Category: Personal

Since I’ve started running and biking I was using the Nike+ GPS app on my iPhone to calculate the distance and amount of calories I was burning. But it had limitations and a few bugs so I decided to invest in a watch that would do a better job at it. The first watch I looked at was the Nike+ SportWatch GPS but it wasn’t cheap at $200 and it didn’t come with a heart rate monitor which was another $70. It also wouldn’t work well with biking. After a bit of research I finally ended up getting the Garmin Forerunner 305 for a number of reasons while I will list below.

The Forerunner 305 has a built in GPS, a very large screen and it comes with a heart rate monitor. The amount of information it can collect during a run (or bike ride) is overwhelming. For example, you can find out the distance traveled, your top speed, average speed, max hear rate, average heart rate, amount of calories burned, the elevation, the duration, the length of your rest breaks, what zone your heart rate is in and a few more details all of which you can be uploaded onto the Garmin Connect website and get it displayed as maps, charts and numbers.

The 305 has a large screen which as a result allows you to display a lot of information on it. The screen can be divided into 4 sections with each displaying information of your choice. For example I have it set up to show me:

– The current duration of my run
– The amount of calories burned
– The distance I’ve traveled
– The current time

All the above in one screen and if with a press of a button I can flip over to a second screen with 4 more pieces of information. If that’s a lot of information you could also divide the screen into 1, 2 or 3 sections. I also got two accessories with the watch, one is a bike adapter so I could mount the watch onto my bike and have the information in front of me. The second accessory I got is a velcro strap since it’s thicker then the rubber strap that comes with the watch and personally I think looks much better.

There are two negatives about the watch, nothing major but ones that are worth mentioning. Because of the GPS, the battery on the watch lasts for just 10 hours before needing a recharge. 10 hours is more than enough time since my runs are a lot shorter but I already have too many devices I need to charge and don’t really need another one. The second issue is the way it looks. This is not the best looking watch out there. But on the positive side it is very light and I would rather have an ugly watch with a large screen over a good looking one with a smaller one. But still, this watch would probably rank high up in my Top 10 Ugliest watches ever list.

I’ve saved the best thing till the end which is the price. This watch cost me just $128! It’s literally a steal right now since the newer Forerunner 310 came out. This watch originally cost over $400 and at $128 I don’t think there is any other watch in the market with similar features at this price point. This is a good deal, just ignore the way it looks. You’re not supposed to look good working out anyway, if you do then you’re doing it wrong.

Here is the link to the Forerunner 305 [Amazon Link]

Nat’s getting a new car so I’m selling her Z4. I’m going to put it up on Q8car in a few days but figured would see if anyone of my readers would be interested first. Here are the specs:

2005 BMW Z4
3.0L V6 engine
128,000KM mileage
18″ ASA Wheels with Pirelli Zero runflats
Eisenmann exhaust system
SMG Gearbox (Auto/Manual)
M Sports Seats with 3 memory saves
Convertible with soft top as well as Hardtop
Navigation System
MP3 capable cd player as well as a 6-CD Changer
Bluetooth hands free phone system
Serviced only at dealer

Asking price is KD4,000 (non negotiable)
If you’re interested email me [Here]

Click the link below to see more pictures of the car.

Around a year ago I found out about KILLSPENCER and fell in love with their bags. Problem is they were expensive for an impulse buy and since I really didn’t need another bag I decided to save the link and forget about it. Then a couple of months back my carry on travel bag started feeling a bit tight since I started stuffing more stuff into it. That’s when I decided to go back to the KILLSPENCER website and order one of their bags.

No Subject from Spencer Nikosey on Vimeo.

KILLSPENCER is the creation of a guy called Spencer Nikosey, a 27 year old designer based in LA. It started off as a personal project and then grew into his full time business. I emailed him with a bunch of questions about the bag and he was extremely helpful. I originally wasn’t sure which bag to get or even which material but after a few emails back and forth I decided on the black leather Weekender 2.0. He also offered to custom stamp my name and home address on the inside (usually a $95 extra feature) which I thought was very cool.

The bag took around 2 weeks to craft and another week to get to my US mailbox and another week to get to Kuwait. I was worried the bag would be too big but it turned out to be the perfect size. The quality and the design is just incredible, I really love the bag. The inside is spacious with a laptop sleeve on one side, a large zipped water resistant pocket on the opposite side that can easily fit an iPad, and then there are two more smaller pockets on the short sides. On the outside there are 2 more pockets as well, one on each side. The bag also comes with a very comfortable shoulder strap which makes the bag a lot more practical to carry when the bag gets heavy.

Right now I think this is like the coolest bag ever. It comes in 4 different materials options and a total of 3 colors. Price wise the bag costs $600 which is on the high or low side depending on how you look at it. If you compare it to luxury brands, then this bag is really affordable and you’re also getting a hand crafted beautifully designed bag that’s even more exclusive then the majority of the luxury brands. If you don’t go with leather than the price drops down to $375 which is a lot more accessible. If you’re interested check out their website and full collection by visiting their website [Here]

Not to be confused with the Pandora music station, this Pandora is something completely different. I love old gaming systems and I still have a bunch hidden away in boxes but the thing is it’s a headache to take them out and get them working. This is why I ended up getting the Pandora. It’s basically a super tiny laptop with game pad controls built in. It runs the Linux operating system and it allows you to install whatever emulator you want onto it. Pandora was actually created by four guys who wanted something better than what was available in the market. With the help of a gaming community they went ahead and created Pandora with the primary function being to run video game emulators. It costs them $400 to build each Pandora and they sell it for $500. It’s kinda like selling cupcakes from your home except they’re selling this incredible portable gaming system.

Pandora can run a ton of emulators including N64, Neo Geo, SNES, Sega CD, MAME, Sakhr, PlayStation, Dreamcast, Dos games and even Quake 3. I’ve been playing a ton of old school games on it since I got the Pandora with my favorites currently being the Dos version of DopeWars, the best racing game ever which is Neo DriftOut and The Castle, an old Sakhr game that is still crazy hard over 20 years later. If you want more information on the Pandora click [Here]

I’ve criticized the Avenues no smoking policy before since although they made a big event out of it the ban was never properly enforced among other things. But truth be told, there really isn’t much Avenues can do about it. This weekend I noticed they removed the majority of their garbage bins from around the mall which I am guessing is a move to try and stop people from smoking. It’s not working and I think it’s a dumb move since I had to walk halfway across the mall with my trash looking for a place to throw it… but hey, at least they’re trying and I respect them for that.

Why don’t we have an official law banning smoking in public places? At least if there was an official ban then Avenues could have a couple of policemen walking around the mall ticketing people who break the law. Is there an organization or politician fighting for a smoking ban? How can we help?

Back in January I posted about how they dug up the middle sidewalk in the old Salmiya. They decreased the walking space and created new dirt space around the already planted trees to add more greenery. I was against the idea since first of all they shrunk the sidewalk and second of all I knew it wasn’t going to work. The new Salmiya near Sultan Center and Al Fanar has never had a green middle sidewalk and somehow my old Salmiya was going to? A lot of you were against me and said I was being pessimistic, well the picture above is how it looks like 6 months later… very green indeed. It’s always going to be just sand exactly like how it’s always been sand in the newer Salmiya so I hope everyone now understands why I preferred to have a full proper sidewalk instead of “greenery”.

Check out the picture above. Do you know what that is? I think it was back in the late 80s or very early 90s someone decided to build a public bathroom right in the middle of Salmiya. I think it was functional for a month and then got destroyed by vandals and became so dirty that no one was using it and it just got abandoned. That was like 20 years ago, today it’s nothing. It’s not a bathroom, there are no doors, no toilets, no sinks or anything. Just a place to store red cones or whatever garbage is lying around. Recently as you can see in the picture they dug up the area around it to replace the floor tiles with newer ones but they left this abandoned ugly block of cement right in the middle. Couldn’t they have just demolished it?

Another strange thing happened recently, someone realized how much garbage was filling up the streets of Salmiya and so came up with a brilliant solution. They decided to put bright yellow garbage bins all over Salmiya and at around 10 meters apart. Check the video above I shot today. I drove maybe 200 meters and I counted around 66 bright yellow garbage bins! And that only includes the middle sidewalk and some of the sidewalk on the left but completely ignoring the right sidewalk since it was in the video. It’s the most horrifying scene since all you can see on the street now are the garbage bins. Do we really need that many bins in the middle sidewalk? [YouTube]

I’ll say it again, I love Salmiya and I want to be put in charge of it or at the very least Salem Mubarek Street. I’ll seriously make it the most beautiful place in Kuwait. I’ve been requesting this since back in 2006, so what do I need to do to make this happen? I’ve watched enough episodes of Parks and Recreation to know what it takes. Salmiya is my Pawnee.

I spend all week on a very strict diet that includes the likes of grilled chicken, tuna, lots of salad and boiled eggs, but when the weekend comes, the fat person inside me takes over and it’s not a pretty sight. Yesterday I had lunch at Elevation Burger as I said I would last week. But this time, instead of the double patty I went for the triple patty which I realized is the right way to do it and would highly recommend going that route over the double.

Today on the other hand I passed by Cocoa Room to test out their new burger. Every time I fall asleep and dream of burgers and unicorns, the burgers always have one thing in common, they’re thick and juicy. Ever since I’ve know Basil I’ve been asking him to make a thick burger and it seems my wish has finally come true. It’s still in the concept stage but he’s got the most important ingredient perfect right now which is the patty and what a patty… I already told him it’s magical. He’s going to end up having only one burger on the Cocoa Room menu but he’s still deciding between two different kinds although I think he’s leaning towards my favorite which is the one in the picture at the very top of this post. It’s a super thick wagyu patty with aged cheddar cheese and charred onion brought together with a hard crust bun. The second burger above has a similar patty but contains Swiss cheese, onion marmalade and a soft bun instead. When the burger is complete, it’s easily going to be the holy grail of all burgers.

There’s so much good burgers in Kuwait right now that someone needs to officially slap the Burger Land moniker on us. AHT are you listening?

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’ve got a ton of TV shows and documentaries on my server and for the longest time ever I had been using XBMC to watch them all. XBMC is basically a software that allows you to stream videos from another computer or hard drive. Originally I used to use XBMC installed onto the old original xbox, then I installed it on a hacked AppleTV but since XBMC on AppleTV couldn’t play 720p video I finally I ended up purchasing the small Acer Revo and was using that to run XBMC until Boxee.

Boxee is the name of another media center software that was actually built using XBMC. But unlike XBMC, Boxee was more focused on providing content (TV Shows/Movies) from the internet primarily and from a local home server secondary. Boxee never really interested me much until the end of 2010 when they did something I always wanted XBMC to do… release a set-top device that was dedicated to just running the media center software. The Boxee Box (pictured above) is a beautifully designed tiny angular cube that runs the Boxee software. Everything about it from the package to the interface is very tastefully designed and that really sets it apart from XBMC. Where XBMC looks like it was put together by geeks, Boxee looks like it was put together by Apple. They even paid attention to the little details like how the Boxee logo lights up in a nice green glow when the device is powered on.

It might not show in the pictures above but the Boxee Box is pretty small, maybe around the same height as the iPhone. It comes with a double sided remote control that has a very simple minimal amount of buttons on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other. The remote uses radio instead of infrared to send signals which is great because you can hide the Boxee Box anywhere in the room and still be able to control it. It also comes with a power adapter that works in Kuwait (110-240v) as well as a HDMI cable.

The interface is very easy to use. You can easily browse the available online TV Shows and Movies all nicely organized but you need to have a VPN account (I use StrongVPN) to actually watch the shows online since they don’t allow non-US residents to stream stuff. Watching your local media files is also easy, you can either plug in a hard drive into one of the Boxee USB ports or connect to your home server over Ethernet or Wifi. Once you add the media it will scan IMDB for information on the shows or movies and then download the DVD cover and all the other information and store them on Boxee. It’s really very easy to use, much easier than XBMC since Boxee is trying to be fairly mainstream.

There are some minor downsides but it’s really just nitpicking. I don’t like how the remote control feels and I can never tell which side is up or down without looking at the remote. The remote keyboard buttons on the rear also need to be pressed hard but I guess that’s better than no keyboard at all. Boxee is also not as easily customizable as XBMC.

Price wise it’s fairly decent costing around KD50 on Amazon plus around KD13 to ship it with Aramex to Kuwait. I think this is probably the best media center option available right now until Plex (another XBMC clone) starts working properly on the Roku. Boxee doesn’t have any trouble playing 1080p video files and most importantly it doesn’t take much shelf space while still managing to look very cool. If you have a lot of media files and are looking for an easy way to watch them on your TV screen then I highly recommend the Boxee Box. It’s only available on Amazon and here is the link if you’re interested [Amazon Link]

Update: Forgot to mention you can install Apps in Boxee and my favorite is Pandora.

On Thursday two engineers from Mada came over and handed me a router so I could review and after using it over the weekend here are my findings. I’ll start the post with the speedtest results since I know that’s what everyone has been waiting for. I used speedtest.net for the testing and although I was originally planning to test using the servers in London, New York and LA, I ended up running into issues with the New York and LA server and so decided to add two more locations which are New Jersey and San Francisco.

I don’t know why the NY and LA servers were giving me such terrible numbers but I think it had to do more with the server than my connection since the connection worked perfectly again with their neighboring cities. The location of the WiMAX router does effect the speed of your connection. For example I live in Salmiya block 9 and according to a Mada engineer, Salmiya is one of their most focused areas so the speeds I’m getting are probably the fastest you can get. When I tried the Mada router at my office in Kuwait City, I was getting on average around 2.8Mbps tops. The engineer told me it had to do with the location (Kuwait City), the fact my office is on the 21st floor (connection starts dropping after the 15th) and the fact the windows were double glazed (bounces signals). A reader called Kevin tried Mada in Mangaf block 1 and his download speed was around 6.5Mbps. So location does make a big difference on the speed. I don’t play many games online but my brother who lives next door and leeches my connection does. He spent the weekend playing on his Xbox online and according to him he didn’t notice any difference going from DSL to WiMAX.

Setting up and connecting the router was a very simple process. You just plug in the power cord, wait a minute and that’s it. You can then either connect to the router via one of the two ethernet ports on the device or by wifi. I did face a minor problem when I wanted to log into the device so I could change the wifi password as well as setup other options. Underneath the device you have two sets of login information. One is supposed to be the default wifi password the other I assumed to connect to the device to change the settings but it wouldn’t work. It was around 11PM and I wasn’t sure if there would be anyone at Mada support to help but I called them up and someone answered right away and gave me the default username and password which was just “user”. I liked the fact that I didn’t have to go through a dozen menus on the phone just to get to someone from support and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to wait on hold either. This probably has to do with the fact that the service is still new and so not many people have subscribed with them yet.

Which brings me to the future. The Mada WiMAX service currently has no download cap for the next 3 months, after that they are still not sure what the download cap will be but they’re saying it will be at least 20GB and that they will be offering a package for people who consume more. 20GB a month means around 600MB a day which is too little and makes the device really useless. 600MB a day is suitable for users who just use their internet to check email, maybe visit a few websites and also watch a video or two on YouTube. Those kind of users aren’t heavy internet users and for them if it’s a 1MB connection or 10 it wouldn’t make a difference. The real people who can use and fully take advantage of Mada’s WiMAX speed are users like me who spend all their time online surfing through a ton of websites, watching a million YouTube videos while iTunes is busy in the background downloading all the latest TV shows and Movies, the Playstation and Xbox downloading game demos and the server downloading torrents. For me it makes a huge difference if the connection is 1MB or 10.

Which brings me to a potential future issue. The connection is really great right now but that’s because the service is only a few days old, how will it be a month from now or even a year from now? I am not sure. Mada has been around for awhile now catering for the commercial industry so that gives me a bit of confidence in them. But still, 20KD for 10MB is going to attract a lot of people specially with all the problems people have with the ISP’s introducing download caps. Personally I am going to take it day by day and right now the Mada WiMAX internet connection is the fastest connection I’ve ever had. I’ve already disconnected my DSL modem at home and replaced it with WiMAX, that’s how much I’m loving this connection.

Mada currently have a booth setup at Marina Mall right outside the Mac store Digits and they also have a booth at Mohallab. It’s KD20 a month and if you sign up for 3 months it’s KD60 but you get the router for free. Here is a link to their website [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]

I’ve been thinking about swapping my halogen bulbs with LED versions and so after a bit of research I found two bulbs that were reasonably priced and highly recommended. Since I couldn’t find the specific bulbs I wanted locally I decided to order them from Amazon UK.

I got the bulbs, I tried them out and I’m disappointed.

The major benefit of LED bulbs is energy saving. Halogens are usually 35w or 50w while the LED replacements are either 3w or 6w. The 3w is supposed to be comparable in output to the 35 and the 6 to the 50. The bulbs I ordered were 6w and compared to the 35w halogens they replaced the 6w were considerably brighter.

As you can see in the picture above I ordered two different style of bulbs. The one on the left contains 3 LEDs with each one being 2w in strength. The one on the right is made up of 80 lower powered LEDs. The two bulbs turned out to be very different, the one on the left for example takes a second to light up once you turn the switch on and the beam of light it gives out is concentrated like a spot light. The one on the right on the other hand comes on instantly with a light beam that’s much wider. Both bulbs can not be dimmed.

Now what I hate about both bulbs is the color of the light. Halogens are pretty warm and even though I ordered these two bulbs as warm they turned out to be much cooler in color. By cooler I mean when compared to regular halogens, both these LED bulbs were more bluish than yellowish. They really don’t light up the room nicely which is why I found them very disappointing.

Who should buy LED bulbs? They’re for people who want to make the world a better place by consuming less electricity. Personally I wanted to try them out for my apartment in Lebanon. We don’t have 24/7 electricity in Lebanon so when the power goes off the backup generators come on and with the generators you have a limit to how much power you can consume. For the power of one 50w light bulb I could power eight LED bulbs of similar strength and still save electricity. That’s a big difference.

Here are the prices and models if you’re interested
Left: EDISON 6W LED GU10 – KD6.200
Right: 6W 80LED GU10 – KD6.000

I finished building my 808e around 2 or 3 weeks back but was waiting for the motor and speed controller to arrive plus the batteries. Once they arrived I took the stuff to Pro Hobbies to have them professionally solder the wires together for me as well as setup the buggy for me. It’s now ready to take to the track which is what I am going to this next weekend. So far it kicks ass!

Here are the parts I installed if anyone’s interested:
– Tekin RX8 Competition Brushless System
– Tekin T8 1900kv Motor
– Savox 1258TG Servo
– Turnigy 4500mAh 4S 30C hard case battery

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]

Since I’m traveling for five days I decided to give my diet the finger tonight and headed towards Dandosh right after my gym to get a kebab. I first ordered a chicken shawerma since I wanted to make up my mind on if it’s better than Badar Al Badoor or not. After careful consideration I believe that Badar Al Badoor still has the better shawerma.

The second thing I ordered was the double kebab sandwich. I didn’t know they did the double until a reader pointed it out. While a single kebab sandwich costs 300fils a double costs 500fils and involves two kebab skewers. Personally I think I prefer the single kebab since it’s easier to eat but single or double the kebabs are amazing.

When I was done I decided to head over to Tabab and try their kebabs as well. I’ve heard A LOT about Tabab but never had the chance to try them out until tonight. I ordered a single kebab sandwich and since I had it right after Dandosh I found it easier to compare. Tabab didn’t seem as popular or packed as Dandosh and I don’t think anyone goes there for their shawermas.

People go to Tabab for their kebabs and thats actually the center of attention at the shop. The large kebab grill is outside the shop right in the middle with the cashier right next to it. I thought the Tabab kebabs were a lot juicier and greasier than Dandosh. Taste wise is where things get tricky. The Tabab kebabs taste great when you’re eating them but once you’re done all the taste is gone. On the other hand with Dandosh, while you’re eating the kebabs there isn’t much taste but once you’re done there is an amazing tingling flavor which really makes me want more.

But in the end there has to be one winner, or maybe two? Since both Dandosh and Tabab are near each other I would recommend you pass by Tabab first, eat a kebab there and then head over to Dandosh and have another. But, if I was stuck on an island and had to choose only one kebab place to be there with me… I would go for Dandosh. After I had a single kebab at Tabab I managed to leave without craving another. Dandosh on the other hand… I leave by force. To me that’s a sign of a great kebab.

Here is Dandosh on [Google Maps]
Here is Tabab on [Google Maps]