Category: Food & Drinks

Five Guys are opening in Dubai Mall soon which means they’ll most likely be opening up in Kuwait as well. Also according to The Avenues instagram account another burger joint opened up there yesterday called BGR so that’s two franchise burger places that have opened up this week. I think the only place left to open that I’d be excited for is Arby’s. Where you at Arby’s??

Thanks David

Caliburger is a burger joint from South California and they’re officially opening up this Wednesday at Miral Complex. I’m going to sound like a broken record but I have no clue why people think it still makes sense to open more burger joints. Anyway for more information checkout their instagram account @caliburgerkw

The Time isn’t a new place, it’s actually been open for just over a year now but I just found out about it two days ago. I don’t drink coffee and there aren’t that many places that make good tea so I when discovered The Time was located in KIPCO Tower which is down the street from my office, I went there the following day.

The Time is an elegant looking but cozy place with a large variety of teas to choose from. They also have food but I had already eaten and was just there with a friend for some tea. The place was quiet, nicely lit with natural daylight and since they’re located on M2, the view was fairly decent while sitting by the window. The tea prices are very reasonable at KD1.5 and I loved their chinaware. Naf Noof’s Blog has a ton of beautiful shots of the place so if you want to find out more about the The Time click [Here]

Photo by Naf Noof

I first heard about VOL.1 when I used to see their home made health bars at Circuit+. Now they’ve gone ahead and opened up a beautiful small coffee shop in Kuwait City in front of the fabrics market (blockat). They’re near Al Makan and are open from 12PM to 5PM except for Fridays. For more information check out their instagram account [Here]

I found out about Torch today by coincidence from a friend who’s taking part in the exhibition. It’s being held at the Kuwait International Fairground starting from today until the 17th. I passed by the exhibition awhile ago and I’m not really sure what to make of it.

The hall the exhibition is being held in is fairly large but the majority of the space is taken up by a fake green field which none of the vendors I spoke to seemed to know what it was for.

Most of the vendors at the exhibition were for healthy food products and most were selling their products at retail cost. I just didn’t understand the purpose of it since you could find the same products at Sultan Center and SaveCo instead of driving all the way to the fairgrounds. At events like this food vendors should consider running some kind of promotion in a bid to gain new customers.

If you’re into fitness and sports then pass by the event like I did just to check it out. Just don’t go with high expectations.

I had been wanting to try this dessert ever since I saw pictures of it floating around Instagram but I didn’t get the chance to until now. The dessert is called the Coma Chocolate Pudding and is served at the Dikakeen restaurant in Salhiya M2. It’s basically a chocolate pudding dessert with a KDD sandwich ice cream shoved in the middle.

The dessert takes 20 minutes to prepare which is a good sign since it means they bake it fresh. Sadly though the dessert looked better than it tasted since I thought it was flavorless. But, if you’re a fan of the KDD ice cream sandwich (who isn’t really) then it’s worth trying out.

Bilbayt is a new local website that just recently launched that makes it easy to discover and order catering online. The way it works is simple, you go to the website, pick the date and time you want catering and then you’ll get a list of available caterers. If you choose Johnny Rockets for example you get two options to choose from, a Johnny Rockets Live Station and a Johnny Rockets “Kids” Live Station. If you click the regular Live Station you get the details plus the price which is KD125 for 15 people. You can then proceed to increase the amount of people you want them to cater for and the price will update accordingly. You can then proceed to checkout and pay either by Knet, credit card or cash on delivery. It’s a fairly easy and simple to use website.

As of this post they have 16 caterers on the website including Magnolia Bakery, Upper Crust Pizza and even Shawerma Shuwaikh. You can check out the website by visiting bilbayt.com

Eight is a restaurant that is open across the street from Arraya Complex in Kuwait City. It opened up over a year ago but I never ate there because the design of the place looked so dark and gloomy. But, today while walking by it I noticed they’ve completely redecorated the place and it’s now so much more brighter and better looking. I still haven’t tried it out but I did quickly flip through the menu and I might end up going back for their sweet potato and brisket dish. For now I thought I’d just mention the facelift since it’s such a major improvement.

Last week I passed by Rice to Riches in Avenues to check the place out. It’s a New York based dessert place that serve a variety of flavored rice puddings. A friend of mine who is friends with the owner wanted me to try the place out and then write a positive review of it on the blog. Obviously that’s not how this blog works and I explained to him that I hadn’t even tried rice pudding before so I’m not sure I’ll even like it. And that’s actually what made me want to pass by the place. I get invited to a lot of places all the time but unless it’s something different, I’m not gonna find it interesting and so I’m honestly not going to go and try it out (sorry burger joints).

So Thursday after coming back from Qatar I headed to Avenues to see what Rice to Riches was all about. The owner and the operation manager were there so they ended up showing me around the place before taking me to their kitchen and showed me how their rice pudding was made. After the little tour they brought out I think like 12 different flavors and wanted me blind taste them. So I started going through the flavors one by one guessing the flavors while giving them feedback on what I thought. I wasn’t really sure how rice pudding was going to taste, I just imagined the rice I make at home mixed with chocolate and figured it would taste really gross. Luckily, it didn’t taste like rice at all. The rice pudding is served cold and the hazelnut flavor for example to me tasted like chocolate mousse and was my favorite flavor alongside the cheesecake flavor which was just as good. My least favorite flavor was the old fashioned which didn’t have any flavor added at all.

I wasn’t expecting to like rice pudding but I did (at least some of the flavors). If you’re calorie counting though you’re going to have to leave that at the door since this isn’t some frozen yogurt alternative. They have random humorous signs hanging proudly with messages like “Eat what you want, you’re already fat”, “Think with your stomach” or “If you want to look young and thin, hang out with old fat people”. Rice to Riches is officially opening on January 15th in Avenues Phase III on the top floor next to Elevation Burger. They’re going to be soft launching before that date so check their instagram to stay posted.

The Qatar Digital Library have published an article about a scandal in Kuwait in the 1930s when one restaurant was accused of using cat meat instead of mutton. It’s an interesting read and it also sounds like an incident that could take place today. Kuwait really hasn’t changed much. [Link]

Dairy Queen is returning to Kuwait a decade after the Edina-based ice cream chain left the Middle East country.

The company plans to open 20 DQs in Kuwait over the next five years, according to Bloomberg . A franchisee had operated restaurants there from 1979 to 2003, but then the franchisee decided to leave the business.

Kuwait Dairy Queens will have a similar menu to U.S. locations, but will also have some different items, like a spicy Gyro sandwich. [Source]

My memories of Dairy Queen goes back to the mid 80s since there was a branch near my place in old Salmiya. Not that big a fan anymore though, would rather A&W be making a comeback.

I’m trying to put a list together of places that make turkey (to go) for Christmas, this is what I have so far:

Eedam Cafe (in Radisson Blu)
KD10.750 per KG
Order 48 hours in advance
Tel: 25673420

The Butcher’s Den
KD38 for around 5 to 6KG
Includes: Gravy, steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie, dinner rolls, stuffing bread and corn or brown rice.
Order 24 hours in advance
Tel: 22263140

Dean & Deluca (unconfirmed)
KD6.950 per KG
Order 48 hours in advance
Tel: 22242224

If you know of any other places that make turkey let me know in the comments.

The people behind Qout Market are putting together two day trips this weekend. The day trips will involve a farm-to-table brunch, tour of the farm and greenhouses, a small produce market featuring neighboring farms, and watching the sunset while sipping on tea.

The two day trips are taking place on Friday 26 and Saturday 27. Friday features Caveboy Grubs, Saturday features #NourasKitchen.

Bring cash should you wish to buy produce from farms and bring your own bags. Transportation will be provided and is mandatory. For more info and to to book a seat at the table click [Here] (link only works on your phone)

Back in July I posted that according to one of my sources, SaveCo supermarket would be getting Tesco products. Turns out my source was correct since yesterday while checking out the British Ambassadors instagram account, I spotted the photo above of SaveCo with an ad mentioning they now carry Tesco products.

I’m not interested in any Tesco products but if you are now you know where to get them from.

Back in October I posted about a new Argentinian restaurant that was opening up called La Brasa and I was just told it’s now officially open. La Brasa is an Argentinian Grill owned by the popular local photographer Gustavo Ferrari who’s been living in and documenting Kuwait for 38 years now. He was always known for holding amazing barbecues and so he finally decided to open up his own place. All the meat is imported straight from Argentina and everything I tried during the tasting I went to was delicious.

The restaurant is located in the basement of Dar Al Awadi in Kuwait City and are open daily from 12PM to 11PM. On Friday’s they open at 7PM only if they have any bookings otherwise for the time being they’re close. Their instagram account is @labrasaq8