Mexican Fare Archives - Undefined Declarations

I don’t know why I traveled all the way to Hong Kong to escape busy, fast-paced and crowded Dubai! But, you can read all about my trip to Hong Kong in my earlier posts here.

Then, I decide to visit Muscat to relax by the beach and do some man hunting! (as in finding a partner basically). Of course I was only confronted with the fact that the nightlife in Muscat is struggling to survive.

I found out from residents of the enchanting city that all types of live entertainment have been banned recently in all hotels and establishments. Apparently, the new rules were enforced by the new tourism minister. This left only a few options for a night out in town. Half of them were chains that had branches in Dubai.

The stage for the live band at Pavo Real – a cool Mexican restaurant and bar – was still there. As if it was waiting for the live band to come back and play their regular tunes one day soon. Everything was still in place – as it was left by members of the band on the last day they were allowed to perform.

Since I now have less time for blogging – busy with University and other things – I decided to write this post in the form of a photo essay. It saves me time and makes it easier/faster to you readers to go through the post. So let’s look at the photos from my Muscat nightlife exploration attempt 🙂

Delicious Arabic Mezze at The Chedi Muscat

Scrumptious Falafel bites at The Chedi Muscat

Tuna Sashimi salad at The Left Bank Muscat

Top quality club sandwich at O'Malley's in Muscat — Top quality club sandwich at O’Malley’s in Muscat

O'Malley's Irish pub in Muscat is worth a visit — O’Malley’s Irish pub in Muscat is worth a visit

Taking notes gets easier at a cozy and friendly pub atmosphere. O'Malley's Muscat is a favourite of mine! — Taking notes gets easier at a cozy and friendly pub atmosphere. O’Malley’s Muscat is a favourite of mine!

Here’s a sum up of my Muscat night spots:

Pavo Real officially has the best long island iced tea in town.
The Left Bank had a strange crowd of expats, locals and pretentious people from Dubai. I felt like I was flown back to a pretentious Dubai bar when I was there. I truly hated my experience there.
Trader Vic’s at the Intercontinental hotel is quite spacious with a big outdoor dining area. It had a very upbeat and lively atmosphere. Everyone who was there seemed to be having a good time, dancing to Latin beats. No live band here either – just a DJ or playback music.
O’Malley’s at the Radisson Blu Hotel was by far my favourite place to hang out. It’s a casual pub with an Irish theme, and friendly staff. The food was great, the DJ played commercial tracks from different decades, and I met some nice people there. The funny thing is that no one told me about this place! I found out about it by doing some research online. I’m so glad that I ended up going there on my last night in Muscat. At least I managed to have some sort of fun eventually 🙂
Zouk night club: Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to check out Zouk on this trip. It was located right outside of my hotel, but I just didn’t get the time to visit.

I hope that this post was somewhat useful or interesting. Have you visited any of the places that I’ve mentioned in this post? If so, how was your experience?

You can view my previous post on the Muscat trip here.

O'Malley's Irish pub scored high in my books — O’Malley’s Irish pub scored high in my books

I’ve always been a huge fan of Mexican cuisine, so I was very excited when my Mexican American friend Nia suggested to make some authentic dips at my place.

Nia’s recipes for the traditional salsa and guacamole dips are authentic ones, that have been passed on from one generation to another. It’s so generous of her to share with us these original and one-off recipes that only real Mexicans know how to make!

Let’s start with the ingredients for the salsa and guacamole dips:

Avocados: choosing the right type of avocados is essential to the success of this recipe. You need to look for Mexican or U.S. avocados that are: smaller in size, dark green in color, and tender at touch.
White onion
Large tomatoes
Cilantro
Lemon
Fresh green chilli peppers
Fresh garlic

How do I make Salsa Dip?

Fry four whole tomatoes in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

2. Add the fresh chilli peppers and garlic to the pan, and fry them along with the tomatoes until the tomatoes are soft. You need to make sure that you toast the tomatoes until they become soft and you are able to mash them with the spoon.

Add the chilli peppers and garlic to the pan

3. Once the tomatoes are soft, put all the ingredients in a blender. Add chicken stock powder (Nia brought this from the States), salt, and cilantro.

4. Blend the mixture until it turns into a liquid. This salsa is meant to have a liquid texture, so turn up the blender speed to the max 😀 Luckily, my blender has a “Dip” setting, so we used that. We also used the standard high speed setting to bring the dip to the texture we wanted.

Nia blending away... — Nia blending away…

Et Voila! You’ve got your authentic Mexican Salsa Dip!

How do I make Guacamole Dip?

As I mentioned earlier, the main element in making a good guacamole dip is choosing the right type of avocados. Trust me, I’ve once tried to make guacamole with very hard and dry avocados and the result was not edible! So make sure that you:

Get smaller avocados that are from Mexico or the U.S. only.
Choose the ones that are dark green in color, but not too dark because those are too ripe and will not be OK to use.
Touch them to see if they are tender and soft. Because that’s how they should be.

2. You start off by scooping out the avocado from the peel into a medium size bowl.

Nia scooping out avocados for our guacamole :) — Nia scooping out avocados for our guacamole 🙂

3. In a bowl, you add the avocados to the chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, chopped cilantro, some salt and lemon.

Adding the ingredients for the guacamole dip

4. Bonus Tip:

When mashing the mixture, separate it into two bowls. In one bowl, you can mash it all you want until it turns into a “dip” texture and all the ingredients have been mixed together. You can leave half or less of the ingredients in their solid, whole texture to add them to the mashed mixture. This will give your dip an extra edge as it will have some crunchy pieces that give it a fresh and wholesome texture and taste 😀

Lastly, present your dips in some dip bowls or any other bowls that you might have. We added ready-made sour cream to our third dip bowl 🙂

You can have your dip with sour cream chips, regular corn chips or fresh cucumber and celery sticks for a healthier snack 🙂

I hope that you will try and make this recipe one day, as it was truly tasty and so fresh! I even used the left-over salsa to make a Mexican-style shakshooka the next morning!

A big thank you to my sweet and adorable friend Nia for the recipe and the kitchen work….Hopefully we’ll cook up an authentic Mexican meal one of those days….Stay tuned to the blog for more recipes from our cozy kitchen X

Category: Mexican Fare

Majestic Muscat: Nightlife in Muscat

UD Recipe Story: Nia’s Mexican Salsa and Guacamole Dip