Unlimited in Abu Dhabi: the formats that repay the price

The unlimited format in Abu Dhabi follows the hotel calendar, and the hotel calendar is generous here because the city has more rooms than it has weekend visitors.

Seafood nights are the pick. A designated evening, a fixed price, and the expensive half of the menu made unlimited — crab, prawn, whole fish off the grill. The value is real because those items carry the highest à la carte margin the rest of the week. Arrive at the start of the sitting; the difference between the first and last hour is visible.

The weekend family spread is the second format and it is priced for what it is: a lot of food, a wide range, and a room built to feed everyone at once. It works when the party is mixed and disappoints anyone hoping for a restaurant experience.

The third is the mid-week set-price grill, which is quietly the best value in the city — a smaller room, a shorter list, unlimited within it, and half the weekend price.

The details that decide whether any of these is worth it: the time cap, increasingly ninety minutes; whether soft drinks are included, which they often are not; and whether children are charged by age or by height, which sounds trivial and changes a family bill substantially.

As across the Emirates, summer is when these offers are most generous and most numerous, because the city is competing for residents rather than visitors.