Author: Mark

Last week I posted about a very cool initiative called Al-Arfaj where they created a badge of gratitude and recognition for those on the frontlines. The initiative quickly took off beyond their expectations, and demand for the badge exceeded production by a huge margin.

Since that post, I’ve been getting messages and comments asking where to get a badge, so I decided to compile the places into a list. There are now a lot of people producing these badges to help meet demand, but the list below is of the companies who first adopted the initiative, so these come from the initial batches produced by @alarfajflower. All available for free and include the information card.

% Arabica
Available at almost all branches to customers who make a purchase, though they go fast, so if they’re out just check back another day.

Crown Dental
Available to their patients for now until they get more stock.

Dabdoub
Included with every purchase.

Elevation Burger
They are available at different branches which change daily. They announce the locations on their Instagram and no purchase is necessary.

Pret A Manger
Available at their branches in Hamra, Sabah Al salem, Assima, and Messilah. No purchase necessary.

Rainforest Park Spa
Available to their customers for now until they get more stock.

Stock Room Coffee
Due to limited quantities they’re only giving them to their loyalty program customers at the moment.

Vol.1
Limited quantity available to customers at their branches in Downtown, Mishref, Salmiya, and Shuwaikh.

There are a couple more spots as well, I’m just waiting to hear back from them before adding them to the list.

Last October I bought a Ford Ranger Raptor and posted about how great the car was, but how terrible the purchasing experience was. This is my first Ford, and I was worried that the negative sales experience would carry over to the service center, but thankfully, that turned out not to be the case.

I took my car in last week for the first 10K service and my experience was incredibly good, like I was surprised at how good an experience it was.

First thing I did was call Ford and book an appointment. I went the next day and as soon as I drove into the service center, their license plate reader recognized the car and a screen came on welcoming me by name (well, my wife’s name, since the Raptor is registered in her name because I’m an expat). I drove up to the second level where another screen displayed my appointment time and directed me to a bay number. No waiting in line, and the whole floor is just car drop-off with no loud sounds or the usual garage chaos I’ve gotten used to with every other brand I’ve owned.

The whole area was super clean and looked brand new. I parked in front of a desk, got out, handed over my registration, they told me what the first service included and what it would cost, then told me to go wait in the lounge. The whole experience felt very premium.

The lounge was also really nice and big. It overlooked the car drop off and pick up area on one side, and the new cars showroom on the other. There is an elevator that connects you to the showroom if you want to car browse, or you can just chill in the lounge.

When the car was done, I paid and left.

I’m actually really relieved that the service center experience went extremely well since I really love the Raptor and didn’t want the service center to ruin the joy of owning it.My wife also has a Bronco which I’ll have to take in to service eventually, so I’ll be dealing with them often

If you’re thinking of getting a Ford and want to know if their after service is any good, it is.

Jaber AlSabah is a 16 year old racing driver currently competing internationally in the British Formula 4 Championship. F4 is widely considered the starting point for drivers on their journey to Formula 1, and that’s the goal every driver is working towards, including Jaber.

Jaber first got into racing at the age of 12 when his dad bought him a racing sim. He was instantly hooked and would spend hours daily practicing and improving. Seeing how committed he was, his dad eventually took him karting at Kuwait Motor Town. From that point on, he knew this was what he wanted to pursue.

Jaber began his racing career in the Rotax Karting Championship, followed by the IAME series. After climbing through the karting ranks, he moved up to Formula 4 last year with a seat at Xcel Motorsport.

Kuwait has a pretty big car culture, and in some motorsports like drag racing, we’re actually very competitive. But when it comes to single seater racing, especially at an international level, it’s still pretty rare to see Kuwaiti drivers making their way up the ranks. That could be partly because until 2019, we didn’t have a proper race track in Kuwait.

Racing isn’t just a hobby for Jaber, it’s his career and something he takes very seriously. It demands a huge amount of time, focus, and dedication, and there’s very little room for error. His ultimate goal, like every driver, is Formula 1, but with only 22 drivers on the grid, he knows how competitive that path is. He thinks a more realistic route could be endurance racing like WEC or GT racing, both of which are still at a very high level.

KMT played a big role in Jaber’s journey, without it, it would have been much harder to get started, and he might never have discovered his passion for racing. Support from local companies like Gulf Cables, Warba Insurance, Motorgy, and Kuwait Airways has also helped a lot since racing is an expensive sport.

I’m a big fan of KMT, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing even younger drivers competing internationally. If you want to follow Jaber’s journey, he’s on Instagram @jab3ralsabah

Photos by Stanley Deslandes

Joe & The Juice is opening their new Hessah District location today. The branch is in the Hessah Hub area and features a large dine in space along with a drive thru. (Google Maps)

Hessah District is one of the hottest spots in Kuwait right now, and their location is right at the start of the district, making it easy to get to. I also like that this branch has a drive thru since I pass by the area after the gym, so I’ll definitely be using it to grab lunch on my way home.

This new location will also help speed up delivery to nearby neighborhoods. And if you want to pick up breakfast on your way to work, they open early at 6AM and close late at midnight.

To stay up to date on any new menu items or locations, head over to @joeandthejuicekuwait

This is a great initiative by a group who created a badge of gratitude and recognition for those on the frontlines, symbolized by Kuwait’s national flower, the Al Arfaj.

The Al Arfaj blooms in harsh conditions, which makes it a symbol of resilience and the ability to rise under pressure. It reflects the people on the frontlines who protect Kuwait and continue to give it strength, so that like the flower, the country comes back stronger.

The badge is meant as a simple expression of appreciation for those who sacrifice for Kuwait’s security, safety and stability.

It will be available for free to anyone who wants to wear one as a sign of support. Right now it’s being shared organically, but in a few days it will be available to pick up from different locations around Kuwait. If you want one, they’ll be announcing the locations soon on @alarfajflower

The Ministry of Interior has announced an update to the notification mechanism in the National Alert System on smart devices, in coordination with the activation of warning sirens across the country.

Under the new system, alerts issued between 10:00 PM and 8:00 AM will be delivered with a standard message tone, while notifications from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM will use a high-alert tone.

The ministry said the update aims to enhance the efficiency of the alert system, take into account public rest periods, and ensure timely and effective delivery of emergency warnings when required. Arab Times

I kinda had a feeling something would change after the first night. Glad they made this decision, I guess we don’t need to put our phone on airplane mode anymore.

If like me you woke up from deep sleep at 2AM to a sound of an air horn, this is how you can turn off the National Warning Alert:

Step 1: Put your phone in airplane mode
Step 2: Turn on WiFi

This is the only way I found to turn off these alerts, switching off cellular. Every other way didn’t work including turning off “Critical Alerts” or the “KWT-Alerts” under notifications, at least on iPhones.

Turning your WiFi on is optional but the reason I’m suggesting you do that is so you can continue to receive WhatsApp messages or calls in case of emergency (from family and friends).

I’m not sure what percentage of the population switched off their phones last night but I imagine it was very high. These phone alerts should really be used only in extreme cases like when a tornado is about to hit Salmiya, or when Godzilla emerges from the sea.

I came across this photo in my stories earlier today that captured a small moment after the firefighters had extinguished the fuel tank fire at the airport. It was taken by the Kuwait Fire Force’s photographer and I got the high resolution photo from one of the firefighters who took part in the operation (@ponato). I thought I would share it because it’s genuinely uplifting and they definitely deserve the attention.

Back in December, Kim Kardashian’s fashion brand Skims popped up in Kuwait for one week, and now the brand is back but this time permanently.

Right now they have a pop-up outside Bloomingdales in 360 Mall, except unlike last time where items were just for display and you had to order through the Ounass app, everything is now in stock locally.

The pop-up runs until April 20th, after which Skims will have a permanent display inside Bloomingdales. For now they’re only carrying the women’s collection, with no plans to add the men’s line anytime soon.

Back in the 90s I used to really love PC gaming and was constantly upgrading my computer to be able to run different games. When Doom came out my 33mhz PC couldn’t run it (pictured above) but our “family computer”, a Pentium 60 could so I used to get permission from my dad to play on it. Eventually I took over that computer since nobody at home really knew how to use it except me (pictured below).

When I moved to uni in 96 I used to spend all my money on CDs and upgrading my computer. I remember the first legit gaming card I got was the Matrox Mystique. But then a new brand launched called Nvidia and I got their Riva 128 card which was great until 3DFX came out with their Voodoo cards. Games that were optimized for 3DFX looked so much better so got that but I remember I used to have a lot of compatibility issues so got the Nvidia TNT and then later got the TNT 2 Ultra. I think the last decent card I got was the original Geforce 256 before I stopped PC gaming.

Recently I’ve gotten into sim racing and was considering building a gaming PC for it. My Xbox Series X is great but some games like Assetto Corsa Evo, Assetto Corsa Rally and iRacing aren’t available on the Xbox while other games like Dirty Rally 2.0 have ultra realism graphic mods that the Xbox version doesn’t have. It was pretty hard to get a grasp on whats considered good or not good nowadays since I haven’t had a Windows PC in over 20 years, but with the help of Ai I think I kinda started understanding things and managed to build a really good gaming PC, but wtf is up with these crazy prices??

This is the build I managed to put together based on parts currently available locally, I think memory is the hardest thing to get right now:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Gaming Processor — 179 KD

Motherboard
Asus TUF GAMING X870E-PLUS Motherboard — 129 KD

RAM
Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 — 145 KD

Graphics
ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 OC — 580 KD

Storage
Samsung 2TB 9100 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD PCIe 5.0 — 117 KD

Cooling
Asus TUF Gaming LC III 360 Liquid CPU Cooler — 62 KD

PSU
Asus TUF Gaming 1000W Gold ATX 3.1 Power Supply — 58 KD

Case
Asus TUF Gaming GT502 — 54 KD

Total: 1,324 KD

That seems really insane, I thought I was going to end up paying like 500-600KD for a high end gaming PC but this is more than double that. I thought this might just be the usual Kuwait over inflated prices but seems to be pretty much the same even in the US. Crazy! How are you guys doing this?

AD Middle East recently featured République in their magazine along with some really nice photos that were taken by the photographer Ingrid Rasmussen. I posted about République when they first opened, but looking at these photos now, I don’t think mine did the space justice.

The interior was originally conceived as a pop-up by Gastronomica founder Basil Al Salem after his travels in Vietnam. The look draws from Indochine design, which flourished between the 1920s and 1945 and blended French Art Deco elegance with traditional Vietnamese details. The space was designed by the group’s in-house design team which included Abdullah Al Muzaini, Ahmad Jankieh, and Ashish Bartwal, with styling by Jade Botanics.

République at Jõn closed down for the season already so if you wanted to pass by and check it out you can’t anymore. But the restaurant has now popped up at Cocoa Room at JACC for dinner.

If you want to check out the AD Middle East article, click here.

Most people know Shaab Park from the late 90s, but back in the 80s it looked completely different. I’ve been looking for photos of what Shaab Park used to look like in the early days what seems like forever, but I’ve never been able to find any… other than my own personal family photos.

Since I used to (and still do) live in Salmiya, my mum would take me and my siblings to Shaab Park to meet up with our friends since it was close by. Back then the park wasn’t fenced up, and it was a large green field and looked pretty vast in the photos. There was a sandy area with some slides, swings and toys, and there was also an area with a small rollercoaster, bumper cars and other rides.

Some of the residential buildings in the background I think are still there today. You can also see the Al-Muzaini Mosque in one of the photos and the Abdullah Al-Salem School. The Abdullah Al-Salem School is where the Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Center is today. When the school was demolished in 2014, it wasn’t operational but Al-Maidan Cultural Centre was located there. Al-Maidan was part of Dar al Athar al Islamiyyah and used to hold various performances and musical events.

Based on how old I look in the photos, the fact that my younger brother isn’t in any of them (he was born in 1985) and the different outfits I’m wearing, my best guess is these photos were taken between 1983 and 1985. Check out all the photos here.

Over Eid a very cool looking coffee shop opened up in Shaab called Studio Roast. It’s Kuwait’s first air roastery and blends coffee with a full sound experience powered by Bang & Olufsen. It’s a new project by BNK and led by two time barista champion Hamad AlMajed.

Unlike regular roasting, air roasting uses hot air to keep the beans moving while they roast, which helps bring out their natural flavors. They also use an AI system that spots and removes defects during the process, so every batch is consistent.

My favorite part though is the interior, for a number of reasons. The space has a warm vintage feel with lots of wood and period correct fabrics, and the hand drawn ceiling gives the place a really unique look. Some of the walls and surfaces are even crafted from coffee waste. It’s one of the best looking coffee shops in Kuwait if not the best.

But what really caught my attention was the sound experience by Bang & Olufsen. They have some of their most beautiful speakers scattered around, but my favorite piece was the BeoSound 9000 displayed in the back corner. It was my dream CD player growing up, and just a couple of months ago I was on eBay looking for one before convincing myself I didn’t really need it. After seeing it again in person, I need it.

Studio Roast is located in the brand new Eleven Residence apartment complex in Shaab Al Bahri (Google Maps). They’re open daily from 7AM to 11PM, and you can follow them on Instagram @studioroast.kw

Just watched the trailer above for Larry David’s new show and it looks hilarious. It’s coming out in June and I can’t wait. YouTube

Si is a new Mediterranean restaurant opening on the first day of Eid, and it’s one of those places where once you’re there you kind of forget where you are.

Chef Marco of Vigonovo is behind the concept, and if you’ve ever met him you’ll know how charismatic and hard working he is. I first met Marco back in 2016 when he opened Vigonovo as a small spot in Salmiya. He started off with very limited resources, to the point that if I remember correctly, he had brought his small 4 burner stove from home to use in the restaurant. Since then Marco has had a pretty long journey, and Si is the result of all that hard work.

The first thing that caught my attention was the location. Si is located at C Club in Al Bida’a, with its own private entrance from the side. The first thing you notice once you walk in is the beautiful sea and garden area, surrounded by tall palm trees. It’s such a fantastic spot.

The restaurant itself is divided into three main areas, each with its own look but all with the same goal of creating a bright and energetic space that makes you feel like you’re somewhere along the Mediterranean coast. The food matches the setting, with a menu built around Mediterranean classics using fresh ingredients and simple flavors that Marco is known for.

I might be a bit biased since Marco is a friend, but the space really is beautiful and the food is really good. Si is opening on the first day of Eid (so tomorrow), and as part of their soft launch they’ll start with breakfast and lunch. They’ll eventually open for dinner as well. Opening hours are 8AM to 4PM, with the last order at 4PM.

Here is the location on Google Maps. If you want to book a table, they have a booking link on their instagram @sikuwait