“Palmeera” (Casual Dining), Shatti Al Qurum

Palmeera has replaced the little Italian restaurant, Pane Caldo, in the Jawharat Al Shati Mall near the Intercontinental Hotel in Shati Al Qurum.  This multi-cuisine restaurant opened at the end of July and its opening was featured in the Week, the Oman Observer, the Times of Oman, Muscat Daily, and was reviewed on the Omani Cuisine blog.  With all the recent press, we decided to give it a try.

At first glance, the seating at Palmeera is less than impressive, but once you get over it, the chairs prove comfortable enough.  I had to remind myself that this is “casual dining” which is clearly reflected in the low prices, so I think their seating can be overlooked.

Nice Kids Menu.  We also love how they brought a coloring page and crayons to the table for our son.  Like D’Arcy’s in the same mall, they really know how to make a family feel at home here.

Even though it was an early dinner, my son’s in a pancake phase it seems.  He can be a bit of a fussy eater (like most kids) but he really ate up these pancakes.  Nice that they add banana, apple and strawberry slices. (only 900 baiza)

The Gambu (Seafood) Soup was very good! (2 OR)  I’m glad my wife spooned up some of the ingredients just as I was taking a pic as you can get an idea of how great it must taste with its contents of okra, fish and prawns.

 

My sister-in-law had the Seafood Pasta (3.9 OR) which she assured me was every bit as delicious as it looked.  Here are other options on the Italian page:

Fresh Fish & Chips is always a fantastic choice at just about any casual restaurant in Muscat and the plate pictured here at Palmeera was no exception (3.6 OR) Quite a large portion that I wasn’t able to finish.

My wife thought her Grilled Fish was very good. (3.8 OR)  Here are the other 2 pages of options for Main Courses (Continental):

We ordered the Squid Tempura (aka “Calamari”) kind of late in the game but the ladies had a sudden craving for it. (3.2 OR) These would have made a lovely starter, I think, even though there is no official “starter menu” as the dishes are organized according to type of food such as Italian, Chinese and so on.  (They apologized for putting on “the wrong sauce” but we enjoyed it all the same! 🙂 ).  More choices from the Chinese section of the menu:

The menu is quite big, consisting of 15 pages (including kids menu and restaurant description).  I’ve already posted several pages, so I might as well just go ahead and let you see the other pages of their menu:

If you’re in Shatti Al Qurum early enough, you can try out their breakfast menu.  They open as early as 7:30am. (Muscat Daily said 7am but I’ll have to confirm that.)  There are also plenty of snack options:

What would a multi-cuisine restaurant be without salads?!

Indian and Mediterranean:

One thing we love about the prices (besides the fact that they are so low!)  is that “what you see is what you get”. No extra service charges, or luxury, municipal, or dining taxes so you’re free to tip to your heart’s content.

Another bonus feature to Palmeera is that they have Grace (one of the nicest waitresses in Muscat!) that some of you may recognize from D’Arcy’s.  Make sure to tip her well! 🙂

So, all the dishes pictured in this post plus 2 mountain dew and 1 large masafi water came to only 21.2 Omani rials.  Not bad at all!  Have any of you been to Palmeera? If so, what did you think?  (Tel: 24692368)