That is familiar !

On my first day in Dubai, V took me to the desi grocery store in the evening. There were stores everywhere ! The city has stunning buildings and lighting. And it is undoubtedly the Shopping Capital of the World. I will write about the malls and stores in another post.

So, anyway coming back to my story. We came out of Choitram, the grocery store, and my eyes fell on a coffee shop on the opposite side of the road. It was 'Second Cup' ! Imagine my surprise. I had seen this coffee shop chain Canada just a few months ago. I had not even seen it in US and here it was ! I was very curious to see if it was the same chain. So, the next evening, V and I went to have coffee. It was the same ! But they did not have the maple latte. Instead they had more cold beverages ( made sense as it was in Dubai).

Then on subsequent trips to the grocery store, I even found many brands that I use in the US. For example, my breakfast is still Quaker oats ! Ragu pasta sauce is available here. So, are Milano chocolate cookies ! There is so much more variety here for food products. But food products are a lot more expensive compared to US.

Starbucks is a familiar sight everywhere. Here are some more stores that were familiar
( NOT including those that are european and common in India)


* Cold Stone creamery
* McDonalds
* Burger King
* Chilies
* Tony Roma's
* Cinnabon
* Haagen Daz
* Subway

* Gap
* Old Navy
* Banana Republic
* Claires
* Forever 21
* Columbia
* Timberland
* Liz Clairborne

Famous stores like Guess, Nike, DKNY, Levis, Hugo Boss, Polo, MAC, Dockers, Espirit, Diesel, Calvin Klein, Benetton, Elle, etc are there in most of the malls !

Needless to say, I was quite surprised !