Category: Kuwait

I’ve never liked Applebee’s because I never had a good experience there. Whatever I ordered I ended up hating and their menu just didn’t have as much variety as I wanted. Yesterday I passed by for the first time in over a year ago and things have changed considerably since my last visit. The menu has a lot more interesting stuff on it and probably the most shocking thing of all, I actually left the place satisfied and thinking about going back.

They had four burgers on their menu but I decided to go with the cheese burger since the other options were a classic burger with no cheese, a cheese burger with bacon, and the last burger was I think a Hawaiian burger with Pineapple (gross!). All the burgers are made using a 100% Angus Beef and cooked medium well.

My burger arrived 10-15 minutes after placing my order and after a few bites I realized that although the Applebee’s burger isn’t good enough to be a contender for the top spot, it was a pretty good burger. It tasted and smelled like it was grilled on a backyard barbecue which is a good thing because barbecued burgers always taste good. The burger was not super thick but was still very juicy and the cheese melted perfectly. Now one thing I found weird although it didn’t have an effect on the taste was that it felt like I was biting into a steak and not a burger. I don’t know if thats normal with Angus beef but it just felt weird.

Overall though there wasn’t much wrong with the burger. It didn’t have this “oh I need to have another one right now” taste to it which is why it didn’t score any higher. But it did score pretty high because I’m giving it a 3.5 out of 5 which puts it inline with the Fuddruckers burger. That alone is an achievement.

Applebee’s is located on the Gulf Road, Mishref and Souk Sharq.
The cost of the Angus Cheese Burger was KD2.150

Previously Reviewed:
Bredz
Fuddruckers
Hashi
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Prime & Toast
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
The Little Oven
Wimpy

A full list of local online stores. I will keep updating this post in the future whenever I find something new.

All in One
7arai
Kuwait Mall

Books
Ketaaby
Q8 Book Shop

Cars, Bikes and Boats
GCC Motors
Gulf Ride
Kuwait Cars
Q8 Boom
Q8 Car
Q8 HP
Q8 Showroom
Q8 RPM
Sell 11
Seyayer

Computers & Electronics
Click N’ Buy
Q8 Cost

Dessert
Dessert Kuwait
Choco Bite
Choowy Goowy
Little Treats
Pop Up

Fashion
3arabana
7ata 7eet
CASHART
Catalog Express
Catalog Plus
H&H Fashion
Fashion Addicts
La Merletto
Nafnofy
Nizaka
Oleana Boutique
Pink Moon Boutique
Powder Talk
Pret-A-Souk
Q8 Fasion
Raveena
She Style
Verona

Flowers
Q8 Flowers
Ward Q8

Food
6alabat
I Eat Online

Supermarket
Dekkany
Food Kuwait
Taw9eel

Thanks Half.Dead

The picture above is taken from someone’s flickr account and its of a diwaniya in Kuwait with cheetahs. Only in Kuwait? Marzouq you need to get a polar bear! [Link]

Thanks Nibaq

This video is of a couple who were dancing for some weird reason at the InfoConnect exhibition in February when a cop came in and took the guy away. Why was there loud music and dancing at an electronics fair?? [YouTube]

A few readers recommended I try the Hashi Wagyu burger so yesterday for lunch I passed by them. I had never been to Hashi so I was looking forward to trying them out.

The interior of Hashi looks like a warehouse thats been vandalized by graffiti which is a nice idea although one that I’ve seen before. They had two burgers on the menu and I decided to go with the Wagyu Beef Burger which is made from freshly ground Wagyu beef hamburger filled with wasabi creamed mushrooms.

When the burger arrived it reminded me a lot of the Munch burger. It was small and the bread looked generic so at first glance I was thinking to myself “not again”. Luckily the similarities stopped there because the burger tasted better than Munch. The meat Hashi use is of better quality and juicier. But, being better than Munch isn’t really a compliment, I felt the herbs mixed in with the beef really overpowered the burger and the small bread made things very sloppy. They also had tomato and iceberg lettuce which felt out of place, I don’t even know what it was doing there since the waiter told me there wouldn’t be any lettuce or tomato in the burger.

I no longer have patience for burgers that don’t have the basics at least right. Is it really that hard to make a good burger, come on people! I am going to give this burger a 2 out of 5. Now burger review aside I think Hashi is one of the cheapest sushi places in Kuwait. I ordered an 8 piece Lobster & Crab maki and it cost only KD2.750. That I think was the most expensive maki they had and on Fridays its even buy one maki and get one free. So I will be going back again to try some more makis but I won’t be having their burger again.

Hashi is located in front of Salhiya Complex.
The cost of the Wagyu Beef Burger was KD5.950

Previously Reviewed:
Bredz
Fuddruckers
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Prime & Toast
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
The Little Oven
Wimpy

I’ve been wanting to try out Macaroni Grill ever since I found out that their Spaghetti and Meatballs with Meat Sauce dish was voted the worst pasta dish in the US for having over 2400 calories. They opened up at The Avenues awhile back and tonight I finally got the chance to try the place out and its pretty cool. Since I got food poisoned from Johnny Carino’s I’ve been looking for a replacement and I think Macaroni Grill is it.

The service was very good, the atmosphere inside the place was very cozy and most importantly the Spaghetti and Meatballs dish was amazing. It really doesn’t taste like 2,430 calories! I’m definitely going back there again.

I’ve got a thing for hotel burgers. I guess its because burgers are the safest thing on the menu to have when traveling because no matter what country you’re in and you order a burger you know exactly what to expect. Now I don’t want to review all the hotel burgers in Kuwait so I decided to go with the one hotel which has never disappointed with their food, Sheraton. Some people say they’ve got the best shawerma and I wanted to see if they had the best burger.

They only have one burger on the menu and I ordered it medium well. When the burger arrived I think around 15 minutes later I was surprised to see that instead of one larger burger the dish was made up of two medium sized ones. They’re too big to be sliders but too small to be a regular burger, strange size but I didn’t care. The burger had cheese, tomato, chopped up lettuce and what looked to my like mayonnaise, I added ketchup myself and took my first bite. The beef tasted really fantastic and was cooked perfectly even though it was pretty thick. The only problem was everything else. The bread started falling apart half way through because it was getting really soggy and that made it very messy to eat. In the second burger I decided to remove the tomato in hopes of solving that problem but still, half way through the bread started getting soggy and falling apart again. I concluded it must be from the mayonnaise but I didn’t have a third burger to try my theory. The cheese although there and melted beautifully was nearly non existent taste wise. I think the cheese slices they use are too thin resulting in it melting better but not having enough presence to actually make a difference.

I think the Sheraton burger is the best hotel burger I’ve ever had. But outside the hotel circle the burger doesn’t shine. I’ve had better burgers since I’ve started this challenge and I’m expecting to have some more good ones. I’m going to have to give a 3 out of 5, a very respectable score.

Sheraton Hotel is located in Kuwait City.
The cost of the burger was KD5.600

I stopped by the TriStar dealer to drop off my new wheels to get painted since they have their own in house paint shop. While there I spotted the really really really sexy pearl white Ducati 848. I think its the hottest looking bike out there at the moment.

This post is for the Lebanese in Kuwait. I found this place next to my house called Toot that sells Picon and Smeds cheese. The Picon is 550fils for a small pack while the Smeds is for KD1.250.

Toot is located in Salmiya, if Jeita is on your right hand side keep going straight and take the right after Maroosh. Then keep going straight and you should see the place in your right hand side under the hotel.

Found out about this exhibit through Facebook:

The essence of living in an urban environment is the forced interaction between people of different social backgrounds, outlooks etc. In Kuwait, where pedestrian culture is nonexistent, people are trapped, encapsulated in bubbles: in walled-off homes, cars, diwaniyas and beach houses. Chronic boredom is rampant. Music video channels, for example, are mushrooming due to their role as a platform for anonymous public communication. Confessions of love and notes of introduction appear as scrolling text messages at the bottom of TV screens. Cruising is a lifestyle, where the geezi, the young, idle male, is the ultimate cruiser. What this show proposes is that everyone is a geezi, by cruising through the filters of the internet, TV, cellphone-to-cellphone Bluetooth technology and other forms of indirect contact.

A group show featuring the work of Khalid Al Gharaballi, Fatima Al Qadiri, Tareq Al Sultan, Bassem Mansour, Monira Al Qadiri, Lauren Boyle and The Bruce High-Quality Foundation.

Curated by Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid Al Gharaballi.

Event Info
Name: Eb Beiti, Aana Geezi
Tagline: “In my house, I’m a Cruiser”
Host: the sultan gallery
Type: Music/Arts – Exhibit

Time and Place
Start Time: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 6:00pm
End Time: Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 9:00pm
Location: the sultan gallery

Here is the map [Link]

When I read the title of the video I didn’t think they literally meant a Volvo over a Modena. This happened on the Gulf Road. [YouTube]

My second video of the day. This one is of some really large kites flying in Kuwait but the video is very trippy because of the music and the way some of the kites feel like living organisms. [YouTube]

I love the description of this video on YouTube:

kuwait special police force Arrests and beats evil makers in Kuwait

[YouTube]

I’ve been looking forward to Munch for a while now since I’ve been hearing a lot of good stuff about them. Sadly, my burger experience with them wasn’t that good.

I passed by Munch today for lunch and the whole Dar Al-Awadhi mall where Munch is located was empty. It was nice and peaceful and since the mall was empty so was Munch which was great since we ended up sitting in a very cozy corner. The interior of Munch is simple yet trendy and I like their color combination of white and green. We sat down and I flipped through the menu to find a choice of two burgers, the Kobe Beef Burger and the Classic Cheese Burger. I decided to go with the Kobe since someone had posted that I should try it.

I ordered my Kobe burger with swiss cheese and portobello mushrooms. The burger arrived 10 minutes later and at first glance it was disappointing. The burger looked like something I could have prepared at home. Looks aside the patty also tasted like a cheap COOP burger, if they had used the frozen Kobe burgers available at Sultan Center it would have been wayyy better. The bun also looked like the new burger buns from Kuwait Flour Mills which is very unexciting. I ate it but I wouldn’t have it again.

On a positive note the fries were great, the service was good and as I mentioned earlier the interior of the place was pretty cool. Actually service was not that good, I ordered my burger with a side order of fries and the waiter didn’t think to inform me that my burger actually came with fries. But anyway neither of these things can have an effect on the final score which is 1.5 out of 5. There really wasn’t anything great in the burger, it was also very small and just felt too home made. That can be a good thing but not when I can make a better burger myself.

Munch is located in Dar Al-Awadhi.
The cost of the Kobe Beef Burger is KD3.950

I was planning on having a burger at Applebee’s today when in the last minute plans changed and I ended up at Fuddruckers. Thats a good thing of course since Fuddruckers is one of my favorite burger places in Kuwait and they actually have my favorite burger, the Triple Cheeseburger. When I first decided on this burger challenge I had a winner already figured out in my head, it was going to be Fuddruckers. Things have changed though.

As I said my favorite burger is the Triple Cheeseburger so thats what I went ahead and ordered. At Fudd’s you can choose the thickness of your patty, I went with the half pounder cooked medium well. I’ve tried all the thicknesses and found the half pounder to be the perfect size for their bun. More places need to offer different thickness patties, especially the burger joints. Anyway the burger arrived open bun without any garnish, you then have to go up to the garnish bar and manually put whatever you want on your burger. I usually put just ketchup on my burger and hot melted cheddar cheese on the potato wedges which is what I did.

I think Fuddruckers might have the best classical burger and even though I had figured before this challenge that it would score the highest, I don’t think thats going to happen. I don’t think its exciting enough, I love it, I think its my favorite burger and although this doesn’t make sense I don’t think its THE best burger. I prefer the Black Widow for example and I also really like the Little Oven burger, two burgers which I hadn’t tried before this challenge. I also have a whole list of burgers I still need to try and I am expecting some really great ones. I really like the Fuddruckers burger bun and I think the beef patty is the perfect thickness although its pretty fatty. The size of the burger is also huge which is why it easily fills me. All this wasn’t enough to earn it the highest score. I am being super tough with these burger reviews so thats why I’m giving it a 3.5 out of 5.

I still have the following burgers I need to try, am I missing anything?
Gaucho Grill, Sheraton, Applebees, Chilis, Ruby Tuesday, Burger Hub, Burger Bar, Burger Boutique, Munch, GBK and Hashi.

Fuddruckers is located on the Gulf Road, their telephone number is 2460110
The cost of the 1/2lb Triple Cheese Burger is KD2.950