Omani Cuisine

Stomach (Telephone: 2469 2486) is a restaurant with a very weird name located on the first floor of Jawharat Al Shatti mall. It is located right in the back of the mall and not a lot of people seem to know that it exists, so it is not exactly a crowded a place (I’ve been to it a few times and I’ve never seen anybody eating other than us at the restaurant). Stomach serves a bit of everything from chinese food to pasta and steak.

The seating in Stomach is pretty nice, there is some interesting artwork on one of the walls and a huge shelf wall at the front. Like I said before, not a lot of people seem to go there – at least for dinner, so it is pretty quiet and peaceful.

Stomach offers a wide variety of food, they have soups, salads, sandwiches, Indian dishes, Chinese dishes, and continental food. For the starter we had the “All Arabian” starter (RO 2.5) which had hummus and prawns and came with a basket of Arabic pita bread. Hummus was pre-prepared canned hummus, which was obviously nothing special at all, the prawns were OK, and I have no memory of what the thing on the side tasted like.

For the main course I ordered a Chili Chicken dish (RO 3.000 – not pictured) which came with vegetable fried rice. The dish was seriously spicy I barely managed to eat it. I thought it was OK, but again nothing special at all. Other people with me ordered a Chicken Steak (RO 4.000 – pictured above) which my friend thought was very good, a spicy prawn dish which came with rice (RO 3.500) this was again very spicy and my friend barely managed to eat it, and a dish of vegetable noodles (RO 2.200) which was good.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 1 side dish, 4 main courses, 1 juice, 1 soft drink, 2 bottle of water, and an extra basket of bread for a total of RO 18.600.

I thought that the service at Stomach was slow, it took a while for the food to come even though we were the only people at the restaurant. I really wasn’t blown away by their food and thought it was very average. It’s no wonder that the place is empty most of the time.

Has anybody else been to Stomach, or has the name weirded you all out?

B+F Roadside Diner is a burger restaurant in Bareeq Al Shatti mall (Telephone: 2469 8836). It is located on the far right side of the mall if you enter from any of the main entrances. B+F (short for Burger & Fries) is supposedly a branch of another restaurant called Burger Boutique originally from Kuwait.

Unfortunately B+F was crowded as usual when we went to it, so we couldn’t take proper photographs of the seating area. The restaurant is not massive in size and is stuffed with many tables and chairs, it is not uncomfortably crowded, but it is not exactly the place to go to if you want to have a private conversation. B+F has a unique theme of low lighting and modern stylish art. It is almost always crowded in the evening, on weekends it is normal to record your name and wait for up to 45 minutes before you get seated. They will offer to take your mobile phone number so that you can walk around the mall until they call you to come inside. B+F does not take phone reservations anymore.

B+F offers a variety of burgers, salads, grilled meals, and pizza, but the place is ALL about the burgers. We do still take starters when we go there, the starters they offer include nachos, soups, beef skewers, and a variety of tex mex starters. We had this time the Spicy Chicken Quesadilla (pictured above – RO 2.450) which I thought was awesome. It was not really spicy, but still full of flavour, the bread was also nice and tender.

There are loads and loads of burgers at B+F, some classics, some gourmet, some in sandwich form, you name it. Each of these burgers may be served in “Burger Style” which is your regular burger or in “Slider Style” in which you will get two mini burgers served on a long pad. This time we had a Bacon Swiss burger (pictured above – RO 2.850) which had a juicy beaf patty, beaf bacon, swiss cheese, grilled onion, grilled mushrooms, lettuce, pickles, and a special B+F sauce. It came in the perfect size and I really liked it, it was juicy as described and the sauce was nice.

We also ordered a Oz Gourmet burger (pictured above – RO 4.250) which had a grilled beaf patty, topped with cheddar cheese, fried eggs, onion rings, bacon, tomato, pickles, beetroot, lettuce, ketchup and mayo. It was a bit hard to handle as it was big, but it was still quite nice!

For the drinks we had a Banana Berry Smoothie (1.950)  which had fresh banans and mixed berries and a Red Planet (RO 2.250) which had red berry, pomegranate, pineapple, and apple juice. I really liked my Red Planet, I thought it was refreshing and the pomegranate bits were cool!

B+F also offers a number of sidelines such as fries and onion rings and desserts such as cakes and brownies, but we didn’t try any of them during our visit.

The service is B+F is good, the staff are very friendly and talkative, the food took a bit of time to get to us, but we did not mind it.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, and 2 smoothies, our bill came to RO 14.438.

I love B+F, their food is amazing and the atmosphere is nice for people who into that sort of place. If you have not tried yet you are really missing out!

If you are another B+F addict, what is your favorite burger?

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?

I’m going to travel in about a week’s time and I won’t be able to write any new reviews for the Omani Cuisine, I have been to many restaurants which I photographed and everything but never got to write a review for – most probably due to some bad time management skills!

Three Star Restaurant, Al Hail

I once wanted to have a post titled ‘Battle of the Generics’ where I thought I’ll post a joint review of all these generic Indian-Chinese restaurants that have the same exact menu that has the name of every single Indian and Chinese dish ever invented. 3 Star was one of these. Not sure if this restaurant is really three star, maybe just 2.5, they have a fountain in their restaurant with plastic frogs inside it. It is located right next to City Center.

Al Aktham Restaurant, Al Khuwair

Al Aktham is the king of generics, it is one of the oldest and most famous restaurants in town, its boardsign boasts with the word ‘Restaurant’ without a brand name. It has private dining rooms used by conservative families and guys taking out girls on dates (.. to al aktham? We’re going on a data to AL AKTHAM?!). This restaurant is found somewhere near Al Safeer Hotel in Al Khuwair Commercial Area.

Grill House, Al Khuwair

Grill House is my favourite generic restaurant, I can have their Schezwan Chicken Fried Rice dish for dinner, lunch and breakfast. Favourite side dishes include a green salad and chips. This restaurant is next to the MQ traffic lights. Their food is nice, but they badly need to work on their restaurant front image!

I used to think that I had photos of Spicy Village as well, can’t find them though. Will make another post with some other restaurants.

It’s hard to believe that we never wrote about Chili’s on the Omani Cuisine even though we mention it in almost every other post we make. Chilis is an international casual dining restaurant chain that serves Mexican/American food. The only Chili’s branch we have in Oman is found in Muscat City Centre opposite the old Starbucks near the food court. Even after the opening of three other dine-in restaurants in City Center over the past two years, Chilis is still undeniably the most popular.

(Boneless Buffalo Wings)

The crowd at Chili’s is mixed and it attracts people from all age groups, probably because it was the ONLY proper place to dine in in City Centre and the Seeb area generally for a while. Chili’s is pretty big in size andis  spacious, it has a designated place for smokers down inside and has a sitting area for those waiting for take away orders and those waiting for a table to get cleared during peak hours.

(Club Tacos)

The menu of Chili’s is pretty big and has many different sections that include starters (RO 2.5 to RO 4), salads (RO 3.2 to RO 4.9), burgers (RO 2.4 to RO 3.1), sandwiches (~ RO 3), grills (RO 4.8 to RO 7.9), steaks (RO 6 to RO 7), misc courses (RO 3.9 to RO 4.9), desserts (RO 2.5 to RO 2.7) and drinks (starting from RO 0.9). 

(Fajita Quesadillas)

There are several nice starters in Chilis, but like the majority of their dishes, they are large in quantity and should be shared with another person. I advise you to only order more than one starter if you are in a group of more than three people. Our favourite starters are the Fajita Nachos, Triple Play (Fried Cheese Rolls, Chicken Wings, and Eggrolls), Texas Fries (Chips covered with chili sauce and jalapinos), and the Boneless Buffalo Wings. Go for the Triple Play if you are three or four people, and take the Texas Fries only if your main course is not served with chips.

Selecting a main course at Chili’s can be quite hard because there is so much to choose from. If it is your first time I suggest that you go for a steak or a fajita, as they are Chili’s highlights. There are a variety of fire grilled steaks seasoned with different sauces. All steaks come with two pre-selected sidelines such corn and mashed potatoes along with garlic bread. You can always ask to have something else instead of these sidelines if you wish. The waiters might not tell you this, but you can have rice, beans, chips, or cooked vegetables instead of the corn and mashed potatoes. 

Chili’s Club Sandwiches

Another first time selection which you can go for is a fajita (not pictured), which can be chicken, beaf, or prawn, cooked with vegetables and mexican sauces and comes served with flat tortila bread and dips which you can use to create your own sandwiches as you eat. You can have a mix of chicken, beef and prawns instead of selecting one and you can also optionally add mushroom to the mix. This is one of the main courses which you can share if you do not think you can finish it all by yourself. It is a little bit messy and will require you to use your hands, so only select it if you are ready to do that.

Of course there are loads and loads of other dishes to try if you do not like any of the ones mentioned above, I always go for the Club Tacos when I feel like having something ‘lighter’ or a Fajita Pita when I feel like having a sandwich. There are also some other dishes like the pasta pictured above, the quesadillas, burgers, salads, and others.

The most popular desert at Chili’s is the Molten Chocolate Cake (RO 2.7), it is a hot chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream on top. It is enough for four people to share after a meal. If you are sick of having the awesome Molten Chocolate Cake I suggest that you try to the Cheese Cake which I only tried once but really loved.

A meal at Chilis for two people at Chilis would cost around RO 12 to RO 15 if you have a starter, two main courses, two soft drinks and a desert. 

I think that the food at Chilis is really good, it is one of the few places on Al Seeb side of town to dine in, we never get sick of it. I am not sure about how good the service is these days, it used to be much better in the past as we have had several incidents on which the service was extremely slow and sloppy even when there weren’t many people dining. However, we always go back because we love their food.

Blogger Rashad made a post about Jean’s Grill, the restaurant up in Sultan Center. I’ve never been the place myself, but according to Rashad the place serves an awesome breakfast buffet for RO 2.5. Check out his review over at his blog.

Cafe Ceramique is a new cafe/art-workshop that opened a couple of months ago in Al Araimi Complex in Qurum Commercial Area. What I mean by a cafe/art-workshop is that the cafe serves food and also offers you ceramic pieces which you can purchase and paint at the cafe as well. Visiting the place was an awesome experience, the food was great and we had so much fun with the painting.

Ceramique Cafe is located on the ground floor of Al Araimi Complex right next to where Baskin Robins is. We came around 6.30pm and the place was almost empty, but by the time we left (around 9.30pm) the place was almost full. The crowd seemed to be mostly families with their children with a very few groups of mature people with no kids.

The food menu of Ceramique Cafe is half way between Darcy’s Kitchen and Cafe Barbera with hot and cold coffee drinks, juices, soft drinks, breakfasts dishes, bagels, sandwiches, quick bites, desserts and some other speciality dishes. We started our course from the drinks menu where we had a Cafe Latte (pictured above – RO 1.5), a Minty Lemon Juice (RO 2.2) and a couple of Mix n’ Match Juices (you mix two fresh juices – not pictured – RO 1.9). I had a Mix n’ Match Orange and Mango juice which I thought was really good.

For the main course I had a Tough-in-The-Gulf Club Sandwich (it is the only club sandwich they have – pictured above – RO 3.5) which you can order with salad or with chips, I had mine with chips and I loved i, especially for its salad fillings. We also ordered a Chicken Quesadilla (pictured below- RO 3.6) which can also be ordered with salad of chips, and comes also with three dips. My other friend had a Chicken “Shawarma Pockets”(pictured down below – RO 3.5) which was pretty hard to handle, but supposedly tasted great as well.

We thought that the food at Cafe Ceramique was great and the service was also good enough, but we also wanted to try out the painting part, which was the thing that made this place special. To paint a ceramic piece at the cafe you simply have to pick one from any of the shelves in the store, there are loads of different ones in all sorts of shapes and sizes, there are plates, cups, mugs, pots, boxes, ashtrays, and all sorts of statues and simple decoration pieces. The price of the piece is placed on its bottom and I think that it ranges from RO 2 to RO 15 or so, depending on the size and the shape.

Once you select the piece you want to paint, you are given a paper to select 5 colours and 2 outliners. These colours are then given to you with a sponge, water, and a set of brushes. You can colour as you please (instructions for this or the table paper and an *artist* is available in the store to help you if you need drawing guidance!) and when you are done you have to leave it in the cafe for them to fire the piece and glaze it (that takes at least 7 days).  You are given a receipt which you must use to collect your piece after the completion date. The pieces are all supposed to be microwave and dishwasher friendly and the colours do not contain any toxins so you can eat and drink using them.

The painting activity is really fun and relaxing, it felt like art classes from school, but seriously this is not something that you should attempt to do without planning on spending a lot of time in the cafe. We stayed for more than three hours and decided to leave cause it was already kinda late even though in theory we thought we can spend even much more time painting.

Ceramique Cafe is the perfect place to go to if you have a family and would like to do something fun or even if you dont’ have a family and still want to go out and try something different for the weekend!

We’ll post a photo of the Omani Cuisine artwork when we get the piece from Cafe Ceramique next week!

2nd Avenue is a new-ish continental restaurant in Shatti Al Qurum, it is located in a random place in-between the houses near Grant Hayyat. I suggest that you call them (2469 5164) to ask for directions if you would like to know where the place is exactly. 2nd Avenue is not a branch of an international franchise but a local restaurant owned by the same person who owns the Lebanese Tarboosh restaurant.However, it is much more fancier and expensive than Tarboosh.

2nd Avenue has a seating outside (which I suppose will be used in nicer times of the year), a smoking area on the ground floor of the restaurant, and a bigger seating area on the first floor of the restaurant. The strange thing about 2nd Avenue is that when I get inside the restaurant it instantly feels like you travelled back to the year 1995. The restaurant is fancy, but the taste of furniture is quite old-school (in a weird way).

The menu of 2nd Avenue has all sorts of *continental* food, i.e. salads, sandwiches, pasta , steaks, sizzlers and grills. We had three starters, the first was a”Tilmedoe” (pictured above – RO 1.5) which was basically some potatoe cubes seasoned with some spices and baked in the oven. It was just okay but not really special.The second was a ‘Quesadilla’ (pictured below – RO 3.0) which is flat tortilla sandwich, it was not as cheesy as the one served in Chilli’s and quite nice (I really liked it!).

The third starter we had was a “Pop Corn Shrimp” (picured above – RO 3.0) which is a dish of fried breaded shrimps (think KFC Pop Corn Chicken but for srimps!), it was well cooked and awesome. For the main course, I had a ‘Chicken Gabiello’ (pictured below – RO 4.5) which was a dish of cubed chicken marinated in youghurt and vegetables. It tasted good, but I thought that the sauce it came with was a bit too thick because of the yougurt. It came with french fries and vegetables.

My friends had a’Pepper Steak’ (pictured below – RO 5) and the other one had a ‘Cordon Blue’ chicken dish (last image down below – RO 4.5), nobody had any complaints about their main courses, but I did not hear them praise any of it either. We all had fresh juices with our food (lemon/mint, water melon, and mago juice). We did not take a look at the disserts menu because we decided to go somewhere else for it.

The service at 2nd Avenue was excellent (I do not know if it was affected by the fact that we told them we are taking photographs for a website), but waiters were buzzing around all the time, somebody started smoking in the non-smoking section and a waiter told him to stop smoking (and he did), the food came quickly and it was exactly what we ordered.

We ordered 1 small mineral water bottle, 3 fresh juices, 3 starters, and 3 main courses, our bill came out to RO 28.667 taxes included.

We thought that our visit to 2nd avenue was okay. The place was fine, but was way too dark upstairs for my liking. Food-wise, I liked the starters way more than the main courses we had, I did not think that what I had (the Chicken Gabiello) was memorable at all. My friend seemed to like the place more and thinks that he would come again to check out the other items on the 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!

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.