Golden Oryx – Ruwi
Golden Oryx (Telephone 2470 2266) is a fine dining Chinese/Thai restaurant located in Ruwi. It is one of the most ancient restaurants in town and remains as one of the most popular around.
Cowboy Grills – Bareeq Al Shatti
Cowboy Grills (Telephone: 2440 4233) is a new mexican grill take out restaurant located in the food court of Bareeq Al Shatti. It serves salads, hard shell tacos, burritos, quesadillas, sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, and pastas. The main highlights of Cowboy’s menu are the tacos, burrito, and quesadillas section for which you can pick whatever filling you want to have in them and the salad and salsa to have added. An individual taco costs RO 0.800 and does not come with anything else, burritos and Quesadillas on the other hand cost RO 2.000 each and come with tortilla chips (you can replace that for french fries if you tell them early on).
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.
Shiraz – Crowne Plaza
Shiraz (Telephone: 2466 0660) is an Irani restaurant located in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Shatti Al Qurum.
Shiraz is located on the far left side of the Crowne Plaza with indoor seating and outdoor seating on the terrace. The seating of Shiraz is a bit old fashioned and not exactly sleek, but still comfy and quite spacious. The outdoor tables oversee the Love Lane and the ocean and can be amazing when the weather is nice. We sat inside though cause we didn’t think that it weather was great that night. A waiter suggested we sit at one of the tables next to the windows, but the one we sat on first was too close to the bread oven which made it feel a bit too warm so we moved to the other table after sitting there for a bit.
As soon as you get seated at Shiraz you get treated to a complimentary plate of mint leaves, walnuts, feta cheese, and some small vegetables, along with a yogurt dip with garlic and mint (not pictured). The walnut salad wasn’t exactly special, but the dip was delicious and addicting, especially when you have it with the freshly baked naan bread that feels so cloudy and divine.
The menu of Shiraz offers a variety of cold appetizers (mostly vegetables), hot appetizers, soups, rice specialities, stews, grilled kebabs, and seafood kebabs. Shiraz also offers some set menu dinning options.
We thought that the complimentary intro was quite filling and decided to go straight to the main courses, I went for a classic Irani dish from the Kebab section called “Kebab Bakhteyari” (RO 10.500 – pictured above) which had combination of grilled lamb and chicken fillets marinated with saffron and olive oil and served with three varieties of rice. Other friends with me had a Mahi (Fish) Kebab (RO 11.500 – pictured below) and Gormeh Sabzi – a bowl of lamb and bean stew (RO 9.800 – not pictured). I quit enjoyed my dish and thought that was well done and rich in flavor, I also thought that the portions served were quite large, too.
Shiraz serves a variety of ice cream desserts, but unfortunately we did not try any of them.
We tried one of the special drinks at Shiraz called Doogh, which was a yogurt drink mixed with a variety of spices, I thought that it was nice, refreshing, and not too thick at all.
It is worth noting that Shiraz is licensed to serve alcohol.
In total we ordered three main courses, 2 dooghs, 1 fresh juice, and 2 large button of water, our bill came to RO 48.370.
I thought that the service at Shiraz was OK, the majority of the staff members seemed friendly, but our food took a long time to arrive and the waiter who took our orders did not seem to be in her best of moods. However, that did not affect our overall experience at Shiraz, which was pleasant.
I enjoyed my experience at Shiraz, I thought that their food is great, the atmosphere is nice, and sitting outside during the better times of the year could be really an amazing fine dining experience, albeit expensive.
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.
Irani House – Al Athaiba
Irani House Restaurant (Telephone: 2449 1921 – Map) is local Irani restaurant chain with a branch in Al Khoudh and another one in Al Athaiba. I visited their branch in Al Athaiba which is located in Al Murooj Hotel Apartments that can be found somewhere behind Al Safeer Hypermarket.
The Irani House restaurant doesn’t seem as massive from the inside in comparison to what you would think looking at it from the outside, probably because the restaurant has a separate section for families on the left side of it. The seating Irani House is not too attractive, but it is clean and spacious. I visited the restaurant in Ramadan at night and only a few tables were occupied.
The Irani house offers on its menu soups, starters, Irani rice dishes, Irani grilled dishes, sea food, and stews…. and it is also full of spelling mistakes, but you can’t order that. After we made our order we were presented with a complimentary intro of naan bread and mint salad. The salad was very interesting because it had mint leaves, olives, some sort of feta-like cheese, and walnuts. It was a very small portion, but was nice to crunch on before the meal. I was not a big fan of the bread, it was cold and rubbery a little bit, I can’t imagine that this is how it is supposed to presented.
Irani House offers a number of starters such as hommus, fattoush, vine leaves, kebba, and other similar items. We went for a Shirazi Salad (RO 1.100) which had cucumbers, tomatoes, spring onions, and lettuce, and had some sauce which I wasn’t very sure of what it was made up of – probably a combination of mint, olive oil and some pomegranate. I thought that the salad was pretty nice.
For the main course I had a Special Irani House Chelow Kabab (RO 3.500) which was basically a variety kebab dish served with saffron basmati rice, my friend had a half a grilled chicken served with naan bread (RO 2.600). I was not blown away by the dish I had, even though it was not technically bad or anything, but the grills I had did not radiate with the magical aroma of Irani food and were barely hot when I got them, I thought it was bland. I tried some of my friend’s grilled chicken and I thought that it was very average. The bread he had with his dish was also just as cold and rubbery as the one we got for the intro.
Irani House serves a number of desserts such as Um Ali, Creme Caramel, and ice cream, but we didn’t try any of them.
The service at the Irani House was quick and our food came exactly as we ordered, the staff members were polite, but they did not seem to be interested in providing us any advice on what we should order.
In total we ordered one salad, two main courses, and one large bottle of water, our bill came to RO 7.500.
I did not think that the food at the Irani House was all that, even though I heard a lot of good things about it in the past and I was surprised to see a lot of Irani people actually having food when we were there. I am not sure if this is a consistency issue or if I just set my expectations too high for this place. I think I might give it another shot in the near future just to see if their food would be better next time.
Pane Caldo – Jawharat Al Shatti
I reviewed Pane Caldo first when it opened back in 2007 and I wasn’t the biggest fan of their food, however, over the years I grew to like the place and it is now it is one of my favorite Italian restaurants in town, so I thought I’ll do a new review of Pane Caldo to share with you some of my favorite dishes at it. For those who do not know it, Pane Caldo is an Italian restaurant located in Jawharat Al Shatti Mall on the left side of it before DQ (Map).
Pane Caldo is quite big and spacious, during day time the place has this nice open airy feel due to the brightness of the place as the light comes through the glass wall. For those who like a little bit more privacy there are a couple of partitions on the right back side of the restaurant. They are not completely private, but will do for those who want to have a partial intimate experience.
Pane Caldo serves a collection of pizzas, pastas, calzones and other Italian dishes – I would personally not recommend having pizza at Pane Caldo because I did not like any of the pizzas there have, but someone on Twitter yesterday was swearing by the pizza he had at Pane Caldo – I am not sure which specific pizza he had.
Once you order at Pane Caldo you are usually treated to a variety bread basket (pictured above), which is usually extremely tender and cloudy and comes with a crushed olive dip and a red chili dip.
There are a number of starters at Pane Caldo, but I always go for nothing other than their Calamari Fritt (RO 2.500) which comes with nice mayo dip. It’s crunchy and not too oily and can be shared between two or three people.
For the main course I never go for pizza like I mentioned earlier, and usually have the Pollo Biancaneve (RO 5.200 – pictured below) which is a chicken breast dish served pasta and a spicy tomato sauce on the side, or the Bucataini Mrinana which is basically a red sauce sea food pasta (RO 4.600 – pictured above). The sea food pasta can be a little bit too spicy for some people, but you can ask them to have not a little bit less spicy that usual if you do not think you can handle it. I personally think that these two dishes are generally really good just the way they are.
I don’t usually have any of the desserts at Pane Caldo, but on my recent visit we had a Tiramisu (RO 2.800) which I thought was quite OK and really huge in size, four people could have easily just shared that one piece.
I really like the service at Pane Caldo nowadays, the staff members are helpful, very cheerful and never mess the order or take too long to prepare it.
On our last visit we had 2 main courses, 2 starters (second starter not pictured), 1 large bottle of water, 1 soft drink, and 1 dessert, our bill came to RO 26.910.
Pane Caldo is currently one of my favorite places in town and I highly recommend it!
Aches for Cakes
The Omani Cuisine was recently invited to try out some of the desserts made by Aches for Cakes – a little speciality home baking business run by Hanan Al Busaidi from her house in Athaiba. Hanan has been in the business of making cakes for over a year now, she has previously trained in the kitchens of Al Bustan Palace and the Chedi, and she is studying at the Oman Tourism College at the moment.
What makes Aches for Cakes standout among all the home cake bakeries in town is that it focuses on experimenting with mixes and nonconventional recipes. During my tasting session I tried a Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcake, a Passion Fruit Raspberry Cupcake, a Mango Tango Cupcake, a Strawberry Cheesecake Frosting Cupcake, a Peanut Butter Cupcake, a Lemon Meringue Bar, a Snickers Chocolate Chip Cookie, and some good old classics like a Chocolate Cupcake, a Dark Chocolate Cupcake, and an Oreo Cupcake.
The cupcakes were delicious, moist, and most of them had a *surprise* filling inside that gave the cupcake a nice kick of freshness – like the mango tango which had a fresh mango filling inside. I thoroughly enjoyed the cupcakes I had at Aches and Cakes, my favorite cupcakes were the Strawberry Cheesecake Frosting Cupcake and the Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcake.
Aches for Cakes accepts orders by email or through Facebook and offers a wide variety of items. Make sure you check out their Facebook page to look at some of the gorgeous cakes and cool looking cupcakes.
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
Mydan – Millennium Resort (Al Mussanah)
I was invited by the Millenium Resort in Mussanah (Telephone: 2687 1555) to try out Mydan – their buffet and a la carte restaurant. Millenium Resort is a bit less than a 100 kilometers away the capital, and it is remembered by many as the resort that hosted the Asian Beach Games in 2010.
We visited Millennium on a working day and there were no special events or conferences held, so the place was quiet and barely anybody else at all was at the restaurant. The Mydan restaurant is located on the right side of the main building of the hotel and has a breathtaking ocean view. There are tables outside all along the marina, but sitting outside is the not the best idea at this time of the year due to humidity and the heat.
Mydan does not serve a specific cuisine but a mix of continental, Mediterranean and Indian food. It has a pretty extensive menu with cold and hot starters, salads, soups, pastas, pizzas, grills, sandwiches, and other main courses. Mydan is fully licensed so some of its dishes may contain bacon and/or alcohol.
At the start of our meal we were treated with a variety bread basket that came with butter and oil dips.
For the starter we ordered a plate of cold lebanese mezze selection (RO 4) that had hommous, tabouleh, muttabal, feta cheese, and pickles and came with Arabic bread. I liked the greens and the cheese, but the homous wasn’t not very remarkable. We also had a lentil soup (RO 2.8) and market salad (RO 3.5), the lentil soup was nice, consistent and well flavored.
For the main course we had one plate of Roganjosh (RO 7.5) – boneless lamb cooked in traditional indian spices served with basmati rice, and one plate of grilled tiger prawns (RO 8 ) that came with couscous and seasonal salad. I really like the lamb curry I had, the beef was well cooked, tender and nicely thready and it was really awesome how it was served with a small plate that had two slices of onion, lemon, atchar, and two thin long green chilis for that spicy kick you need when having your rice and meat – it was great and I enjoyed it! The grilled tiger prawns excellent especially when dipped in the lemon sauce that came with it.
For the dessert we had a double devil (RO 3.5) – a chocolate brownie topped with vanilla and whipped cream. and place in the middle of a sauce of mixed raspberry, vanilla, and chocolate. I thought that it was great and the addition of raspberry to the sauce was a surprisingly nice addition that added some sweet freshness to the mix.
I thought the service at Mydan was great, our starters took a bit of time to be brought to our table, but we did not mind the wait as we enjoyed the the sipping our drinks overlooking the ocean. I thought the staff were very cheerful and friendly and our food was delivered as ordered.
If you are coming to Millennium Resort in Al Mussanah you would enjoy your food here.
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