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Mar 5
3 min

Anchor NZ Unsalted Butter - New Zealand

Our first proper New Zealand butter! We sampled the salted and unsalted at the same time and there's a reason why New Zealand has the reputation it does! Ah, New Zealand. We were so excited to find Anchor butter here in Dubai. Anchor is an interesting company - its home is New Zealand but it also has a solid commercial presence in the UK through its UK company. We can find Anchor UK easily here in Dubai but Anchor ZN, with its New Zealand produced milk, is much harder to find

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Organic Larder Fresh Organic Butter - Italy

Justine Elamatha

Feb 28
2 min

Organic Larder Fresh Organic Butter - Italy

Despite the fact that Organic Larder is a UAE company, this butter originates from Italy! We're very excited to see this butter because, for an Italian butter, it's unique! Read on, dear reader - Read on! In our experience, Italian butters are unique in that they're very clean and clear and remarkably pale, probably due to grain fed cows. This butter, however, from Organic Larder is impressively yellow and gracefully flavourful. The packaging is very sweet too- it has the typ

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Yeo Valley Organic Unsalted Butter - UK (England)

Justine Elamatha

Dec 5, 2020
2 min

Yeo Valley Organic Unsalted Butter - UK (England)

Yeo Valley is an incredible organic dairy producer. Perhaps more well-known for their yoghurt, they also produce decadent butter in addition to an array of different dairy products. Their butters have nothing to do with the fermented variety; these are light, delicate and fresh from start to finish! Yeo Valley knows what they're doing when it comes to product design. These little blocks of butter are beautifully packaged with little daisies and bunting sprinkled across the wr

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Justine Elamatha

Nov 29, 2020
2 min

Ferma Salted Butter - Ukraine

Like its unsalted counterpart, Ferma's salted butter is a tasty treat that packs a punch. We loved the complexity of this well-balanced Ukrainian butter! We will never case to be amazed at how many different Ukrainian butters are easily available here in Dubai. Ferma does both salted and unsalted, so though they're not exactly comparable due to the salt content, it's nice to have a range from a dairy. We sampled both in the same tasting though we sampled all the unsalted butt

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Justine Elamatha

Nov 29, 2020
3 min

Ferma Unsalted Butter - Ukraine

You have to go out of your way to find this Ukrainian butter but it's well worth the sojourn. This is a unique butter that needs to be tasted to be believed! It never ceases to impress us that Ukraine exports so much butter to the UAE. We are, of course, eternally grateful because nowhere else on the planet have we even seen Ukranian butter even as an option! A country with such a rich (yet under-appreciated) food history would logically produce a lot of butter for its own co

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Justine Elamatha

Nov 12, 2020
3 min

Azza Cow Ghee - Egypt

Pure cow ghee from the Egypt- and our first product from Africa! This stuff packs a punch and can hold up to any spice you can throw at it. Hello friends! This week, we get our first submission from the great African continent! This ghee took us some time to find because, unlike other ghees, it's sold from cooler sections here and not in the oils aisles. Egypt has an established tradition of making ghee, or samna baladi as Wikipedia helpfully explains. Though samna baladi is

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Land O'Lakes Butter with Canola Oil - USA

Justine Elamatha

Nov 12, 2020
4 min

Land O'Lakes Butter with Canola Oil - USA

Our first American butter is a blend but is also the only one we can locate in Dubai at the moment. However, from what we can tell, the US currently has enough on its plate, so keep on fighting the good fight and welcome to The Club. Once upon a time, before COVID, we could get a decent variety of American butters easily. Then, supply chains got disrupted, price points changed, availability dried up and here we are with our first American specimen. This isn't really a fair en

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Milkio Organic Grass-Fed Ghee - New Zealand

Justine Elamatha

Nov 5, 2020
3 min

Milkio Organic Grass-Fed Ghee - New Zealand

Premium taste from a premium grass-fed cow butter ghee! Ah, New Zealand. A country famous for, amongst other things, grass-fed dairy and meat products! Thanks to #MichaelPollan and others, grass-fed is one of our top aspirational buzzwords these days but in this case, it is truly the case. Milkio is based near Hamilton (Kirikiriroa), which is located on New Zealand's North Island, just south of Auckland. They pride themselves on meticulous commitment to producing some of th

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Justine Elamatha

Oct 9, 2020
3 min

Andechser Natur Bio Almbutter- Germany

Our first German butter! Cultured, unsalted, ostensibly Alpine-pastured and organic, this butter is an impressive example of the wonderful butters Germany has to offer. Let's dig in - los geht's! When I lived in Germany, I completely took for granted all the easily-accessible fantastic bread, butter, milk and pork products. I lived in Bavaria with a wonderful host family for nearly a year and even though my host mother hated cooking and deliberately built her kitchen to disco

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Justine Elamatha

Oct 3, 2020
2 min

Nadec Natural Butter - Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a prolific dairy producer and is really quite talented at creating their own French-style butters. Nadec takes it to the #NextLevel. In the UAE, we generally have two Saudi butters available to us: Almarai and Nadec. Having previously reviewed Almarai, we're very pleased to add our other Saudi competitor to our family! The Saudi butters available to us are all cultured butters, as in produced with lactic bacteria introduced in order to produce the characterist

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Justine Elamatha

Sep 25, 2020
3 min

Paul Beurre Doux - France

Beautiful butter comes in all shapes, sizes and packages. Paul's simply-potted butter served with their petit déjeuner français is a total treat. French, elegantly presented and a perfect compliment to their baguette tradition and confitures. I am a sucker for French style. Simple, elegant, understated, chic... and for me, unattainable. These delightful little pots of butter at #Paul Bakery make me squiggle in my seat like a Corgi waiting for a treat. There's something decade

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Jersey Dairy Unsalted Butter - UK (Channel Islands)

Justine Elamatha

Sep 18, 2020
2 min

Jersey Dairy Unsalted Butter - UK (Channel Islands)

Jersey butter! From Jersey! Genuine Jersey! This is our very first pure Jersey Jersey Jersey butter and it did not disappoint. When writers superlatively describe butter in historical fiction, you get this feeling that this is what they're talking about! Jersey cows might be some of the most adorable cows out there. Though the bulls have a reputation for being ornery, their big doe eyes and sweet little faces are the inspiration for cartoon cows everywhere *cough*Disney*cough

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Bio-Wiesenmilch Bio Süßrahm Teebutter- Austria

Justine Elamatha

Sep 11, 2020
3 min

Bio-Wiesenmilch Bio Süßrahm Teebutter- Austria

Tea Butter! Wait... what is Tea Butter? It's not butter tea and it's sold as a block of butter in the refrigerated section of supermarkets so...? You know what: let's just enjoy this. It's lovely. Aaah, Tea Butter! Until I did this write up, I had no idea what Tea Butter was. Mercifully, the Viennese tourism authority is here to shed some light on the matter. The TL;DR version is that Tea Butter or, in German Teebutter got its name in the 1800s either from an aristocratic acr

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Justine Elamatha

Aug 26, 2020
2 min

Milma Ghee - India

This is far from our first ghee ever, but it is the first one to get a writeup! This is a fantastic ghee- rich, sweet-smelling and beautiful in food, regardless of spice or heat content. When I fist saw this in the shop, I thought I recognised the language printed on the label. My father is from India's southern-most state, Kerala and sure enough, that's where it's from! Fun fact: Kerala's predominant language, Malayalam, is the world's longest palindrome! How fitting that th

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Paysan Breton Le Beurre Moulé Demi-Sel - France

Justine Elamatha

Aug 20, 2020
2 min

Paysan Breton Le Beurre Moulé Demi-Sel - France

After three personal recommendations, of course the IBC had to profile this one! Proper French butter from Brittany is always a delight and it's so easy to comprehend why this one has captured the hearts of so many. Nom nom nom. In this, our first venture into the butters of Brittany, we delve into a butter that is a fixed fan favourite amongst butter enthusiasts. Paysan Breton, established as a dairy cooperative in 1969, has a firmly established presence in the international

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Justine Elamatha

Aug 12, 2020
2 min

Kerrygold Salted Butter - Ireland

Any Irish person I've ever met has declared Kerrygold Salted Irish Butter to be the ultimate in perfection and pronounced everything else dreck. This review does not have a surprise ending because it is delicious and I value my limbs. The Irish are great at butter. They are also resourceful, creative, the life of the party and completely no-nonsense, which is very much the nature of Kerrygold butter. How something so consistently good can be so ubiquitous is beyond me, yet he

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Isigny Sainte Mère Salted Butter - France

Justine Elamatha

Aug 10, 2020
3 min

Isigny Sainte Mère Salted Butter - France

Which came first? The country or the butter... or the reputation? Aaaah, French butter. World-renowned, internationally respected and sought-after by many (though not all. This one's for you, Carli). There's a reason it as the reputation it does: France really has taken its food obsession to even the humble dairy cow. For which, of course, I am eternally grateful. Grateful in particular for Isigny Ste Mère, which happens to be turning 40 this year! Bonne anniversaire, mon gra

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Virgilio Organic Unsalted Butter - Italy

Justine Elamatha

Aug 10, 2020
2 min

Virgilio Organic Unsalted Butter - Italy

The only Italian butter so far discovered in Dubai- it's unique! Italian butter is unlike any other Western butter out there. The first thing you notice when you unwrap the package is how white it is. It's not quite as translucent as lard but it's nearly as white. I first encountered Italian butter when we were living in Geneva and would road trip down to Tuscany for long weekends (tough gig, I know). Italy has a robust artesian butter industry and many supermarkets have a se

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