Spud at the Muscat Grand Mall

Recently I checked out the newly opened restaurant in the food court at the Muscat Grand Mall, Spud. Knowing quite a few Irish people I immediately thought of them and thought I'd go and check it out, the Irish do enjoy their spuds afterall. It is located up the stairs past the unopened KFC, and the already open Grannies Pie (will review them another time) near to the newly opened Cinema.

From what I can gather, Spud is a chain that has started up in Bahrain with 3 locations there (per their website) and this new branch in Oman appears to be an attempt to push into Oman. It proudly proclaimed to be the countries first Potato-only restaurant, so we'll pretend that the deep-fried potato place in the basement food court of Al Masa mall that finally closed down last year never really existed. But, this may be the first baked potato spot for the Sultanate.

When I went there with a friend to check it out for lunch, it was quite busy, maybe 20 customers either eating or waiting for their food. There was a limited menu, presumably because they had just opened and were still getting to grips with everything.

I opted for a chicken & mushroom baked potato with some cheese thrown in, and a bottle of water (fountain drinks were available) and the bill came to RO 2.500 including the taxes. The real problem with the place is that it took 23 minutes from ordering and paying, to actually receiving the spuds. Personally I think they should be aiming to get those bad boys out a bit quicker because for people going for a lunch break, that's a really long time to be waiting for an already baked spud to be mashed up and given some toppings.

The logo and signage for Spud exclaim that their Spud's are Fresh, Healthy & Tasty. Well I'll say they were certainly fresh and tasty, I think anything with that much cheese on it can't be that healthy! I can report that it was indeed very tasty, I enjoyed mine a lot. You are given a white plastic spoon with which to eat the tasty treat with, but the spoons are not very strong and tend to crack when you try and eat the potato skin, so be warned!

le fin.