Omani Cuisine

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.

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.

 Japengo is a new Japanese restaurant located in Shatti Al Qurum area on Shari3 Al Hub (Love Road). It opened three days ago. Unlike the what the name suggests, it is not cafe, but a proper dine-in restaurant. The Love Road was hit badly by Cyclone Gonu and it has not been fixed yet, Japengo is the first restaurant to open up there and there aren’t enough proper parkings yet around, but people seem to somehow find a place to just stop their cars and come in. The place was busy today when I went to it.

Japengo is pretty big from the inside and has additional seats outside from both sides of the restaurant. There are some allocated tables on which smoking is allowed inside, the restaurant is pretty big so the non-smoking section should not be disturbed by it, but still, there is no separator or barrier between the two sections (I did not know where one starts and the other ends).

Japengo was opened less than a week ago and more than half of its menu items is not available for serving yet. You are given the full menu with all the unavailable items indicated with an x mark. A point worth noting is that Japengo is not your average Japanese restaurant, as it seems to have a lot more than just sushi. The menu has an appetizer section, salads section, sandwiches section, sushi/ sashimi section, sushi rolls section, Italian pasta section, pizza section, and even Lebanese food section (which I thought was insane!).

We decided to go for Shake Kawa Sushi Rolls for the starter (6 pieces in a single portion, cost RO 3.3), those  were sushi made in a roll and then cut into six pieces, the dish came with a plate of Soya sauce and some Wasabi (the green thing). Our Japanese-food-knowledgeable friend told us that we are supposed to use our chopsticks to take small bits of Wasabi and mix it with the Soya sauce then dip our sushi in the sauce before eating it. Our experiment succeeded and it was delicious. I really cannot remember what the Shake Kawa Sushi had in it, but it was cold, soft from the outside, and a little bit crunchy from the inside.

We also had fried calamari (costs RO 2.9) as our second starter, I had no comment about it other than it was very well done. The dip that came with it was amazing.

We had a tough time selecting our main course as the majority of dishes were not available yet, we did not want to go for something Italian or Lebanese dish, because that would just be wrong. Why would anyone go for a Lebanese dish at a Japanese restaurant?! I had a tougher time selecting a dish because I wanted to have something with chicken, and there was nothing with chicken other than the sandwiches. One of my friends ended up taking the Japengo Club Sandwich (pictured above- costs RO 3.9) and the other took a Cheese Burger (pictured below - costs RO 4.4). I ordered a Chicken Breast Sandwich (not pictured - costs RO 3.9) which came in a bun with French fries. I thought that was really good, loved the sauce that they used, but half way through I realised that maybe we ordered too much for a day. But it was very good.

For the drinks we ordered watermelon juice (RO 2.1), lemon juice (RO 2.1), and mango smoothie (RO 2.5). I loved my mango smoothie so much I had to order another one before we left. It was surely one of the best smoothies I had in town.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 4 main courses, and 5 drinks. Our bill came out as RO 34.750 taxes included.

We thought that the food at Japengo was amazing, the service was good overall - even though the waitresses acted plainly weird and refused to let me photograph them.  The prices are a tiny bit more expensive that the Noodle House, but are Okay for a restaurant of its range and in that location.  We would have loved to try some other things in the menu, but we couldn’t because the restaurant is still not fully ready yet. I would recommend it for everyone when it properly starts offering all the items in its menu.

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.

Mumtaz Mahal is most probably the finest Indian restaurant in town, it is located on the hill behind the Qurum Natural Park and has been in service since the 80s. It is loved madly by the Oman Today magazine as they gave it the award for the best Indian restaurant four times in the five years they’ve been doing their awards.

A review about Mumtaz Mahal is not complete without talking about the location of the restaurant and the view, especially at night when all the blinders that cover the glass walls are lifted to show the view of the road lights and the movement of the cars from above to make a charming sight of the busy life of modern Muscat.

Mumtaz is very spacious with loads and loads of seats, there are also a couple of tables outside the main hall that people sit at when the weather is good. A live band is supposed to perform in the main hall of the restaurant on some days, but I’ve been to the restaurant twice, once on a weekend and another on a week day, and I did not see this band.

The place can easily be fully occupied on any day of the week, when we got there at 7 .30pm yesterday there was barely anybody at the restaurant, but by the time we left around 9.30pm the place was full. It is recommended to book a table in advance instead of showing up expecting to be seated right away. The crowd at Mumtaz seemed to be older than those at the places we previously reviewed with a lot of expatriate families dinning in.

The staff of Mumtaz were very friendly and talkative, at the two times I’ve been to it they helped us with the menu, chatted about India (as if we’ve never had Indian food before?) and even talked about random stuff like cameras and photography. They food did not take a lot of time to get to our table, they literally put the food on our plates and helped us share the starters, we were very impressed.

The menu of Mumtaz is pretty extensive, in addition to their starters they also serve soups, dry tandoor grilled dishes and curry. There are vegetarian stuff in all sections of the menu and a lot of fish and lobster main courses as well. Spicy dishes are labeled with a small drawing of a chili to warn those who cannot handle spicy food.

For the starters we had the three non-vegeterian items they had on their menu, namely Machli Masaledar, these are deep friend fish fingers cooked with spices (the one at the bottom of the place in the image above), Chennai Murg, these are spicy deep friend chicken fillets (on the right side of the plate in the image above) and Murg Methi Kebab, some tandoor flavoured chicken kebabs cooked with some sort of leaves. I liked the chicken fingers more than anything else, the way they were cooked and the way they tasted made it irresistible. The fish fingers came second and the kebabs came third. They all had a hint of spiciness which I did not think was overly hot.

For the main course we had three different chicken dishes, Murg Angaarey - extra spicy tender chicken pieces cooked with garlic, Balti Murg - chicken cooked in traditional North Indian sauce, Chennai Murg Masala - a spicy dish of dry chicken cubes with coconut, curry leaves and black pepper. We also had a bowl of Ghosht Shahi Khorma -a meat dish cooked in gravy sauce with dry fruits and nuts. We ate those with chicken biryani rice and some garlic nan bread.

The food we had was very good, a couple of dishes we had were extra spicy and I would not recommend them for the weak-hearted. For a first timer I would recommend Balti Murg with plain rice or chicken biryani rice - you can’t go wrong with the basics!

We checked their dessert menu, they had many variations of Indian sweets with cheese, which we did not try and had instead their ‘home-made’ ice creams, it tasted very *unique* and had some saffron in it.

Mumtaz is obviously more expensive than the majority of Indian restaurants in town, the starters cost about RO 1.5 to RO 2 each, while vegeterian, chicken, and meat main courses cost RO 2.5 to RO 4, and sea food dishes cost RO 5 to RO 8.

Mumtaz is also a licensed restaurant, we were probably the only table that did not order any alcohol, you see bottles of wine coming and going all the time. A guy on a table next to us ordered some sort of pinched coffee which was made live right next to him.

We thought that the experience at Mumtaz was amazing, we had a great time, the food was delicious and the service was very good.

I apologise for not making an update last week, I do have several reviews in the pipelines with photographs and menus, but I got stuck thinking of what to write in my review of Darcy’s Kitchen. My first proper dine in visit was two weeks ago, I had to go to again a last week to collect enough material for my review.

For those that do not know the place, Darcy’s Kitchen is a cafe in Jawharat Al Shatti in Shatti Al Qurum. Though the place is considered by many as a breakfast cafe, it serves a lot of proper meal courses all day long. It differs from the majority of cafes and restaurants here with its laid back casual atmosphere. It has a distinct theme in its table design and colours, and it has a cute looking tabletop paper with a funky drawing of Omani customers.

There are loads of seats at Darcy’s, but the place seems to be constantly busy during all times of the day. I am not sure if there is a non-smoking section in the restaurant, we sat in the lobby of the mall where people were smoking, but we were not disturbed by the smoke, though it was noticeable. Space-wise the place is a bit crowded, I thought that tables were a bit too close to each other and that there wasn’t much personal space left. I guess that is why this is supposed to be more of a cafe and less of a restaurant.

I thought that the staff of Darcy’s were very friendly and talkative, we were served by Emy (pictured above). She remembered us from our first visit, helped us choose our meals and joked with us. (She thinks I’m a photographer).

The restaurant seems to be mostly known for its breakfast meals, which I did not try, but I know that these includes French toast, pancakes, several egg meals, and an English breakfast. The place also serves various soups, salads, burgers, pita bread sandwiches, roll-up sandwiches, pasta dishes, and grilled food dishes.

In my first visit, we had for the starter a plate of Fried Mozzarella Cheese (pictured above) that came a tomato dip which you could optionally add jalapeno to - a piece of information I did not know at the time. Yet regardless, I thought that it was really very good.

The starter we had in our second visit was the Chicken Fingers, those were long thick boneless chicken fingers that come with mashed potato, chunky chips, or french fries and a really good sauce that I cannot remember what it was made of, probably a mixture of mayo and some salad dressing. The quantity was pretty a lot and could easily be considered as a main course for one person. I thought that both starters were great, but if I had to pick between the two I would go for the Fried Mozzarella Cheese because it was a bit different from we have elsewhere.

The first main course I had was the Chicken BBQ Lamisso, a dish of chunky marinated chicken pieces served with a sauce made up of peanut butter, tomato, and onion. I thought that it was really good, the chicken was very well cooked and the sauce was a great addition to it. Acting like a silly kid, I did not touch the cooked vegetables that came with the meal only because I am not a great fan of cooked vegetables.

My friend had some California Friend Chicken - an item from the additional menu of new food. The dish looked like something from KFC, but my friend says that he liked the crunchiness of the chicken skin and the sour taste of the garlic mayo dip.

The main course I had on my second visit to Darcy’s Kitchen was the Chicken Melt Sandwich, a sandwich made of shredded chicken pieces with mayo. You can select to have white or brown bread for your sandwich. I did not think that the sandwich was very memorable, not that it tasted bad or anything, but at the same time I did not think that there was anything special about it.

My friend had his favourite cold Club Sandwich, he asked me to try some of his, but I was already really full. It looks like Club Sandwiches are his favourite and he recommends it strongly.

The average price of a snack (Darcy’s label for starters) is from RO 1 to RO 2.5, a main course costs around RO 2 to Ro 5 on average, drinks cost from RO0.3 (Soda) to RO1.5.

I really liked Darcy’s Kitchen even though place is a bit noise and can get crowded, however, their service is great , their food is good. I think that we need more of these places in town.

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!