Category: Food & Drinks

I was having lunch at Leila when I noticed they had two new drinks on the menu and one of them was Diet Jellab. I love Jellab but haven’t been able to have it for ages since it was one of the things Fahad took off my diet along with my 5 spoons of sugar chai haleeb. But since this one is just 52 calories I’ll probably be sneaking a cup every now and then since it also tastes exactly the same as regular Jellab. Now someone needs to invent a diet quarter pounder with cheese.

Fahad just posted his extremely comprehensive ice cream post with his signature “Approved” and “Not Approved” rating system. You can check out his post [Here]

Summer is here and my bakala guy just installed a brand new freezer filled with beautifully arranged KDD ice cream. Since the KDD packaging doesn’t contain any nutritional information I decided to get all the calorie information from the KDD website and list it over here in one easy to read list. Now Fahad is putting together an ultimate ice cream guide but until that’s ready the list below should be useful. These are just some favorites arranged from the highest calorie count to the lowest.

Lulu 257 calories

Silver 222 calories

Gold 185 calories

Burgan 126 calories

Sandwich 91 calories

Failaka 61 calories

Sarokh 53 calories

Raspberry Lolly 49 calories

If your favorite KDD ice cream isn’t here you’ll find it on their [Website]

My buddy Essa just sent me pictures of their new location at Dubai Mall where they’ve opened right on top of the ice skating rink. So if you’re in Dubai make sure you pass by and try their cookies.

Yesterday I finally got the chance to pass by Elevation Burger at The Avenues. I had heard from a friend that they’re always packed so I tried to pass by early and got there around 1:45 which clearly wasn’t early enough since the place was already full. Luckily I found one table clearing up in a corner and had Nat wait at the table while I ordered at the cashier. The interior is pretty dull and kinda reminds me of a food court which is fine since it’s more like an upscale fast food joint then a restaurant but one thing that really bothered me was the lack of proper ventilation. I quickly tweeted that and the owner of the place replied saying they’re working on it. That’s great because I already have a hard time getting Nat to go to a burger place yet alone a burger place that will also make her smell like burgers.

I took a quick glance at the menu and right away knew what I was going to have. I ordered the Elevation Burger which is a double patty double cheese burger and added Elevation sauce to it, I also added a side order of french fries and a fountain drink. I took my receipt and went and waited for my order. A few minutes later my burger arrived and it looked really good. I quickly took my picture and then dug in. The burger was pretty thick, a lot thicker than it looks in the picture since after I picked up the burger I noticed the patty had slid down to the other side. Note to everyone, I love thick burgers. I took my first bite and in under a minute it was gone. I was originally worried the bun wouldn’t be soft enough but it was and it also did a good job of soaking up all the burger juice which there was a lot of. The beef patties were super greasy, by the time I was done with the burger there was a large pool of grease lying at the bottom of my plate. I thought the sauce could have been thicker since it was washing away with the grease but it might have been thick to start with and then got diluted with the grease I’m not sure. In any case the burger was good and I was considering ordering a second helping but since I still had my fries I decided not to.

I’m not a fan of their fries and wouldn’t order them again. If you’re a fan of home made fries you’ll like the Elevation ones but the next time I’m there I’ll be skipping the fries and ordering a second burger instead. The main direct competitor for Elevation burger right now at the Avenues is Johnny Rockets but in a few months time it’s also going to be Shake Shack. Would I go back? Yes I would. It’s located in a convenient location, it’s a no frills in and out dinning place with good burgers. The biggest issue really is their ventilation which is getting fixed this week. Elevation Burger is located outside in Avenues Phase II, on the top floor.

According to Arabian Business, Magnolia Bakery will be opening in Kuwait within the next 18 months. Magnolia are known for their cupcakes but I personally think they have an amazing chocolate swirl cheesecake. Whenever I passed by their New York locations they always had a queue of people lined up outside. In Dubai on the other hand whenever I passed by it was always empty which is obviously a lot more convenient.

So now we’re going to have Magnolia and The Hummingbird Bakery in Kuwait along with Shake Shack. It’s going to be hard to stick to my diet. [Link]

Thanks Lomo

I’ve been getting really bored of regular tuna and so when I found this John West packet at Sultan Center it looked like an interesting alternative. I checked the back label and it said I could heat it up in the microwave and it was just 156 calories. I bought a packet to try it out and it turned out to be actually pretty good. You just open the packet, empty the tuna onto a plate and microwave it for 30 seconds.

It looks extremely unappetizing but it actually tasted much better than regular tuna. Wouldn’t mind having a few packets at home for those late night cravings. The biggest issue though is price, 1 packet costs KD1.750 for the “Sweet Thai Red Chilli” although they did have different flavored ones for around 500fils cheaper.

I just found out that Alshaya are currently in negotiations to bring The Hummingbird Bakery to the region. The Hummingbird Bakery is based in London and they have the best Chocolate Devils Food Cake in the world. It’s an incredible place and I use their cookbook to make some amazing cookies and apple pies.

If you haven’t heard about The Hummingbird Bakery before, here is a link to their website [Link]

Note: Someone NEEDS to bring Ben’s Cookies to Kuwait. They already have a few branches in Saudi and they’re now opening up in Dubai as well. What about us over here??

There’s a cool little pizza place in Lebanon called Margherita thats open in the Gemmayze street. It turns out they’re opening up in Kuwait before the end of the year. I recently posted a review of Margherita on my other Lebanese blog [Here] but in summary, it’s not as good as Solo pizza but it should give all the other pizza places in Kuwait a run for their money.

Margherita is most likely going to open at the Arabella projects in Al Bedaa. I like pizza nearly as much as burgers so I think it’s great that new pizza places are opening.

Cocoa Room is officially launching tomorrow with a breakfast menu and p0ach managed to get a sneak peek. He’s got tons of pictures and everything just looks incredible. Check out his post [Here]

As I mentioned they will be starting with breakfast now for a few weeks and later introduce the full menu which will include some mouth watering items. I can’t wait!

Note: Cocoa Room is located right next to Slider Station

Ruby’s is one of my favorite places to eat and I noticed they’ve added new items on their menu and also increased their prices slightly. They now have 4 salads, 4 sandwiches, 4 pasta and 4 burgers. They’ve also added some breakfast items as well. I took a picture of the front of the menu which you can see [Here]

In case you missed my original post on Ruby’s here is the [Link]

Note: Ruby’s is NOT Ruby Tuesday.

Update: Here is their full menu as PDF [Link]

Earlier in the week someone from the KitchenAid dealer in Kuwait sent me an email thanking me for my post on their mixer. They person also asked me if I would be interested in trying the mixer out and since I like to bake I was like sure why not. So the next day they had a delivery guy drop off a pretty black mixer for me to try out.

There are two things that grabbed my attention right away. The first is how heavy the damn thing is. The mixer not only has a solid metal base but the upper body is also made of metal and even all the switches. The second thing I noticed was the Made in USA marking. I knew KitchenAid was an American company but I didn’t think they actually made the mixers in the US.

I was originally planning to bake a triple layered chocolate cake but decided instead to bake cookies since I’ve made cookies a lot of times before and so would be able to compare this mixer to previous mixers I’ve used. Instead of my usual cookie recipe I decided to try a new one from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I’m not going to share the recipe here, if you want it then buy the book and support them. Anyway, those of you who follow me on twitter know by now that the cookies I baked turned out to be delicious! Even though The Hummingbird Bakery recipe was pretty similar to my old recipe the little changes they made were enough to turn my fairly good cookies into amazingly good ones. I was originally planning to eat just one cookie but ended up eating like a dozen!

Working with the KitchenAid mixer was very easy. I’m pretty aggressive when I mix (I like mixing at full blast) and by the time I add in all the flour and sugar the mixer usually starts to bounce around and I need to kinda hold it down or lower the speed to stabilize it again. With the KitchenAid it just breezed through the process without a sweat. It didn’t even do a little hop or shake a bit. The mixer is just really well built and I love how it looks. They come in a ton of colors but the most popular one I’ve seen is the Empire Red. The black one is nice and evil looking though.

I really loved the cookies and I really love the KitchenAid Mixer so it’s going to be sad to give it back. If you’re interested, the dealer is called Mabrook and their phone number is 24818242.

If you want the cookbook I used it’s available on [Amazon]

The Arabic says “Food for dieting”. Not sure what kind of diet that is but if you’re reading this Fahad, that’s the diet I want to be on!

A reader posted in the forum asking here he could find Matabbag in Kuwait. I hadn’t heard of it before but it looks and sounds pretty good so now I’m curious to try it. Where can I find Matabbag in Kuwait?

Note: According to the reader, Matabbag is very popular in Saudi Arabia, it’s made using thin bread dough and contains a mix of minced meat, egg and spices inside.

Around a month ago I found a video on YouTube of a guy in Kuwait making pizzas and since then I’ve been eagerly waiting for them to open up. I’m a huge pizza fan and the pizzas in the video all looked delicious but they hadn’t opened the restaurant yet and so I had to wait. Then a few days ago while I was in Lebanon I get an email saying they’re opening on the 15th but since I was busy yesterday I decided to pass by tonight instead to try them out.

Solo Pizza Napulitana is a new small Kuwaiti owned business that’s located in an old building in Kuwait City right behind the newly opened Japanese restaurant Tatami. From the outside it doesn’t look very appealing and on the inside it’s honestly not that great looking either. But the restaurant is as close as you will get to a mom and pop store in Kuwait. This is not a franchise, this is not a big business, this a tiny pizza joint where the owner makes the pizzas and from what I could tell his friends help him out waiting on tables and taking care of the payments.

I passed by after the gym in my shorts and t-shirt expecting the place to be empty but to my surprise it was pretty packed. I decided to sit on the one table outside but no one served me. So after growing impatient I popped my head inside and asked if I could have a menu. A minute later I got the menu which is pretty small, I think they had only 3 pizzas and 3 salads and maybe 2 desserts. I’m a fan of small menus as I’ve mentioned before and I quickly looked through it and decided to go with the Margherita since I couldn’t find a mushroom pizza on the menu. A few minutes passed by and no one came to get my order so I decided to move inside. I was seriously thinking of just leaving since I didn’t want to wait indefinitely for someone to come get my order but I kept reminding myself that they’ve only been open for 2 days and they’re already packed and probably not prepared for this much pressure. Finally a guy came over and was very apologetic for making me waiting very long. I told him it wasn’t a problem and asked him if they had mushroom pizza. He told me they did so I decided to go with that. From my table I could see the owner prepare my pizza and around 2 minutes after taking my order my pizza arrived. I was thinking to myself that’s ridiculously fast!

The pizza wasn’t sliced up which I thought was interesting since I don’t think I’ve ever had a pizza that didn’t come cut up into triangles. I took some shots quickly and then dug in. What a pizza, it was ammmaaaazing. The pizza crust, the tomato sauce, the cheese, the mushrooms… it was all just delicious and I couldn’t find anything to pick on. I was eating it and thinking to myself where have I ever tasted a pizza that was as good as this and I couldn’t think of any place. I mean sure we don’t have many pizza places in Kuwait to compare to but I’ve had a ton of pizzas in Lebanon and I even just got back from a trip where I tried two new great pizza places over there and yet here I was sitting in this tiny little restaurant in some dodgy back street of Kuwait City having what I thought was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had anywhere.

Once I was done with my pizza and I paid my bill (KD3.750 for the pizza), I decided to go up to the owner and introduce myself. I told him what I thought of his pizzas and he explained to me how he worked at some famous pizzerias in Naples and how he belongs to this group that’s trying to preserve the famous Naples pizza. He also asked me if I noticed how quickly the pizza gets done since it takes less than 60 seconds to cook. I wished him good luck and told him I would definitely be back again.

So if you are looking for what I think are the best pizzas in Kuwait then you need to pass by this place. It’s in a crappy location, it’s tiny and the interior isn’t that great looking but damn the pizza is just really great. Here is a link to their website where you can find a map and a phone number. They’re currently only open for dinner. [Link]