Pizza Inn is a casual dine-in and delivery pizza restaurant. It has relaunched recently and has two branches one in Qurum (2456 6111) and the other in Ruwi (2478 4555). We recently paid a visit to the branch in Al Araimi Complex in Qurum.

Pizza Inn has a very similar feel and look to Pizza Hut, but a bit flashier because it has very recently opened. We went on an evening of a week day and the place was pretty busy, but we had no trouble finding a table.

The menu in Pizza Inn is very similar to Pizza Hut, for starters they have garlic bread, chicken wings, french fries and potato wedges. In addition to these they have some salads, pastas, and, unlike Pizza Hut, they also serve RO1.5 Submarine sandwiches that come with french fries and a drink.

For the starters we had garlic bread with cheese (RO 1.2) which was really well done and not as hard as those served at Pizza Hut.

Pizza Inn has a variety of pizzas including a Taco Pizza, a Tandoori Pizza, a Hawaiian Pizza and several other ones. Pizzas come in small, medium, large, or family size (12 slices). We decided to have a family size Pizza Inn Special pizza (RO 6), this pizza had  pepperoni, sausage, beef, onions, mushrooms, black olives and green peppers. We really enjoyed it, we thought that the dough was very tender and barely had any traces of oil. The toppings also felt fresh.

We didn’t try any desserts but they had a couple pizza-style sweets. For the drinks we just had soft drinks, but surprisngly they were served in fast-food style plastic cups even though were dining in. The drinks were not refill-able.

In total we had one starter, one family size pizza, and four drinks, our bill came out to RO 9.800.

Overall we thought that the service was good and the food was really excellent. I was not happy about the way our drinks were served and I thought that our table was too small for our plates. If you are going to dine-in at Pizza Inn make sure you do not sit at the small tables if your group is going to be more than two people.

We paid a visit to the Italian restaurant Pizza Express that opened in the Oasis by the Sea mall in Shatti Al Qurum Area. Pizza Express is a big international franchise that is found everywhere. It had a branch in MQ years ago that closed down for some reason, but this new one is bigger and nicer. The restaurant is located inside the Oasis by the Sea mall which is probably going to be filled up with many more restaurants soon.

The coolest thing about the seating area of Pizza Express is that it is a NON-SMOKING area, plus the place is spacious and looks quite fancy. However, some seats are nicer than others, the ones in the picture above are the nicer ones, the one I sat on was a hard chair with no cushiony thing. There are currently no seats outside the restaurant on the side of the mall, but if they were to have a smoking area that might just be the perfect place for it.

Unlike other new restaurants in town such as Japengo and Biella, the menu of Pizza Express seemed to be all available, or lets say almost all available, as a couple things were out of stock I think, and not unavailable for serving like the other two places. Anyway, the menu of Pizza Express offers a variety of baked starters, a collection of salad appetizers, many different *regular* pizzas, special pizzas made with wholemeal dough, special pizzas made with cream sauce, stuffed pizzas, pasta, and a couple of Italian rice dishes (risotto).

For the stater I had a garlic bread with mozzarella (pictured earlier above – RO 1.6) which is basically baked garlic dough with mozzarella on top. I loved it, it didn’t take long to arrive and was deliciously tender from the inside. The mozzarella was a bit thick, but not too thinking for my liking.

For the main course I had an Apollo pizza (pictured earlier above – RO 3.4), which was made up of marinated tandoori chicken, capsicum,  coriander, and fresh green chilies. The crust was pretty light and well cooked, and the pizza itself was excellent, I loved how spicy it was, the chicken, and just everything about it. My friend had a Quatro Carni pizza (pictured above – RO 3.6) which he enjoyed as well.

We ended up our visit to Pizza Express with a Semi Fredo (pictured above – RO 2.6) which is basically a white and dark chocolate mousse. It was OKAY, but not special at all and not worth the RO 2.6, we originally wanted a chocolate fudge cake but they did not have it in stock.

We ordered 1 starter, 2 pizzas, 1 desert, 1 small water, 1 soft drink (+ 1 refill), our bill came out to RO 15.25 taxes included.

I loved Pizza Express on my first visit to it, the food was amazing, the service is excellent and the place is great! Their pizza is the best thing I’ve had in a while! I didn’t like the dessert, but I am surely going to check out the chocolate fudge next time. IT BETTER BE GOOD.

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.

Cafe Barbera is an Italian Coffeeshop that opened last year in Shatti Al Qurum right next Shatti Cinema. For some reason, it never seemed inviting enough for me and only checked it out when a friend of mine suggested we go to it as apparently he comes to have lunch at it quite regularly.

We attempted sitting outside at firstt, but the weather was way too cold for us to survive. The place looks very nice inside, it has a unique antique look and feel, and some really nice sofas all over the place. It is still relatively small though and because smoking is allowed inside it does not necessarily feel comfortable.

The menu of Cafe Barbera is quite big, they have a variety of drinks and juices, spaghettis, club sandwiches, and other hot dishes as well. We had orange juice, mint and lemon juice, and a called coffee drink called ‘Roma’ that looked nice and, according to the friend of who tried it, tasted good as well.

For our main courses we had a Barbera chicken club sandwich, a chicken baguette, and shrimp bruschetta dish. All the dishes we ordered were served with salad and two of them were served with potato wedges. We generally liked all of our dishes, I personally ate the chicken baguette, which I thought was good but not really special. I hated the wedges, they did not look or taste nice. Unlike me, my friends thought that their dishes were excellent.

We thought that the service at Cafe Barbera was good, it was fast, the food was what we ordered, and the waiters were friendly and talkative. My friend says that it gets bad at lunch time when the place gets crowded and many people sit outside. Never had that myself, but thought that I’ll just let you know.

Drinks at Cafe Barbera cost from about RO 1 to RO 2 and main courses cost from RO 2 to RO 4. We ordered three drinks and three main courses and our bill came out at RO 13.79 – taxes included.

Cafe Barbera was a nice change, their place is nice, the service we had was good, and the food was as described. The place is however small and smoking is allowed inside, so it is not necessarily for everyone.

Santino’s was recently rebranded as Pane Caldo. The restaurant is still in the same place in Jawharat Al Shatti, but now bigger (they invaded the shop block next to them), they did not change the furniture of the place and there is apparent change in the staff or the ambience of the place either. However, Pane Caldo does seem to have now a more emphasised contemporary image that is less casual and more fancy with their choice of colours and finish-off I guess.

I am not sure if it was just me, or the fact that it was my first time to set at that particular place in the restaurant, but there did not seem to be a lot of private space left between the dinning tables on the center and the left side of the restaurant. It’s true that the place is bigger now, but it still feels very tight because of the number of tables they have inside.

Pane Caldo is not fully open yet, when I was there last week they had a temporary menu that was really difficult to read, we did not know where one item description ended and that of the next started. We did not know which of the numbers were the prices of what meals.

I am not sure of the number of new items were there on the menu, we had for the starter some mushrooms covered in cheese, which I did not like very much (I am no Super Mario), one of us had one of the calamari starters (photographed below).

For the main course we had some sort of ‘red’ pizza that had beef, pepperoni, chicken strips, and tomato slices on it, which I thought was good, but not mind blowing.

The place is still in the process of changing into its new brand, so it is not surprising that their menu is still not fully developed. I do not think that there was an increase in the prices, but I am not really sure of that as I did not actually compare numbers.

Check our previous review of Santino’s here.

Santino’s Bistro Italiano is an Italian restaurant located in Jawharat Al Shatti mall in Shatti Al Qurum. This is not a fast food take away outlet like the one found in the Food Court of City Centre (which I’ve never tried), but a dine-in restaurant. Santino’s is one my personal favourites in town, love their food, the staff are all Asian and are generally very friendly, but the place is relatively small and could get quite packed at peak hours, also there isn’t a toilet in the restaurant.

During my first visits to Santino’s we always had a problem with the starters, while they are good, they’re as big in quantity as some main courses in other places. The waiter’s were not very helpful in this department as we were never advised on how much we should order. They have a couple of really good calamari starters, my favourite is the Calamari Piccosi, a spicy calamari and beans dish served with two garlic breads. We share this among two. There are loads of different starters, unfortunately I did not take a copy of the menu and I cannot recall the Italian names of the dishes.

There are five different main course types in Santino’s: salads, rice meals, sandwiches, pizzas and pasta dishes. I never tried the salads or the rice meals, so I cannot tell you much about these two. Sandwiches at Santinos are served in very thick pizza-like bread, along with potato wedges and salad. You can select up to four fillings for your sandwich from a collection of 15 or so fillings. I only had this once long time ago and though it tasted good, but it was very messy and quite hard to eat because of the hard bread.

Pizzas at Santino’s are what I usually order, there are again a variety of beef, chicken, sea food, and vegetarian pizzas made on a thin base, the ones I remember having are Mia (chicken, pepper and mushrooms – I think), Margherita (cheese and tomato sauce), and Santino’s Special (beef, pepperoni, chicken, pepper, and loads of other stuff). All of which I recommend. Santino’s Pizza’s come in a standard size and a larger one to share among a group.

I recently tried having pasta at Santino’s and had a Penne Santino’s (pictured above), a rich chicken pasta with olives, red pepper, and spinach – which was good, but not as memorable as the other meals I had here. I am generally not a pasta person, that might explain. One of my friends had a Tagliatella Alfredo (pictured below), which he thought was good.

As usual, nobody experimented with their drinks and had only Mountain Dew, that is a habit I think we should stop. I previously tried their chocolate cake which was more like a chocolate mousse rather than a cake, but which we still enjoyed nonetheless.

Starters are Santino’s cost around RO 2, a main course about RO 3. A dinner for three (2 starters, 3 main courses, and 3 drinks) cost us around RO 15 – taxes included.

Santino’s is one of the of nicer little places in town, great food and good service. Anybody going there has to try to the Calamari Picossi!