Author: Mark

A lot more places have started offering açaí bowls on their menu since I last shared a list in January. So far I’ve tried the açaí bowls at Liquid, Be Cafe, Bowl’d, Pick, Super Foods, Magnet, and JS Foods which is why decided to share my favorite ones below.

Here are my top 3 açaí bowls in Kuwait:

1- Be Cafe
2- Bowl’d
3- JS Foods

Be Cafe and Bowl’d both use the same açaí base but Be Cafe comes out on top because the granola they use is so much better (pictured above). But, they don’t always have açaí available and when I last spoke to them this past weekend, they were considering removing açaí from their menu completely. So without Be Cafe in the picture, my top 3 açaí bowls would be:

1- Bowl’d
2- JS Foods
3- Liquid

My only issue with JS Foods (pictured on the very top) is their location sucks and the fact they close at 5PM. If they had a location closer to my office or home, I’d probably pass by them more than I would Bowl’d or Liquid. If you have a favorite açaí place that isn’t mentioned here, let me know.

I went to this exhibition last year and I’m heading there again this year. There will be handicraft, embroidery, artwork, books, jewelry, and food for sale. Here is a bit more information on the Palestinian Culture Center:

The Palestinian Culture Center aims to support needy families and preserve the rich and vibrant culture of Palestine. It does this by encouraging ladies to continue a beautiful handicraft, embroidery, which has been in Palestine for hundreds of years and ensuring that the tradition is carried on to the younger generation.

The Center has been in operation since the early 1970’s in Kuwait and then moved to Jordan after 1990. Today, the PCC, has over 450 women from the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan working on these beautiful pieces. For these women, the payment they receive is a great support for their families. The PCC also aims at supporting education and helps various schools and education programs in Palestine as well as needy families.

As a charity organization we use a simple rule in all our pricing. Thirty-three percent of the sale cost of an item is given to the woman that produces the work, thirty-three percent goes towards covering the cost of the item, and the remaining amount is distributed to schools, orphanages and needy families mostly in Palestine.

For more information on this event including location and timings, click [Here]

As most of you are aware by now, part of the old souq in Salmiya is being turned into a pedestrian-only area. The project was originally scheduled to be completed in February but due to delays, work is still going on right now.

The photos in this post were taken a couple of days back and they show the current progress. For more photos, click [Here]

Why do we now have billboards every 20m on the Gulf Road? It used to be one of the most scenic roads in Kuwait and now it’s plastered with billboards all down the middle. If it was one billboard every now and then I can understand, if they were on the side of the Gulf Road, I could understand that as well, but they’re just back to back all along the middle. I think there are more billboards down the middle of the Gulf Road than there are palm trees, and I’m not exaggerating.

Speaking of billboards, do people still not know what it means when a word has a red squiggly line under it?

A cryo center called °CRYO recently opened up in Shuwaikh, in the complex across from VOL.1. Cryotherapy is used a lot by athletes to help with recovery, muscle repair, and inflammation. It’s a better and fancier alternative to ice baths which were scientifically proven to improve recovery.

Generally, cryotherapy is recommended right after a workout, the only problem is, a 3-minute session is going to cost you 25KD. Unless you’re a professional athlete or just loaded, this isn’t really a financially practical solution for most people.

If you’re interested, here is the link to the °CRYO instagram account [Link]

Lots of events taking place this weekend, most of which are live musical performances. Check out the full list below and if let me know if I missed anything:

Thursday
Exhibition: Abolish Article 153
Play: The Love for Three Oranges
Cinemagics Rooftop Movie: Lady Bird
Concert: TYGA
Live Music: Yousif Yaseen

Friday
Play: The Love for Three Oranges
The Games Crossfit Competition: Student Edition
Kanika Kapoor Live in Concert
Sal Houdini Concert
The Kuwait Jazz Collective

Saturday
Exhibition: Abolish Article 153
Play: The Love for Three Oranges
Cinemagics Rooftop Movie: Dancer in the Dark
Summer Jammin’
What Makes You Happy?

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.

Screenshot from Chappaquiddick

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Chappaquiddick (6.8)
Masha and the Bear (7.9)
Status Update (5.6)
Tall Tales from the Magical Garden of Antoon Krings (5.3)
The Titan (4.9)

Other Movies Showing:
A Quiet Place (8.4)
Acts of Violence (5.1) ♦
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (6.8)
Peter Rabbit (6.5)
Rampage (6.5)
Ready Player One (8.1)
Stolen princess: Ruslan and Ludmila (7.8)
The Hurricane Heist (4.8)
Tomb Raider (7.3)
You Were Never Really Here (7.5) ♦

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (5.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

The new Jazeera Airways Airport Terminal is expected to start accepting passengers as early as mid-May. The new terminal is meant to alleviate the current overcrowding at Kuwait International Airport but like Sheikh Saad Terminal, it also means you don’t have to fly in and out of the main airport. I might just start flying with Jazeera again once this terminal opens up. Oh, and the new terminal has it’s own parking as well!

According to the Tamdeen Group annual report, they’ve signed with Live Nation to manage the events and activities that will take place at the International Tennis Complex that’s currently under construction next to 360 Mall. Live Nation is the largest live entertainment company. They are concert promoters, venue operators and also handle ticketing and artist management.

This is pretty big news since more and more concerts are taking place in Kuwait and with Live Nation coming in, it could also mean a lot more concerts will start taking place here. Not only that but since the largest arena at the tennis complex can hold 4,000 people, twice more than the largest theater at JACC, this could mean they’d be able to price the tickets cheaper.

Construction on the Sheikh Jaber Al-Abdullah AlJaber Al-Sabah International Tennis Complex is expected to be completed by next year. For previous posts on the tennis complex, click [Here]

Thanks lovelykuwait

Supplements are pretty expensive in Kuwait but I had forgotten how expensive until last night. I dropped by Health Planet to pick up ZMA and they only had the supplement in the MET-Rx brand. I decided to check Amazon for reviews and noticed that the price on Amazon was just $9.99 which is basically 3KD. The price at Health Planet? 14.5KD. That’s nearly 5 times more expensive than the Amazon price.

Why are supplements still so expensive in Kuwait? A few years ago there weren’t that many places that sold supplements but now there are a whole bunch of them and the prices have yet to fall.

I used to order my supplements from UAE based Sporter, but they’ve now started charging for shipping so it’s no longer feasible to order from them anymore. I should have gotten supplements back with me from LA, no idea why I didn’t think about that but even if I did, that would have just been a short-term fix.

The new Al Kout Mall opened up yesterday and I passed by last night to check it out. Driving down to Fahaheel feels like such a journey which is why I rarely ever go down there and I’m assuming people who live there also rarely ever journey up to the city. This is why the new Al Kout Mall is a great addition to the area.

The new Al Kout replaces the old Al Manshar Mall and the large residential buildings that used to be located right behind it. It’s a fairly small sized mall when compared to the Avenues, but it’s still substantially larger than 360 Mall. One thing I noticed is that the stores are all pretty small, so you have all the big brands there but their store sizes are probably the smallest ones in Kuwait. I guess its how they were able to fit so many stores into the mall.

Not all the stores are open yet nor are the movie theaters and the karting track on the roof. The karting track once completed will be the largest indoor karting track in the Middle East which I think is pretty exciting. If you’re curious about the parking situation, the mall has 3,600 parking spots accessible from a variety of entrances around the mall. But, parking isn’t an issue there its traffic that’s the problem. The street there had heavy traffic even before the mall was open so expect it to be even worse now.

For more information on the mall including a list of all the stores you can visit their website [alkout.com] or follow them on instagram @alkoutmall

BBC posted a short video (watch above) on a team of European and Arab women who are trekking to the North Pole. One of the woman taking part in this trek is Lamees Nijem, a Kuwaiti who applied to be part of this adventure and got accepted. To prepare for the trip Lamees went on three training trips, one in Oman and two in Iceland. The trainings covered the basics of cross-country skiing, pulling sleds, sharing a tent with 3 other people and dealing with cold weather and extreme climate conditions such as snowstorms and very low temperature.

The main purpose of this expedition is to foster greater dialogue and understanding between women from Western and Arabian cultures. The team consists of 11 women that represent the countries of Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Cyprus, Kuwait, France, Oman, Qatar, Slovenia, Russia and the UK. For more information you can check out the expedition web site [Here] or follow them on instagram @northpole2018

While in LA I picked up a Google Home Mini and a pair of Amazon Echo Dots. They’re voice-controlled devices which I’ve now placed around my apartment so I could write up a comparison review for the blog. A few days in and I’ve already started developing an opinion on them but I wanted to know if there was anything specific you guys wanted me to try or if there was anything you wanted to find out in regards to both these devices. Traffic updates for Kuwait work with the Google Home device for example but doesn’t work on the Echo.

A bunch of musical events taking place this weekend, check them out below. If I missed anything post it in the comments below:

Thursday
Live Music: Caracal Eyes
The Divan’s Movie Night: Human
Cinemagics Rooftop Movie: Lady Bird
Music: Yousif Yaseen
Theater: The Tempest
Concert: Autostrad

Friday
Rise Up: and Make a Difference
Reach The Beach

Saturday
Guided Tour: The Grand Mosque
Cinemagics Rooftop Movie: Your Name

Sunday
The Zaid Nasser Jazz Quartet

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.

Screenshot from Rampage

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Beast of Burden (3.6)
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (6.8)
Rampage (6.5)
Submergence (5.8)
Stolen princess: Ruslan and Ludmila (7.8)

Other Movies Showing:
A Quiet Place (8.4)
Acts of Violence (5.1) ♦
In Extremis (7.1)
Peter Rabbit (6.5)
Ready Player One (8.1)
The Hurricane Heist (4.8)
Tomb Raider (7.3)
You Were Never Really Here (7.5) ♦

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D (7.4)
America Wild: National Parks Adventure (N/A)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Extreme Weather 3D (6.6)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.