Narenj Restaurant – Al Khuwair
Narenj Restaurant (Telephone: 9415 4154 , 9415 2152 – Map) is a new Irani buffet restaurant in Al Khuwair located right opposite the left side of Al Zawawi Mosque. If you are driving up the service road in Al Khuwair from McDonald’s towards Al Zawawi mosque you cannot really miss Narenj as it has one of the biggest and flashiest signboard on that road.
Al Tajin Grill – Radisson Blu
I was recently invited by the Radisson Blu hotel in Al Khuwair to try out their restaurant “Al Tajin Grill” (Telephone: 2448 7777 – Map). Radisson Blu is located at the edge of Al Khuwair commercial area. Al Tajin Restaurant can be found on the left side of the ground floor of hotel.
TGI Friday’s – Al Khuwair
TGI Friday’s (Telephone: 2448 8899 – Map) an American tex-mex casual dining restaurant located in Al Khuwair. Friday’s is located in the City Seasons Hotel right on the highway opposite the Ministries District in Al Khuwair.
Cafe Glacier – Zakher Mall
Cafe Glacier (Telephone: 2448 9245) has recently relaunched its new menu and brand identity in its main branch in Zakher Mall. Glacier is one of the oldest cafes in town and has been famous since the mid 90s fors its waffles and ice cream. You can check our previous review of Glacier in 2008 here.
The new revamped Cafe Glacier features black leather seating and a long leather cushioned wall on the other side. The place looks way more sleek, nice and polished now, but somehow it doesn’t seem that they got the right number of tables or something because the place somehow looks empty and awkward – especially in the middle. We came for lunch around 2.30 on a working day and the place didn’t seem busy at all.
The menu of Glacier has been streamlined and shorted in a manner that makes it really easy to navigate, there are now basically two sheets, one for main courses and the other one for desserts. On the main menu you have appetizers, salads, mains (such as grills, steaks and savory waffles), sandwiches, croques, and breakfast options. On the dessert menu you have a guide for your ice cream base (cup, cone, pancakes, or waffles), ice cream type, and then toppings, in addition to special desserts and drinks.
We decided to try out new things during this visit at Glacier, so I went for the Soup of the Day (RO 1.900) which was a Crab and Corn soup – it came with a few slices of bread, I thought it was OK, but really not very memorable. I wasn’t a big fan of the texture of the soup and now I don’t think it’ll be something I’ll try again. For the main course I thought I’ll go for a Steak and Prawns plate (RO 7.900) which came with a side dish and sauce of my choice. I had mine with fries and peppercorn sauce. The new Glacier menu seems to be big on steaks as it has manu configures at which you can have your steak, but only offers Ribeye pieces. I ordered mine well done, but it came burnt from one side and wasn’t very pleasant – I still finished everything that was on my plate, but again I don’t think I’ll go for steak again at Glacier.
For the desserts we thought we’ll try out something new, none of the ‘selection of the day’ were available so we tried the Warm Chocolate Fondants topped with ice cream (RO 2.700) which wasn’t really warm when it got to us and it looked, I don’t know, kinda sad. Again we wiped our plate clean, but it wasn’t the best dessert we had at Glacier.
In total we ordered 2 soups, 2 steak main courses, a juice, 2 small bottles of water, and 1 desserts. Our bill came to RO 25.300.
We thought the service at Glacier was average as always, not terrible, but not spectacular either. We were not impressed by any of the new items we tried at Glacier. Don’t get me wrong, I think that I still like Glacier, but I think that I will go back to have the good old dishes that we are used to having at Glacier such as the amazing Club Sandwiches and their good old waffles for dessert.
The new interior and seating looks much nicer than what it was before, and the design and layout of the new menu is excellent. I don’t have an item by item comparison, but the average price for an item at Glacier has surely gone up and steaks cost up to RO 7.900.
We are happy to see that Glacier try to reinvent itself, but I think I’ll stick to their old dishes like I always have.
Chowpatty – Al Khuwair
Chowpatty (Telephone: 2448 8829 – Map) is an Indian chaat restaurant located in Al Khuwair on Dohat Al Adab Street somewhat near Muscat International Hotel.
Chowpatty is a relatively small restaurant with a nice modern theme that looks much prettier than what you would expect from looking at it from the outside. I have been twice to Chowpatty and it was never too crowded.
Similar to The Bollywood, Chowpatty serves Indian chaat which is a kind of cuisine that does a variety of small vegetarian snack-like dishes. The menu of Chowpatty is divided into five sections: “Snacks” – which has things like samosas, “Pav Bhaji” for dishes which are served in or with a bun, “Chats” which are a variety of light snacks, and “South Indian” section which has some “Dosa” and other Indian specialities, and “Sandwiches”.
The problem I faced in both of my visits to Chowpatty is that I do not understand anything from the menu, there are more than 50 different items on it with names like Dahi Sev Puri, Tawa Alu Chat, Pav Bhaji, and Mayasore Uttapam? There are no pictures of these dishes and no descriptions or mention of the ingredients of these items. The waiters do not really speak good enough English to be able to explain what these things are. So what I ended up doing in both times is just order random things and then try to guess what’s in them.
Out of all the things I tried I thought the Dosa’s (from “South Indian” section of the menu) were my favorite, these are wraps made up with the crepe-like Indian pancake and have all sorts of fillings that can go with them. You can have them plain, with cheese, with spicy masala, or even with chocolate if that’s what you want. Some of them come with a dip and cut into smaller pieces like the picture above, while others come as a whole piece like the picture below. Both times I thought that the dosa’s I tried were delicious.
I tried a dessert at Chowpatty, but as I said in a previous blog post, I really do not like Indian desserts. This thing was milky, had coco nut and saffron, and like all Indian desserts – was too intense for me to do.
The first time I tried Chowpatty I tried their cocktail fresh juice and it was horrible. My friend tried some other juice too and he did not like it at all. I do not recommend any of the juices at Chowpatty.
I thought that the service at Chowpatty was good and the the staff were friendly and welcome even though they were hopefully when it came to explaining what’s actually on the menu. It is cheap – only 2 items out of the 50 or so on the menu cost more than RO 1. I do think that Chowpatty serves some really good food, but it is a big challenge to go there if you do not know anything about chaat because it is almost like playing a lottery as there are no pictures or descriptions of the dishes served
The Great Kabab Factory – Al Khuwair
The Great Kabab Factory (Telephone: 2447 8373 – Map) is a Indian kabab restaurant in Al Khuwair commercial area somewhere opposite Pizza Hut and these bunch of restaurants on Al Kuleiyah Street.
The Great Kabab Factory is quite a spacious restaurants that can accommodate a big amount of people. We had lunch on a weekend and it wasn’t crowded at all.
The concept of the Great Kabab Factory is that you pay a specific amount for unlimited servings of kabab that get served to you in a special order at your table. Once you are seated you are asked to selected between the non-vegetarian option (RO 4.900) or vegetarian option and then they will start serving you the food.
The order in which items come are usually as follows:
- Salad
- The signature minced lamb patty
- Mixed variety of kababs
- Biryani
- Dessert
After you get served the variety of kababs you can ask them to repeat any specific kabab you liked to have more of if you wish. Throughout the meal you will also get some dips, dalh, vegetable curry, naan bread, and a yogurt drink, too. From my understanding the actual items that get served differ from one day to the next, at times they serve chicken biryani and at others lamb biryani.
I thought the food at The Great Kabab Factory was amazing, especially their minced lamb patty which we got to spread over the flat bread they got us and make a sandwich out of. I thought the variety of the kababs was OK, we had a couple of chicken ones and a couple of lamb ones. We had chicken biryani at the end and it was great.
Right when we finished they got us some Indian desserts which I just can’t ever get myself to like, they are way too intense for me to handle. (I know that I am a big disappointment for someone who is this much into Indian food). I think people who actually like Indian desserts will actually like the things they serve at this place.
Besides the yogurt drink you nothing else is included with your food, at that time we were they offered orange juice and watermelon juice – we got good old orange juice (RO 1.400).
I was really impressed with the service at the Great Kabab Factory, the waiters were cheerful, very talkative and tried to explain to us the things that were coming in.
The Great Kebab Factory advertises the non-vegetarian option to be at RO 4.900 nowadays, but this amount does not include an additional 8% service charge and another %9 of government taxes. In total we had 2 non-vegetarian selections, 1 bottle of water, and 2 juices. Our bill came to RO 16.010.
I really enjoyed my experience at the Great Kabab Factory, their food was excellent and the service was great!
Best Burger – Zakher Mall
Best Burger (Telephone: 2447 5068) is a restaurant located in Zakher Mall in Al Khuwair, the restaurant is jointly operated along with Dream Cones – the ice cream place in Zakher. If you park in front of the main entrance of Zakher Mall and enter from the Dream Cone entrance, Best Burger should be right in the center of that hall.
There are a lot of seats, tables, and coffee style chairs in Best Burger, I’ve been at the place for both lunch and dinner and the place never seemed to get crowded. From personal experience I advise people to sit somewhere near the cashier or at any other location that would be easily visible to the waiters (i.e. not at the back) if you want to make sure that the waiters notice you when you want something. In my first visit I sat at the bank and I had to walk to the cashier to check if I had to make order from or what when nobody came to us after waiting for a little while.
Best Burger can easily win the award for the most confusing, least appealing, and ugliest menu ever made. The place is called Best Burger, but it is very hard to tell where the burgers are on their menu and all the images on the menu are horrible. After examining the menu clearly, it seems that Best Burger offers basically one main beef burger which you can have with cheese, chili, or zinger secret sauce. There is also a chicken Teriyaki burger and a vege burger. In addition to this Best Burger also offers some spaghetti dishes, wraps, a steak, some lamb chops, a caesar salad, fish and chips and a plate of cheese-chili fries. That’s almost really pretty it – though seriously confusing the menu is pretty short.
So for the starter we thought we’ll share a plate of Cheese Chili Fries (RO 1.500) which had fries topped with beef, beans chili and a spicy sauce, the portion of the fries was large enough to share between two people, I really liked it and I highly recommend it.
The Zinger with the Secret Sauce (RO 2.200) came with the special sauce, lettuce, tomato, a slice of cheese, and the biggest slice of onion I’ve ever seen. Though a bit messy and hard to handle,I still really liked the patty, but I have to say that I thought the buns were very average. If you do not like onions make sure to tell them explicitly to take it out.
There are no desserts on Best Burger’s menu, maybe because they think you should get something from Dream Cone on your way out? We did not go for the meal option for our burgers and go our drinks separately – one glass of orange juice and one glass of lemon mint (RO 1.5 each), which were good but nothing special – I had to admit though that I thought that their juice portions were generous in comparison to what you get at other places.
In total one plate of cheese chili fries, two burgers, and two fresh juices. In total RO 8.900.
I thought that the service was OK, but not the best because waiters seemed to be occupied with both Best Burger and Dream Cone, and if you sit somewhere in the back they might not notice you at all.
Best Burger is a nice addition to burger places in town, but they must work on their branding if they want people to trust the place.
Al Jood Restaurant | Al Khuwair
Al Jood (Telephone: 24472630) is a Lebanese restaurant located in the commercial area of Al Khuwair right next to the Turkish House Restaurant.
Al Jood is quite spacious and has seating over both the ground and first floor of the building, the restaurant looks nice for something in its class (the picture somehow shows the ugly back side of the chairs they look a bit nicer in reality).
Al Jood is a lebanese restaurant with an extensive menu of salads, cold mezzas, hot snacks, pastries, pizzas, soups, grilled food and kebabs, as well as Lebanese sweets. For the starter we order a plate of humous (RO 1.700) and a plate of rocket (rocca) salad (RO 1.500) that came with a basket of lebanese bread and a plate of pickles. Both were good and well made and enjoyed them thoroughly.
For the main course we ordered a single grilled (RO 4.500) which had a combination of chicken and beef grills that came on a light bed of onion salad and the whole thing was very good.
Unfortunately we did not try any of the desserts at Al Jood, even though the place is mostly known for its Arabic sweets. We were just too full and had just come from a cafe, so we didn’t feel like having any.
In total we ordered one starter, one salad, one main course, one fresh juice, and one bottle of water for a total of RO 10.100.
We were not blown away by the service of Al Jood, the waiters were politer than the previous time I’ve been at the place, but the it took them ages to get our food and we lost hope in having a waiter acknowledge our existence when we wanted to pay our bill so we had to walk to the cashier ourselves and pay at the desk.
The food of Al Jood is not the best in town and surely not better than Turkish House in my opinion, however it is still good and it is a good option if you cannot handle the crowds at the Turkish House next door.
Al Hamra | Al Khuwair
Al Hamra (2448 2955) is a new Lebanese restaurant in Al Khuwair. The restaurant is located right next to Rotana Hotel which can be reached if you are coming from McDonald’s Al Khuwair by taking the right turn right before the Zawawi mosque on the service road – the restaurant is a few seconds after the mosque before the end of that road.
The size of Al Hamra is quite decent with many big tables, a quiet area at the back for couples and families, and a private room for dinner parties. Unlike the many Lebanese restaurants known for their excessive use of fake house plants and ugly furniture, I thought that the place looked really nice and had a nice atmosphere.
We were not the most adventure during our visit at Al Hamra, so for the starter we ordered a plate of hommos (crushed chickpeas) (RO 1.300), in my previous visit to Al Hamra the bread was heavenly and tender, in the visit in which these pictures the bread was just alright – it was nice, but nowhere as good as what we had the other day. The hommos was good as usual though!
For the main course we had a Kabab Kheshkakh (pictured above – RO 2.400) which was minced beef mixed with various spices served with fries, pickles, some flat bread thing with leaves on them (? – but very tasty), a homos dip, and a chilli dip! The kabab is buried below everything on placed on that plate! We also ordered a plate of Shish Taouk (grilled chicken pieces – RO 2.500) which came with the same things as the kabab. We thought that both dishes were good, in my first visit I preferred the kabab over the chicken, but this second time I thought that the kebab came a little bit cold.
For the dessert we tried a plate of Kunafah (RO 0.950) which was a bit too creamy for my taste, and I’m really not a big fan of Arabic sweats, so I couldn’t have more than one.
For drinks we ordered a lemonade with mint and a “Colored” fruit cocktail which I think had something like mango, strawberry and kiwi juice – I really liked it!
The food was good at Al Hamra, but the service at the time when we went for lunch was horrible. They usually have a buffet on for lunch and most people seem to go for it, yet somehow nobody seemed to care enough to come take our order after we got seated even after we told them that we would like to order from the menu. The attitude of the waitresses was strange to say the least, and we had to wait for about 15 minutes to get our hommos starter which shouldn’t have taken them more than a couple of minutes to serve (especially as they had all the bread and everything ready for the buffet). One of the waiters also almost dropped the glass of juice on our table. It was just a total disaster.
I have to admit that this was not the same case when we went for dinner at Al Hamra the other day, the food and the service were much more better.
In total we ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, 2 juices, 1 bottle of water, 1 dessert, and our bill came to RO 10.150 in total.
Al Hamra let me down in my second visit to it, but I’m hoping that this is just a consistency issue that they will sort out as the restaurant is still quite new.
Has anybody else been to Al Hamra, what did you guys think?
RBG Grill – Park Inn Hotel
RBG Grill (Telephone 2450 7888) is a grill restaurant located in Park Inn in Al Khuwair. The restaurant is located on the ground floor right left of the main entrance of the hotel.
We went to RBG Grill early on an evening of a week day, we did not make a reservation before going and the place was practically empty when we were there. RBG stands for Red Bar Grill, and the theme nicely matches the name. The seating area of RBG Grill is quiet nice and spacious.
RBG Grill serves a variety of light snacks, salads, steaks, and burgers. The restaurant is licensed to serve alcohol and has sections for wines and beers on the menu. We did not like any of the starters as they seemed all more like snacks than actual starters (small sandwiches, etc). We only ordered main courses, but we received an introductory basked of bread and butter to munch on until the main courses arrive.
RBG Grill is known for its steaks, there are about 8 or so different steaks offered on the menu, my friend’s ordered a Rib Eye Steak (Pictured first above – RO 11.5) and a Sirloin Steak (Pictured second above – RO 12.5). Both came with mashed potatoes, salad, and a choice of sauce that comes with it.
I ordered a chicken fillet burger (RO 8 ) which came with chunky chips, I thought that it was nice especially the caramelized onions – I also found having a hard shell bun for a change nice!
We also had a chicken tikka (RO 5.5) with a side dish of mashed potato (not pictured – RO 2).
I thought that the staff at RBG Grill were friendly and the service was good, though a bit on the slow side even though the place was practically empty when we got in.
In total we ordered 4 main courses, 1 sideline, and 4 soft drinks, our bill came to RO 43.5.
My friends seem to like the steaks they had and I enjoyed the burger that I had, but as I am not really big on steak, I’m not really sure if I’ll be coming to this place often.
Anybody else been to RBG Grill? What do you guys think?
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