Category: Food & Drinks

I was having trouble finding sprinkles for the upcoming “The Belly” post when a friend of mine told me about a place in Shuwaikh that specializes in baking called Tavola. Not sure why sprinkles are difficult to find but I headed out to Shuwaikh looking for Tavola and found it after calling them up and getting directions over the phone.

Once I walked in I headed right to the back to their baking section and I just stood there for a minute or two with my jaw wide open. The employee there asked me if he could help me with anything and I told him I just needed a minute to absorb the place in. It was incredible, they had everything including stuff I didn’t know you could even buy. They had like a million different cupcake and muffin cups, tons of stuff from Wilton like display packaging and stands for your desserts, they had cookie cutters, molds, baking books you name it they had it.

Once I was done picking up what I needed from their baking section I decided to explore the rest of the store. Turns out they’re the dealers for two brands I love:

Zwilling J.A.Henckels
Boushahri used to be the agent years ago and they also had a little small store at Radisson SAS but then they disappeared. Turns out Tavola picked the brand up and they had a large selection of their products on display at the store.

WMF
WMF is used by a lot of luxury hotels worldwide and is a great brand for stainless steel pots, pans and cutlery plus a lot of kitchen accessories. I definitely need to go back and pick up some items for my kitchen.

They’re also the dealers for Bodum, Leonard, Alessi and Peugeot mills. I’m in love with the store, it’s one of those places where I was like I need to share this with everyone.

If you’re interested they’re located in Shuwaikh behind London Market and their phone number is 24825761. They have a map as well as photos of their different products and brands on their Instagram page [Here]

For other places I’ve previously focused on click [Here]

Update: They’re also the dealers for Cuisineart. Also here is their location on [Google Maps]

Everybody’s got a preference, right? Some people like Nutella. Some people like peanut butter. Some like their peanut butter plain. Others like it with jam. I like my peanut butter with bananas. And bacon. In a cronut. For those who have no limits when it comes to caloric intake (and if you’re a human garbage disposal like me), keep reading.

This can be put together in any vessel you like; toast, crackers, artisan bread.. I just happen to like the idea of a deep-fried croissant-donut hybrid holding it all together. I mean, look at this baby. Wouldn’t you?

Let’s get busy.

Cronuts! Making cronuts was a challenge – I tried several croissant dough recipes until I found the one I like. Make your dough and chill it in the fridge. Working with cold dough is really important; the flecks of cold butter will give your cronut the layers of deliciousness you’re looking for.

Roll our your croissant dough on a floured surface and cut your donut rings out – you can find donut cutters at Williams-Sonoma in Grand Avenue. Make ’em as big or as small as you like. Bigger cronut = more nomz; you know what to do. Deep-fry those babies till they’re golden brown and puffed up. If you’re the kind who can’t resist sneaking bites (read: me), fry up the cronut holes and eat those to hold you over.

The filling is pretty basic: creamy peanut butter (or crunchy if you like texture), caramelized bananas, and bacon! Fry up your bacon till its nice and crispy, yeah? Soggy half-assed bacon is against the law here. For the bananas, slice a banana on the diagonal and sprinkle it with a bit of sugar before you fry it in some butter. Once you see the sugar start to brown, take the bananas off the pan.

Now, slice your cronut in half, heap your favorite PB on both “slices”, and layer the crispy bacon and bananas. Close your eyes, say a prayer, and take a bite. Heaven, right?

Damn. I just realized how fatty this is. Not sorry and you won’t be either, enjoy!

Posted by Farah Bishara

Dubai Municipality ordered the “fruit punch mixed fruit drink” and “peach flavoured tea” varieties of the drink Snapple be removed after they were found to contain 0.48 percent and 0.05 percent of alcohol respectively, Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National reported. [Source]

Buy them while you still can before they disappear forever like Lucky Charms did.

Kout, which also owns the Maison Blanc bakery chain in southern England and more than 40 Burger King and KFC sites in Britain and Kuwait, bought Little Chef from RCapital, the private equity firm said on Sunday.

I hadn’t heard of Little Chef until today but from what I’ve read it looks like an iHop competitor. [Link]

Classic Burger Joint, the most popular Lebanese burger joint is opening in Kuwait right next to The Village. They’re also opening right next to another new burger place called Big Smoke Burger. I’m not a big fan of CBJ and I have no idea why they’re so popular in Lebanon since I didn’t think their burgers were any good. You can check out my review on CBJ [Here]

A whole bunch of new restaurants are opening up in Jabriya soon. The complex above is near Starbucks and will have iHop, Shake Shack and possibily a third brand as well.

The second complex above is near Champions and will have Johnny Rockets, Nino’s and Caribou Coffee.

Finally there is another new complex opening right across from The Early Bird but no clue yet to what restaurants it will contain. One things for sure, traffic in and around Jabriya is already unbearable and these new restaurants are only going to increase it.

Thanks Patrick

After finding out about the Nutella Kunafa a few days ago I asked @PinkElephant73 if she could attempt to replicate it since she had already replicated Cronuts a few weeks ago. Next day behold I get a large pan of Nutella Kenafeh delivered to my door. Surprisingly, Kunafa and Nutella do mix well together (then again what doesn’t mix well with Nutella). It’s an extremely heavy and super fattening dessert thats for sure. No idea how many calories and not interested to know either. I felt so guilty after eating a quarter of the tray that I went for an 8KM run right after to try and burn off whatever I could. If you’re interested in making it yourself, @PinkElephant73 was nice enough to share the recipe along with pictures. Check it out below:

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Let me start by saying that this recipe is not for the faint at heart – it’s basically a lot of butter, a lot of Nutella, and only some kunafa dough. But it’s freakin’ awesome.

The cast of characters! Yes, that is 400g of butter (Sorry, Mark!). You won’t be using the whole thing, I promise! But, it makes for a more flavorful kunafa! Also, a big jar of Nutella and some kunafa dough that you can find fresh or frozen from Sultan Center.

First things first: preheat your oven to 220°C! A nice hot oven makes for a great crunchy kunafa!

Cut the kunafa dough with a pair of kitchen scissors till you get small shreds. If you’re going to use frozen phyllo dough, be sure to thaw it a few hours before using it! It makes cutting it so much easier.

Next, pour the melted butter onto the kunafa little by little and stir it in to ensure all of the dough is evenly coated with butter. Watch out for this step! You don’t want to over-soak the kunafa with butter; otherwise you’ll get a really greasy crust, and no one likes a greasy crust.

Spoon and press the buttery dough into two 9″ round pans. In one of the pans, press some more of the dough up and around the sides of the pan to make a shallow “well” for the Nutella. Bake those babies for 30-40 minutes, checking immediately after 30 minutes to make sure they haven’t burned.
When the crusts are a deep golden brown, they’re ready! Take ’em out and let them cool.

Then, pour the Nutella into the pan with the kunafa sides as little or as much as your heart desires. Resist the urge to lick the spoon when you’re done (I couldn’t).

Flip the other kunafa onto the Nutella-filled one. I couldn’t take a picture of this step because I was too busy trying not to royally screw it up. I would say this is the hardest part.
Then, flip the entire thing onto your serving dish and voila! Nutella Kunafa!

You can do deconstructed versions of this by just toasting the buttery phyllo dough on a sheet pan as you would granola and layering it with Nutella into small serving cups. However you choose to eat it, factor in some time for a quick work-out after you’re done. Enjoy!

– @PinkElephant73

Too much drama. [YouTube]

Knafeh with Nutella. I found this on my Facebook feed, supposedly a place in Egypt makes it. No idea if anyone in Kuwait does as well.

Last week I was craving Chinese food so I headed with a friend to Oliversan in Burj Jassim. Oliversan is the new Asian restaurant owned by the same owners as Maki. On any other day I would have visited Caesars or China Kitchen, my two favorite Chinese restaurants, but that evening I felt like going to a “nicer” place and until Peacock reopens, Oliversan is the only alternative.

The interior looks nice and cozy but like most restaurants during Ramadan, it was empty when we arrived. We were given the menu and I started looking for sweet and sour chicken (my favorite dish) which turns out they didn’t have. That was a good thing since it allowed me to try something new which wasn’t hard to do since their whole menu was full of dishes I hadn’t heard of before. We ended up ordering the following:

Velvety Creamy Chicken Corn Soup KD1.5
Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas KD2.5
Oliversan Duck Salad KD4.5
Sweet and Sour Ostrich Fillet KD5
Braised Short Ribs with Oolong Tea Leaves KD6.5
Regular Oliversan Fried Rice KD2.5

The soup arrived first. I generally wouldn’t order cream of chicken soup at a Chinese restaurant but they only had three soups on the menu and I felt like soup that night. Glad I did because the soup was actually the least disappointing thing I had that night. The Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas came once the soup was done along with the Duck Salad. I wasn’t too impressed with the Duck Salad, not for that price point at least since I didn’t think there was enough duck in it. The dressing was good though and it was a pretty light starter along with the snap peas which left lots of room for the main course.

Once we were done with our starters the waiter brought us our main dishes. The food presentation looked great specially the sweet and sour ostrich. Taste wise my friend liked both dishes but I personally didn’t. I thought the sweet and sour ostrich was the better of the two dishes but it was slightly bland. The meat was surprisingly tender and had good flavor, its just the sweet and sour sauce that let it down. The braised short ribs I had high hopes for but I didn’t end up liking it at all. I thought it was too dry and it should have been served a lot hotter. My guess is since they’re still in a soft launch phase the menu is still being fine tuned which is why I left them this same feedback before I left.

The service was great but since we were alone in the restaurant I wouldn’t have expected anything less. One thing that I found odd was the food plates. The main courses were served in huge plates while our dinner plates were tiny (similar in size to the bread and butter plates). I found it very unpractical eating out of a small plate since I could barely fit a bit of rice with two pieces of ostrich without food starting to spill out of the plate.

In the end I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe I should have gone for the Spicy Chicken with Box Choy or the Mongolian Ostrich with Thai Basil since those two dishes were the other ones I was considering. Anyway if you’re interested in trying them out they’re located in Burj Jassim and their phone number is 22901051.

[Menu Shot 1] [Menu Shot 2]

Note: Interior shot taken from their website

No idea why we suddenly have an outburst of crickets in Kuwait but on the bright side, turns out you can eat them.

The Peacock Chinese restaurant at Radisson Blu will be reopening along with the hotel around mid September. I passed by today to get a sneak peek and I am please to say the place looks practically the same. It’s gotten a minor facelift with new materials for the seats and nicer ceiling and lights but generally the restaurant hasn’t changed. The original chefs are all still there and the menu will remain the same which is great. If it’s not broken don’t fix it. Check out two pictures of the interior [Here] and [Here]

I’ve got some more pictures of the hotel which I’ll also be sharing in a separate post.

The Colombia coffeehouse chain Juan Valdez Cafe is opening up their first branch in Kuwait at Symphony Mall in around a months time. Juan Valdez Cafe sells 100% Colombian coffee which is reputed to be the richest coffee in the world according to Wikipedia.

Here is a list of the prices for Ramadan buffets at various restaurants. I will add more restaurants to the list as I think of them. If you know any I’ve missed let me know.

Abdel Wahab
Buffet Price: KD8.750
Telephone: 1821000

Al Noukhaza Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD13.950
Telephone: 24757775 or 1823888

Applebee’s
Buffet Set Menu Price: KD6.950
Telephone: 22407536

Assaha Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 22533377

Cafe Blanc – The Avenues
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 22597568

Courtyard by Marriott
Buffet Price: KD9
Telephone: 22997000

Crowne Plaza – Al Ahmadi Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 24757775

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Garden Cafe
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22269666

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Ghabka
Buffet Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 22269666

JW Marriott
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22455550

Movenpick – Free Zone – Bays Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD10.900
Telephone: 24610033

Movenpick – Al Bida’a – Breeze Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 22253100

Missoni Hotel
Buffet Price: KD14
Telephone: 25770000

Naranj
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22268666

Paul
Set Menu Price: KD7.250
Telephone: 22597044

Qasr Al-Saraya
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 25711101

Ruby Tuesday
Set Menu Price: KD5
Telephone: 22444454

Sakura
All You Can Eat Price: KD12.950 (1st 10 Days of Ramadan)
Buffet Price: KD13.950 (11th day onwards)
Telephone: 24757775 or 1823888

Sheraton
Buffet Price: KD17.250
Telephone: 22422055

Villa Fairouz – The Avenues
Buffet Price: KD11.5
Telephone: 22597200

Zafran
Buffet Price: KD7.5 (KD4 for kids)
Telephone: 25750647

Zahr El Laymoun – 360 Mall
Buffet Price: KD7.5
Telephone: 25309511

Update: Added more restaurants to the list

Anyone know where I can find seedless watermelons in Kuwait? Dean & Deluca used to carry them like three years ago.

Photo by gwenweber