Going Local # 4 Teenage Infestation
May 21st, 2013I have to be honest, we have really been slacking off on this project. It has been well over two months since we have worked on the project, but we are slowly picking back up. To start off, we ate at a place that we had eaten at once long ago, but always seem to overlook when we are attempting to come up with a dinner spot. Madinat Sultan Qaboos is a neighborhood in Muscat which boasts of the highest expatriate to Omani ratio when compared to most other neighborhoods. I was once told that it used to be referred to as little Britain 20 years ago due to the large number of British expatriates. In the center of MQ, as it is referred to, is a shopping center with lots of western conveniences. The little center has a Mexican Restaurant (which serves booze), 4 coffee shops, several other restaurants, a western-geared supermarket (with a pork room for non-Muslims) and 3 or 4 booze shops. You would have to look hard to spot them as booze shops, they are concealed as boring looking office buildings, and require a permit to enter or buy, which is only granted to foreigners. Among this western bubble are also two Arabic restaurants. The first is called Kargeen, and it is perhaps the most popular (among expats) traditional restaurant in town. The atmosphere and concept of the restaurant are very well thought out, and the food is delicious, the only down side is the price. Kargeen has both indoor and outdoor seating, and private Arabic style tents for those who want to experience an almost Disney, but fun version of Arabia. The tables are all made of old Omani wooden doors and the décor is over the top modern handicrafts meant to look traditional. It is a faux, traditional environment which serves some very authentic, traditional food.
Next door is another restaurant called Al Ziyara Coffee Shop, which mostly known as a sheesha hang out, but also serves food. The environment is a half attempt at being like Kargeen; they have a large outdoor seating area with plastic tables and chairs all covered in shabby cushions and faded tablecloths. We had thought for a minute before entering about going to Kargeen, but we stopped ourselves, knowing that it would have been the easiest route possible. We sat down outside and ordered starters off the top of our head, knowing that they would be on the menu. “We will take Hummus, Muttabel and Stuffed Vine Leaves (warak enab in Arabic) and two mint teas.” Stuffed Vine Leaves are a popular dish all over the Middle East and can be stuffed with many different things but traditionally are stuffed with lamb. Sure enough, all of the generic Arabic items we spouted off were on the actual menu. We ended up with a mix grill for the main, and as usual the food was brought to our table in the most random order. “Starters” is not taken literally in Oman. Before we started eating we started with our tea and sat back for a minute. “This place is kinda shabby, but the atmosphere is pretty nice” I said. We drank our tea and took in the aroma of various sheesha’s around us, apple strawberry, grape, the air is always fruity at a sheesha hang out.
I couldn’t have spoken any sooner when a group of medaling teenagers descended upon the restaurant like a plague of locust and began to… well be teenagers. The annoying presence of misguided youth all pretending to be cooler then the next literally spoiled our food. We tried to ignore them, and went on to eating. This restaurant has a couple of cool perks, for example they set your table with a few little extra’s like a bowl of Kalamata olives and crisped pitta bread in addition to the usual pitta bread. We tried to chat about those small details for a while but we were both really, really annoyed by the loud talking, laughing and horse play going on around us. One girl who couldn’t be older than 16 lit a cigarette at the next table, which made her cough profusely. For a minute I thought about leaning over and telling her that I know her mother and I would tell if she didn’t leave right away. Then I thought to myself how old I would sound if I said that, in a moment when I already felt vulnerably old. Not to mention there were swarms of them, so getting rid of 1 would do little good, there’s no way I could know all their mothers.
I looked at Sky and said, “you know when we met we were only a couple years older then these kids.” We kinda smiled, there is no way we could have been this annoying. We quickly chalked it up to expat teenagers being particularly annoying. “Yes they have no sense of their original culture and grow up in a bubble, that must be what makes them so annoying.” We quickly asked for a doggie bag and made our way out of the outdoor seating area when the scariest thought came over me, “you know it wont be that long until our 2 year old daughter is an annoying teenager.” Lunch was officially spoiled, and we were officially in bad moods.
Tags / Categories / Comments
Going Local # 3 Nanny Knows Best
March 25th, 2013By the third go of our food project we had run out of local joints to try. The streets are lined with coffee shops of all sorts, but we were not feeling brave enough to just pop into one, not only on the 3rd try anyway. As we drove the nanny home after work that day, she must have heard us debating on where to eat for our project. We didn’t explain the whole thing to her, but she could see that we were un decisive and perked up with “there is a Turkish coffee shop that serves great food near my house.” Although I would like to believe she was being helpful, I think she was trying to get us to stop our moaning deliberation as we still had another 10 minutes left in the drive, and it must have been annoying. We quickly settled on the Turkish coffee shop across the street from the Nanny’s flat. After all, she is Sri Lankan and knows good food!
When we dropped her off we headed straight there. Sitting on one of the plastic patio sets in the front of the restaurant was a father and his 2 sons, and another family member. They were the owners and jumped up to grab a menu as soon as we walked up. They looked a bit shocked and asked “you want to eat?” I guess they don’t get a lot of brave westerners into their little side street coffee shop, but we had a recommendation. “I heard it’s the best Turkish in town,” I said. He smiled uncontrollably and handed us the menus; that’s when he introduced himself as the owner and then introduced his sons to us. I love the fact that mom and pop shops still exist in the Middle East. I love the fact that with mom and pop shops you never know what you are going to get, and even common foods which can be found anywhere, are made uniquely by that restaurant. We wanted to get a variety so we ordered the following, 1 mixed grill (known in the Middle East as a variety of bbqed chicken and meat, and usually served with bread, humus and salad) and two manakishs, one with labaneh and thyme and the other with labaneh and olives. Manakish is circular, freshly baked bread, usually topped with labeneh, which is similar to cream cheese, but lighter, and followed by a light topping, for example olives or thyme. Many people refer to it as Arabic Pizza, but I think that is only an association because of it’s shape. It is truly it’s own dish, and it is truly made differently at every shop. Although many countries claim it as their own, it can be found at most Lebanese and Turkish restaurants and coffee shops.
The family disappeared in the back of the kitchen quickly and we sat down at one of the plastic tables, watching the cars drive past the little side street. Our stomachs were growling by the time they returned with feast in hand. In minutes our empty table was overflowing with warm, full plates. It was immediately apparent that we had ordered way too much food, but we are always up for a good challenge.
The family sat back down in their seats and went back to their tea, and we tried to hold back from devouring the table so that we could get a few nice shots. Restaurants with outside seating are best for shooting, particularly those in open shade, so that you have a diffused light situation. However, I don’t think the bright blue table cover complemented the food, but that is the beautiful thing about shooting street food, it’s raw and you have to rely on compositions and on the spot solutions to improving the outcome of the picture. You also have to refrain from eating the food before you’ve finished shooting, which I had to stop Sky from doing several times. The Turkish family suddenly became very interested, they looked and giggled and chatted in Turkish, surely talking about what nuts we were letting our food get cold for 30 minutes while we took pictures.
Slightly happy with the images but more just plain hungry, we set the camera down, and started eating. The mix grill was a perfect bbq combination, each meat having it’s own flavor. I always tend to make mini burritos out of the food, rip off a piece of the thin Arabic bread, spread some hummus, then a little salad and top with chicken and a little no name hot sauce of the table, wrap up and enjoy. That’s the LA girl in me! The Manakish was equally delicious, and I am sure it would have been even more satisfying had it been warm, I could see why the family was “tisk tisking” us, they knew that Manakish must be eaten fresh out of the oven. No wonder they were so proud, they cook good food and put their love into it!
This was a great find thanks to our nanny, we will have to ask her what her favorite Sri Lankan restaurant is… if we can brave the spice.
Tags / Categories / Comments
Glühwein by Heather Marie Burt
March 18th, 2013Inspired by a night of camping and drinking Glühwein with a German friend (thanks Angela) .
Tags / Categories / Comments
Bread by Skyler Burt
March 18th, 2013We are getting back into the studio as the weather heats up here in Muscat. Look forward to a hot summer, and lots of food photos! Yum This is the start to a series titled Bread, by Skyler.
Tags / Categories / Comments
Going Local #2 Ugly Duckling
March 12th, 2013Day 1 was an eventful meal that made us laugh the whole meal through. For day two we cheated by going to a place we know is good. We had heard about Arax from our co worker, who once brought us hummus during a lunch break. We watched him eat a falafel shawarma with our mouths watering. Since that day we had wanted to go try out Arax and see if the shawarma was as good as it looked, or if we were just super hungry the day we gawked at our friend’s lunch. (honestly I think he through the hummus at us so he could get a bite in without us coveting his shawarma)
Arax is also a place which is open all day long, which makes it an easy place to grab lunch during the hours of 2-6 when most everything else local is closed. I had heard that it is Lebanese, but knew little else about it. In fact when I heard the name I thought of two things, as a photographer, the camera (I think it’s Russian) called the Arax, and as a westerner, the cleaning product called Ajax. Only after googling the name, did I realize that it is a very successful Lebanese franchise with locations around the Gulf and even in Canada and the USA. It started in 1949 in Beruit and is a well known name throughout Lebanon. Locals say that it is Armenian style Lebanese food, but I have not been able to confirm it. I searched the net, getting more and more info on Arax before venturing to the little shop and sure enough they are mentioned in reviews all over the world. Even my home town of Los Angeles boasts of an Arax, with Yelp reviews for days. By the time I finished, I was super excited to add Arax to our project!
We left at our lunch break, with only an hour to spare. When we got to Arax, there was a line out the door and the tiny restaurant smelled like falafel. I LOVE falafel, it is seriously the best Middle Eastern food. But our bar for falafel is set high having lived in the Middle East for 4 years now. Falafel is small, round balls made of ground chickpeas or fava beans and then deep fried. It’s flavor can vary greatly; shops who make quick and sometimes frozen falafel taste like microwaved cardboard, but shops who put love into their falafel, made by hand daily can be divine. Furthermore, it is always served with Tahini sauce(sesame sauce)… it must be served with Tahini sauce. You wouldn’t eat a PB&J with only J and you wouldn’t eat Falafel without Tahini.
We waited for what felt like 30 minutes in the aromatic Arax line, but was probably closer to 5 to order our food. We had settled on 2 Falafel shawarmas, sharook. When ordering shawarma, if you say “one falafel shawarma please,” you will get a small sandwich, otherwise if you want a larger sandwich you would say sharook, which translates to rocket in Arabic, and generally means large. Often people gesture sharook when ordering by showing the length of their right forearm with their left hand. It’s one of those things you catch on to quickly as a tourist or expat and it just makes sense without explanation, although it sounds strange when I write it out. Our 2 sharook shawarmas came with a large portion of pickled peppers on the side, which made a perfect combination. Straight to business we started trying to arrange the food on our table so that it would look good. Sky went first, arranging this and that and poking his head up from the view finder occasionally. Finally with a sigh he says “It smells so good, but it’s just not translating in the picture.” That’s when I came up with the brilliant idea of taking a few bites out of it to make it more picturesque. It was everything the Yelp reviews had praised it for… it was really scrumptious. Warm pieces of perfectly cooked falafel in a pita bread with radishes, tomatoes, various other veggies and covered in a fabulous tahini sauce. Self control… we wanted to make nice pictures with this project. Even if they are raw street pics which can’t be perfectly planned, we have to make something nice out of them… it’s in our photographer DNA. I took the camera from him with the “let me do it,” look. After a few minutes of clicking and previewing and rearranging I blurt out, “this is the most delicious, disgusting food we have ever photographed.”
Our sharook was getting colder by the second and our images were lacking “clarity.” With every bite we took our sharook shawarmas were quickly becoming shawarmas. The food is seriously un photogenic, if only pictures could translate how delicious this shawarma is. A few minutes more and we both gave each other the “that’ll do” look and went in for the kill. That’s the brilliant thing about being a husband and wife team, we know what each other is thinking and are usually on the same page. One look is all we need to admit defeat and go for it.
Enough said, if you find yourself in Muscat (or Beruit, or Los Angeles), get yourself a falafel shawarma, sharook from Arax. It’s honestly good Middle Eastern fair, well worth it’s praise and success. And while you’re at it, take a picture to send to us at Yellow Street Photos. If it’s remarkable, we will hang it on our “wall of awe” bulletin board in shame.
Tags / Categories / Comments
PHOTO OF THE DAY: Castaic California
February 26th, 2013Another photo resurrected from Tartaros (the pit that is our hard drive). A few years ago I visited the home Heather grew up in. Her family still lives there. A small group of houses on a plot of land in the Los Angeles National Forest. It used to be a popular filming spot for all those great western flicks back in the day.
Tags / Categories / Comments
Going Local #1: A project of Omani food culture & spontaneous food photography
February 26th, 2013In my experience there are two types of expats, those who embrace their adoptive culture with open arms, and those who fall into a routine of looking for the “ordinary.” Ordinary usually means looking for environments most similar to your home country, and those two types of expats are usually the same people, but at different stages of their relationship with said new culture. Sky and I are in a 4 year long relationship with Oman. During our first year we were madly in love, head over heels with the culture and all things Arab. The last couple of years have been less love and more work, less exploring and more avoiding, I might even go as far as to say that we are in a relationship funk with Oman. The last few months I can start to see us falling into a wallowing state of negativeness. It’s a very bad place to be. Like relationships which are well worn in, it’s much easier to immediately point out the things that annoy you, rather than those that you admire. Our relationship with our pseudo home is in need of therapy, and we are at the stage that we are ready to admit it! My husband and I deliberated for a while on how we could get that old spark back, and fall in love with Arabia all over again. Reminiscing is a great way to remember what you love… camels, Oud (sort of), national dress, the forts and castles which are architectural time capsules telling of empires rises and falls, food….. we both settled on food. What I love most about Arabic food is Arabic food culture. From afar Oman may seem to be a monoculture society, but they are far from it. Oman has a rich history and their costal location is the cause for their foods fusion elements. “Omani food” is much more of a blend of Indian, Pakistani, Lebanese, Turkish, Zanzibari, and what I will call “general Gulf food,” meaning it can be found all over the gulf. As far as the eating culture, Arabs generally won’t eat dinner until the sun is down. In fact, in older times before Air Conditioning made the mid day climate bare able, everyone would go home from about 1 in the afternoon until the sun went down. This effected the restaurants and shops as well. Nowadays, the people are up and about during those afternoon hours, but the majority of the local food spots are closed from roughly about 2:00- 6:00. In Muscat, there are a plethora of western choices for us westerners and hungry locals to huddle in during the afternoon hours, however outside of Muscat, you’ll be searching pretty hard to find an afternoon bite. What I really love about Arabic food culture is seeing quiet streets transform in the evening into lively rows of “coffee shops,” filled with men eating swarma, smoking shisha and talking for days. Traditionally, eating at coffee shops was for men only, a place for them to gather in the evenings and talk about the day. However, restaurants which are less fast food and more “sit down” type places, often have a family room; a place where men could take their wives and children and enjoy dinner together. As Muscat pushes forward however, you will start to spot groups of brave, abaya clad ladies out for an evening of food and conversation.
During our conversation about food we both mention that we like the rawness of shooting food on location. Just raw, on the table shooting. During our recent trip to Zanzibar we shot a far deal of editorial style, on location, food images. As travel photographers, we love to shoot outside the studio because you never know what you’re going to get. A couple of days later our food conversation was brought back up while driving the nanny home after work. As we drive past the rows and rows of coffee shops all setting out their plastic chairs and tissue boxes, I spot a Yemeni Restaurant. “All the students rave about Yemeni food… there are a billion restaurants in this city and we only ever eat from a few… mostly western. What if we ate at a new local joint once a week until we explored all the flavors of the street food scene?” Sky lit up instantly and we started laying out guidelines. “It has to be a truly local joint, we have to eat local at least once a week, we will have to photograph each meal to document our adventure.” Although we both fussed with the idea of eating food out so much, we admitted shortly after that we do it 5 of the 7 days a week any way. It’s not something we are proud of, but both being full time lecturers at the college, running our travel photography company, Yellow Street Photos, and taking care of our 2 year old daughter… well you get the picture. By the time we reached the nanny’s apartment block, our project was laid out.
Day 1. We’ll take 1 Ferrari Please!
It took us a few days to get started, because we wanted to finish the food in the fridge… but mostly because we were being indolent. We decide to dive into day 1 with a comical joint that our students and other lecturers, braver then us, have told us about. It’s a true coffee shop just off the side of a car wash and gas station. The name is written in Arabic so I can’t be sure the full title, but in English it reads “Coffee Shop.” As I said, coffee shop is a general term for a local fast food restaurant, and could be classified as street food. These coffee shops rarely serve coffee and when they do, it’s an uninspiring cup of nescafe. We got to Coffee Shop at 5 o’clock, and the light was great for photos. They have a large outdoor seating area (no indoor seating) filled with plastic tables and chairs. We were the first customers of the day, and a Bangledeshi waiter ran up to our table with enthusiasm. For a city with such a huge western expat population, few frequent the local street food scene. With a big smile on his face, he asks what we would like. “Could we look at a menu.” “No menu, but Ill tell you what we have.” After that sentence he spoke for about 5 minutes straight in what we think was English. Half a dozen other waiters were running around the outside patio area finishing up the set up rituals, and getting closer to get a listen and a giggle out of their colleague’s English abilities. We couldn’t stop laughing at the food names, and I was trying hard not to chuckle as I could see our friendly waiter starting to feel a bit self conscious, unaware of what we were laughing at. With food names like Lamborghini, (pronounced lamb bore genie), Hummer, and Nissan Z. (pronounced Nissan “Zed,” the Brits have had their long influence on the region, but not on our waiter who pronounced it Nissan Thed) Our other choices sounded like some sort of code, he machine gunned CCHO, CCEO, CCCO, and so on. At the sight of our puzzled faces he explains further, “it stands for Croissant, Cheese, Hotdog, Oman.” If you’re still puzzled, Ill explain further, the CCHO is a prepackaged croissant, jarred cheese spread, cut up pieces of hot dog, and crushed up potato chips (symbolized by an O because they’re chips Oman brand). Go ahead, marinate on it for a minute, we did.
Feeling a bit pressured we threw out some choices. “We will take 1 CCHO and 1 Lamborghini and a chicken shawarma.” He scurried off looking relieved that we didn’t ask any more questions, I’m pretty sure we exhausted his English abilities. Shawarma is a regional food that can be found all over the Gulf and has slowly made it’s way to the west. Shawarma restaurants can be spotted by their massive spits of spinning chicken, lamb or beef outside. The meat rotates vertically and is shaved off as the evening goes on. It is either served in a sandwich or on a bed of humus known as a shawarma plate, with bread on the side. While waiting for our food we look around, so many of these coffee shops look identical outside, and there are signatures which they all carry like the box of tissue at every table along with a random labeled bottle of hot sauce and ketchup. Coffee shop waiters are generally expats as well, and tend to be very talented when it comes to languages. I guess working in a very multi cultural city like Muscat forces them to be. You will be hard pressed finding locals working in a coffee shop, or any service job for that matter. By the time our food came we were famished, but first bite would show that we were not hungry enough. The Lamborghini was a sandwich made of chicken nugget bits, mystery meat, gobs of jared spreadable kraft cheese and crushed chips Oman. We both coughed so hard… “that’s hardcore,” I say to Sky. We pushed it aside feeling a bit defeated, maybe we won’t make it any further on our project afterall?? We both feel reluctant to try the CCHO; to our surprise, and shamefully, we both admit that we sorta, kinda like it. It’s like a 7 year old went through the kitchen and made a creation with what was in the cabinet, but it turned out disgustingly good. We wanted to hate CCHO just on principle, I mean crushed up potato chips are a main ingredient! but we admittedly passed it back and forth until the last bite was gone. Our daughter wouldn’t touch either, perhaps her palate is more sophisticated? The shawarma came grilled, wrapped in home made bread, and reminded me of taquitos. They were the highlight of the meal. Our poor daughter, Ciela, didn’t eat a lick, despite our convincing. What started out sketchy, ended as a surprisingly, half way delicious dinner. It was one of those meals that made us happy that we live abroad, it was an event.
Tags / Categories / Comments























