Grand Lounge – Ruwi

Grand Lounge (Telephone 2481 1191 – Location) is a Turkish Restaurant located in Ruwi right behind the Sheraton. Somehow the location of Grand Lounge is undiscovered yet and there is no problem with the car parking at all near it.

The Grand Lounge has a gorgeous seating area indoors and outdoors and has a number of private rooms as well. We sat inside during our visit, but the outdoor seating looked really nice. We went to Grand Lounge on a Wednesday night and only a few other tables were occupied when we were there.

The menu of Grand Lounge offers a couple of soups, some appetizers, salads, sea food dishes, beef main courses, chicken main courses, and a special section for casserole baked dishes.

For starters we asked if we can have a half and half plate of Mutabal and Babaganush (RO 1.200 – pictured above) which came with freshly baked thick turkish bread. We also had two pieces of Lahmacun (RO1.000 – pictured below), which was a very flat piece of bread with thin layer of beef and vegetables smothered on top of it, something similar to fatayer but much more thinner and lighter. I wasn’t a big fan of the recipe Grand Lounge uses for its Mutabal or Babaganush, even though the bread that came with it was delicious and felt fresh out of the oven. The Lahmacun was much nicer than our other starter, we learnt that you are supposed to use it to make a rolled up sandwich with the salad that came with it and have it that way. It was pretty nice, but we though maybe one piece would have been enough for two instead of having two pieces.

Strangely the Grand Lounge serves a great variety of fish and beef main courses, but barely any chicken main courses and no chicken kebab at all. There is also a collection of fresh fish at the entrance which you can pick and have cooked for you in the way you like if you want to have a whole proper fish for your meal.

We ended up having Adana Kebab (RO 3.500 – pictured straight below) which had two skewers of beef kebabs marinated in hot spices and came with a rice, and a Beyti Wrap (RO 4.000 – pictured further below) which was a beef, cheese, and vegetable wrap served on a plate. I thought the portions of the main courses were big, and they were quite well done. The kebab was well flavored and the wrap was slightly crunchy from the outside and the moist and tender from the inside. We enjoyed both of them thoroughly.

For the dessert we thought we’ll try the baked Rice Pudding (pictured below) which was a very strange dish because it had the caramel on top of it almost burnt, yet came cold and was way too sweet for our liking.  Other desserts served which we didn’t try were the Kunafas and Buqlawas.

In total we ordered 2 starters, 2 main courses, 2 fresh juices, and 1 dessert. Our bill came to about RO 16.000.

We thought that the service at the Grand Lounge was great, the staff members were a bit awkward but friendly and helped us pick our dishes. Our orders also came quickly and exactly as we ordered.

I thought that I had a good experience on my visit to the Grand Lounge, I wouldn’t advise you to try the mixed appetizers and instead go for something else like the Lahmacun, I heard mixed feedback about the Grand Lounge because of their consistency issues, but I think that it is surely worth giving a try.

Review: Turkish House Restaurant – Al Khuwair

The uncreatively named Turkish House Restaurant is located in the commercial area of Al Khuwair next to Al Liwan shisha joint, it is the most popular Turkish restaurant in town. Turkish House is a proper dine-in restaurant and is not another one of those little generic Turkish coffeeshops/sandwich-shops scattered all over Muscat. Many call it ‘The Fish Place’ for its excellent fish dishes.

Turkish House is adored by many, it is normal for people to stand in queue waiting for tables to be available during lunch time. The restaurant has started as a small regular sized restaurant, it expanded in the past when they added the new ‘romantic’ section (as some lame Omanis like to call it) in the back of their main building, and it is currently in the process of taking over the entire floor of its original building. That new section was not yet opened when we visited the restaurant two weeks ago.

The crowd of Turkish House is very diverse, during our stay we say a gathering of some college boys and girls, a table occupied by a family, and a business looking group on the other side. The place seems to attract both Omanis and expats as much.

The menu of Turkish House shies from being exotically Turkish and mainly consists of generic grilled Mediterranean dishes, which is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Cold Mediterranean starters, salads, grilled dishes, fish dishes, and fresh juices are the main highlights of the menu and they are all usually served with a large naan bread and/or chips.

In my most recent visit to Turkish House I had a humous starter and a dish of chicken kebabs served with chips (not pictured), which was very well cooked, tender, and tasted simply delicious.

The service of Turkish House is average I guess, their staff are relatively friendly and seem to know regular customers, but the field at which Turkish House really shines is the food, which is really good.

Prices of Turkish House are moderate, a mixed starter dish (pictured above), a mixed grills dish for two (pictured above), and two fresh juices cost around RO 10. Regular dishes cost around RO 3 and Fish dishes start from RO 6.

Lovers of Mediterranean food, grilled food, and fish should check out Turkish House.