Pavo Real

Review: 3 1/2 stars

Special Award: Great Margaritas and Social Hotspot

Okay, this review isn't coming from the Limey side of my family but the Texas side -- and I'm tired of reading the rave reviews of Pavo Real by European writers that portray this restaurant as being "truly authentic". Pardon my Limey words, but:

There isn't a bloody thing authentic about it!!!

Overlooking the Indian waiters dressed as cowboys (there's a joke in there somewhere). African art motifs and the leopardskin roof... there are 8 Myan Sun Calendars (one of them huge) and a giant (lifesize) depiction of a Myan water god that are perhaps actually from Mexico.

But I understand that you have to do the best with what you got, and given that you don't have Mexican or Southwestern US customers in any large number, it's understandable that the business has to cater to a wider clientel, so I'll be a little easy on them.

Pavos has Great Margaritas and live music and a fun, mostly expat, atmosphere. The best way to describe the dishes at Pavo Real are "Indo-Mex". Nearly every restaurant I've been to in Muscat is either run or staffed by Indians, so naturally the food becomes part Indian. It's been my understanding that the head chef of Pavo Real is real Mexican who was a cook on a freighter or a tanker before landing in Muscat and signing up as Pavo Real's head chef.

But if the dishes are an example of his cooking, I'm writing a letter to his mother and sending her a plane ticket so she can fly over to Muscat and slap him -- because no Mexican I know has ever used curry as a main spice ingredient in their cooking and 3/4 of everything on the menu is saturated with curry spice. In a land where you can't get away from Indian Restaurants or Indian copies of Chinese Restaurants, you get to where you really wish there was something that didn't have curry in it... So Pavos can be a little frustrating on that account.

To be fair, the dishes at Pavo Reals are really quite unique and taste great, if you enter on the mindset of someone wanting a good curry along with a good alcoholic beverage in a place where you can bump elbows with friends on kareoke night (Wednesday night), it's definately a happening spot.

If you're desperate for Mexican food and you have to eat at Pavo Real's, I recommend the fajitas. They come out a little wierd. They put the rice on the sizzling plate under your fajita meat and they put way too much bell pepper (or capsicum) on the plate, but it's not bad.

Reviewing Senior Pico's next...

New Info 15-Jul-09: Pavo's no longer uses curry in most of it's dishes... as far as I can tell.