The plot is straightforward. A bank decides a credit card needs marketing, and hires a creative agency. The creative agency insists on the goodness of social media and proceeds to create a ‘food blog.’ This food blog then requires one or more people to go out, eat at every concievable place in every possible cranny, and write up what they saw and heard.

Of course, this isn’t the direct equivalent of being a food critic. I have the ninja skills required to  burn even water on a slow flame, hence may not be the world’s most qualified person to critique the fluffiness of mash or the consistency of miso soup. But I can write about what I like and don’t; and hold forth on the gap between the chef’s incisors.

The schedule is brilliantly insane – I and a fellow food explorer have to cover ninety restaurants within a month. This of course has resulted in my developing a #GourmetBelly (we have Mishaal Algergawi to thank for that epithet). However, not only is it a wonderful way of making others pay for your nosh, but has genuinely dragged me to places and deals I wouldn’t have bothered with in the normal course of affairs. I’m becoming, inadvertently, quite the authority on value deals at genuinely interesting places, and have been brilliantly surprised by a couple of food joints that lie outside my normal meanderings.

My gourmand and gourmet experiences, replete with gluttony and indigestion, can be read at the UAE Food Explorer blog. Comment, crib and contribute if you get the chance.

Dubai artist Lantian Xie serves up a tasty offering.

A time-based installation that focuses on food. (SUPPLIED)

Art is created to be experienced, but not many forms utilise more than one of the five senses simultaneously. The Mona Lisa indulges the sight, while the latest offering by L’Artisan Parfumeur is a treat for the sinuses. The likes of Gordon Ramsay have fallen to fame by treating taste buds, and Chopin is associated with aural pleasure.

Installation art is one of the few areas where artists can create a more ensconcing experience. Lantian Xie, the force behind art gallery Jam Jar’s latest project, chose this route. I’ll Be Back Someday addresses several senses in a way that is seldom seen in Dubai’s conventional art circles.

Xie’s previous work has been in video. He has graduated to perhaps the only thing more realistic than high definition – real life.

Approach his installation, and you are confronted by snake queues shaped by red ribbons, much as you’d find in an airport. The spectator passes these queues, summoned perhaps by the enticing smells of cooking, only to be stopped by a black shroud. The spectator must become a participant, interacting with the installation and lifting up the shroud to find: Xie cooking and serving stew and rice to all and sundry.

He is proud of his cooking skills. He mentions that he has been practising for over a month.

Xie’s entire installation is a study of barriers and the rewards of overcoming them. In the multi-cultural city of Dubai where we, proud of our plurality, still manage to treat anyone unlike us with healthy suspicion, his work is particularly pertinent.

In order to reach the artist, who is very appreciative of questions, one must negotiate obstacles both internal and external. The food is the facilitator. It sets the stage for the artist and spectator to interact and indulge.

The concept of barriers and reaching past them is not Dubai-specific, says Xie. He is a nomad who has travelled the Far East, Europe and the US before finally choosing to stay in the emirate. His art is informed by the complicated interaction of hostility and goodwill found the world over.

Xie is as curious as his audience about the outcome of his experiment. Creating art out of interaction, or interaction out of art, means every day promises something different. Xie believes his cooking will improve, while the relationships he builds with his audience will also change for the better as he gets repeat visits.

The installation is ‘time-based’, which is a complicated way of saying Xie will be at the Jam Jar, every single day of the week till the end of May, cooking, serving and chatting away to those who have seen past his defences. It may seem like much ado over a dish, but the piquancy is in the engagement, not the rice.

- I’ll Be Back Someday runs until May 28

[This is a review written for Emirates Business 24/7 and and can be found here:

Posted via email from Sfumato