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DEIRA, DUBAI • SEPTEMBER 2021

Strawberry Corner: A Late Lunch in Deira, Dubai

A quick wait on 31A Street turns into a late lunch at Strawberry Corner — just down the road from the Coral Dubai Deira Hotel.

Left: 31A Street, Deira — 2:37 PM. Right: the Strawberry Corner menu, Al Muraqqabat Street — 2:49 PM. Tuesday, September 7, 2021.

2:37 PM, 31A Street, Deira. I was standing on the sidewalk with my camera up, waiting to pick up my best friend Khristine — the ordinary kind of waiting that turns into a photograph only because you happen to have the phone out already.

Twelve minutes later we were a few blocks over on Al Muraqqabat Street, looking at the menu board outside Strawberry Corner — a late lunch, the practical kind that happens whenever two schedules finally line up. The whole stretch is walkable from where I was staying that trip, the Coral Dubai Deira Hotel, just down the road.

📌 Did You Know? Deira is one of Dubai's oldest and most walkable districts — and home to a longstanding Filipino community, including many OFWs who live and work in the neighborhood. A pickup on one street and a late lunch on the next is an ordinary Deira afternoon for a lot of kababayan there.

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🇵🇭 Tagalog Word of the Day Sundo — SOON-doh
To fetch or pick someone up. It's the word for the whole errand this photo is about: showing up somewhere so a friend doesn't have to get there alone.

Two Stops, One Afternoon

Neither half of this photo is dramatic on its own — a street corner, a restaurant menu. Put together they're a small, complete unit of a Dubai afternoon: the waiting, then the walk, then the table. Strawberry Corner sits on Al Muraqqabat Street, close enough to the Coral Dubai Deira Hotel that the whole errand — pickup to lunch — covered only a few blocks.

This is the kind of moment PinoyBuilt exists to keep. Not the landmark, not the flight number — just 2:37 and 2:49 on an ordinary Tuesday, Deira, September 2021.

Sources

• J.F.R. Perseveranda — personal photography and firsthand account, Deira, Dubai, September 7, 2021.

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Founder & Editor

J.F.R. Perseveranda

J.F. (Jonjo) left the Philippines at age nine, spending a lifetime bridging the gap between his Marikina roots and his Chicago/Vallejo upbringing. A proud Hogan Spartan from East Vallejo and resident of LA/SF, he founded PinoyBuilt not just as a digital archive, but as a cultural compass for his three children to navigate their heritage, language, and identity with Pinoy Pride.

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