Peaceful Middle Eastern country is underrated and understated, like its food

It’s sunset, and I’m in a taxi, getting a masterclass in how to order tea in Oman.

“You don’t even get out of your car to order karak chai,” says Ali, my taxi driver, wiggling two fingers.

Ali’s lesson occurs on a break on our 150-kilometre journey from the mountains to the sea, from the old capital to the new, from Nizwa to Muscat.

The herbs, spices and scents of Oman.Credit: iStock

A runner emerges from the shop, sees two fingers for two karak, and disappears back inside, to reappear with two tiny takeaway cups.

Redolent of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and saffron, the tea is short and sweet – the perfect fuel for the taxi driver and the traveller. After Ali pays – because I am a guest first, and a customer second – we pull back onto the smooth, mountain-lined highway, hot tea carefully balanced in hand, for the descent to the turquoise sea.

For a snapshot of this peaceable Middle Eastern country, you should slice Oman in thirds. Once for its beaches and northern fjordlands looking over the Arabian Sea. Twice for its jagged mountain villages, desert towns and the Empty Quarter, a sand desert larger than France, which Oman shares with Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Third for the monsoon-lashed tropics of Salalah in the very south, an ancient port that has launched traders and invaders for millennia.

Oman – understated and underrated.Credit:

Oman is a rare creature in this neighbourhood – understated and underrated, it looks inward for its creativity, expressed in its architecture, its designs and its dress. When you are in Oman, you are unmistakably in Oman. It’s now time to get a handle on its food.

“What is the essential spice of Oman?” I ask Khalid Al Amri, frankincense butler at the Shangri-La resort in Muscat.

“Cardamom!” he exclaims, pouring me a porcelain cup of lightly roasted cardamom-infused coffee. He doesn’t need to mention the other one – precious frankincense, Oman’s signature scent, which as we speak, is burning on a charcoal brazier, perfuming the air and our clothes.

On a terrace overlooking beaches where green turtles will come to nest tonight, I am served chicken grilled over the wood of a frankincense tree, accompanied by a chutney made from Oman’s fardh dates, one of the five types of dates, or “fruits of heaven”, grown here.

Dates for sale at a street market in Nizwa, Oman.Credit: iStock

Days later, in the palm gardens of old Nizwa, capital of Oman in the 6th and 7th centuries, an elderly Omani invites me to sit with him, as is the Omani way with travellers from afar. He calls for karak, and he calls for qurus, thin wheat crepes that pair perfectly well with the tea. As we pour date syrup on our qurus, the city walls, part of an 8th-century mud-brick fortress, are still warm from the late spring sunshine at our backs.

Fun fact: in days of old, soldiers in Nizwa’s fortress would boil date juice to pour down sly “murder holes” to deter attacking armies – surely the sweetest of weapons?

Lunch the next day is an Omani street food classic, mashakeek: slender sticks of beef or lamb that are grilled quickly over a hot fire – you can’t escape kebabs in this part of the world, but why would you? At the mud brick and palm Al Aqr restaurant, I’ll find camel mashakeek tenderised with the Omani spice mix that includes the holy trinity of cumin, coriander and cardamom, accompanied by tangy tamarind chutney.

From Nizwa, high up in the Hajar Mountains, it is rose-harvesting season, and early another morning I find myself dwarfed by rose bushes, pickers around me plucking dew-laden pink damask roses. I duck my head to enter a villager’s home to watch the distillation of the precious petals, and my host spritzes pure rosewater into thimbles of lightly roasted Arabian coffee, which he serves with dates from a silver tiffin.

Slow-cooked Omani lamb shuwa, studded with pomegranate seeds.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

What’s agreed by all is that the national dish of Oman is shuwa, a classically spiced lamb, slow, slow, slow-cooked in communal ovens to mark Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. The great shuwa feasts have just ended when I arrive in the country, but it is on the menu of Al Qalaa, the signature restaurant in Anantara’s Al Jabal Al Akhdar hotel.

At sunset, fire torches are lit to the sound of drums. I take my seat in a recreated fortress to taste chef de partie Elsayed Metawee’s oven-cooked version – it emerges strong and dark, rich and so smoky, studded with pearls of pomegranate.

In contrast, after dawn the next morning, I discover khubz rakhal, a flatbread so light and delicate that the morning sun shines through it when I hold it up to the light.

“It’s best hot and fresh from the pan,” says pastry chef Hajer Al Shoukri, as she recalls her childhood treat, now a favourite snack at festivals. “Just water, salt and flour, cooked on the saj, a hot, flat pan.”

On my way down the mountain, hairpin bends and rock faces on either side of the road, my mind is on frankincense, rosewater, cardamom and dates; my travels are fuelled by spiced karak and scented coffee.

And as I journey from desert camps to mud brick inns, from mountain hotels to Muscat’s five-star resorts, I find eating in Oman is as unexpected as it is fragrant.

The details

Stay
Muscat is no stranger to luxury hotels, as the Shangri-La Muscat demonstrates. Three hotels within the one property, the adults-only Al Husn is set on a private beach where turtles nest, its halls fragrant with frankincense. It is 15 minutes from Mutrah Souq and then into Muscat city. Rooms from OMR123 ($486) a night, including breakfast, mini bar, afternoon tea and pre-dinner cocktails each day. See shangri-lamuscat.com

High in the Hajar Mountains, the air is cooler at Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar, ideally placed for hill walks and visits during the region’s rose harvest, from March to May. Rooms from OMR180 ($702) a night. See anantara.com/en/jabal-akhdar

In the desert, Magic Camps’ beautiful, eco-friendly bell tents are set among the orange dunes of Wahiba Sands, two hours from Muscat. Tents cost from $US1943 ($2921) a night. See magic-camps.com

Nizwa’s mud brick old town, Al-Aqr, has new boutique hotels opening at a rapid rate – the original is the simple Nizwa Heritage Inn, 45 rooms set in 10 old houses in the historic quarter. Rooms from $75 a night. See nizwainn.com

Visit
Spring (March-May) and autumn (September-November) are the best seasons to visit the sultanate. Australian passport holders can travel visa-free if staying fewer than 14 days. See visitoman.om

Fly
Many major airlines service Muscat, which is a one-hour flight from Dubai with Emirates, emirates.com

More
experienceoman.om

The writer was a guest of Emirates, Shangri-La Oman and Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar.