Salmas Chocolates

Yesterday I was surprised by a delivery of 2 incredibly delicious boxes of chocolates from Salma's Chocolates. It was about 4pm, I'd been super busy all day trying to hit deadlines before Eid and once again skipped lunch. Yes, I'm an infidel.

So, I was very excited to receive some chocolates yesterday afternoon. It also happened, that my team here at work were also excited to see that I had received some chocolates. It was not long before the vultures started circling, and I gave a box to a girl on my team who's recently gotten pregnant. I think inside of 5 minutes she had managed to polish off half of her box! I shared the other box with the team and it was decided that the chocolates were some of the best any of us have ever had.

What I'm trying to say here is, that these chocolates are actually really good. Honestly I think they are even better than the delicious little treats made by Patchi. They are similarly priced, the box pictured above is about RO 5.9. Now obviously these are not priced so that everyone can buy them, but if you are going to an Iftar, or an Eid celebration and are not sure what to bring, I recommend you give these a shot.

As I've blogged about it previously, Salma's Chocolates is part of the Intajee initiative which is geared towards promoting domestically produced produce, and now, it seems, chocolates too :)

You can currently buy these chocolates from The Sultan Center in Qurum, as well as directly from Salma's chocolates shop in Azaiba which is situated behind the Zubair building.

They have a website here (but it's currently down) and this is their facebook page.

They also have a fancy Youtube video.... (it's in Arabic but it's still pretty good to watch, if you like chocolates...)

le fin.

Omani Product Spotlight: Bahar detergent

Time for another Omani Product Spotlight! This one is made locally right here in Muscat: Bahar washing detergent. Bahar is a brand owned by the National Detergent Company, which, surprise surprise, is an Omzest (Omar Zawawi) company. It really is true that 90% of the businesses in Oman are controlled by 5 or 6 powerful families.

I spent my first 4 years in Oman living in North Ghubra right next to the Bahar factory at the end of 18th November Street, just before Wizarat. Many times I would come home from work in the evening, or be out walking with Mrs Sythe, and we'd smell the freshly-washed smell of Bahar as we walked around the neighbourhood. It is a nice smell and a perk of living there (the draw back being the very loud desalination and power plant next to it!).

Bahar currently costs RO 1.240 in Carrefour and does a great job getting our laundry clean.

le fin.

Omani product spotlight: Oman Oasis Oxiplus water

Time for another semi-regular post on local Omani products that I use. This one's possibly the most-used Omani product (except petrol!) in my house - might not be but perhaps it is: It's the Oman Oasis "Oxiplus" bottled water.

As best as I can remember, this water turned up on the shelves 3 years ago, sometime in 2009 I think. It claims it has 300% more oxygen in it's water and I'm happy to believe it. They could probably also claim it had loads of vitamins in it and it'd make me thin too and I'd believe it because I'm stupid like that. We also use a water cooler service, which is not Oman Oasis, but I like these bottles because they are big (2 litres) and handy to take out and about with me.


What kind of water do you use in your house?



le fin.

Omani product spotlight: Dahabi bread

Time for another semi-regular post on local Omani products that I use. This one's a fairly new product that I've seen when grocery shopping. I've not seen it for sale in Al Fair or Carrefour yet, but I buy it at Lulu's or The Sultan Center.

Makes excellent toast and eggy bread!

If you click the picture you can read the nutritional info

It is Dahabi bread. Mrs Sythe has been buying their flour products for years, so we recognized the brand and figured we'd give it a go and were pleasantly surprised. The bread comes in plastic bags as you can see, with handy easy-clips to keep the bag sealed. The loaves come in 3 different sizes, we buy the middle size, 450g - it seems to work best for us.

The bread is produced by the Atyab Bakery which is in Barka. They have a website here.

Now I'm sure a few of you are wondering about Al Fair's bread, and yes, I like their bread too - but I'm not always at Al Fair, nor always want to pay 700bz for a loaf of bread when all I want is toast. I find this Dahabi bread works well for me :)

More soon.

le fin.

Omani product spotlight: Suroor potato chips

Time for another semi-regular post on local Omani products that I use. This one's a specific flavour of a type of crisps chips that I enjoy. Suroor's crinkle-cut salt and vinegar flavour are great - they are just like Ruffles, but only cost RO 1.050 for a big sack of I don't actually know how many bags - probably somewhere around 24.

I've looked for these chips to come in a big bag but can only seem to find them in snack-size in a large sack of them. I think Mehdi Foods LLC (owner of the Suroor brand) really took to heart the phrase "cheap as chips" as each snack-size bag only contains about 10 chips in it, an awful waste of packaging really, but super cheap.

There are other flavours but I don't really care for them, just the Salt & Vinegar ones for me! I also enjoy other local brands of chips too, but I'll save them for another time!

More soon!

le fin.

Omani products spotlight: Sohar Milk

In an effort to come up with some more useful information for people living, or researching about living, in the Sultanate, I thought I'd start a semi-regular feature: Omani products spotlight

Basically I thought it'd be good to share the various locally produced products that I use here in Oman. Perhaps you can suggest better alternatives, or perhaps you'll try one of the products I like and mention here, I don't know - but none of these will be paid advertisements.

So here's my first product: Sohar Milk.

I have it on my Weetabix!

I honestly only very recently discovered this milk, after years of using Al Marai milk products I finally took the time to read the label and discovered that Al Marai products are made in the KSA! Not that I have anything against the Kingdom, I just don't think that milk produced there can be particularly fresh if I buy it here in Oman. Which is when a few months ago I started looking for a local Omani alternative and discovered Sohar Milk.

A google search tells me that Sohar milk is a product from the typically named Oman Agriculture Development Company SAOC - an Omzest company. Now, the dairy scene here in Muscat is very much dominated by the KSA imported Al Marai, but I honestly prefer the Sohar milk and am glad I tried it out - to me it tastes fresher. The price is the same as Al Marai and it's available in all the major supermarkets, and even some Oman Oil shops.

More soon!

le fin.