Category: Kuwait

Nathans is opening at Souk Sharq adjacent to McDonalds. I think they already have a branch in Kuwait but its located in some obscure area. They have really good hotdogs so I can’t wait till they open up.

I was just informed that it is now official, starting October 1st, Friday and Saturday will be the official days off.

update: seems this was just a rumor that spread around

I was just checking the blog story from KUWAIT and he has a Kuwait Airways advert which says they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and South Africa. That didn’t sound right, I figured maybe since the headline of the ad says “Our last victory” it could be a victory from the 80’s or something. So, I went and checked the Kuwait Airways website and guess what, I found a press release from late May stating they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and North Africa! How did that happen? They must have been the only airline that participated. Also notice their ad says South Africa but their website says North Africa.

Kuwait Airways ad on story from Kuwait [Link]
Press release on Kuwait Airways website [Link]

Saw the funniest thing today on my way back from Marina Mall. A large bus with Bahrain Limo written on the side was parked on the side of the road and a bunch of Bahraini tourists were getting out. Makes me wonder how boring Bahrain must be for people there to be coming to Kuwait for tourism.

I passed by Dunkin Donuts earlier tonight. I wasn’t planning to since I imagined the place to be extremely packed as it was the opening night but as I was on my way to Sultan Center I decided to pass by and check it out. As I was walking towards Dunkin I was expecting to find a long queue outside the place of people wanting to get in. Surprisingly there was no queue, in fact, there was no queue inside even. I guess not many people care about it here in Kuwait which isn’t a good sign considering Dunkin Donuts opened up in the most jinxed place on that street. Tons of places ranging from restaurants to a music shop opened and closed in that location numerous times giving it the jinxed title.

First the good news, the donuts taste great, they taste exactly like Dunkin Donuts anywhere else. Thats the only thing positive I could think of, so lets get started with the negatives. I go to Dunkin Donuts not for their donuts but for their amazing sandwiches, my favorite being the egg, cheese and ham in croissant heated up in the microwave. They don’t have it here! Its probably not a big deal for like 99% of their customers but I was really disappointed, its the only thing I used to have there. Other then that the Pepsi comes in cans which sucks, not only that but its the small 250ml cans even! They also had a DJ for some odd reason and he was playing Arabic music! Finally probably the worst thing is that they are not open 24 hours! They open from 7AM to 1AM meaning no passing by at 2:48AM for late night munchies.

So for first impression it wasn’t very positive but they did just open today so I am sure they are still working on stuff like buying a regular coke machine. Price for a donut is 350fils. For 1KD you get 2 donuts and a coffee. I am definitely going back there again and I hope in the future they do start making the egg cheese and ham sandwich.

I found this pretty strange.

Just tried the new slider at Burger Boutique called Midnight and wow it was just amazing. Its my favorite slider they have at the moment.

Note: A slider is a small bite size burger

Q80-Chill Girl just posted that Dunkin Donuts will be opening this Tuesday the 29th of August at noon time. She was even lucky enough to attend the pre-opening. For more information and pictures click [Here]

note: Picture above by Moey, more of his pictures available [Here]

On Thursday night k.thekuwaiti and Nibaq picked me up to go have dinner at Al-Ghader in Salwa. Many people were recommending I try Al-Ghader shawerma so I really was looking forward to it.

The place isn’t easy to locate but I will give it a shot. You know the street in Salwa where you have the Salwa co-op, police station and gas station? Well if all of those are on your right hand side and you are driving towards the Fahaheel Expressway, take the last right on this street just before the traffic light. Then, drive straight and take your 6th right. Then drive in a bit until you find Al-Ghader on your right hand side. Here it is on Google Maps.

The shawerma tasted very similar to Badar Al Badoor’s. It had the same taste which I liked except that Al-Ghader was much more stingier. The portion of chicken in the shawerma was half the amount of Badar Al Badoor’s. That kinda sucked since the taste of the bread was over powering the chicken. On a positive note though, Al-Ghader’s garlic tasted slightly better than Badar Al badoor’s but it wasn’t enough of a flavor difference to make the sandwich better. By default they put garlic, pickles and tomato in the shawerma but I had mine just with just garlic. The price of the shawerma is also 250fils. The place was very packed but it wasn’t all on the shawerma, they have a nice variety of food at the place and people were spread evenly across them.

Al-Ghader has good shawerma and if you are located near it then its worth the drive to have it. But, if you have a choice between Al-Ghader and Badar Al Badoor then I would recommend the later since you are basically getting the same shawerma just more of it for the same price. This is why the final score for Al-Ghader’s shawerma is 3.5 out of 5.

update: Since writing this review I’ve frequented Al-Ghader numerous of times and if I was to write the review today I would give it a 4 out of 5.

Today morning I went with Nat and the mandoob from TriStar to get our motorbike learners permit. I don’t know what mandoob is in English, but he is basically the guy who helps out with government paperwork. Todays experience like most government related work was exhausting, and the terrible humid weather didn’t help.

I picked up the mandoob at 9:30 and we headed to the Hawlly Traffic Department located in Jabriya. First place we went to inside was the typing room, there you give some guys your documents and for 1KD they fill out the forms for you on the computer and then print them out. Once we got the forms we headed into another much larger room filled with chairs and numbered booths. We headed to the very far end where we waited inline to get our papers signed by a high ranking police officer. This guy was very nice, he took a look at Nats form and he was like in English “you want to drive bicycle?” she was like yeah I want to ride a motorbike. He then proceeded to explain to her how driving in Kuwait is not easy and that if you are in a car its really dangerous so you can imagine how dangerous riding a bike is. He was like I could sign this paper for you if you want but I wouldn’t recommend it, she told him sign it please and he did. After that he told us we needed to go to Qurtoba to get an eye test so we left the place and headed there.

Once we got to Qurtoba I was worried I would fail the eye test. My vision isn’t perfect, I wear glasses when I am in front of the computer but I should be wearing them the whole time. Nat also has glasses which she wears in front of the computer and TV so she was worried she would fail too. So we go into the building and give in our forms and wait for our turn. 5 minutes later they call Nats name and she goes in for the test. A minute later she comes out telling me she passed although she made a mistake, her score was 24/6 for her left eye and 6/6 for her right. They called my name next and I went in. I don’t think I have seen an older eye test setup before. You sit in an old wooden school chair on one side of a room with a tall white plastic lamp behind you with the letters stuck onto it. You look ahead into a mirror stuck on the wall, cover an eye and read out the letters. It was really easy since they let me read out the big sized letters so I aced it with a score of 6/6 for both eyes. They signed the papers and we headed back to Hawally.

The weather was incredibly hot and humid and traffic was a bitch but we got to the traffic department and went back into the big room again back to the nice high ranking cop. He looked at the papers and told us to go to counter number 1. I get to counter 1 show him my papers only to have them rejected. The guy told me because I got my eye test today I needed to come back tomorrow to get the learners permit. I told him why do I have to do that, can’t I just get the permit done today? He was like come back tomorrow. So we were leaving the place when the high ranking cop asks us if we were done. I told him what the guy at counter 1 told us, he seemed irritated at the guy and took out some stamps from his pocket and stamped and signed out papers. He told us we needed to get a 10KD postage stamp and head over to counter 7. We got the stamps and headed to counter 7 where a guy took all our papers and filled them into the computer. He then told us to go get our pictures taken at the far end of the room.

There was a young woman sitting in a small room with a computer, a scanner and a small Canon digital camera attached to a cheap tripod. She told us to sit on the chair in front of the camera and she took our pictures. She then sent us back to counter 7. We got there and the guy started printing out our learners permit on his HP color laser printer. Although all the equipment they were using were off the shelf consumer electronics it was still cool that they were doing this. Finally the guy sent us to office 20, yes office, thats where the highest ranking official is located, we gave him our freshly printed learners permit and he signed it and we were done.

The whole process took around 2 hours and cost us KD11 per person. I am not sure but I am guessing this is the same process for getting cars learner permit. Below you will find some helpful information like papers needed and google map of the locations.

Papers needed for motorbike learners permit:
– 2 photographs, 3×4
– Work permit copy
– Passport copy (picture and visa page)
– Civil ID copy
– Driving license copy (if you dont have it then I believe you are required to do a medical test)

Location Maps:
– Hawally Traffic Department
– Qurtoba eye test place

Did anyone notice they changed the color of the KTV building? It used to be green but now its blue. Here is another more clearer shot. [Picture]

I went to Fusion last night in Galleria 2000 with Z District. The place is pretty cool and the food is really good but the highlight of night had to be the Ice Tea. It was just the best Ice Tea I had ever had. Its really really good and very fruity and refreshing. Its kinda surprising that a Japanese place has the best Ice Tea I have had in Kuwait.

A friend of mine is looking for a roommate flatmate. He lives in Salmiya behind AUK in a 2 bedroom flat and wants to rent out one of the rooms. Wireless internet is available since his neighbors don’t have their network secured. There is satellite TV in the apartment but he also gets the latest TV shows including Prison Break, Lost, Nip/Tuck and So you think you can dance so there is always something to watch. There is a bakala and laundromat under the building. The building is also located in walking distance to a gym and Sultan Center. Room is available for KD100 a month. If you are interested send an email to [email protected]

This past weekend I had chicken shawerma twice from Badar Al Badoor. Some people had told me the place had the best shawerma in Kuwait so I had to try it out and I wasn’t disappointed.

I passed by Thursday night around 8ish and the place was packed. I parked my car and went down and ordered 3 shawermas and a coke. By default they put garlic, tomato and chicken in the shawerma and I decided to try it like that. They use samoon bread (the hotdog bread) which is my favorite when it comes to shawermas. After 5 minutes of waiting I got my shawerma and went back to my car to eat. My first impression was a mixed one. The shawerma was good but something was off and I concluded it was the tomatoes, they just made the sandwich a bit too moist and ao I decided I would try it again the next night without them.

Friday night also around 8ish I went back to Badar Al Badoor. The place was even more packed then the previous night but I went ahead and ordered 2 shawermas without tomatoes. 5 minutes later I was back in my car eating my shawermas and realizing that the tomatoes definitely were the problem. The shawermas tasted much better without them and I could taste the garlic even better.

So how did they rate? Well I wouldn’t call them the best shawermas in Kuwait, so far my best experience has been with Sajj House. Badar Al Badoor shawermas are very normal which is a very good thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them, the bread, the garlic, the chicken, it all tastes good but just lacks the tiny bit of extra oomph to make the shawerma extra special. From all the hole in the wall shawerma places I have tried Badar Al Badoor is the best so far, its just lacking a signature flavor. The shawermas cost 250 fils which is standard with shawerma places in this class so overall the final score is a 4 out of 5. Now I need to try the shawerma place in Salwa which many people were recommending.

Badar Al Badoor directions [Link]

update: Since I posted this review a few months ago I have been back to Badar Al Badoor numerous of times and I have to say the shawermas have gotten much better. If I was to review Badar Al Badoor today I would give it a 4.5 or even a 5. Its currently my favorite shawerma place.

When I was in high school the scariest word to me was maba7es. Ten years later and the scariest word to me is still maba7es. I just sent in my article to KTM magazine yesterday and a few minutes ago I get a phone call from them telling me that my article is illegal and if they go ahead and print it I might get a visit from the maba7es. They wanted to know if I was OK with the risk. I told them I would think about it and give them a call back tomorrow with my answer. A very nice start to my journalistic career.