So, the new old car. Did I mention it has tinted windows? Which is pretty much how we roll, here in the UAE.

Anyone who is anybody, and some of us who are not, want our windows tinted. To cut down on the sun pouring into the interior of a car and overheating it in about 30 seconds. But also to disguise us from prying eyes.

So, the other day, we found another upside to tinted windows in an Audi that might (if you don’t look closely enough to realize the car is 10 years old) be driven by an Emirati.

Curbside service at a restaurant.

I can’t imagine this is peculiar just to the UAE; might be the norm throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

But what the locals here often do is … pull up outside a restaurant or a coffee shop (or even a small grocery) and lean on the horn … and guys run out to the car to see what the driver, who cannot be bothered to park and walk, would like to order.

One of us drove over to the new Lebanese Flower restaurant (a spinoff of the vastly popular Lebanese Flower up on 11th Street) … to see what it was like. About 500 yards from where we now live, in the semi-suburban towers of the south/east end of Abu Dhabi Island, which is rapidly being built up and populated.

Maybe it was the first few days of a new shop, and rampant enthusiasm for service, or (more likely) it was the off chance that the white Audi with tinted windows was being piloted by an Emirati … but the upshot of is was a parking lot waiter was at the window in a matter of seconds, to take an order — without even the horn being blown.

Which is handy, not having to park, on a hot sweaty night. You order, try (at least a little) not to block traffic in every direction, and sit inside your tinted windows with the AC blasting and your music playing.

The kitchen seemed a little slow, on the first weekend at the place, but the proprietors (no accident Lebanese Flower is hugely successful) had the parking lot waiters running out with falafels to make the wait less taxing. (And Lebanese Flower has very fine falafels, indeed. New oil, is one explanation I’ve heard.)

So, yeah, for a moment we were living the Emirati experience, and eventually the order came, and the tinted window went back up, and five minutes later, the food was on the table at the apartment.

No sweat.