirate you are sitting in yourself makes no difference to it. What the kitchen needs is a full Dubai address and a phone number that will be answered. Delivery is free on orders over AED 300, which is worth keeping in mind when you are feeding a room rather than one person. Our page on kalle pache delivery in Dubai covers how the food is packed and sent.

What to put on the order

The platters are built by head count: the Single Dish for one, the Double Dish for two, the Full Dish for three and the Khan's Platter for six. A platter is the straightforward answer when you are ordering for a group and do not want an argument about parts.

If you would rather choose piece by piece, the singles are eye, brain, meat, tongue, trotters, tripe, lamb cheek, brain soup, soup and the special mix, mojoon. They do not stand in for each other: brain is soft and mild, tongue is dense and lean, trotters give you the gelatine that makes the broth cling to the bread. The guide to the singles explains each one properly.

A short checklist before you set out

  • Delivery is Dubai only; dining in at Jumeirah is open to anyone who can get here.
  • The kitchen runs twenty-four hours, so there is no window to miss.
  • Card prepay on the website; there is no cash on delivery.
  • For a set time, place a pre-order rather than betting on when you arrive.
  • Sending food to a Dubai address needs the full address and a phone that will be answered.
  • 04 321 8882 if you would rather talk it through first.