by ONEZA TABISH
Ocean Basket is South Africa’s most loved seafood restaurant. With about 300 branches across the world serving a variety of Mediterranean-inspired dishes from prawns, sushi, calamari, mussels to English classic fish & chips.
The restaurant’s ambience is bright and well lit and has a huge seating area along with a separate station for drinks.
On our arrival, we were served complimentary bread along with a bunch of delicious sauces: Tartar, garlic with olive oil, and fresh ground chilli in olive oil.
We ordered their signature drinks of apple and mint and strawberry. The Apple and mint was a refreshing concoction of green apple and garden-fresh mint topped infused with soda to make an absolute thirst quencher. The strawberry cooler was adorned with chunks of strawberry and mixed with soda as well. Quite invigorating.
We then moved on to try their most hyped offering: Sushi, which is now my absolute favourite in town. We tried the tempura rock shrimp sushi, crusted panko salmon futomaki and lemon salmon avocado uramaki.
The tempura rock shrimp was a rice roll with steamed prawns, cucumber and avocado topped with deep-fried rock shrimp. It was delicious to the core, and their in-house signature sushi sauces added magic to every bite of this meal.
The futomaki is Ocean Basket’s best-seller main, a slightly thick sushi roll crusted with panko crumbs and stuffed with salmon. This was the showstopper. No wonder it received a best-seller badge.
Then we dived into the uramaki or California rolls. These treats had a generous stuffing of fresh cucumber and rice covered with bits of salmon. What made this classic role stand out is Ocean Basket’s legendary lemon mayo sauce that’s splashed on top. This was presented on a bed of fresh cucumber and pure love.
We also sampled their famous platters that have huge servings of grilled prawns, fish, calamari with choice of rice or vegetables. Since we don’t eat mussels, we opted for prawns. The prawns were perfectly juicy and the fish was excellent. They were marinated in Ocean Basket’s signature spice mix and were cooked to perfection and drizzled with their secret recipe sauce in which they fry the items in a pool of butter, enhancing exotic, oceanic flavours of the dishes. The entire platter was a feast, and the portion was massive.
The children had fish and chips from the kids’ menu, a crispy fish fillet served with fries and yellow rice. Sampled a couple of bites, it tasted lovely, too.
The forte of Ocean Basket’s presentation is the stainless steel platters used for serving. This keeps the food hot and prevents the fish from drying out.
For a final stop, we devoured a few desserts, starting with the chocolate lava cake, followed by cheesecake and choco crunch. All of these were toothsome.
Overall, my experience at Ocean Basket turned out lovely. The staff is courteous and attentive and we would surely recommend this place for seafood lovers in town, especially for their sushi. They also serve mezze platters, soups, as well as a variety of fish, calamari and prawn curries.
Contact Ocean Basket
Muscat City Centre, Seeb
+968 9984 1083
About the Contributor: Oneza Tabish is a food influencer, blogger, consultant and stylist who has a knack for features writing and food reviews. She is the founder of popular dining Facebook group ‘What’s Cooking Oman’.
