Embrace Doha Food Tour: 5+ Delicious Qatari Cuisine Stops

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I turned my layover in Doha from the Maldives into a full-blown 4 day stopover so that I could hang out with my good online-turned-irl friend Aneesa from Expat Panda. She was teaching in Qatar at the time and since my route to the Maldives was with Qatar Airways, it only made sense. I had spent the months leading up to the trip bookmarking all of her Doha suggestions and one of her experiences that stood out to me was an Embrace Doha food tour.

Even as a somewhat picky eater (I don’t like mangoes, avocadoes, chocolate, peanut butter…just to start), food and cuisine is one of my favorite parts of travel. It’s such an interactive part of culture – you can’t really eat history, yanno? The simplest way to indulge in a destination’s cuisine is to…well, eat at a food establishment. Which, don’t get me wrong, is super fun all on its own. But sometimes I want to be even more engaged.

For the most part, this means taking some kind of tour or experience to get a deeper understanding of the destination via whatever you’re doing. With food in mind, it’s usually by taking a cooking class or doing a food tour.

Since I hate cooking, I chose to do a food tour haha.

Why Embrace Doha?

There are quite a bit of food tours in Doha, or other cities in Qatar, but I chose Embrace Doha for a few reasons.

The largest being because Aneesa had done it and recommended based on her personal experience. I would honestly follow her into the burning sun itself.

But apart from that, Embrace Doha is pretty dope.

Embrace Doha is a cultural house dedicated to showcasing Qatari history, heritage, and culture to visitors and non-locals. They are an independent organization, and currently all-women team, that strives to build cross-cultural understanding through their events, workshops, tours, and cultural consultancy services.

Embrace Doha is also the only licensed cultural consultancy in the country, and they ensure that everything they do is 100% authentic to Qatari culture.

You don’t get that everywhere, lemme tell ya haha. So yes, alone with the rave review from my friend, the Embrace Doha food tour was the food tour that seemed to offer the most cultural immersion while also giving back a positive impact to the community.

Logistics

Okie dokie, now that we’ve narrowed down our activity to the Embrace Doha food tour, let’s look at the logistics, yah?

meeting location	Arumaila Boutique Hotel – Souq Waqif
price	QAR 200.00 (~$55 USD)
duration	3 hours
activity level	light

The Embrace Doha food tours start just outside of Arumaila Boutique Hotel, located in the Souq Waqif. If taking public transit (which is very nice in Qatar) there is a station at the souq. If you have a car, there is also a super convenient parking lot right at the entrance to the souq. Parking is very affordable, at 3 QR (~$0.85 USD) an hour for the first four hours. So for the duration of the tour, parking would cost 9 QR (~$2.50 USD) for three hours, however buffer a little extra for walking time to and from. MINIMUM.

However, the souq is pretty cool, and you might want to spend extra time before or after, which I would recommend depending on the time of your tour. You can park all day for 70 QR (~$20.00 USD) or if you lose your ticket, which…honestly still isn’t bad. However you are not allowed to stay parked in the garage more than 24 hours.

The price of the Embrace Doha food tour is 200 QR (~$55 USD) which was a great price for the amount of food we ate and, what I later learned, such a comprehensive heritage tour. Three hours might seem “long” but it flies by and we even went a little over at the end because we were so engrossed in our conversation.

It is technically a food AND walking tour, but in terms of activity level, you don’t go very far. You stay within the souq and never walk more than about ten minutes at a time before you stop at a store or the next food stop. The souq is wheelchair, walker, and stroller accessible and the tour was very accommodating in terms of accessibility and dietary restrictions. Just let them know ahead of time!

My Experience

Since my only exposure to the Middle East at the time was the loud opulence of the UAE, I was expecting my experience in Qatar in general to be similar with record-breaking attractions like Ferrari World (fastest roller coaster in the world AND highest loop), At.mosphere (highest high tea in the tallest building in the world), or the Dubai Miracle Garden (highest vertical garden, tallest topiary supported sculpture, and largest floral installation in the world).

But…Qatar doesn’t aim to break records.

We met up with the founder and CEO of Embrace Doha, Amal Al Shammari, at souq as she would be our guide for Embrace Doha food tour! Because I always travel on the least convenient days possible, there weren’t any usual group tours during our days we were traveling, but they were still super accommodating and was able to make a private group tour for us.

We started off with brief introductions as we started off to our first food stop. Apologies as I’ve forgotten the names for things in Arabic, but we went to a square in the souq where women have traditionally sold their wares (clothing, accessories, and FOOD!!) and learned about women in Qatar and their role in the working and corporate industries. Did you know the majority of women in Qatar’s universities are women? SO DOPE.

Very empowering to start the tour there, especially as the Embrace Doha food tour is women founded, owned, and operated.

We then had a quick shop at a very local restaurant, no frills, to talk about common everyday Qatari dishes. It was nice to sit and get to know each other over a dish. The next few stops after, we continued chatting about the history of Qatar, through the lens of food and without, as we strolled the various shops and booths in the souq. We popped into a few spots such as a DELICIOUS date store (best dates we found in Doha!) as well as some fresh and dried produce booths.

Learned a LOT about Qatari agriculture and traditional uses of herbs, spices, and plants in both food and healthy/beauty!

We alternated between booths and grabbing bites at restaurants. Amal Al Shammari, and I’m sure all of the guides for the Embrace Doha food tours, was super hospitable, charismatic, and friendly. I never felt like the conversation dragged and every explanation led me to a new deeper question which would take us down another great conversation.

Plus, Amal Al Shammari equally asked us about ourselves and our cultures, and what differences and similarities we found. The two way street was a welcome change to most tours! I felt super comfortable asking questions, even some that may teeter on the verge of “offensive,” but our guide was enthusiastic about demystifying Qatar and the Middle East since so much of global media paints an incomplete (or even downright incorrect) picture of the region.

And our guide was HONEST. Qatar is not perfect, no country is, and yes there are valid concerns by even its local residents and citizens – concerns that they are working to change just like every citizen wants for their home. It was great to get a local’s perspective and get a more well-rounded view of the Middle East, and how Qatar fits into the global discussion.

At the end of the Embrace Doha food tour, I was STUFFED. Like…we were wobbling back to our car haha. But more than that, we left feeling recharged and inspired from an enlightened conversation. Plus, we were sent off to enjoy the rest of our Qatar vacation with a lot of cool recommendations!

Conclusion

The Embrace Doha food tour was AMAZING. In fact, it is probably one of the best food tours I have ever taken. It was like an intro into Middle Eastern anthropology with a bunch of delicious snacks. Even if you’re not a complete culture nerd like myself, you’ll thoroughly enjoy chatting with the guides, having an experienced guide through the souq who can point out great restaurants and shops, and add a little flavor to your Qatar itinerary.

Pun intended.

What do you think? What’s your opinion on food tours? Would you join one of these Embrace Doha food tours? There’s also a few other opinions with Embrace Doha to choose from! Let me know in the comments below! Do you have a favorite Qatari dish? I’m suddenly craving dates…

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