Giving a tip at a restaurant is not really been part of the Omani culture, perhaps due to cultural aspects such as the fact that eating out as a family has not been traditionally common here in comparison to other countries or the fact that we do not have many fancy places to go eat at anyway.
Tipping is almost an obligation in some other cultures, it is very common in some countries to have restaurants that explicitly mention in their food menus that service charge is not included (although I really do not understand how they could charge us so much when service charge is NOT included, vegetables and meat are not that expensive) so that the customer has to pay/tip for the service. However, the majority of restaurants in Oman do charge a ’service tax’ when you dine in, so that does not really matter much in Oman.
So what do you our readers do, at what circumstances do you tip? Do you tip only when you experience an extraordinary service? does it depend on how fancy the restaurant is? does the frequency at which you eat at the place matter? and finally - how much do you tip: is it a specific percentage of bill amount or is it just whatever change you have left in your wallet?
