Omani Cuisine

I am amused by the funny feeling I get as I wait for a food receipt when I have no idea on how much the food I ate costed me. Not including the taxes in the displayed price on the menu is so stupid. Do they honestly expect a casual consumer, who could be anything between 10 to 50 years old, to calculate, on the top of his head, how much 4% + 5% would add on the numbers that he sees on the board?

While some of us might be fortunate enough to be able to order from a Hardees takeaway outlet without giving much though about how much EXACTLY it will cost before making the order, that does not necessarily apply to everyone. The extra 150 Baizas that we pay might not break anybody’s back, but I can think of the little kid that had only a RO 2 allowance to spend on dinner on the family’s day out, he was allowed to go and buy his own meal from whatever food outlet he selects in the food court, he checks the prices on the menu above and orders a meal that costs him EXACTLY what he had in his pocket, the cashier says okay, he gets him the order and, makes a couple of clicks and a random number appears on the numerical LCD - which is surprisingly more than what the kid had in his hands.

Was it the mistake of the kid that the menu did not clearly state that the meals actually cost MORE than the amounts mentioned? This is stupid and it should be illegal. It is very likely for any consumer to be misled to think that the prices displayed are those that he has to actually pay. Especially when the price is displayed in a bold big font and there is not sign right next to it stating that a tax is to be imposed upon it.

I think that all restaurants should include the taxes within the price of the meal, I should have the right to KNOW how much EXACTLY I will be paying in advance. While it has been traditionally accepted that service at a restaurant could be charged on a percentage basis depending on what you order - and that cannot be specified in advance, it is crazy to expect a consumer to even estimate how much a 5% plus 4% plus the service fee or delivery fee would be in total.

Even though it can be nice while waiting for the bill to come to have a bet on who actually manages to guess how much the bill would be, it is obviously not right as this is not a lottery.

A bachelor living in Oman is usually much used to eating chicken, and I mean here a lot of chicken. There isn’t much to choose from as 90% of edible food served in casual restaurants around muscat is chicken-this and chicken-that. A few restaurants in Oman serve decent fish, and that really is weird when you think about as Oman has a coast that is more than 1500km in length and fish is one of its main exports.

Sick of the oil-soaked friend fish served around here, and in hope that our blog does not turn to the Omani Chicken Cuisine, we decided to have fish this time. Hope you like it!

• Halibut Fish, 250g
• 3 clovers of Garlic
• 1/4 teasp of crushed Ginger
• Olive Oil
• Vinegar
• green Chili
• 1/2 teasp Oregano powder
• 1 lemon
• Salt
• 1/2 teasp Cumin
• parsely

Method

1. Crush the garlic and the green chili. Add the ginger, cumin and the oregano to the crushed mix.
2. Add the olive oil and the vinger to the mix. Get the lemon and peel some of its skin to get the lemon zest. After getting the zest add the juice of the lemon and some finely chopped parsley to the mix.
3. Clean the slices of the halibut fish well then put them in the mix to marinate for one hour.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan. Fry the slices of Halibut with marination mix. Fry the halibut until both sides get red as seen in the picture. Add a little amonut of water to the fish to make sure it is done.

The Fish is served with Saiadia Rice and potato salad

• 1 mug of Rice (Uncle bens rice)
• 2 red onions
• 1 tomato
• salt
• 1/2 teasp cumin
• Pine seeds

Method

1. mince the onions and fry them in an oiled pot until the onions turn brown (very brown just a degree before they turn black).
2. Add the minced tomato to the onions and keep heating the mix for a while.
3. Add the rice, salt and cumin. Mix the rice with rest of the ingredents well.
4. Add 2 1/4 mugs of water. Give the rice a last stirr then close the lid, leave it for 20 minutes until it is cooked.
5. Fill a bowl with the rice then flip it over on a plate to have the round shape seen in the picture above. Garnish the rice with fried pine seeds.

Potato Salad
Ingredients

• 1 medium Potato
• 1 clover of Garlic
• Parsley
• 1 tspVinger
• Salt /Cumin ( As desired)

Method

1. Cut the potato into cubes and boil them in water until they are done ( do not over cook the potato)
2. Drain the potato cubes. Minced the garlic and finely chop the parsley.
3. Add the garlic, parsley, vinger, cumin and salt to the potato and mix the will without crushing the potato cubes.