Omani Cuisine

An exotice Arabic dish we cooked earlier this month, takes about an hour to make, and is recommended for larger gatherings.

Ingredients

Kofta

• 1 Kg minced beef
• 2 tbs finely chopped parsley
• 2 tbs finely chopped scallions
• 1 small minced red onion
• 1 tbs of cinnamon
• Salt/pepper

Zucchini Sauce

• 4 medium zucchinis
• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
• 6 chopped cloves of garlic
• ½ tbs of crushed red chili
• 2 tbs chopped parsley
• ½ tbs chopped mint
• 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt/pepper

Method

1. Mix well all the ingredients of the Kofta. Create finger shaped (or balls) of the mix. Put a little bit of oil on a non-stick frying pan and start frying the kofta until it is well done. (It is also possible to grill the kofta instead of frying it if you would rather do that instead).
2. For the zucchini sauce, add some olive oil to a saucepot and sauté the garlic and the red chili for 3 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and after a minute add all the chopped tomatoes with the bay leaves. Wait until the sauce starts to boil then cover the saucepot and put it on the lowest flame for 10 minutes.
3. Cut the zucchini to small pieces and sauté it in the same pan you used for frying the kofta . Keep sautéing the zucchini for 5 minutes.
4. Add the zucchini, parsely and mint to the tomatoe sauce in the saucepot. Add some salt and peper as desired to the sauce. Cover the sauce pot and leave it on a low flame until the zucchini is well cooked.
5. Place the kofta on the serving plate and pour the sauce on top of it.

Nandos is a spicy grilled chicken restaurant in the Qurum Commercial Area right in front of the CCC. The cuisine of Nandos could be said to be Portuguees with an African twist, and is loved internationally by its fans in a cult-like manner. The restaurant closed down after the cyclone Gonu hit Muscat last year and only opened up on Eid last month. It looks different and nicer now, but a bit tighter in space as well

Nandos in the Middle East is different from branches abroad in that it is a proper dine-in restaurant, you do not go up to the counter and order in Oman, you get seated, the menu comes, and then you order the same way you would do at a Pizza Hut or a Chilli’s. I loved the atmosphere of the restaurant in places where you had to almost serve yourself, get the sauces, cutlery, and everything else and think that Nandos is ‘almost’ boring here because of this, but I guess that it might not work in the Middle East because of culture differences.

Nandos menu is made up mostly of chicken dishes. For starters, they have chicken liver, chicken wings, corn, mixed olives, and humous. I think that I tried them all, and my favourite is the humous which comes with a bit of Nandos spicy sauce and a deliciously tender pita bread.

The famous main course of Nandos is grilled chicken which you can order either as a quarter, a half, or a whole chicken marinated with the level of spiciness you choose: Lemon and Herb, Mild, Hot, and Extra Hot. The Extra Hot is probably way too hot for many, start with Mild even if you are a fan of spicy food. Nandos is very famous for its spicy sauces that you should find on the table, there are various ones which you should try out if you’re there.

Other main courses served at Nandos include chicken burger, chicken breast in pita bread (pictured above) , chicken rolls, chicken strips with rice, and espitada - which is a dish of grilled chicken cubes served with cooked vegetables. (pictured below) Some meals such as the burger and beast in pita come with Nandos spicy mayo which you could also order separately as a dip. Many of the dishes come as meals that let you pick one or two sidelines to have with the chicken, these sidelines include chips, rice, and coleslaw.

Starters at Nandos cost about RO1, while a main course meal for one person costs between RO2 to RO3 - taxes excluded.

We are happy to have Nandos again in town after Gonu, many of the people that went to it in the few first days did not seem to be happy with the service, and I was not happy with the food either, but the last time we went to it for dinner a couple of weeks ago everything was perfect. If you have not tried Nandos you should surely give it a try.

Allaudin is an Indian-Chinese restaurant located in Al Khuwair next to the traffic lights of Madinat Sultan Qaboos (MQ). The name Allaudin is the new brand of the restaurants of the Omar Al Khayyam group, a very old local restaurant chain.

Omar Al Khayyam is of the same class as restaurants such as Spicy Village, Grill House, and Al Akhatham, they serve almost the same exact menu at very similar prices. If restaurants were to have ratings, the restaurants above would have 3-star ratings. Nothing fancy, but clean enough to some extent to dine in. Allaudin is relatively spacious, the place is decorated with elephants and other Indian-looking artifacts at the entrance. It has a private dining room upstairs.

We went to Allaudin for dinner and ordered Chili Beef, a dry dish of small beef shreds cooked with spicy herbs and chili, it was hot as expected of an Indian restaurant in a good way – and that required the use of a box of tissues. We also ordered humous, naan and paratha bread, which all were quite good. For the drinks I had lemon juice, which was not that good, but I guess you can’t ask for much when you pay 200 baisa for a glass.

The prices of Allaudin is relatively cheap, we ordered one main course, one humous plate, a mix of breads, one fresh juice, and one bottle of water, and that in total cost us RO 3.400. Overall, dinner at Allaudin was good, we liked the food and we thought that we got what we paid for.