Sunday, Jun 26, 2016

Don’t worry about a thing as you walk into Ting Irie. Everything you eat is gonna be alright. Better than alright, actually.

The Jamaican restaurant in Souk Al Manzil has a mouth-watering iftar menu filled with traditional and Asian-inspired grub, a welcome break from traditional Arabic fare.

Ting Irie’s interiors are as bright and spirited as the restaurant’s servers, who joked and laughed with my friend and me as they brought plate after plate of food to us.

We started out with a huge Watamelon Salad, lentil soup and oxtail cocobread sandwiches. The salad was refreshing and had the unique addition of pickled watermelon rind, something that kept us guessing as we munched through it. The lentil soup had a punch of flavour that thankfully made it taste like something other than Indian dal, which the soup often tends to do. The oxtail sandwich was our first introduction to Jamaican flavours and it blew our minds. The cloud-like, slightly sweet bread with the salty filling was a perfect blend of flavours.

The mains kept the momentum going — O.G. fried chicken and Jamaican curry coat served with coconut rice and peas and rice. My favourite of the batch was the curry goat, especially with the coconut rice. It reminded me of a comforting Indian home-cooked meal highlighting the mix of the country’s cultures. The fried chicken was juicy and super crunchy. I couldn’t tell what the crust was made of, but it had a satisfying bite.

When we thought we couldn’t eat any more, the Chips O’Mon Burger was brought to us and we could not resist. The burger comes with the famous Oman Chips served on the side and crushed as a layer under the sweet bun. The combo of spicy, sweet, greasy and meaty was sinfully delicious.

For dessert there was a carnival funnel cake with Madagascar vanilla soft serve ice cream, strawberry compote and caramelised white chocolate sauce. If you think that was a mouthful, you should have seen the dish. It was a fun, greasy end to the feast, but the fresh fruit bowl with lychee sorbet was more my thing.

For a night of good tings — laughter, reggae music, amazing service and even better food — this is one iftar to try out this year.

The details

Where: Souk Al Manzil, Downtown Boulevard.

Price: Dh165 per person.

Timings: Sunset to 12am.

Call: 04-5575601

By Jennifer Barretto, Copy Editor

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