Grocery Store Food

There are definitely things you can and cannot find here in Muscat.  And when you can find something you’ve been looking for, you should tap into your inner hoarder and stock up.  This was the advice I was given, but I've yet to be a good hoarder.  More on that later.

We shop at 4 different grocery stores here:  Carrefour, Lulu’s, Al Fair, and Sultan Center.  I love my Carrefour in Qurum City Center.  I know generally where things are in that Carrefour.  I don't know where things are in the Carrefour in Muscat Grand Mall.  That one is smaller and drove me nuts when I was trying to find 3 items.  (I walked out with only 2 of my needed items.)  Sometimes I shop at Lulu's in Avenues Mall.  This is a large store with just about everything.  But do not go on Fridays (and possibly not even Saturdays) because it will be absolutely crazy!  We've waited quite a while in lines before.  Lulu's and Carrefour run some really good sales that change fairly frequently.  Al Fair is my local grocery store that I can walk to for milk, cereal, bread, etc. that I need mid week when I really just need to pick up a couple of items.  Sultan Center also has really good deals and a good selection of imported items.  They also have a great home and outdoor activity section.  This is a good store to wander around in to see if you can find random things you didn't know you needed or things not found at the other stores.


There is also the produce market.  Oh, how I love the produce market!  Great produce at great prices because you cut out the middle man of the grocery store.  I haven't ventured there on my own, but I love to tag along if others are going.  If you ever go with me, remember your cash!

Why I don't/can't hoard:  I have a giant sized kitchen, with an itty bitty fridge and just 3 cabinets that I use for my pantry.  I really can't handle too much hoarding in that space.  Honestly, boxes and cans falling on top of each other kind of makes me nuts.  It's so hard to keep it organized and looking neat and tidy.  I could probably find other places in my kitchen for a hoard supply, but I haven't made that a priority.  I love that I can store so many other items in my kitchen cabinets (I'm looking at you, all my beloved appliances that I can't use here because you're too high powered).

I have developed a mindset about how I shop here.  I have said, "I'm not trying to eat only my American food in Oman."  Yes, I still make many of my recipes, but I try not to be so dependent upon what ingredients I use.  For example, I can't find tomato sauce.  Instead, I can use tomato paste watered down, or I can get a can of crushed tomatoes because those are basically pureed.  That also means that if I want crushed tomatoes, I should buy the diced version that come in tomato sauce.  Another example, when I made baked beans, I started with beans in tomato sauce not a can of pork and beans (I also couldn't add any bacon or bacon grease because I'm not paying the high price for pork or bacon here).  I'm trying to be flexible because being too dependent upon a specific ingredient can be hard.  It can cause you to search every grocery store looking for a specific ingredient.  I'm exhausted enough after one grocery trip, that I certainly don't want to do more.  Note:  that is a hint why it feels like it takes longer to do simple tasks here.  You can spend all the school day and only have groceries to show for it.

With all this in mind, I have switched to spiralized zucchini as my pasta substitute over spaghetti squash.  Actually, Stephen likes this option better, anyways.  In the absence of Hidden Valley Ranch, we have tried Sultan Center's ranch and have another knock off to try soon.  (This was at Stephen's prompting as he's the one who wouldn't let me buy anything but Hidden Valley back home.)  When choosing vegetables, sometimes I get to choose where my vegetables come from.  The same goes for meat.  Instead of paying 8OR ($20.8) for cheese tortellini, I made my beloved tomato tortellini soup into a tomato bisque with ground beef and noodles.  It was so good!  We have also tried many, many different kinds of chips because these little bags are crazy cheap.

All the chips, all the chips!  Many of these are quite tasty.  My least favorite were the two Lay's options courtesy of Subway.

We have also found that some things are really expensive here (imports like Cool Ranch Doritos, Dr. Pepper, and pork products) while others are much cheaper than we expected.  Bread is pretty cheap.  Good thing since we use a lot.  Lunch meat is hard to find and expensive, so we have switched to grilled cheese sandwiches in lunch boxes.  Tomato paste and various noodles are frequently on sale in bulk.  And by sale I mean 10 packages of noodles for 1OR ($2.6).  Coke products are very cheap.  You can get a single cold can for 150 baizas (40 cents).  The 8 pack is usually 1.2OR which means that a cold can isn't marked up at all.  Because of this low price, I buy Cokes for Stephen, but I do not buy Diet Cokes for myself.  They don't taste the same, so I have quit (for the most part).

They apparently have many Cokes left over from the World Cup, so many are decorated for various teams.

I'm probably forgetting much, but this gives you a glimpse into our eating habits here in Oman.  I hope to branch out my cooking into more Arabic foods soon, but to be honest, we choose many Arabic and other ethnic foods for dinner when we go to restaurants.