notes from a few years of living between Muscat and Sharjah
Before I moved I thought a date was a date. Brown, sticky, comes in a box at New Year. It turns out people here have opinions about them the way the French have opinions about cheese, and after a while you start having them too.
The ones I keep buying:
Khalas. Caramel-ish, soft, everyday. This is what you get offered with coffee in an office, a shop, someone's house. Good default.
Sukkari. Very sweet, a bit crumbly at the top. Easy to eat too many.
Medjool. Big and fleshy. Expensive, and honestly a bit of a show-off date.
Ajwa. Small and almost black, from Madinah. People buy them as gifts.
The thing nobody told me: they're served with gahwa, the light cardamom coffee in tiny cups without handles. You get refilled until you shake the cup a little side to side. I didn't know that for my first few months and drank something like nine cups at a neighbour's place.
Buy them by weight in the souq if you can, not packaged. Ask to taste. Nobody minds.