Omani Cuisine

Narjeel (Telephone: 2456 0606) is a Thai restaurant in Shatti Al Qurum. The restaurant is located at the somewhat dodgy Asas Oman hotel apartments in Shatti. If you are coming from the CCC and going towards Crowne Plaza along the Qurum Park road, you take the right turn after the small roundabout and before the little mosque.

Narjeel is not a super fancy restaurant, but it feels authentic. Unlike the dodgy feel of the hotel and the sign of Narjeel, the restaurant inside is quite spacious and feels welcoming. We went for a meal on Friday evening and the restaurant (and hotel) seemed empty. During our entire meal there wasn’t anybody else other than us in the restaurant.

Narjeel is a Thai restaurant and serves a number of soups, salads, starters, Thai main courses, seafood, and a number of others things as well. For the starters we had a Tom Yum Koong (RO 3.800) which was a spicy seafood soup cooked with vegetables. The portion of the soup was very large and it was a bit spicy even though was asked for the mild version of it, but we still enjoyed it thoroughly.

Our first main course was a Panang Meat dish (RO 4.5) which had slices of meet cooked in a spicy thai sauce and other herbs. I am not an expert in Thai food, but I did not like the taste of this dish. That is not to say that there was anything wrong it, but it was just not our cup of tea.

The second dish we ordered was a Chicken Kapow (RO 3.8) which was another dish of chicken shreds cooked in a spicy thai sauce and green beans. The description of the dish clearly stated that it is cooked in a spicy sauce, but we did not expect it to be THAT spicy. I thought the dish was good, but way too spicy we couldn’t even finish it.

The main courses do not come with anything so we also ordered a plate of steamed rice (RO 0.5) and another plate of plain noodles (RO 0.5). The main courses came with a complimentary plate of orange slices which I think are supposed to be had while eating the main course to cool off the spiciness of the main course.

For the drinks we had a Pina Colada (RO 1.5), a non-alcoholic coconut and pineapple juice mix, which was really well made. We did not try any of the desserts.

In total we ordered two soups, two main courses, two side dishes, and two fresh juices, our bill came out at RO 23.800.

The service at Narjeel was excellent and the food quickly arrived, except for our chicken main course which the waiter forgot to write on his notepad and which we didn’t notice was missing when he repeated the order.

I liked the soup and juice I had at Narjeel, but I was not crazy about the main course probably because we did not expect them to be as spicy as they were and because we did not ask for recommendations on what to have. However, I can understand why people are crazy about the restaurant and I think I would go again to try some more authentic Thai food.

Abala is a continental restaurant in Bareeq Al Shatti (Telephone: 2469 5903). It is located right next to the food court inside the mall. I think it opened earlier this year, was closed for a short while very recently, but is now open for business as usual.

Abala is all glitz and glamour. Everything from the tiles on the floor, the chairs and all the way to the cutlery napkins are super stylish. Abala also has some seating outside the restaurant for those who want to enjoy the nice weather of the winter. We went early in the evening while a big match was taking place, so the place was empty.

The menu at Abala is very extensive and serves everything from soups, salads, and nachos, to burgers, risottos, steaks, and pastas.

We were undecided between having Calamari or the Turkey Bacon Wrapped Shrimp (RO 3.5) for the starter, we ended up having the shrimps, which came out as four pieces of shrimp wrapped in a small slice of turkey bacon. It tasted alright, though the *dip* below the shrimp tasted better than the shrimp itself.

For the main course I had a club sandwich (3.5) which came with chips. The chips felt as if it was precooked earlier and then reheated just before it got served to me. It was dry and cold. I didn’t like the sandwich itself either, the toast was very dry, almost burnt, and the filling was a bit too salty for my liking.

My friend had a risotto with chicken and mushrooms (RO 3.5), he asked them to change the mushrooms  with dried tomatoes. He thought that his dish was “acceptable”.

For the drinks we had a Citrus Splash mocktail (RO 1.9) and a She Said Red mocktail (RO 2.1), I had the She Said Red, which had orange juice, strawberry juice, and pomegranate juiced mixed with crushed ice. We really liked both of our drinks and thought that there were the highlights of the visit.

The service at Abala was really good, everyone seemed friendly and our food came really fast. Not sure if it is always like that or just because nobody was dining at the restaurant at the time we went. In total, we ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, 2 mocktails, our bill came to RO 16.

We did not like the food at Abala, I did not think that the starter was special at all and I really didn’t like my main course. I cannot really recommend this place. Has anybody else been here? What do you guys think?