The food at Elken is fantastic! I’ve wanted to visit this ‘community café’ for a while now and finally did for a late breakfast. The easiest restaurant to find in the Dubai Marina as its right opposite Choithrams, but it did take us a while to find the small staircase leading to the back of the building where you’ll eventually find this café. 

We arrived at a time when the restaurant was empty so we had our choice of seating. There’s a glass separating the seating area. (One side with a children’s play area and one without.) Where we sat made no difference as we had a pleasant view of the Marina everywhere, but it did bother us that there were a countless number of flies buzzing around inside the café. (Highly unimpressed by this. We were busy fanning flies away from our food whilst eating; very unhygienic.)

I ordered a Café Latte and added caramel to it. It arrived perfectly foamy. Our English Breakfast Tea came next and we were enamored with the unique concept of timing the tea bag with several colorful hourglasses so as to avoid having your tea taste too strong. We had soon forgotten about the purpose of these hourglasses and left the tea bag in too long but our server immediately came over and removed the tea bag for us.

Ordered the ‘3 Eggs Your Way’ next and we were very impressed by how perfectly our eggs were cooked. Although, I did not appreciate the fact that we were not provided with a breadbasket and had to pay for another two slices of toast. Finally, we placed an order for the highly advertised ‘Carrot Cake’ in a jar made by Chef Azy and let me tell you this, it is one of the best carrot cakes I’ve had in Dubai. (Ironically, the other amazing carrot cake is also made at a Russian bakery.) The little carrot on top, used as decoration, looked more like a tiny chili than a carrot. 

Our servers were very helpful right from the start; from asking for directions to escorting us to the door as we left the café. I would suggest bringing a family along; all will share in an enjoyable experience.