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following The seafood culinary arc
Some of the best seafood restaurants of Muscat
ring the Shatti al Qurm beach
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| Prices listed are for an average meal (per person), excluding drinks. |
Walking along the Shatti al Qurm waterfront is a double-edged attraction. You have one of the most popular beaches in the city on one side, with a constant band of blue ocean, palm trees and sun shelters. On the other side, the road that rings the waterfront is an attraction in itself, for cruising along in your car, eating at the establishments on its fringes, or, perhaps best of all, looking at all the
others. Beyond is a delicate ecosystems of mangroves, so you're tucked between the green and the blue. From frolicking in the sea to fine dining, this strip has it all. What better way to sample seafood? Try these fine restaurants along the strip.
Crowne Plaza, 24 660660
Definitely the jewel in the crown, the hotel dominates the strip,
rising above it, overlooking the sea on an outcrop. This landmark, lit up at night in purple, is also a natural starting point for your culinary arc around the sea. You have three choices at the Crowne Plaza – hearty fare at Duke's Bar, Middle Eastern opulence at Shiraz and Italian classics at Come Prima. You can choose to sit out on the
balcony overlooking the sea, but you might want to wait till it gets a bit cooler.
Your sampling of seafood must start at the Iranian restaurant, Shiraz, preferably with their unrivalled prawns cooked with saffron and served with rice. You won't want to leave, and unlike a lot of expensive restaurants, Shiraz will serve you more than you can
finish. First of all, it features a blue tiled oven within the dining area, with a chef preparing fresh naans that are on your plate barely seconds after they're done. Secondly, you're now presented with a huge plate of complimentary salad minutes after you're seated. The best part of it is the massive slab of Iranian feta cheese, and it goes excellently with the bread. Thirdly, and this is assuming that you're not full with all of this, the main food helpings are extremely generous.
Our prawns came buried under a huge mound of intensely spiced rice, on a huge oval platter. They were surprisingly hot, and if you aren't used to spice you might find it excessive. We thought it was delicious, but it might help to have a side dish you can take refuge in. This came in the form of spinach and cream, an appetiser on the menu that goes excellently with a main course. The flat spread of spinach came on a little dish, with four dollops of cream on each corner. It was delicious, and a good antidote for the spicy main dish.
Located at the epicentre of cultures between China, India, Arabia and Europe, Iranian cuisine is an exotic blend like nothing else. Don't miss Shiraz's other dishes like the joojeh kebab, kubidh murg and khouresh meygu that we tried. The joojeh kebab and the kubidh murg looked similar – long skewered meat that went very well with rice. Choose between them depending on your preference – chicken or lamb. The lamb was good but predictable, while the chicken was exceptional, melting in one's mouth. And all this over a soft mound of rice, flavoured with the hint of spices, the most enticing being the ever-present whiff of
saffron. The kubidh meygu is a thin curry of prawns that goes very well with rice. In fact, we ladled out the gravy over the rice and ate our meat with it.
If all this is a little too exotic for you, Duke's Bar is sure to serve something a little more direct in its approach, like good old fish and chips. End your meal with
a decadently rich chocolate fudge torte. With bits of biscuit in the middle, it tastes so good you'll forget about the calories and you can always dip into the selection of fruit that accompanies it, to make you feel a bit more virtuous! The packed-out pub welcomes teams from all ages to its quiz night on a Monday evening. It's noisy, it's fun and best of all, you can enjoy a hearty meal while you're busy racking your brain for the name of that obscure keyboard song you liked so much back in 1989.
Dairy Queen Grill and Chill, 24 693031
At the far end of the curve, this new concept Dairy Queen is only the fifth of its kind in the GCC, and the first in Oman. What DQ pegs as a 'fast and casual dining experience' starts off at an ordering counter, where you choose your combination – generally involving fried meat within bread – that comes paired with a cola and French fries. It might be a place for a quick bite, but you can follow your quest for seafood to the end, and opt for a crispy fish sandwich.
Once you're through with ordering, you're given a coupon, not your food. Place this numbered red tag on your table and you'll have your food delivered within minutes. Don't miss their buffalo chicken strips entrée. It's large enough for a meal, and its buffalo sauce is a spicy, tangy force that separates it from its other plainer option. It, like everything else here, comes served in a self-contained tray, with a plastic fork and knife. They're so flimsy that they'll bend when you tackle the large well fried fillets of meat, and you'll be on the verge of using your hands and teeth. The salad we ordered separately is a bit short, but the entire package is guaranteed to fill you up, and do so well.
Other attractions include California grilled burgers, half pounders with cheese, Philly steaks, mushroom burgers, turkey sandwiches and chicken Caesar salads. But what're even better are the breakfast deals, served till noon. Choose from meat and egg sandwiches,
pancake platters, hash browns and sausage sandwiches. The hash browns are very good: fried bits of potato and egg paired with meat. Down it with coffee.
Although boasting of a seating capacity of more than 70, Grill and Chill can get packed to capacity in the evenings, so watch out. A lot of young people getting together and loud music means this is a place to go to only when you're feeling particularly sociable.
Marina Café, 24 567825
Next up in line is the Marina Café, surprisingly well decked out for a place just a few feet away from sand and salty water. That is exactly its draw, and you can enjoy an unparalleled view of the waterfront, and the cars that cruise by under your window. You're so much a part of the outside view – dominated by palms and sea – that you'll need sunglasses when you sit at the floor to ceiling wall of glass. Inside, though, it's an entirely different platter. You will love their thick wicker furniture, the broad sweep of the wall of yellow and a ceiling of cobalt.
The grilled prawns we ordered were a little too gourmet for our taste, cooked with their shells on. This might preserve the flavour better, but it also means there will be more struggling than eating. Try a fork and knife on a little prawn, complete from head to toe: eyes, legs and exoskeleton. Now invertebrates, especially molluscs, might rely on this outer layer but humans have, thankfully, moved up the evolutionary ladder a bit. In the end, you'll be so stressed with tackling it that you'll decide to eat some of the shell too. They're thin and on the crispy side, and go well with the meat. The other oddity is that they come with French fries, which is strange because you'd have probably ordered the prawns grilled since you didn't want your lunch too oily. There's also a sort of Thousand Island dressing for company, completing the strange combination.
Still, in the end the food is well cooked, and comes with a light touch that goes marvellously with the promise of sunlight and sea. Their guava juice comes fresh and is almost as filling as a meal, and their other choices are good too. Topping the list of attractions, of course, is location, location, location.The Marina Café still remains a great idea for the hot summer months, exactly the time most
others seem toned down.
Santino's, 24 536698
Ever tried Italian seafood? It's quite good, and with thousands of miles of Mediterranean coastline, it should be.
We decided to spread our meal across starters and a main course of pasta and pizza – all of them involving seafood. First up was an appetiser of calamari fritti, which came piled so high you’d mistake it for a main course. Although thickly coated in batter, the calamari is as delicate in flavour and handling as it can be, and with a sprinkling
of lemon you wouldn’t want anything more. Capellini gamberi, our angel hair pasta, was delicious, with just enough olive oil to give it
a richness above its tomato base. The few prawns were more for
garnish – the real focus was on the thin and very long strands of ‘angel hair.’ The pizza, stagioni mare, was a surprisingly light, delicate affair that you could appreciate for originality, but not love.
But the best we’ve had here remains our choice of a few months ago, the mare caldo. About four large prawns in this fantastic tomato sauce came served with a bit of garlic bread. The sauce was interesting, and looked like tomatoes had just been freshly squeezed, with its varying consistency. It was thicker in the centre, with bits of tomato and herbs, slightly runnier tomato juice on the sides.
Whatever you choose, Santino’s remains one of the finest Italian options Muscat boasts of.
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