Wasabi Sushi (Telephone: 2469 9490) is a Japanese restaurant located in Bareeq Al Shatti mall. It is located in the far right side of the mall right opposite B+F.

Wasabi is a relatively small restaurant with about six or seven dining tables only, yet luckily the place is not exactly crowded as only half the tables were occupied when we came to dine in on a weekend evening. The layout of the place is quite modern and stylish, though a bit dim to some extent. Fun thing about the restaurant is that they have an LCD connected to a camera right on top of the chef showing the preparation process live. Make sure you check it out!

Besides sushi, the menu of Wasabi Sushi has nothing at all other than soup and salad. We ordered the traditional Japanese miso soup (RO 1.900) to which you can optionally add salmon. I had mine with salmon and quite enjoyed it!

The sushi menu of Wasabi Sushi is divided into Hosomaki (rice roll with filling inside and seaweed wrap on the outside), Futomaki (larger rice rolls with additional toppings on the outside) , Nigiri (fish pressed on top of rice pad), Sashimi (raw slices of fish), and Temaki (hand rolled cones of seafood). In my most recent visited we tried a hosomaki Tiger Roll (4.100 – which had tempura prawns, cucumber, avocado, flying fish roe, and Japanese mayonnaise – pictured above), a futomaki Dragon Roll (RO 5.900 – which had tempura prawns, avocado, tuna, salmon, roasted eel, mayonnaise, flying fish roe and teriyaki sauce – pictured below), a futomaki  Namoro-Maki (RO 4.700 – which had prawns, crab, avocado, and fish roe topping), and California Rolls (RO 4.500 – which had prawns, avocado, cucumber, Japanese mayonnaise, and flying fish roe). I liked everything we had, but I thought my favourites were the Namoro Maki and the California Roll.

In total we ordered 3 soups, 4 maki dishes, 1 soft drink and two small bottles of water, our bill came to about RO 30. I thought that the service was quite good and fast enough. My only complaint about the restaurant is that it doesn’t seem to offer much besides sushi. I mean, they don’t have any drinks other than soft drinks, water, and coffee – they don’t offer juices or any speciality drinks. There are also no desserts at all.

I still had a great time at Wasabi, I like their food and will be going again for sure!

Have you been to Wasabi Sushi yet? Do you think that sushi are going to pick up in Oman anytime soon?

Stomach (Telephone: 2469 2486) is a restaurant with a very weird name located on the first floor of Jawharat Al Shatti mall. It is located right in the back of the mall and not a lot of people seem to know that it exists, so it is not exactly a crowded a place (I’ve been to it a few times and I’ve never seen anybody eating other than us at the restaurant). Stomach serves a bit of everything from chinese food to pasta and steak.

The seating in Stomach is pretty nice, there is some interesting artwork on one of the walls and a huge shelf wall at the front. Like I said before, not a lot of people seem to go there – at least for dinner, so it is pretty quiet and peaceful.

Stomach offers a wide variety of food, they have soups, salads, sandwiches, Indian dishes, Chinese dishes, and continental food. For the starter we had the “All Arabian” starter (RO 2.5) which had hummus and prawns and came with a basket of Arabic pita bread. Hummus was pre-prepared canned hummus, which was obviously nothing special at all, the prawns were OK, and I have no memory of what the thing on the side tasted like.

For the main course I ordered a Chili Chicken dish (RO 3.000 – not pictured) which came with vegetable fried rice. The dish was seriously spicy I barely managed to eat it. I thought it was OK, but again nothing special at all. Other people with me ordered a Chicken Steak (RO 4.000 – pictured above) which my friend thought was very good, a spicy prawn dish which came with rice (RO 3.500) this was again very spicy and my friend barely managed to eat it, and a dish of vegetable noodles (RO 2.200) which was good.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 1 side dish, 4 main courses, 1 juice, 1 soft drink, 2 bottle of water, and an extra basket of bread for a total of RO 18.600.

I thought that the service at Stomach was slow, it took a while for the food to come even though we were the only people at the restaurant. I really wasn’t blown away by their food and thought it was very average. It’s no wonder that the place is empty most of the time.

Has anybody else been to Stomach, or has the name weirded you all out?

B+F Roadside Diner is a burger restaurant in Bareeq Al Shatti mall (Telephone: 2469 8836). It is located on the far right side of the mall if you enter from any of the main entrances. B+F (short for Burger & Fries) is supposedly a branch of another restaurant called Burger Boutique originally from Kuwait.

Unfortunately B+F was crowded as usual when we went to it, so we couldn’t take proper photographs of the seating area. The restaurant is not massive in size and is stuffed with many tables and chairs, it is not uncomfortably crowded, but it is not exactly the place to go to if you want to have a private conversation. B+F has a unique theme of low lighting and modern stylish art. It is almost always crowded in the evening, on weekends it is normal to record your name and wait for up to 45 minutes before you get seated. They will offer to take your mobile phone number so that you can walk around the mall until they call you to come inside. B+F does not take phone reservations anymore.

B+F offers a variety of burgers, salads, grilled meals, and pizza, but the place is ALL about the burgers. We do still take starters when we go there, the starters they offer include nachos, soups, beef skewers, and a variety of tex mex starters. We had this time the Spicy Chicken Quesadilla (pictured above – RO 2.450) which I thought was awesome. It was not really spicy, but still full of flavour, the bread was also nice and tender.

There are loads and loads of burgers at B+F, some classics, some gourmet, some in sandwich form, you name it. Each of these burgers may be served in “Burger Style” which is your regular burger or in “Slider Style” in which you will get two mini burgers served on a long pad. This time we had a Bacon Swiss burger (pictured above – RO 2.850) which had a juicy beaf patty, beaf bacon, swiss cheese, grilled onion, grilled mushrooms, lettuce, pickles, and a special B+F sauce. It came in the perfect size and I really liked it, it was juicy as described and the sauce was nice.

We also ordered a Oz Gourmet burger (pictured above – RO 4.250) which had a grilled beaf patty, topped with cheddar cheese, fried eggs, onion rings, bacon, tomato, pickles, beetroot, lettuce, ketchup and mayo. It was a bit hard to handle as it was big, but it was still quite nice!

For the drinks we had a Banana Berry Smoothie (1.950)  which had fresh banans and mixed berries and a Red Planet (RO 2.250) which had red berry, pomegranate, pineapple, and apple juice. I really liked my Red Planet, I thought it was refreshing and the pomegranate bits were cool!

B+F also offers a number of sidelines such as fries and onion rings and desserts such as cakes and brownies, but we didn’t try any of them during our visit.

The service is B+F is good, the staff are very friendly and talkative, the food took a bit of time to get to us, but we did not mind it.

In total we ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, and 2 smoothies, our bill came to RO 14.438.

I love B+F, their food is amazing and the atmosphere is nice for people who into that sort of place. If you have not tried yet you are really missing out!

If you are another B+F addict, what is your favorite burger?

Narjeel (Telephone: 2456 0606) is a Thai restaurant in Shatti Al Qurum. The restaurant is located at the somewhat dodgy Asas Oman hotel apartments in Shatti. If you are coming from the CCC and going towards Crowne Plaza along the Qurum Park road, you take the right turn after the small roundabout and before the little mosque.

Narjeel is not a super fancy restaurant, but it feels authentic. Unlike the dodgy feel of the hotel and the sign of Narjeel, the restaurant inside is quite spacious and feels welcoming. We went for a meal on Friday evening and the restaurant (and hotel) seemed empty. During our entire meal there wasn’t anybody else other than us in the restaurant.

Narjeel is a Thai restaurant and serves a number of soups, salads, starters, Thai main courses, seafood, and a number of others things as well. For the starters we had a Tom Yum Koong (RO 3.800) which was a spicy seafood soup cooked with vegetables. The portion of the soup was very large and it was a bit spicy even though was asked for the mild version of it, but we still enjoyed it thoroughly.

Our first main course was a Panang Meat dish (RO 4.5) which had slices of meet cooked in a spicy thai sauce and other herbs. I am not an expert in Thai food, but I did not like the taste of this dish. That is not to say that there was anything wrong it, but it was just not our cup of tea.

The second dish we ordered was a Chicken Kapow (RO 3.8) which was another dish of chicken shreds cooked in a spicy thai sauce and green beans. The description of the dish clearly stated that it is cooked in a spicy sauce, but we did not expect it to be THAT spicy. I thought the dish was good, but way too spicy we couldn’t even finish it.

The main courses do not come with anything so we also ordered a plate of steamed rice (RO 0.5) and another plate of plain noodles (RO 0.5). The main courses came with a complimentary plate of orange slices which I think are supposed to be had while eating the main course to cool off the spiciness of the main course.

For the drinks we had a Pina Colada (RO 1.5), a non-alcoholic coconut and pineapple juice mix, which was really well made. We did not try any of the desserts.

In total we ordered two soups, two main courses, two side dishes, and two fresh juices, our bill came out at RO 23.800.

The service at Narjeel was excellent and the food quickly arrived, except for our chicken main course which the waiter forgot to write on his notepad and which we didn’t notice was missing when he repeated the order.

I liked the soup and juice I had at Narjeel, but I was not crazy about the main course probably because we did not expect them to be as spicy as they were and because we did not ask for recommendations on what to have. However, I can understand why people are crazy about the restaurant and I think I would go again to try some more authentic Thai food.

Abala is a continental restaurant in Bareeq Al Shatti (Telephone: 2469 5903). It is located right next to the food court inside the mall. I think it opened earlier this year, was closed for a short while very recently, but is now open for business as usual.

Abala is all glitz and glamour. Everything from the tiles on the floor, the chairs and all the way to the cutlery napkins are super stylish. Abala also has some seating outside the restaurant for those who want to enjoy the nice weather of the winter. We went early in the evening while a big match was taking place, so the place was empty.

The menu at Abala is very extensive and serves everything from soups, salads, and nachos, to burgers, risottos, steaks, and pastas.

We were undecided between having Calamari or the Turkey Bacon Wrapped Shrimp (RO 3.5) for the starter, we ended up having the shrimps, which came out as four pieces of shrimp wrapped in a small slice of turkey bacon. It tasted alright, though the *dip* below the shrimp tasted better than the shrimp itself.

For the main course I had a club sandwich (3.5) which came with chips. The chips felt as if it was precooked earlier and then reheated just before it got served to me. It was dry and cold. I didn’t like the sandwich itself either, the toast was very dry, almost burnt, and the filling was a bit too salty for my liking.

My friend had a risotto with chicken and mushrooms (RO 3.5), he asked them to change the mushrooms  with dried tomatoes. He thought that his dish was “acceptable”.

For the drinks we had a Citrus Splash mocktail (RO 1.9) and a She Said Red mocktail (RO 2.1), I had the She Said Red, which had orange juice, strawberry juice, and pomegranate juiced mixed with crushed ice. We really liked both of our drinks and thought that there were the highlights of the visit.

The service at Abala was really good, everyone seemed friendly and our food came really fast. Not sure if it is always like that or just because nobody was dining at the restaurant at the time we went. In total, we ordered 1 starter, 2 main courses, 2 mocktails, our bill came to RO 16.

We did not like the food at Abala, I did not think that the starter was special at all and I really didn’t like my main course. I cannot really recommend this place. Has anybody else been here? What do you guys think?

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.