Category: Kuwait

I am a big fan of Gulf Royal Chinese Restaurant, you know, the one located in the Marina Mall food court. Anyone who is a regular there recently would have noticed that the prices were increased. A combo before that cost KD1.750 now costs KD1.850. The combo that cost KD2 before now costs KD2.150. It seemed acceptable and reasonable with all the recent price increase in the market.

So this is where the story gets interesting, yesterday I went to Souk Salmiya since I needed to pass by the appliance section in City Center. When I was done I was hungry so I figured I would go have Chinese at the Gulf Royal Chinese located at the Souk Salmiya food court. I go up, I order the exact same thing as I always do (sweet & sour chicken, Kindu chicken and rice) and I give the guy KD2 and he gives me back 250fils. I check out the price on the menu and its STILL KD1.750. So I ask the guy “what the prices are cheaper here then Marina Mall?” and he tells me yeah they are.

I found that odd. Usually when a franchise increases their prices they increase them at all the branches. So how come it costs more to eat at the Marina Mall then it does at the Souk Salmiya one? I am sure it costs more rent at Marina but they also get wayyy more foot traffic. And if you increased the price at Marina wouldn’t you just as well increase the price at your other branches to make them unified? Is it because people who visit Marina Mall have more money? I am not really complaining here but I am curious..

Just loaded up the Watani Online page and noticed a banner stating WOL now supports Firefox. Finally! [Link]

zMacShop just emailed me a list of prices of some of their products.
Here they are:

iPod Video 60GB – KD130 KD138
iPod Video 30GB – KD115
iPod Nano 4GB – KD85
iPod Nano 2GB – KD75
iPod Nano 1GB – KD55

MacBook Pro 17inch – KD975
MacBook Pro 15inch (2.16Ghz) – KD890
MacBook White (2Ghz) – KD490

Its so easy to order from Hardees on the phone.

Me: Hello
Hardees: Hi
Me: I would like to place an order
Hardees: Is this Mark?
Me: Yes, I want the same order like last time
Hardees: Roast beef N Chedder combo with crispy fries, Chili hot dog sandwich and a cookie?
Me: Yes
Hardees: Total is KD2.350 and he will be there in 35 minutes
Me: Thanks bye

There was a fire again in one of the trash bins behind my building. This time though there was this one Egyptian worker trying to put the fire out. First he came with a fire extinguisher and it didn’t really do much. Then he went and got a shovel and started throwing sand at it which excited some of the kids who joined in by throwing rocks at the fire. 20 minutes later the guy was able to put out the fire surprisingly, I think he must have been the reason the fire started since there is no other explanation to why he spent 20 minutes throwing sand into a fire in this hot weather. 10 minutes after the fire was put out the fire trucks arrived, fashionably late as usual..

Here are links to two previous times I posted about this same trash:
Link 1 and Link 2

I was flipping through some blogs when I landed on Flippa X’s post on Burger Boutique. The post opened up my appetite and 30 minutes later I was at Burger Boutique having dinner. I thought that was pretty interesting because I don’t do that with magazines. I never read a food article in a magazine and then acted upon it. With blogs I have done it a bunch of times already. Although this might sound strange but I think the reason is I find blogs more credible then magazines, or should I say more real..

Todays newspapers are hillarious, you barely have any articles in them they are just packed with election ads. Check out this video I shot. [Video]

I don’t usually have postive things to say about Mac & More but today I passed by them and turned out they had 2 Black MacBooks. They were already sold to clients and they were busy installing software on them but atleast Nat was able to see in person how the black MacBook looked like. She told her PowerBook and was considering either the 2ghz white MacBook, the 2ghz black Macbook or the 1.8ghz MacBook Pro. The prices between the three were very close, $1300, $1500 and $1800.

Well the blackbook turned out to be pretty boring. It just looks like an ordinary computer which wasn’t very exciting. This instantly took the black book out of the picture and Nats options were either the 2ghz $1300 white MacBook or the $1800 1.8ghz MacBook Pro. $500 difference for a larger screen… not worth it. So I just placed an order for the white book.

Something funny happened while at the Mac store. One employee saw me taking a picture of the black book and he asked me if I had a problem. I thought that was weird cuz the correct question would have been why are you taking a picture? Anyway I replied back asking him if he had a problem. He was like no he was wondering if I had a problem because I was taking pictures. I asked him why is that a problem? He was like no. I was like o..k.. weird.

It’s hard to write this review because whatever positive thing I will say people will assume its because I got it for free or I am just kissing ass to get more free stuff. This is not true and I will tell you why…

Usually someone emails me or calls me asking for my office address so they can send me stuff. It could be anything from Donuts like today or vouchers for dinner like last week. The first thing I tell these people is that if I end up not liking your product then I won’t post about it. If your product turns out crap I will just not mention it at all on the site. On the other hand if its good I will post about it and try to encourage people to try it. The reason I don’t post negative reviews of items I get for free is simply to keep getting more stuff for free. I wouldn’t want to scare away people and I want to continue trying new stuff so that I could share it with my readers.

Now the reason I said all the above is to prepare you for what I am about to say now. I am a big fan of Dunkin Donuts and my favorite two donuts there are the glazed and the cholcolate. Today I had the “Choco Mallow Frost” from Go Nuts Donuts which is pictured above and its basically a chocolate donut with marshmallow and nuts on top. I have to say this donut was better then the chocolate donut at Dunkin. Its that fucking good. I never tried Krispy Kreme so I can’t compare to that but I have tried Planet Donuts, Donut King and La Baguette’s donuts and I can easily say they suck compared to Go Nuts.

Usually I have one donut and feel like I overdosed on sugar but today I had two of those Choco Mallow Frost and I didn’t feel sick at all. At first I thought maybe its me, maybe I have a bizzaro donut taste issue, but every time someone took a bite out of their donuts in the office all you would hear is hmmmm. So its not just me, the donuts are actually really good.

I was really not expecting these donuts to be good or for me to even end up posting about them. But, the donuts are good and the only thing lacking I think is a location in Salmiya near Starbucks and Johnny Rockets. The thing is people don’t just go to Dunkin Donuts for the food, they go there to chill out and waste time. Currently Go Nuts is located in Hawalli in the new Al-Bahr Center that just opened. Take it I haven’t been to that mall yet but I have been to Hawalli and I don’t want to go there unless its an emergency. Now the good thing is they deliver.. wherever you are. If you want to have a dozen donuts for breakfast and you work in Kuwait City, just call them up and they will deliver it to you. As a final score I am going to give them a 4 out of 5. Give them a call and try them out. Their telephone number is 2670671 or 72.

Jabriya Canidate (District 10) Jamal Al-Omar is caught buying votes on video.

Link to Sa7at Al-Safat
Link to YouTube
Download WMV Video

[source K.theKuwaiti]

Go Nuts Donuts just sent me 2 dozen donuts to my office to try out. I am now waiting for the rest of the team to come in so we can dig into them. So far I have my eye on the chocolate donut with marshmallows.

After I posted the picture of the new Escalade earlier in the month I got a phone call from Alghanim Automotive marketing people telling me I could take the car out for a ride. So yesterday I took it for a ride and wow what a ride.

The first thing I noticed once I got into the car was how beautiful the interior was. As I mentioned before, unlike the old Escalade who’s interior I found extremely boring and “American”, the new Escalade is much more cleaner and very European. The interior detailing is extraordinary and extremely comforting on the eye. It’s really a huge leap over the old one. The drivers seat was also extremely comfortable and I was quickly able to adjust it and the mirrors before I left the dealership.

I took the car out to the Gulf Road and went cruising. The engine is unbelievable, with over 400HP it just wants to go faster and faster. I had a hard time keeping it at 80KM/h, there is just soo much power in it that a slight tap on the gas and you’re already at the speed limit. Of course speed limits are meant to be broken when no radar cameras are around so as soon as I passed one I slammed on the gas for an earth-shattering kick down. The engine (which comes from the Corvette) just suddenly took on a new life and turned the classy quiet Escalade into a scary loud hotrod.. it was incredible.

After driving for a while I decided to park the car and take some pictures plus explore the various features of the car. The coolest thing I found was the trunk since its fully automated. Basically the old trunk was very heavy to open and close especially for woman so the new trunk is motorized. You press a button on the handle and step back while the door opens up. You press another button and the trunk closes down. I even recorded a video of it, which you can watch [Here]. The car currently doesn’t come with a Navigation system but by the end of the year they will not only be coming with a built in Navigation system but also 3 screens in the back (it currently has 1) and the ability to play a different movie on every screen, plus 3 other people in the car could also listen to 3 different CDs all at the same time using wireless headphones. So in total 6 people could be watching or listening to 6 different things all at the same time.

The exterior of the car has also changed a lot although it still closely resembles the older model. You still have the over sized headlights for example which allows you to spot an Escalade from a mile away. The new Escalades also come with 22inch rims as standard and soon official body kits will be made available by Cadillac so anyone will be able to pimp their ride at the dealer. When driving around on the Gulf Road the car is an eye catcher. It can’t not be since the car is huge and I was driving the Pearl White version so I was sparkling under the sun.

I had a lot of fun driving the car around and when I brought it back to the dealer, the manager gave me a detailed tour of the cars features. If I had the money I would have bought the car right on the spot which brings me to the final point, the price. The new Cadillac Escalade starts from KD20,900 which is cheaper then a Range Rover but more expensive then the Lexus. It’s in a pretty nice position at the moment and I am sure once the car is more widely available the price will come down a bit more. If I had to choose between a Range Rover and the new Escalade it would be a really tough decision, luckily it’s not a decision I am likely to make anytime soon.

Here are some pictures and videos I shot:
Picture of Escalade’s interior
Picture of Escalade’s Exterior
Another picture of the Escalade’s Exterior
Video of trunk opening and closing
Video of a tour around the car

Hmmmm I just got a jar of Choowy Goowy cookies. Its been like forever since I last had some. Yummmyyy…

I was at Sultan Center and I spotted the new packages of Lucky Charms. The new packages have a cool promotion where they now come with codes inside that let you get a free song of your choice from iTunes. Now thats cool..

The cheapest Big Mac is in China, where it costs $1.30, compared with $4.93 in Switzerland which is the most expensive. Kuwait is not on the chart but a Big Mac here costs $2.76. [Link]