Sea Food in Riyadh

While the city of Riyadh is in the centre of Saudi Arabia with no sea or ocean around it, we get an amazing choice of sea-food here, thanks to the advanced high tech temperature controlled transport & logistics. The Carrefour, Geant, Panda and Lulu Hyper markets spoil us with so much choice that one often wonders whether we are in the midst of a desert? There are also some sea food markets in the city which gets fresh catch daily and  great places to buy.

Over the last 6-1/2 years that we have been living here, whenever we go out to eat sea- food, it is at sea food restaurants offering Middle Eastern sea food i.e. Grilled. 

Grilled seafood is healthy, fresh and coupled with the Middle Eastern appetizers it leaves us content without feeling stuffed. The Indian restaurants offer the regular choice of fried and curried fish/crab options. The North Indian restaurants offer the tandoori sea food option but one is hesitant to try it out as we don't know how fresh the sea food would be.

The best sea-food restaurant that we have been to is called Al-Nafoura Seafood, where the buffet was mind blowing to say the least. Priced over 100 SAR, it does not come cheap but worth every riyal as there is fish, shrimps, lobsters, squids, crabs in so many varieties that it gets difficult to choose. The last time we visited it was a year back and hence I would want to cover this restaurant on my blog sometime when we visit there again.

A few days back, a couple of colleagues decided to step out for lunch. After a quick run down of options available, we chose the AMO HAMZA. With my limited knowledge of Arabic, I think it stands for 'Uncle Hamza'.This restaurant offers sea food and is known for its grilled sea food and has quite a few branches across the city of Riyadh. We decided to go to the one closest to office, which was less than a 3 minutes drive. From what I have read elsewhere earlier, Amo Hamza has 5 branches in Riyadh. The branches that I know are at:-

 -  Khurais Road, en route to Geant after Carrefour ( Recommended to visit with family)

 -  Below the Batha Flyover when you turn in from King Fahd Road, to your right.

 -  Road going from the Old Airport roundabout towards King Abdullah Road

Entrance to the Amo Hamza

Most AMO HAMZA restaurants are really spacious and recently after some renovations, the 'Family Section' now seems worth visiting with the family.

In Saudi Arabia, all restaurants have a 'Singles" and " Family" section. If I were to go alone for a meal or with some colleagues, we need to go to the Singles Section of the restaurant and when visiting with family/ies one is entitled to go to the Family section.

Amo Hamza offers a variety of sea food including different varieties of fish, shrimps, squids either as grilled or as a clay pot dish with some gravy. I usually go only for the grilled fish. There are some chicken options available as well.

Riyadh has the best weather from November to March every year, December usually is the coldest month and hence a soup is mandatory to warm the insides! I usually go in for the fish soup but this time, I chose to go in for the Shrimp Soup at the behest of a colleague's choice. The Fish soup is a thick white soup, delicately flavoured and really nice. The shrimp soup is thick, red and perhaps some fresh tomato puree added to the preparation. It is delicately spiced and with my liking for spice, I added a generous portion of Tabasco to it. Both are nice, my choice remains the Fish Soup. The soup is priced at SAR 10.

Shrimp Soup

The Soup is served with steaming hot complimentary bread or roti's. We usually order a plate of Mixed Appetizers comprising of hummous ( a chick pea paste with olive oil), muttabal( made from aubergine) , tabbouleh ( made from fresh Parsley), muhammara (red spicy paste) and coleslaw( cabbage and mayonnaise). For those of you who are not familiar with these dishes, some of them have been referred  to in my earlier post  on Middle Eastern Breakfast in this blog.

This mixed appetizer plate is available in small, medium and large sizes. We chose the small plate as we were just 3 of us and costs SAR 15.

Mixed Appetizer Plate.

The hot bread and the appetizers helps us cool(!) down the appetite while the fish gets grilled. With the food, Amo Hamza also serves a variety of sauces. One is made from fresh squeezed garlic, one made with tahina and one is a spicy sauce. This is served with onions and green chillies and hence for those of us who like our food spiced up, this should be good enough isn't it?

Sauces and accompaniments.

The frilled fish fillet that I had ordered finally was served and was excellent. We just squeezed the lemon wedges on to it and tucked in. The grilled fish is usually served with french fries. While the menu card shows a grilled chilly along with the fish in its picture, the actual dish did not have it. We could not comprehend what the waiter was telling us as an explanation. The fish was fresh and done well, we had asked it to be spicy, by Indian standards it wasn't that spicy but good enough to relish it.The dish is priced at SAR 30

Grilled Fish Fillet Steak

While AMO HAMZA offers dessert, we have never tried it. They display some cheesecakes and pastries which do look good but we had to get back to work quickly and with desserts in our stomach, would have been difficult to keep our eyes open.!!

So the next time you want to try out some grilled sea food and if you are in Riyadh, this would be a good change isn't it?