Omani Cuisine

Biella is a new Italian restaurant that has opened in Muscat City Centre right below the Noodle House. We have been waiting for this restaurant to open for ages and have called up City Centre several times to ask when the hell it will open. I heard a couple of days ago that it has finally opened up so we had to pay it a visit ASAP. I have no idea if this is an international franchise, but I know that it has a branch in Dubai.

The atmosphere and seating area at Biella are both quite nice. There are loads of seats inside the restaurant. The place is divided into two main sections, one for smokers and the other for non-smokers, however, there are not real separators between the two sections, but we could not tell if smoke could be an issue because the place was almost empty when we went there.

Biella has just opened three days ago, so just like Japengo the other day, their menu is not fully available yet. We took a bit of time to decide on what to have, we were a little bit hungry and everything on the menu sounded delicious. We ended up having a ‘Insalata Di Pollo Con Aceto Balsamico’ (RO 3.6 – pictured above) which I thought would be some cheese coated chicken starter, but turned out to be chicken salad with cheese balls (How come I didn’t notice the insalata?!). It was alright, for a salad at least, but it was not really our usual idea of a starter.

My colleague and I hand originally wanted to have something from the sandwich menu, but it was not available for serving yet, so we ended up having a sea food spaghetti (pictured above) and a L’affumicata pizza (RO 4.4 – picured below) which had onions, mushrooms, pepperoni and chicken. I loved the bread of my pizza, but that was about it. I do not like mushrooms and I thought that the onions were just way too much. I probably ordered the wrong meal and that’s why I did not like it much. My colleague thought that the spaghetti was nice, but not AMAZING. I thought exactly the same about my pizza, not bad, but not the best I’ve had for sure and nowhere near that.

We wanted to have a cheese cake and a chocolate fudge cake for the desserts, but none of these were available yet, so we thought that we will have a Tiramasu (RO 3 – pictured below) instead which we thought was just alright. It was quite large in size and can be shared with one or two people.

We thought that the service of Biella was excellent, the staff were very friendly, probably a bit too much because the place has just opened. The place was not busy at all while were were there, so the whole fleet of waiters was buzzing on our table all the time asking us how our food was. They had a small blooper though and broke a glass we had on our table, luckily nobody got hurt.

We ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, 1 fresh juice, 1 fruit cocktail, and 1 desert, our bill came out to RO 21.

We thought that our experience at Biella was okay, but I personally did not think that the food was all that. I would give it a 7/10 for the quality of the food and I’m being very generous. That is probably because we ordered the wrong stuff, salad was a bad idea of the starter and my choice of Pizza was badly not compatible with my taste. Might give it another chance, but only for the sake of experimentation and not when I’m craving for a good meal.

 

Here is a quick recipe for a good sandwich for big gatherings, it should not take you a long time to prepare and it requires a very small number of ingredients. BB, or Black Beautify, is a reference to the balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce   used in it.

Ingredients (for 6 sandwiches): 

• 4 medium chicken breasts (diced into cubes)
• 5 sliced cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6 buns of white bread
• Salt/black pepper

Method

1. Wash the chicken cubes and then drain them well. Put the chicken cubes in a bowl, add the Worcestershire sauce, the salt and finely crushed black pepper.
2. Mix the chicken with the ingredients well and leave the bowl in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes minimum. You. Then take them out of the fridge 15 minutes before you use them.
3. Put a frying pan on a medium flame, add the EVOO and the garlic to it, then as soon as the oil starts to sizzle, add the chicken. Sauté the chicken until it turns white and then add the balsamic vinegar. Keep sautéing the chicken until it is done. If the chicken is still not cocked well you can add small amounts of water or chicken stock to help cook it.
4. Slice the buns and fill them with the chicken. You can add cheese or any kind of sauce you like. It can be served with chips or fries.

Japengo is a new Japanese restaurant located in Shatti Al Qurum area on Shari3 Al Hub (Love Road). It opened three days ago. Unlike the what the name suggests, it is not cafe, but a proper dine-in restaurant. The Love Road was hit badly by Cyclone Gonu and it has not been fixed yet, Japengo is the first restaurant to open up there and there aren’t enough proper parkings yet around, but people seem to somehow find a place to just stop their cars and come in. The place was busy today when I went to it.

Japengo is pretty big from the inside and has additional seats outside from both sides of the restaurant. There are some allocated tables on which smoking is allowed inside, the restaurant is pretty big so the non-smoking section should not be disturbed by it, but still, there is no separator or barrier between the two sections (I did not know where one starts and the other ends).

Japengo was opened less than a week ago and more than half of its menu items is not available for serving yet. You are given the full menu with all the unavailable items indicated with an x mark. A point worth noting is that Japengo is not your average Japanese restaurant, as it seems to have a lot more than just sushi. The menu has an appetizer section, salads section, sandwiches section, sushi/ sashimi section, sushi rolls section, Italian pasta section, pizza section, and even Lebanese food section (which I thought was insane!).

We decided to go for Shake Kawa Sushi Rolls for the starter (6 pieces in a single portion, cost RO 3.3), those  were sushi made in a roll and then cut into six pieces, the dish came with a plate of Soya sauce and some Wasabi (the green thing). Our Japanese-food-knowledgeable friend told us that we are supposed to use our chopsticks to take small bits of Wasabi and mix it with the Soya sauce then dip our sushi in the sauce before eating it. Our experiment succeeded and it was delicious. I really cannot remember what the Shake Kawa Sushi had in it, but it was cold, soft from the outside, and a little bit crunchy from the inside.

We also had fried calamari (costs RO 2.9) as our second starter, I had no comment about it other than it was very well done. The dip that came with it was amazing.

We had a tough time selecting our main course as the majority of dishes were not available yet, we did not want to go for something Italian or Lebanese dish, because that would just be wrong. Why would anyone go for a Lebanese dish at a Japanese restaurant?! I had a tougher time selecting a dish because I wanted to have something with chicken, and there was nothing with chicken other than the sandwiches. One of my friends ended up taking the Japengo Club Sandwich (pictured above- costs RO 3.9) and the other took a Cheese Burger (pictured below – costs RO 4.4). I ordered a Chicken Breast Sandwich (not pictured – costs RO 3.9) which came in a bun with French fries. I thought that was really good, loved the sauce that they used, but half way through I realised that maybe we ordered too much for a day. But it was very good.

For the drinks we ordered watermelon juice (RO 2.1), lemon juice (RO 2.1), and mango smoothie (RO 2.5). I loved my mango smoothie so much I had to order another one before we left. It was surely one of the best smoothies I had in town.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 4 main courses, and 5 drinks. Our bill came out as RO 34.750 taxes included.

We thought that the food at Japengo was amazing, the service was good overall – even though the waitresses acted plainly weird and refused to let me photograph them.  The prices are a tiny bit more expensive that the Noodle House, but are Okay for a restaurant of its range and in that location.  We would have loved to try some other things in the menu, but we couldn’t because the restaurant is still not fully ready yet. I would recommend it for everyone when it properly starts offering all the items in its menu.

Cafe Glacier is a very old coffee shop in Zakher Mall in Al Khuwair. It is, just like Darcy’s Kitchen, a unique Omani franchise. It has two branches, the main one in Al Khuwair, and the second smaller one in Markaz Al Bahja. Even though it opened in 1995, I’ve never actually been to it before last year.

Glacier of Zakher Mall is not the most spacious of restaurants, there are less than 10 tables inside and a couple outside the cafe in the mall side. However, the place is not tight in space at all, and I think that smoking is prohibited inside the coffeeshop. I’ve only been to Glacier around lunch time and the place did not seem busy at all during any of my visits.

Glacier’s menu is made up of a long list of cold drinks and juices, ice creams, pancakes and waffles, but in addition to these they also serve rolls and sandwiches, salads, and snacks such as burgers and different types of stews.

On 99.9% of the times we have Glaciers we always go for the club sandwiches. Glacier’s club sandwiches are one of the best in town, if not THE best. The club sandwich meal comes with potato chips and is very filling. The reputation of club sandwiches at work is unchallengeable, it is our definitive take away lunch ever.

On the remaining 00.1% of the times we order at Glacier we usually got for the Sate Maison that comes with peanut sauce. I enjoyed it when I had last time, even though that must’ve been really ages ago.

Toasted sandwiches such as the club sandwich cost from RO 1.700 to 2.600, salads cost from RO1.400 to RO 3.200, snacks cost from RO 1.500 to RO 3.400, cakes cost around RO 0.800, ice creams around 2.500, and pancakes and waffles cost from 1.100 to 2.100.

I didn’t really try a lot of things at Glacier, but I really can’t recommend the club sandwiches enough, I think that it is the perfect office lunch for those who want to have something simple yet delicious at a place that is not crowded at lunch time!