Category: Kuwait

Two nights ago while sitting with friends for dinner I was told to try out the Iranian kebabs at Malak Sajj in Souk al Moubarakiya… the old souk in Kuwait City. So yesterday for lunch I went with 2 friends to try it and it turned out to be fairly decent.

The place is located in like the food court of the renovated old souk. There is only open air seating but the weather was really good so it wasn’t a problem. Once we sat down a waiter came and asked us what we wanted. They don’t have a menu so the guy just verbally tells you what they have. Everyone ordered something, I ordered a plate of kebabs, a plate of hummus and a coke. While we were waiting for our main course they gave us complimentary soup of the day. A few minutes later our food arrived with a lot of Iranian bread on the side.

The kebab was pretty good and filling. The hummus wasn’t bad either except a fly fell into it and drowned in the oil so we had to maneuver our bread around it. I didn’t like the soup but it was free so it really didn’t matter. Now I was told this was the best kebab in Kuwait so I was expecting it to be the best, but it wasn’t. The kebabs were good but not better then Baba Taher or Kebab 7ejat.

A ma3oon of kebab which is made of 3 kebabs cost only KD1. hummus cost 500fils and the Pepsi 100fils. Service also was good, fast and friendly. A nice combination.

Now for the final rating. I was having trouble deciding what to give it but in the end I decided I would give it a 3.5 out of 5. The kebab was nothing to write home about but the service, speed, friendliness and the price helped keep the score up. Also I tried a piece of chicken taouk from a friend and it tasted pretty good. I would probably visit Malak Sajj again but not before I try the fish and chips from Sha6er 3abbas which is also located in the same place.

Today morning on my way to work I noticed there was a demonstration outside the House of Parliament. I don’t know what they are demonstrating but I hope they are trying to legalize alcohol.

Geo our dog turns one today. We didn’t know what to get him as a gift at first but in the end we settled for honey roasted turkey breast from Sultan Center. My previous dog was easier to shop for, he would like anything to do with cheese. Geo on the other hand is very picky and has no patience so his gift had to be something he doesn’t have too often but wishes he did and something that he could eat quickly. He loved his gift, I think its his favorite treat.

Yesterday Geo gave us a bit of a scare. It got really swollen under his left eye and we had to take him to the vet. Luckily it turned out to be an insect bite and nothing major. While there we saw a huge Saint Bernard and when he came towards Geo I thought he was either gonna eat him or step on him. Geo isn’t small but the Saint Bernard is just really big and heavy.

I was also checking out Geo’s breeders website and it turned out 10 days ago new puppies were born. I was really tempted on getting another one but I didn’t, if I had a garden I would probably have ordered another dog but the way things are now, one is all I have room for. Whats cool is Geo got an email from his breeders back in Belgium wishing him a Happy Birthday. Such friendly and caring people. You can check out their site but its not in English. Lots of pictures though. [Link]

I was talking to one of the owners of Choowy Goowy when we ended up talking about different kinds of cookies and what cookies I would make if I had a bakery. One thing led to another and basically me and Nat are now invited to create our own cookies. Tomorrow evening we will be visiting the Choowy Goowy bakery and with their help we will be creating our own cookies. We will experiment with a variety of flavors and ideas and our best creation will be sold by Choowy Goowy for a limited time.

Now I have a lot of ideas for cookies but I thought I would share them with you guys first. Some sound strange but I want to do them out of curiosity and they might even end up tasting good:

– Cookie with a soft nutella chocolate core
– Pizza Cookies. Cookie dough mixed with tomato paste and stuffed with mushrooms and olives
– 4 Cheese cookies
– Chocolate chip cookie dipped in chocolate sauce
– Rice krispy cookies
– Plain cookie dipped in chocolate sauce topped with cornflakes
– Tempura cookies
– A healthy cookie probably stuffed with broccoli and something
– Bubblegum flavored cookies
– Zaatar cookies
– Cookies with cocopuffs
– Oreo cookies
– Choco-Banana cookies

After sharing my ideas with the Choowy Goowy guy I felt he was going to take his invite back. Luckily he didn’t or should I say hasn’t yet. I will continue brainstorming on some cookie ideas and might add more to the list.

Just found out about this new blog by 3baid called the Kuwait Paper Dump. The idea behind the site is to create a sort of archive for all the paper leaflets, brochures and take-away menus you find on your doorstep or on your car windshield for example. It would have been cooler if he set it up on WordPress since then we could search through the leaflets using tags or a search engine. [Link]

This very unappetizing picture is of a Shrimpy meal which K.theKuwaiti ordered. Although I have been craving Shrimpy for a while now, after reading his story and seeing the pictures I think I will focus my attention back to donuts or cookies. They should never have shut down Long John Silvers, it was like a better version of Shrimpy. Anyway you can read his experience by visiting his site. [Link]

Who makes the best fish and chips in Kuwait?

note: title of this post is an inside joke which no one will get

On my way home tonight I decided to pass by the Al Zayanni dealership to check out the new Bugatti. Turns out the Bugatti left Kuwait two days ago and is now in Saudi Arabia. I asked the salesman if anyone purchased the Bugatti, he told me there was one guy who was interested but nothing is final yet. I asked him if the Bugatti was going to come back to Kuwait, he replied telling me if the guy who was interested in the car buys it then you will see it again in Kuwait. The price of the car was exactly KD400,000. The money would be payable directly to Bugatti. I think Al Zayanni just lent out their showroom to Bugatti who I am guessing are touring the Gulf trying to sell the cars.

I passed by IKEA earlier tonight, the new one which is located at the Avenues Mall. It IS huge, very huge. I really liked the new place, the whole mall although still closed looks massive. The most noticable update at IKEA has to be the restaurant, its now around 4 or 5 times larger then it was before. Actually what am I saying, the whole place is like 4 times larger. Its now a really long walk from the beginning till the end.

I had dinner at the IKEA restaurant, Chicken Masala with Rice. It was pretty good but to help paint a picture on how big the new IKEA is, by the time I got to the exit I was hungry again and ended up ordering food from the snack stand near the exit. The new snack stand by the way is a huge improvement over the old one. Other then corn, ice cream, and hotdogs they now have shawerma. I decided to order one just to try it, I would probably give it a 3 out of 5, still need to pass by and try it one more time before I can give my final score though.

The biggest change in the new IKEA is that you now have to pick up your packages yourself just before you get to the cashier. You enter this huge warehouse like room and its just shelves and shelves of packed goods. Someone told me IKEA did this to bring down the prices of the products by 10%. Whatever their reason I know many people will not like the fact that they now have to do manual labor. I took a picture of one of the shelves which you can view by clicking [Here]

Overall I think its a really great improvement. Although I really liked the old IKEA I think the new one is better in every way.

Marzouq posted pictures and prices of the PS3 and Wii in Rihab Complex. As you can imagine the prices at the moment are extremely high.

Sony PS3 60 GB (Jap Version)
Price: 450KD

Sony PS3 60 GB (US Version)
Price: 750KD

Nintendo Wii
Price: 250KD

1KD = $3.45 / €2.68

Yeah I know I just posted that I wouldn’t post today but then I remembered I needed to post this. LG have a 71inch plasma TV with home theater setup thats gold plated. Its currently displayed at their Salmiya branch adjacent to Alghanim Electronics. Its a really ugly setup as you can see and in person it also looks pretty cheap.

Can you guess how much it costs?

The LG setup you see in the picture above costs KD25,000! Its just ridiculous, not only that but its a display model. If I was the store manager I wouldn’t have a KD25,000 TV on display where everyone can come in and touch it, that would depreciate its value. If I a buyer on the other hand and was planning on splashing out KD25,000 I wouldn’t want a display model.. I wouldn’t want an LG either!

So me and some friends from work were leaving Souk Sharq at 2 after lunch to get back to the office when it turned out the cops had closed all the exits. The cop told us no one would be allowed to leave the Souk Sharq parking lot for around an hour because the Doha Asian Games torch was passing by on the Gulf Road.

So we parked the car and just hung out next to the cops on the side of the road. Nibaq was with us since he had met up with us for lunch. We just hung around chilling for like 15 minutes before we noticed a bus and an Hummer stop by us and drop off a guy with an unlit torch. Then a few minutes later down the road we noticed a huge convoy coming closer slowly. Nibaq had a camera and he took some pictures of what we saw. Basically there was some guy running with a lit torch and all the cars around him were driving slow and cheering him on. Once the guy got to the other guy with the unlit torch, he passed on the flame and then the other guy started running. It was basically a torch relay but it looked like they were dropping guys off every 100 meters.

After they passed, the Gulf Road remained closed for another 30 minutes. It was crazy, most of the people at Souk Sharq wanted to get back to work but like us they were just stuck there for a full hour. Finally at 3PM they opened the roads and we drove back to the office.

The shot above was taken by Nibaq, he also took more shots which you can see by clicking [Here]

Late last month I posted about how Showtime were still taking money from me every month even though I canceled my account. Well I finally spoke to a guy at Showtime who told me he would solve my problem by making sure they cancel my subscription and then refund me two months worth of subscription fees by the next day. I was like fine, great.

A few days later I call the guy up again telling him that I still hadn’t received the refund. He told me he had deposited the money into my account and it should be there. After further investigation it turns out the guy deposited my refund in the wrong account! He told me that its too late now and he couldn’t take it back and that I should contact the other person and try to get my money off of him. I told him I wouldn’t do that and that he should solve the problem. He then sarcastically told me fine, he would pay me the refund from his salary. I was like whatever you want to do, do it. I just want my refund.

Since that day I haven’t been able to get a hold of the guy again. He won’t return my calls and I have been leaving messages on his voice mail and still no reply. I don’t think my troubles with Showtime will ever finish.

update: I just got off the phone with the COO of Global Direct. He told me I will get my refund within the next 2 days. I told him that it wasn’t about the money but the actual process I had to go through to get my account canceled. He assured me that Showtime was going through a major restructuring of the customer service department and all the problems I faced will be fixed.

A friend just told me that Al-Zayani has 3 Bugatti’s for sale in Kuwait. Can’t wait to see one out on the streets. It would be pretty cool if the Gulf Road gets flooded with Bugatti’s the same way Lamborghini’s are currently seen everywhere.

Note: Picture taken by bo9agr

Just finished checking in to my flight. Airport security today is just overboard. Jazeera Airways and British Airways check in stations are located in the same area and it seems because of British Airways security was extremely tough… not the usual laid back chatting with friends while ignoring the metal detector beeps. I had to actually take off my belt while some other guys were told to remove their shoes. Had to wait over 30 minutes in the security check line. Usually the lack of decent security at the Kuwait Airport pisses me off, but after seeing what good security involves, I am glad we lack security “most of the time”.

Both GAP and Banana Republic will be opening up at the new Avenues mall early next year. Although I am not a fan of either of them but at least they are new brands in Kuwait.