I have not found a single restaurant that either specializes or includes omani cuisine. It’s really unique and I’m dying to see a good place with this.
Anybody have an idea of which restaurants have this cuisine?
Please let me know! Thank you.
Your post title about Omani cuisine intrigued me. Can you share how Omani food is like?
According to this writer, he/she hasn’t found Omani cuisine in NYC yet.
What is Omani cuisine?
I just saw an episode of Bourdain in Oman a few days ago. Made me really want to visit and experience the culture and try the food.
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Thanks, JMF. A good read. I caught that Bourdain episode, too. While there are a number of Arabic restaurants in the tri-state area you would have to go on-line to find out whether they serve Omani cuisine.
Haha oh wow, bourdain inspired me too!! Awesome episode.
Scroll down this website and click on the different links. It should give a good picture of the cuisine:
If you see the other comments I posted below, then you would figure out that I was inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s recent episode in oman. I was baffled by how one couldn’t omani cuisine in nyc, when there is such a vast diversity of cuisines. From what I can tell, it’s like a fusion of indian, african (probably ethiopian), and one/two more cultures combined.
Thanks!
I would say the food is more of a mix of Arabian/Lebanese, Persian/Iranian, with general Middle Eastern, Indian, and South est Asian influences, not so much Ethiopian. But from what I saw and read, there is definitely some Eastern African in the way of strong Zanzibarian influence, since the island was part of the Oman territories. I’ve been to Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania and the food is quite different in both, and Ethiopian and Eritrean which I am very familiar with from dating an Ethiopian girl during college.
This book by the author above, Felicia Campbell, sounds like a great resource on Oman cuisine. I just purchased it and will give a synopsis if possible.
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Oman-Recipes-Stories-Gateway/dp/1449460828
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I don’t think there’s enough of an Omani expat community here to staff a restaurant. My impression is that most Omanis living in the US are students, not emigrants - they’re here to get their education and go back home to Oman.
I agree with ratgirlagogo. Here’s a link to immigration statistics for almost 200 countries for the past 55 years. Oman didn’t even make the list.
I wish the Bourdain show had spent some more time on the Omani food – something I say after most of the episodes lately – and less on the public relations firm talking points. He has slowly morphed into Robin Leach, which is rather disappointing to this formerly enthusiastic fan.
The Sultanate of Oman stretched from the Gulf all the way down to what is now Northern Moçambique, and it really encompasses two two different ethnic groups and cuisines – Arab and Swahili. I haven’t yet been to Muscat, but I have traveled through much of what used to be the Sultanate of Oman along the East African coast, and I really enjoyed the Swahili cooking – heavy on seafood and coconut laden curries, coconut rice, and chapatis. Malay or southern indian has some similarities, but I’m not aware of any Swahilli New York City. The closest place I have heard of is Swahili Village in Beltsville, Maryland, but I’ve never been there, and don’t know anybody who has been. While there are no Arab Omani restaurants in NYC either, I don’t think it would be vastly different than the food from the rest of southern Arabia. I’m not crazy about many of the Yemeni places in town, but Aden on Steinway Blvd. is marginally ok, and would probably give you a reasonable facsimile of many of the meat dishes. David’s Restaurant on King’s Highway in Brooklyn does a great job with Yemenite Soup – which it seems is also eaten in Muscat – and also notably excellent hummus, falafel, kebabs, and foods of the Sephardic diaspora.
I have heard that Oman Air will begin JFK flights to Muscat in 2018, so there might soon be an easy way to go to the source.
