I’m another year older and wiser… well definitely older anyway.
Unfortunately my birthday this year fell on a Tuesday, which meant I had to work during the day, and get up early the next day too.
With this in mind I couldn’t do anything too crazy- no all night raves this year. The plan instead was to go to a chilled lounge bar, somewhere we could get decent food, drinks, shisha and preferably an outdoors bar with a view. November is my favourite month in Dubai as the weather is perfect for sitting outside. I usually head for the 360 bar when I want this sort of night, but we decided to try somewhere new.
The Treehouse bar at the Taj hotel (an amazing hotel with so many great bars and restaurants) seemed to meet all of my requirements.
Outdoor bar- 
Shisha-
Nibbles-
Amazing view-
However, you never really can tell until you actually go and see it for yourself. So last night at 7.30pm on my birthday I arrived at the stunning Taj hotel, got out on floor three, and walked through the cool looking, new Asian restaurant on the block called Miss Tess. See this Blog for details – I really want to try it out! You walk through and out on to the terrace of Treehouse, which had a cool bar and sofas and tables scattered around, amongst pots of plants.
We had reserved in advance and were given a corner sofa with table, with a clear view of the Burj Khalifa! Score.
Being a bit peckish we ordered some nibbles such as nachos, shrimp and emirati fries, all were really tasty. The menu isn’t extensive but it has a good variety of options and the food is all of high quality. Personally I prefer a well thought out small menu anyway..
As it was Tuesday us ladies also got two free drinks- we could choose from wine or three different cocktails. I went for the strawberry daiquiri, margherita and also ordered a signature cocktail which wasn’t on the ladies menu. It was absolutely amazing called the Coco Fury. I’d assumed it was coconut flavour, but it actually tasted more like an after eight chocolate, with a kick of chilli! Yum. It was much better than the cocktails offered for ladies night which were okay but nothing special, the wine however was really nice. Hmm, maybe I had more drinks than I thought.. 
We then ordered blueberry and mint shisha. The shisha was the best I’ve had in Dubai. It had actual fruit inside, the shisha pipe lit up and changed colour, and it had two pipes so you can easily share with friends. It was so smooth- didn’t make me cough at all but gave me a nice high!
After our drinks and shisha, we paid our bill and got 30% off due to it being ladies night yay.
We then headed downstairs to the Billionaires Mansion which is a bar/restaurant/club also at the Taj hotel. This place does ladies night every single night of the week from 9pm-12, and their gin and tonics are the best. They put grapefruit in, instead of the usual lemon or lime, which was really refreshing and a nice change. It’s a great place for people watching- we were definitely under dressed in comparison to the crowd there.
After a few gin and tonics, although it was barely midnight, we made the sensible decision to call it a night due to being up at 6am the next morning!
Overall it was a great night and just what I’d wanted. The Taj hotel had met and exceeded all of my expectations with the Treehouse bar, followed by a cheeky few in Billionaires Mansion. I’ll definitely be back…