Food in Oman

Hi people out there,

as promised I'm gonna drop some lines today about the Omani cuisine to give you some insights into this culture.
You can find some pictures in my webalbum (link on the left) and here.



So, the typical Omani food is what???
Beside the typical middle east food - shawarma sandwich, foul, hommuz, sweets, fruits - the typical Omanin food consists of

rice, with chicken, vegetables, yoghurt and some tomato based sauce.

The special thing about it is the way you eat it. In usual Omani restaurants you are not sitting at a table but you have a room (say 3m x 3m) for your group where you sit on the floor. Using some coushions or pillows makes it quite comfortable. The meals is severed on a big plate or two containing the rice and the half chicken(s). Some plates with vegetables and the sauces will be placed around it. Having the scene prepared, you'll start with the meals. Everyone is sitting around the plates on the floor. First you put some sauce on the rice and mix and squeeze it with your hands so you get sme kind of a bowl. Then you build a kind of a shovel with your right hand and take the food portion on the top of your "finger shovel". To push it into your mouth you can use your thumb.
It is actually nor that complicated as it sounds. But it's definitely fun :-) hamdu'lill*allah
Going through that for the first time, the questions that came to my mind first was: Where do they get all these chickens from if 3 million people eat chicken everyday? If I have the answer, I let you know.

After the meal you can wash your hands at one of the many basins in the restaurant.

If you don't want to have one of these meals you can also spend your in any fast food restaurant, or you can have Indian, Mexican, Pakistani and all these kinds of food. In all of the many supermarkets (they call them hypermarkets here) you'll even get all kinds of Western food.


So that was a short intro into the Omani food culture.

My next report will be about our trip to the sea on Friday and hopefully about a great snorkelling experience.


Take care

Hajo