To recap …

The United Arab Emirates, a collection of seven tribal-based entities on the northeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula … has two cities that matter.

One is Dubai, the New York City of the UAE.

The other is Abu Dhabi, the Washington D.C. of the UAE.

Dubai has the arts scene, the restaurants, the tallest building in the world, man-made islands that look like palm trees, a subway … it’s the city that never sleeps.

But Abu Dhabi is the capital. It is the source of real power in the country. Not only does the president of the country live and rule from here, greater Abu Dhabi (out in the Gulf, and along the shore) is where the serious oil is.  Like, 90 percent of the oil in the entire UAE.

When Dubai was forced to concede late last year that it had lived beyond its means … it was to Abu Dhabi that NYC came for a bailout — and got one, to the tune of $10 billion. (We had the sense that somebody took a hammer to a piggy bank and $10 billion fell out; that’s how much money they have here.)

So, there you are: Abu Dhabi means more, but it is less well-known globally, has fewer posh/memorable/over-the-top sites and scenes and sounds. Though it is beginning to rectify that. As we discovered this week while investigating one of the city’s tony new hotels.

Abu Dhabi Island is where most of the people in the capital live and work, and just south of the island is a neighborhood known as Between Two Bridges. Because it is a tongue of land that sticks out toward the island and has a bridge connecting Abu Dhabi Island to the mainland on either side of it. This tongue of land, that is. Which is, in fact, between the bridges.

Along the north shore of this tongue of land are a serious of posh to very posh hotels that have recently opened. And we spent consecutive nights at the Shangri-La Hotel.

This is a part of Abu Dhabi than is different from the workaday capital back on the island. This is the ritzy Abu Dhabi. Not up to Dubai standards yet, but starting to make the transition.

The Shangri-La is the most visually impressive of the Big Three hotels in the Two Bridges area (the Fairmont and Traders being the others). Sprawling. The size of a Las Vegas Strip hotel minus the casino and the fat guys in T-shirts.

We went out there the first night for the farewell party of a colleague who is returning to Wales. A good guy. A good journalist who will be missed. And who just happened to pick, for his final night in the country, the same hotel we were planning to visit the next night to check out its well-regarded French restaurant.

So, Wednesday night, newspaper talk in the private room off the lobby-level bar. About 20 people coming and going and going and coming (and yes, always too soon) … as we feted and toasted Roland through the night and right on out to the airport. I hope he was ambulatory by the end of things, which we did not see.

Then, back out Thursday night for a walk around the grounds and the night at the restaurant.

Here are photos from Leah’s facebook page. Most taken early in the evening. Before it was quite dark. The building you see in the background of photos 1, 2 and 5 is the Zayed Mosque,  one of the biggest in the world. In photo 6, you get a blurry view of it, but you can see the sort of eerie/cool violet-colored lighting that bathes the place.

We spent an hour before dinner at the rooftop bar of a place called Pearls and Caviar, over where the Shangri-La’s private villas are located. I had a mojito. I’m not sure I’d had one before. I didn’t know you could eat the mint, if you were so inclined. It was warm but not stifling. Four Australians met up behind us. They must have been on ‘oliday. From that vantage point, looking out over the water between us and the island, and watching dusk go from red to orange to black … it felt like a night at a Club Med resort.

Then we ambled back over to the main building. We took a picture of the $55 buffet (No.4 on the link), which really does look quite nice. In a gorge-yourself-senseless sort of way. This part of the Shangri-La reminded me of Las Vegas. Lots of marble, spiral staircases, the over-the-top buffet. Just without the bells going off and the flashing lights. And the gambling and the out-in-the-open booze.

We went around the corner to the French resto, name of Bord Eau. Pronounced like the region/city in France, but spelled more like the board by the water. Like, a boardwalk.

A long, narrow room. Maybe 25 tables.  Only a handful were taken when we were there.

This was Leah’s gig, first and foremost. I like French, but not mounds of it. Not in one sitting. Eventually the richness of it almost knocks me over. Especially in warm weather.

So, I ordered the salmon and the broccoli veloute … but also their “famous” mashed potatoes in truffle oil. (The waiter said I had to order the potatoes. Had to. Don’t want to argue with the guy who will be carrying your food, do you?) Which seem to be about one-third spud and about two-thirds cream and butter. And the truffle oil gives it a sort of barbecued-chip flavor. I couldn’t even begin to finish that. Yes, I’m a lightweight, these days.

Leah went all in — she ordered the five-course tasting menu — with matching wines for each course.

I was pleased to have my first bit of baguette since leaving California … but I was about done by the time I finished the soup — which came, I should note, after two surprise amuse-bouches — ricotta cheese in a pumpkin sauce, and lobster buttons with morelle mushrooms in a curry sauce.

Leah had, as I recall (and you may visit her site here for specifics) … “wiggly” foie gras, scallops, monk fish with tapenade, an Angus filet and a cheese course with five varieties. All done to a turn, with ingenious sauces, etc. And a new glass of something for each. Beginning with a bubbly kir, continuing with three glasses of white, one of red (a Medoc) and a bit of Port at the end.

It was rather like being transported to Paris, except for the three-star Michelin resto decor (photos 11 and 12). Just ridiculously good stuff that was so rich it might have stopped my heart had I done what Leah did. Which turned out to be seven courses, counting the amuse-bouches.

Anyway, it was the sort of meal — continental and exquisite — that Abu Dhabi is not supposed to be able to deliver. Workaday, no-nonsense Abu Dhabi. Fiery Indian and budget Lebanese? Sure. Abu Dhabi does that. But frou-frou French complete with the maitre d’ all the way from the French Alps? That is new.

Dubai probably has been doing French restaurants since the early days of the country. Like, in the 1990s.

I tend to think Abu Dhabi is going to close the culture/hot spot gap here in the next few years. More massive hotels going up. The branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim being built on a nearby island. Not Yas Island — that’s the one with the five hotels (or is it six?) with the Formula One race course. Saadiyat Island. Museum island.

That is the other side of Abu Dhabi. Where the gritty reality of downtown seems a time zone away, where the buses taking the construction workers from the subcontinent back to the labor camps go unseen. The Abu Dhabi answer to Dubai.

I actually prefer my teeny apartment here in suburbia, close to the soccer stadium and the police headquarters and among all the villas crowded with Emiratis and Pakistanis.

But once in a while it’s interesting to go see the other side of Abu Dhabi. The side that provides a reflection of Dubai, and maybe even casts a bit of a shadow back on its glamorous rival up the freeway.