Category: Food & Drinks

Like always, I’ve highlighted the price increases over the previous year in red, and the decreases in green. The list is divided into two parts, hotels and restaurants so check it out below:

Hotels

Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort – Taima’a Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12 (+5.000)
Telephone: 24590000

Courtyard by Marriott – Atrium
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22997000

Crowne Plaza – Al Ahmadi Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD16
Telephone: 1848111

Four Seasons – Jawaher Tent
Buffet Price: KD21
Telephone: 22006000

Hilton Resort – Teatro Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD18
Telephone: 22256222

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Garden Cafe
Buffet Price: KD20 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22269600

JW Marriott – Al Thuraya
Buffet Price: KD15
Telephone: 22455550

Millennium Hotel & Convention – Lamar International Restaurant
Set Menu Price: KD14
Telephone: 22050505

Movenpick – Free Zone – Bays Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12 (+1.000)
Telephone: 24610033

Movenpick – Al Bida’a – Breeze Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD15
Telephone: 22253100

Radisson Blu – Al Bustan Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD16 (+2.000)
Telephone: 25673000

Safir Hotel – Fintas
Buffet Price: KD11.9 (-3.100)
Telephone: 25455555

Sheraton – Coral Tent
Buffet Price: KD20
Telephone: 22422055

Symphony Style Hotel
Buffet Price: KD13 (-1.000)
Telephone: 25770000

The Regency Kuwait – Silk Road Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD19 (+1.000)
Telephone: 25766880

Restaurants

Al Noukhaza Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD16 (+0.050)
Telephone: 24732100

Al Sanawbar Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD10
Telephone: 25756273

Assaha Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD11 (-1.500)
Telephone: 22533377

Avanti Palace
Buffet: KD4.5
Telephone: 25751081

Baker & Spice
Set Menu Price: KD8.750
Telephone: 22407707

Burj Al-Hamam
Buffet Price: KD13.5 (+1.500)
Telephone: 22529095

Café Bateel
Set Menu Price: KD10
Telephone: 22270204

Dar Hamad
Buffet Price: KD16
Telephone: 22275555

Enab Beirut
Set Menu Price: KD12
Telephone: 22063000

IKEA
Set Menu Price: KD2.250
Telephone: 1840408

Izmir restaurant
Buffet Price: KD5.950
Telephone: 66305554

Kosebasi
Set Menu Price: KD7.900 (-1.850)
Telephone: 22201910

Kuwait Towers
Buffet Price: KD12 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22081999

La Brasa Argentinian Grill
Set Menu: KD17 (+6.000)
Telephone: 22322230

Maize
Set Menu: KD9
Telephone: 69688056

Naranj
Buffet Price: KD10.500 (-0.450)
Telephone: 22268666

Palm Palace
Buffet Price: KD8.900
Telephone: 67009575

Paul
Set Menu: KD7.950 (+0.700)
Telephone: 22208204

Qasr Al-Saraya
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 25711101

Sakura
Buffet Price: KD14.950
Telephone: 23733388

Vapiano
Set Menu Price: KD6
Telephone: 22597171

Villa Fayrouz
Buffet Price: KD9.500
Telephone: 22650052

If you’d like to add a restaurant to the list above email me.

Eggslut, the LA-based gourmet food concept where all the items on their menu feature eggs finally opened up a couple of days ago. Because of all the controversy the name caused when their original hoarding went up, they’re now sticking with the confusing “censored” version of the name Eggslt. Confusing because it reads like Eggslot, but they’re calling it Eggslt yet everyone knows the name is actually Eggslut.

I haven’t tried them yet but here is a copy of their menu. They’re open from 7AM to 11PM inside Crystal Tower in Kuwait City. Their instagram account is @eggsltkw

Around a year and a half ago, Vigonovo, the cozy Italian restaurant that was located in Salmiya closed down. But, they’ve now found a new location and will be reopening tonight!

The new Vigonovo is located in the Khaleejia Tower in the City, and I passed by and checked it out last week. The space is a lot bigger than their older location but Chef Marco still managed to keep it cozy. They also now have an outdoor area that overlooks a busy intersection, and since the weather is still good right now, I think that’s where everyone will want to sit. The whole place just looks and feels a lot nicer than the older one and Marco also has a bigger team to help him out this time around.

If you’re looking for a new place to try out then pass by them. For more information you can visit their instagram page @vigonovo_kw

The pop-up restaurant which uses a crane to raise diners up into the air got shut down by the municipality. According to Arab Times, the pop-up was shut down for violation of safety conditions and because they had not obtained the necessary license from the authorities.

I just checked the Dinner in the Sky instagram account and they don’t mention anything about being shut down. In fact, as of last night, they were still open and serving dinner according to their story.

Impossible Foods is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy products. They went viral a couple of years ago when they introduced their burger patty which not only looked like real meat but supposedly also tasted like real meat. Their burger patty was positioned as the future of meat since it used 96% less land, 87% less water and released 89% fewer emissions compared to burgers made with cow meat.

The Impossible burger grew in popularity and became available in a number of high end restaurants like Momofuku Nishi in NY and the Michelin-starred restaurant Public, but it also became available at more casual places like Umami Burger and White Castle. Now the Impossible patty has found its way to Kuwait.

The local burger chain Rock House Sliders launched the Impossible Slider funnily enough on April 1st. I haven’t tried it yet since I just got back to Kuwait, but I’ll be having some tonight since I’m really curious to try it. They have four different sliders made using the Impossible meat and they’re all priced at KD2.750 which is more than double the cost of their real meat sliders. So not cheap. But, if like me you’re interested to try it, RHS is on Talabat, Carriage, and Deliveroo. For more info visit @rockhousesliderskuwait

The Belgian based novelty pop-up restaurant which uses a crane to raise its diners and chefs up into the air is now in Kuwait. The set up is located at Marina Crescent and they’re offering a bunch of different packages which I’ve listed here:

Tea Break: KD30
Lunch/dinner: KD50
Lunch/dinner with live music: KD60
Coffee Time (Ramadan): KD40

Their booking page only lets you book till the end of June so I’m assuming that’s how long they’ll be here for, but it’s already getting pretty hot so I highly doubt it’s gonna last that long. Plus the timing is a bit weird since Ramadan is around the corner and people generally don’t eat out the first two weeks.

If you want to find out more or even book a lunch or dinner, visit their website dinnerinthesky.com.kw

Thanks Waleed

Singa Pura is a new Singaporean restaurant that just opened up last week. I think it’s the first ever Singaporean restaurant in Kuwait since I don’t recall there ever being one. I actually had never had Singaporean food before, nor did I know what to expect so I was very curious to try them out. Now that I have, I think the best way to describe Singaporean food is that it lies somewhere between Thai and Indian cuisine, but closer to Thai which makes sense since they’re near each other.

Although Singa Pura just opened, they’ve actually been around for a while in the form of a home catering business. They still have their catering business active so if you don’t want to visit the restaurant you can also do that.

When I passed by Singa Pura for lunch it was pre-opening and so we didn’t have access to the full menu or final prices. But, I’ll be passing by again soon and once I do I will update this post with their menu. For now, if you’re interested in checking them out they’re located in the basement of Dasman Complex in the city. Here is their location on Google Maps and they’re on instagram @singapurakw

They’re opening in the alleyway between 400 Gradi and Arabica in phase 4.

Starting today, City Center is now carrying Waitrose products inside their stores. At this moment the Waitrose products are only available at their Salmiya location, but they will soon be adding them in their Dasma and Shuwaikh stores soon.

Currently, only around 30-40% of their total shipment has arrived, with the rest of the Waitrose products expected to be in store in around a months time.

This isn’t the first time Waitrose products have been made available in Kuwait, around 5 years ago Sultan Center started carrying Waitrose products as well. The biggest difference this time around is that City Center have segregated the Waitrose products into their own section which makes it easier to find stuff.

Usually, when I write about new restaurants that just opened up I talk about the food, but not in this case. The Cardamom Club is a new Indian restaurant that recently opened up and I think it has the best looking interior of any restaurant in Kuwait.

The restaurant is part of the Napkin Affair group who also own the concepts Ubon, Ananas, Simsim, and Mana. They designed all their restaurants in house and until recently I had thought Ananas was their best work, but not anymore. So far I’ve been to The Cardamom Club twice and on both occasions, I thought the food was average but the interior really beautiful.

If you’re looking for a new place to try out you should give The Cardamom Club a visit, they’re located in Kuwait City right next to the pizza place Pinocchio’s. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram account is @cardamom.club

A couple of weeks back, The Regency Hotel got in touch with me and asked me if I’d be interested in experiencing “Le Petit Chef” since they were hosting it in Kuwait for a limited time. I quickly googled it and found the video below and it looked interesting, so I accepted their invitation.

Le Petit Chef is a dining experience based around a mini animated chef and his culinary adventures following the footsteps of Marco Polo. The experience combines 3D projection onto your table and a 6-course meal composed of dishes from around the world. I was told the show was 2 hours long so I had warned my friend we might end up leaving before the show was over if I got bored. Surprisingly, I didn’t and we ended up staying till the very end.

The show started at 8:30PM but we were told to get there early for pre-drinks. The 6-course meal also has an option of drinks to go along with it, and I’m pretty they’re all meant to be alcoholic drinks that were turned into mocktails for Kuwait. When one of the drinks arrived I told my friend it looked like a smoked rosemary whisky sour and when I tried it, I realized it was, just without the whisky of course. At one point during the dinner, the waiter even asked us if we wanted white or red wine with one of the courses. Cute.

Just before the show started we were all led downstairs to one of The Regency’s restaurants which is currently hosting Le Petit Chef. The setup is pretty simple, but it works. Every table had a projector over it that projected 3D footage onto the table. Items like plates and trays get placed in predefined spots on the table so that whatever is being projected looks like it’s interacting with the real physical items.

The show was pretty cheesy, but I actually enjoyed it. The food was ok, nothing really special but I still had a good time because I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. It’s like those restaurants that serve you food in complete darkness or the sub zero ice bars, they’re gimmicks you experience once with a friend, have fun but never go back to. Le Petit Chef is pretty much the same. Two hours ended up flying by without feeling too long nor with me getting bored (which is impressive).

The price, on the other hand, is going to be a bit hard to swallow. The 6-course meal costs KD39 per person, while the accompanying drinks are an extra KD12. So it’s not a place you’d want to take kids to. My recommendation? Skip the drinks, they’re too many and there’s no alcohol involved so you won’t enjoy them. The show is running for a limited time only and takes place daily at 8:30PM except for Sundays. If you’re interested you need to call and book ahead of time on 25766880.

Now that Deliveroo has been operating for sometime I wanted to see how they’d match up with Carriage on delivery speed. So, I decided I’d place an order with both services at the exact same time and see which would get to me faster. The first step was to find a restaurant that was on both services, for that I decided to go with Eighty Six.

I ordered the same item on both Carriage and Deliveroo which was “The Scrambled” sandwich and I put the delivery address as my office which is down the street from Eighty Six.

So which got here faster?

Before placing an order I checked the estimated delivery times on both and they had Eighty Six listed with the following average delivery time:

Deliveroo: 15-25 mins
Carriage: 25-30 mins

Order was submitted at 12:58PM for both.

While tracking the drivers to my office, the Carriage app suddenly stated that the order had been delivered to me. Carriage drivers have a habit of marking an item as delivered before they get delivered which is annoying. Then my phone rang and I looked outside my office and spotted the Deliveroo driver there. So I opened the door and as the deliveroo driver was handing me my order, the elevator door opened behind him and the Carriage driver was there also with my order.

Conclusion of my very unscientific test? Both Deliveroo and Carriage were exactly the same speed in this occasion which is why I feel like I kinda have to turn this experiment into a best of 3. So stay tuned for a second run at this.

A couple of months ago a new hot pot place opened in Salmiya called Da Wang. It’s a small hole in the wall located right behind Holiday Inn. I passed by in the evening and the first thing that stuck out for me was how incredibly bright the interior was. Just super bright white lights with very white walls. The place was empty except for one table that had a couple who were finishing up their meal and watching TV which was hanging on the wall in front of them.

Da Wang’s menu is fairly small [Link], on one side they have 10 Asian dishes with favorites like Bulgogi and Bibim Bap, while on the back side they have their Hot Pot menu. Their Hot Pot menu is pretty cool, you get to choose between a normal chicken broth, a spicy one, or a hot bot split into two, normal and spicy. You then have a large list of all the proteins and veggies you can order for the hot pot and since we were there for the hot pot, that’s what we ended up ordering.

If you don’t know what a hot pot is, this is how wikipedia describes it:

Hot pot is a Chinese cooking method, prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table, containing a variety of East Asian foodstuffs and ingredients. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table, in a manner similar to fondue.

But if you’ve never had a hot pot before you shouldn’t worry, what I loved about Da Wang the most was the extremely friendly service. Every step of the way the waiter would double check with us if we knew what to do and if we didn’t, he was willing to step in and show us or explain things.

The reason I felt like having hot pot is because I recently had an amazing experience at a place in Dubai called Fujiya. It was an eat all you can eat Wagyu Shabu Shabu Japanese restaurant that a friend recommended, and there might have been a lot of alcohol involved, but I do remember the food being incredibly good.

My experience at the Da Wang wasn’t as good as at Fujiya, and it’s mostly because of the quality of the meat. I ordered lamb and beef and between the two I preferred the beef but, it could have been sliced a lot thinner and the quality could have been a lot better. A friend told me I did it wrong and I should actually buy my own meat and then take it with me to Da Wang. I guess I’m going to have to try that.

The bill didn’t come out to much but if you do decide to go to Da Wang make sure you take cash with you since they don’t have knet yet. If you forget it’s not that big of a deal since there is an ATM machine inside Holiday Inn across the street. Da Wang are on instagram @dawangkuwait and here is their location on [Google Maps]

If you have a favorite hot pot place in Kuwait let me know about it.

Since I’m in Qatar for the week I asked my followers on Instagram to recommend restaurants for me to try out. Below is the list I’ve compiled of all the recommendations. I haven’t tried them all so can’t vouch if they’re any good or not, but at least it’s a starting point for when you’re ever in Qatar:

CUT by Wolfgang Puck
Flat White (coffee)
Gastronomy (dessert)
Graze (grand & go)
Hakkasan
Halo (dessert)
Kava (coffee)
La Mar
Market by Jean Georges
Morimoto
Nobu
Novikov
Opal by Gordon Ramsay
Spice Market
Sugar & Spice (dessert)
Toro Toro

If there is a place I missed that you think should be on the list, let me know in the comments below.

Just over a week ago Deliveroo went live and since then I’ve only managed to use them once. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, my food actually got delivered ahead of time. But the reason I’ve used them only once is because only one of the restaurants I frequently order from are on Deliveroo while the rest are still only Carriage.

But, I have been hearing a lot of good stuff about them, mostly about how their customer service is so great. I think Carriage’s biggest weakness is their customer service which is why Deliveroo might be focusing so much on it. People have been getting Deliveroo credit for late orders, some people have gotten hand written apology notes and I personally had a good experience when I posted the photo above of one of their drivers looking super dope and asked for the jacket. They actually sent me one the next day and it’s actually a very cool jacket.

So what has your experience been like?