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There are many famous dishes in the UAE, not just four. Here are some traditional ones:

Machboos: This is a very popular dish indeed. It is rice cooked in a lamb, chicken or fish stew with various locally made Arabian spices and some imported ones, dried limes and saffron. The rice once put in the pan of light stew, soaks up all the flavours and liquid and becomes a rice mixture dish.

Harees: This is a very ancient and traditional UAE dish, very common in the country and a specialty for the month of Ramadan. Lamb, chicken or beef is boiled until tender in some water with some salt. The wheat is washed and soaked for a couple of hours. It is then drained and added to the pan of almost cooked meat and left to simmer for a while for completion of cooking time. It may take an hour or so to make. It thickens and thickens and then is placed in the oven to continue cooking for a while. It is often stirred to check the consistency. It should have the appearance of porridge. A couple of hours before serving it is mashed using a special local utensil made of wood called a"midrib." It is somewhat like a large, flat wooden spoon. When placed on a long oval platter, it is then spread with a slightly spicy, and locally made butter/ghee, this enhances the taste and smooths the surface of the 'harees'. This is done by using the back of a large stainless steel spoon. The best way to make this is through the traditional way, like all other local foods even rice, by using the 'tanor' a clay oven in the ground. Now and days, people also make it on gas cookers.

Far'eed: This is a very traditional dish made with a large paper thin like bread called 'ragag'which requires a lot of skill and only when one has learnt this skill, can they make this bread. It is a very simple recipe made of flour and a little salt ( for the basic ragag anyway). These large paper thin bread are then broken up into medium sized pieces and placed in a bowl. It is then soaked in either a light chicken or lamb stew which may have various vegetables in it like string beans, carrots and potatoes or any other vegetable of choice. This is also a popular Ramadan dish.

Samak Mashwi ( Oven Baked Fish ):

Fish is extremely popular in the UAE and there are far more many dishes than just these. 'Mashwi 'is one of them. Big tuna or any other good fish for the oven, is salted and left for a little while. Then this is cooked in the 'tanor' clay oven in the ground standing against the hot wall of the red hot char-coaled oven until cooked. It is then turned over once. Sometimes the guts of the fish can be removed and the cavity is filled up with a mashed mixture of parsley, finely diced onion, bits of sun dried lime and local spices. It will then be covered with some lemon slices, some salt and olive oil before being wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in the 'tanor'

This will be served with fluffy white rice or saffron speckled white rice -both with diced onions caramelised in spicy butter ghee at the bottom of the pan before the rice is placed on top.

A random search for flights from Phoenix (PHX)) to Doha (DOH) shows:

OPTION 1: 19hr 35min via Chicago OHare (ORD) & London Heathrow (LHR)
PHX - ORD American Airlines Flt 2044 Dep 04:00pm 13Nov,Fri
ORD - LHR American Airlines Flt 0098 Dep 09:55pm 13Nov,Fri
LHR - DOH Qatar Airways Flt 6 Dep 12:35pm 14Nov,Sat
Flight Duration: 17hr 35min; Layover Time: 02hr 00min; Total Trip Time: 19hr 35min

OPTION 2: 19hr 10min via Houston InterCont (IAH)
PHX - IAH US Airways Flt 273 Dep 01:18pm 12Nov,Thu
IAH - DOH Qatar Airways Flt 78 Dep 07:45pm 12Nov,Thu
Flight Duration: 17hr 35min; Layover Time: 2hr 47min; Total Trip Time: 20hr 22min