Eating Around

They have cardamom flavored chewing gum here (I said it’s in everything). Other popular flavors are coffee, banana and mustaka, which is a plant extract… sort of a bitter mint with strong notes of cleaning fluid. Qatar is rather like a parallel world to the west, everything you might need or want is here, but in ways that are subtly different from the west.

Restaurants are abundant. Because 80% of the population are hard-working ex-pats, and few have the time or inclination to cook, take-away is a huge business. The diversity of choices is enormous, and reflects the nationalities of the people here. There is great diversity in price and sophistication too.

At the top end, the fine dining establishments are similar to what you would find in any other big city. Quality and presentation meet international standards and they follow most of the same food trends. Those restaurants affiliated with hotels will have a wine list as well. Prices tend to be somewhat lower than those in Europe or the states, mainly due to lower labor costs and no taxes. No Qatari would be caught dead working in a restaurant. The labor force is all imported from third world locations.

The cheapest restaurant I have found was a place down in the computer souqs that caters to Nepali ex-pats. For five rials, about one Euro, you get a thali platter of chicken and several vegetable side dishes. The waiters come around and refill the side dishes as many times as you wish. No one leaves hungry. The place is always packed. The Nepalis unfortunately occupy the bottom of the pecking order here, but even they can afford to eat out frequently.

There are hundreds of small grill restaurants here. You may eat in, or more commonly, call your order in and go pick it up. Many places offer home delivery as well. Businesses of all types here usually have curb service. You pull up to the door and honk your horn, and someone comes running out to serve you. Dry cleaning, restaurants, small grocers, all sorts of businesses operate this way. If someone ever mentions eating “Beep beep chicken”, they are referring to curb service restaurants. Beep beep chicken is almost cheaper than groceries.

International food chains are here too. More interesting than these are certain “knock-off” restaurants that compete with them. Popeye’s chicken is here, but not the one you are thinking of. The fake Popeye’s is run by a Lebanese guy (with a remarkable resemblance to the cartoon character), and is arguably better than the original. The food is fairly similar, but somewhat Arabified. “Pizza Hat” is here too. The best burger in town is found at Twinky Sterling. Don’t ask me about the name, it’s anyone’s guess, but their logo is almost exactly like the Pillsbury dough boy. I am assured that this is a Qatari operation. Their burger (hamburgers here are called either “burgers” or “beefburgers” to avoid any confusion that they are made with ham), consists of two patties interspersed with layers of cheese, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, a fried egg, raw cucumbers, sauces I can’t identify and other stuff. But it’s good. No, really! Twinky gives you discount coupons (“Twinky bucks”) worth 30% of what you spent to keep you coming back.

Cafes and patisseries are everywhere too. Qataris love coffee, and diabetes is the national disease. Anything sweet is fabulously popular. Other restaurant choices are Thai, Korean, Ethiopian, French, Italian, Japanese… sushi is pretty popular. Our favorite sushi place is a speakeasy. The place is always packed, mostly with ex-pats. They serve Foster’s lager and Japanese beers. While liquor is “legal” here, restaurants can’t serve it unless they are affiliated with a hotel. How this place gets away with it I am not sure. Perhaps they know someone. We never drink, but the place also happens to have very authentic sushi and a conscientious chef (from Japan). The last time we were there the Japanese ambassador was seated next to us. He ended up feeding raw squid to my oldest kid, and marveling at how much he liked it.

Juice stalls are everywhere too. They are remarkably similar except in price. The closer you get to the center of town, the cheaper they are. Out in the suburbs similar fare is double what it is downtown (but still cheap). Vegetarians can get by all right here. There are a few vegetarian restaurants, and most places have at least some vegetarian choices.

Most restaurants have “family” areas, where unescorted men may not sit (lone women are welcome). The purpose of these areas is to provide a place where women may let their guard down regarding modesty, without being stared at. There are many, many single male ex-pats here, and the male to female ratio is 2:1 because of imported labor, so staring happens. Women without an abaya will be stared at, but those wearing one are feared!

The family areas vary, but most have private booths or even private rooms. Once inside the abayas come off. There is a buzzer with which to ring the waiter. Eating is a fairly relaxed process; it can easily take a couple of hours to have lunch if you want it to. Many places have couches rather than chairs, and people recline with their tea for as long as they want. A lot of these places have play areas for the kids too, or often as not, restaurant staff may come and watch them for you. We have had waiters actually buy small gifts for our kids (a sure sign we over-tip!).

Some of our favorite restaurants are seafood places along the waterfront. They are surprisingly affordable despite the prime location. I haven’t figured this out yet, but prices for certain types of food seem standard despite the venue. I mean in the west, if you want food at a sporting event or a theme park, you expect to pay substantially more than you would for the same thing elsewhere, …supply and demand right? Here certain things cost the same no matter where you go. A glass of tea for instance, or certain types of snacks are the same price at a Gulf Cup match as they are at your corner dive (juice stalls are an exception, I don’t know why). Laws don’t mandate prices, the only thing I can figure is that Qataris are probably highly resistant to getting gouged. It’s kind of nice actually, simple food and drink is always pretty cheap whether you are in the souqs or at the zoo or wherever.

In light of this, one of the best deals in town are the dhow boats that ply the harbor. A “dhow” is a traditional wooden ship still used in the Gulf. They let you aboard for ten rials, then you can stay on for as long as you wish. The food and drink is cheap, and the setting is fabulous, especially at sunset. They don’t go far, just back and forth to the same docks.

Groceries here are pretty reasonable in general, but you have to watch it, some things come at a real premium. A pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream will set you back $12.50, but Haagen Dazs is half of that, and Arabic ice cream is a small fraction of that. Some western products are abundant and cheap, and others are quite costly. You can walk through aisles of toilet paper and find it as cheap as $2 for a dozen rolls, or as much as $3 per roll. As long as you don’t have strong brand loyalties, you can get by pretty cheaply here.

Modern grocery stores are everywhere, and similar to what you would find in the US or Europe. They are putting the squeeze on the traditional markets, but I think both will survive, with different specialties. The traditional food souqs I have described before, but I didn’t mention the weekend markets. These operate on Friday and Saturday (our weekend, Sunday is a regular work-day), and some sections are open everyday. They sell livestock, butchered or on the hoof, vegetables, and seafood. The savings aren’t great unless you are buying large quantities of something, but they are interesting places.

Pretty much everyone lives within a kilometer or so of a small convenience store carrying basic staples. These are usually open until 11 or 12 at night. The one in my neighborhood is staffed with just one Indian gentleman, who is there from dawn until near midnight, every day. He might get time off from time to time, but if so I have never noticed it, he is there every time I go in.

One of my children’s favorite activities is going as a group up to the corner store, and buying things with their own money. When we first arrived, my son was so impressed with this idea that he took it upon himself to go off to the store on his own (he was four at the time). He found some Qatari boys and recruited them and off they went. They got ice cream, God only knows how they paid for it, but my son wasn’t too clear about how to get home. The boys took him back to where he found them, but beyond that he wasn’t sure.

In the meantime we were looking for him, frantically in fact. We were just about at our wits end when a Landcruiser pulls up out front and out hops our son. One of the boys’ father dropped him off, my son had memorized our address (bravo!). He was only a couple of hundred yards from home in the first place, but it put a fright in all of us.