I visited Ric’s in Manama on 3 October. I visited Ric’s in Doha a few years back, too. Ric has a nice web page, with a few broken links, here: http://www.ricskountrykitchen.com/

Ric’s is just a cricket field away from the Grand Mosque. Points for location.

Nice entrance. Very rustic.

The menu has the whole story on how Ric’s got started. Oddly enough, this story is not on the web page. And sadly enough, my phone camera was shaky when I took the picture.

A respectable breakfast offering here. With blueberry pancakes!

Makes me wish that I had room for pie.

After The Dome’s Emir-grade coffee yesterday, Ric’s coffee is sort of, well, lusterless. But it comes with refills, the way a good American diner should handle coffee, so we’ll call it even.

International Mississippi syrup ingredients. I’m not entirely comforted by this label.

There’s a big Kountry theme in Ric’s Kountry Kitchen. Including this portrait of John Wayne.

And these chaps.

Inside is faux rustic and very cowboy. Just what you need when you’ve had your fill of sand and camels and need to get back to the familiar. If your familiar is Out West. Or a movie set.

Mary Ann Rowell painted these walls in 2002. Google offers no insight on Ms. Rowell.

Here’s me. No Marek. No Ivo. This is no fun at all without them.

Blueberry Pancakes! That’ll take the edge off of any problem. It’s not just that the pancakes have blueberries in them, but they’re actually blue, too. I’m going to decide to like it that way.

It’s hard to tell if these pancakes are better than The Dome’s pancakes, but they’re certainly good, and different.

I’m sitting by the window. There’s a little courtyard. In the courtyard is a bunny.

Seriously. Look at the picture.

Let’s hope breakfast fits on a fiver, ’cause that’s all I’ve got!

It’s interesting that you flip the bill and it’s in English. Unlike the U.S. dollar these days, where when you flip the bill it has negative numbers and the sound of bankers laughing at you.

Walking out the door, you see this nice and friendly sign. With ridiculous graffiti. “See you later nerd.” Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with?

I left just in time to catch a cricket match! The guy in black in the dead-center of the group is in mid-bowl of the ball. Given my non-professional phone camera, I’m sort of impressed that I caught him in the act.

I love cricket. It’s as boring and nonsensical as American baseball, but only more so because it’s foreign. I watched cricket on BBC Asia for almost a year in the BMC days (that’s before married and children) and finally figured out the rules. And promptly forgot them when I got home and got married. Love’s like that.

This was a good breakfast. Cricket. The Grand Mosque. Blue pancakes with blueberries. A bunny. Lonely, though. Next breakfast will be with Marek and Ivo. That’s not Ric’s fault, though. Given the location, you’ve got to give Ric’s a lot of credit for making a real expat oasis. I’m pleased to give Ric’s Kountry Kitchen a Tampa Bay Breakfasts four pancake rating.