Category: Food & Drinks

White Robata, the new Japanese restaurant I recently posted about is opening up at JACC this coming Wednesday. I’ve been there twice so far (they’ve been holding private tastings) and been loving the food and the great service. I know a lot of people are curious to try it out, and if you’re one of those people, then you should know that they won’t be accepting walk-ins (if you want a table). To get a table at White you’re going to have to reserve one online.

Right now with their other restaurants (OFK, Burger Boutique, Cocoa Room etc..) they’re using a regular waiting list where you put your name and number down and they’ll call you when a table is available. But if you’re going out to a nice dinner, the last thing you want to do is spend an hour walking around the fountain at JACC killing time till a table frees up. With the reservation system, you can book your table online at an available time slot, and then just show up. I’ve already booked a table for two nights and found the experience pretty easy.

In case you don’t have a table booked, you can walk-in, but you’ll only be able to sit at the bar and that’s limited to just 12 chairs.

If you’re interested in trying the place out, you can reserve a table by visiting their website whiterobata.com

ORA used to be one of my favorite sushi places in Kuwait before they closed down their location in Arabella. Now, they’re reopening again and I got a sneak peek of the space earlier today, and I’m in love with it. It actually might have the nicest looking interior of any restaurant in Kuwait, and that’s saying a lot since we’ve got some pretty great looking places here.

The new ORA (or what I like to call ORA 2.0) will be located downtown, on the mezzanine floor of an AGi Architects designed building on Ahmad Al Jaber Street [Map]. As soon as I walked into the new ORA, one of the first things that caught my attention was a golden colored wall lamp and right away I asked if it was by PSLab? (it was). PSLab are lighting consultants based out of Lebanon whom I’ve been obsessed with for years. Like super obsessed, to the point, I recognized the wall lamp as being designed by them even though I had never seen it before. They’re insanely talented and you’ll find their lights all around the world in some of the most beautiful spaces including a bunch of Aesop shops. And the new ORA is no exception, their interior is also stunning.

When it opens, the new ORA will be divided into two main areas, a lunch space, and a dinner space. The dinner area is structured in a way where it could be divided up. It could be either one large room, or two medium-sized rooms or one medium-sized room and two smaller ones. So if you’ve got a private dinner party, you would be able to book a room and not have to interact with the rest of the restaurant. You’ll actually be able to get into your private room through a back door so you don’t even have to walk through the main dining area.

I didn’t get to try any food since tastings haven’t started yet but expect your favorite ORA dishes to make a comeback, along with a bunch of new ones. ORA is expecting to open on January 10th and I’m really looking forward to it. Follow them on instagram @ora.kw

White is a new restaurant by the owner of Cocoa Room, Slider Station and Burger Boutique. It’s an American robata concept that is opening next week at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre. I passed by the other night for a tasting and loved everything we tried. The menu was pretty huge so we had a whole variety of dishes to try, from nigiris (including chutoro and otoro) to robatas.

You can check out the full menu minus the desserts [Here] and [Here].

Unless something pops up, they’re currently planning to open on December 27th. To stay posted, follow their instagram account @whiterobata

I found out earlier today that Burger & Lobster are opening up in Kuwait City, in place of where Cereal Killer used to be located.

I like this location and I think it should end up doing a lot better than the Avenues one which always felt too out of the way to pass by for a quick meal. The new location is right next to Arabica in downtown, here it is on [Google Maps]

If I was stuck on an island and could choose to have one dessert with me, it would probably be an eclair (or a Kinder Bueno). It’s one of my favorite desserts and I recently found a place in Kuwait that had a good variety of eclairs to choose from as well as millefeuilles. The place is called Millesaveurs and until a few moments ago I thought it was a French franchise. But, while trying to get some information for this post I realized its actually local creation. I haven’t tried anything other than their pastries so can’t recommend the food, but what I can say though is that their eclairs are pretty good and you should try them out if you’re an eclair fan. Their packaging is also pretty premium looking and presentable so it would make a great gift when invited to dinners.

If you’re interested, Millesaveurs is located in the basement of Crystal Towers but they’re also available on Carriage. Their instagram account is @millesaveurskwt

Madison & Heig which I posted about back in September have finally opened up their doors. Madison & Heig is a locally created bistro and bakery with the main menu created by @chefbasmah, and the desserts by @faysbaking, both of whom are super talented chefs. They’re currently in their soft launch phase so they’re only open from 5PM to 11PM.

For photos and the exact address, you can check out the Madison & Heig instagram account [Here]

Watersouq is a website that focuses on just one thing, bottled water, and I like that. It’s very specific but because they’re very focused they do it pretty well. I think they have nearly every water brand that’s available in Kuwait on their website so even if you’re looking for an obscure brand, you’ll probably find it listed there. They also seem to have a bunch of deals going on like buy 10 boxes get 2 free or buy 20 get 6 free which is great if you’re buying in bulk for your office or large home.

It actually makes sense to buy in large quantities because Watersouq charge KD1 for delivery and an additional 400fils service charge. If this seems like something you’re interested in, here a linke to their [Website]

I cook a lot but there are some cuisines that always seemed a bit too out of reach, and that list sadly used to include Kuwaiti cuisine.

I always believed that Machboos would be way too difficult and too long to make to fit into my weekday cooking lifestyle. But I wanted to learn, so I tasked my Chef CoFounder Yousef Al Munayes to have a stab at making Machboos accessible to the average Jo. He being the whiz that he is, succeeded and I finally made my very first Kuwaiti dish at the ripe old age of 32.

When you break it down you can cook a whole Machboos in just one pot and in under an hour if the ratios are right. A small whole chicken for two can easily cook through in this time period just follow this simple recipe below and enjoy!

Ingredients:
800 gram Whole Chicken (split in half with spine removed)
1.5 Cups Basmati Rice (soaked in cold water for 15-20mins)
2 Cloves Garlic Minced
1 Small Red Onion Chopped
3 Tbsp Machboos Spice Mix (found in any grocery)
Rice Topping (1 Tbsp Rose Water, 2 Tsp Ground Cardamon, Few strands of Saffron)
1 Tbsp Vegetable stock
550ml Boiling water

1. Cook the chicken
Season the chicken with 3/4ths of the spice mix. Heat a deep sautee pan over medium-high heat and add 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil. When hot add the chicken skin side down. Cook for 6-8 mins or until the chicken is well browned. Flip and cook for 4-5 more mins. Set aside.

2. Cook the aromatics
In the same sautee pan used for searing the chicken, add the chopped onion, cook stirring occasionally for 3-4 mins or until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and remaining spice mix, continue stirring for 1 minute.

3. Put it all together
Strain your rice and add to the pan along with 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil. Gently stir for 1-2 mins, add the boiling water, season with vegetable stock, salt and black pepper to taste. Stir to combine. Top with the seared chicken pieces and cover. Set the heat to the lowest setting. Cook for 30 minutes then take off heat. Open the lid, add the rice topping. Cover and let sit for 10 mins. Serve with your favorite sides and enjoy!

Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.

Ever since Elevation Burger started offering delivery on Carriage I’ve been harassing them to let me in on their secret, how are they the only ones on Carriage able to deliver in 30 minutes or less? I’m always super curious about how things work and I really wanted to know how they were doing this. My assumption was that they must have worked out some sort of deal with Carriage where their drivers would just camp outside the Elevation stores waiting for the orders because I couldn’t figure out how else they managed this. I finally sat down with Elevation last week to hear how the backend works and turns out, it’s a bit more complicated than that. So there are two parts to the formula on making the 30 minutes or less delivery happen, one involves Elevation, the other Carriage. So how does it work? If you’re curious read on.

Elevation Burger
From Elevations side, to make the 30-minutes or less delivery time they first needed to be able to get the food prepared as quickly as possible. That involved upgrading their kitchens as well as lots of staff training. This allowed them to bring down the prep time down considerably while remaining consistent. By having a consistent and short prep time, Carriage would be able to send their drivers a lot earlier to pick up the food. The second thing Elevation did was to limit the delivery locations to 30-minute radiuses around their branches. This limited their overall delivery radius around Kuwait, but it allowed them to keep their fast delivery speed.

Carriage
The other side of the equation is Carriage. Because they know exactly how long a meal takes to be prepared at Elevation, they are able to disperse their drivers a lot sooner than they would usually do. Carriage also have an algorithm that can predict based on the time of day where most of the orders will come from. So for example Carriage knows that at 2PM a lot of people in one area order a lot from specific restaurants. So they’d send their drivers ahead of time to that area near those specific restaurants in preparation for the spike they’re expecting. Elevation is one of the brands on Carriage that have a lot of orders so Carriage drivers are usually located near their branches. For example at Seef, drivers tend to hang around the parking lot near Elevation because of the fact that location has a number of restaurants like Prime & Toast, Pizetta and The Burger Hub while also being close to other popular restaurants further down the street like Joa, Gia and Eighty Six.

So in summary, the combination of a consistently fast prep time, a lot of branches and Carriage drivers always being close by is how you end up with a delivery time that’s under 30-minutes. Currently, only Elevation seems to be delivering in under 30-minutes but from what I’ve been told, more restaurants are trying to get in on this as well.

Starting from next month, Qout Market will be starting back up again and go on until March. Last year Qout Market took place at Al Shaheed Park Phase I and this year its going to take place at Al Shaheed Park again, but this time around, it’s going to be in Phase II next to the musical fountain. The first Qout Market should take place on Saturday, December 2nd.

To stay posted on the upcoming markets, you can follow Qout on instagram @qoutmarket

You’ve probably noticed by now that for the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting a lot of food posts. That probably has to do with the fact that I’ve been hanging around @chefkb and so we’ve both been going through our long list of places we’ve been meaning to try. Dampa Feast was one of those places we both had on our list so we decided to pass by last week along with another friend of ours @chefbasmah to try it out.

Dampa Feast is a seafood restaurant thats located in Souk Salmiya. It opened up around 3 months back and I didn’t think a lot of people knew about it so I was completely shocked when I got there to find a large crowd waiting outside and a two page long waiting list. Keep in mind this was a Monday night and not a weekend. We put our name down on the list and headed to Daiso to kill some time. Finally just over an hour later we managed to get our table and sat down to order our food.

Their menu is made up various seafood dishes that include shrimp, lobster, mussels, crab, squid and salmon, all cooked in a variety of spices. We decided to go with their signature Dampa Feast menu which included shrimp, crab, mussels, clams, corn and unlimited rice. You also get to choose the kind of sauce its mixed with like cajun, soya, chipotle butter, hot garlic etc.. The Dampa Feast is meant to be enough for 2 to 4 people yet for some reason we decided to order two Dampa Feast menus, one using their hot garlic sauce and the other using their schezwan sauce. We also ordered some cajun mussels on the side. With the Dampa Feast menu you also get 2-liters of mocktails, we went with their Sex Appeal mocktail and their Lindsay Lohan one. Yeah it’s hilarious I know.

At Dampa Feast you don’t get any cutlery or tableware, all the food is served to you on the table itself and you have to use your hands to eat. If you don’t want to get your hands dirty you can wear disposable gloves which they provide but I think that takes the fun out of it. The food is poured out into the center of the table then the rice is placed along the sides to capture all the sauce. We kinda destroyed it that night and barely left any food on the table even though one Dampa Feast was definitely enough for the three of us. My favorite flavors were the hot garlic and cajun sauces with the schezwan sauce being the blandest of the three. The food was pretty good but really its the total experience that sold us on the place, it’s a lot of fun. The waiters had Hawaiian shirts on, the place was blasting good 80s music and the company was the best.

Their pricing is pretty reasonable, you can check out the whole menu [Front] and [Back] but for example the Dampa Feast cost KD13 which is really good value. The only negative thing about the place is the fact that there is a waiting list and they don’t take your phone number down or hand you a buzzer. You basically have to hover around the area and keep checking on your status every 15 minutes or so. It’s definitly worth trying and we’re for sure going back with more friends the next time. Dampa Feast is located on the top floor of Souk Salmiya near the food court and they’re open from 12PM to 11PM. You can also check them out on instagram @dampafeast

Kenny Rogers Roasters the chicken chain used to be open in Kuwait next to Scientific Center but then ended up closing down back in 1996. Their location next to Scientific Center is still there but abandoned, you can actually check photos of it [Here]. Now it looks like it’s reopening again in Souk Salmiya next to Dampa Feast (that post is coming next).

If you’re wondering where you might know Kenny Rogers Roasters from, it could be from an episode of Seinfeld when they opened up across the street from Kramer. That’s at least how I found out about them. You can check out some clips from that episode on YouTube [Here]

Ananas is a new spot that just opened up and I think it has one of the nicest interiors in Kuwait. Ananas is a coffee and juice bar created by the guys behind Ubon and is located in Kuwait City. They sadly don’t have much of a menu with around 8 juices to choose from, coffee, 2 sandwiches and some cookies. It’s such a great looking place though with interior and exterior seating and a very tropical feel to the whole place.

Starting today they’re open from 9AM to 10PM. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram account is @ananas.kw

Eyescream and Friends is a new ice cream place that opened up at 360 Mall. It’s a franchise from Spain with a simple idea, make the ice cream look like little creatures with the use of two candy eyes. Simple idea but it works. When I first saw pictures of the ice cream I thought it looked super cute so I decided to go and get one for myself.

The presentation is great and you get to choose two different toppings to go along with your ice cream. I went with the chocolate ice cream with pistachio and strawberry sauce on the side. The ice cream itself wasn’t that great but my little ice cream creature looked very cute just like in the photos I had seen. I can imagine kids would really love this place. If you’re interested, they’re located in the 360 Mall food court. Their instagram account isn’t active but the main franchise instagram account is @eyescreamandfriends

Toby’s Estate officially opened a new location in Shuwaikh yesterday which now means, 4 of my 5 favorite coffee shops have opened in Shuwaikh this year. % Arabica, Caffeine, Vol.1 and now Toby’s are all located walking distance from each other in Shuwaikh. The only coffee place left from my favorites list to open there is Richard’s Coffee. Here is the location of the new Toby’s on [Google Maps]