Category: Personal

Only go to East Harlem if you want to relive an episode of The Wire.

I was walking around shopping when suddenly I spotted a Five Guys restaurant. I was caught by surprise since someone had told me there was no Five Guys in New York before I got here. Without hesitation I quickly rushed in and ordered my burger.

The way it works at Five Guys is all the burgers come plain and you tell them what you want inside (all the toppings are for free). I ordered a cheese burger which comes with 2 meat patties and cheese, I added three toppings, ketchup, mustard and grilled onions plus a small coke. Since they cook everything fresh to order it takes a bit of time to prepare your food so you go sit down until they call out your number. My number was 47 and when they called my number out I picked it up and came back to my table.

The packaging is very basic. They use brown paper bags with no branding and aluminium foil to wrap the burger with. Only the cup had Five Guys written on it. I unwrapped the foil to find a messy burger that looked very unappealing. BUT, the burger tasted AMAZING so it didn’t matter if the interior of the place was uninteresting or the fact the burger looked messy and came wrapped in foil. It was just like a wow! People THIS was as pretty close to a 5 out of 5 I’ve ever been!

The Shake Shack burger was good but the Five Guys burger was incredible and there was no line! Nat was just starring at me wondering why I was getting orgasmic over a burger since I was just munching and going amazing I love this non stop. When I left the place I was like I’ve got to go back and I sooo am going to!

Update: Below are pictures I took of another Five Guys branch in New York

I passed by Madison Square Garden around 3:30PM for lunch to try out Shake Shack. When I got there it turned out there was a very long line so I stood in it and waited. 40 minutes later I got to the front of the line and it was my turn to order. I decided to go with one single Shack Burger for Nat, a double Shack Burger for me, two fries and two cokes. The bill came out around $21 and I sat down at a table and waited again until it was my turn to pick up my order.

I picked up my order around 10 minutes after that and it looked delicious. I love the way they serve the food in a carton box. I took a few pictures quickly and started eating. The burger was delicious. But was it worth the 40 minute wait? Don’t think so. I mean its a good burger but 40 minutes just to order?? According to the person in line behind me their lines are usually even longer! I guess everyone here is used to waiting in line so 40 minutes is probably nothing to them. I waited 30 minutes at the Apple Store just to pay for some items and I saw people waiting in line outside Abercrombie & Fitch to get in as well. Lines are part of everyday life here.

Now the Shake Shack seating area is also as impressive as their burgers. Since it’s in the park, the seating area reminded me a lot of the beer gardens in Munich except here you had beer AND burgers, they’ve got the Germans beat with that. In any case I can’t wait for Shake Shack to open up in Kuwait. I just hope there won’t be a line like at Pinkberry…

Here is a picture of the line outside Abercrombie & Fitch.

I flew over to New York via Qatar Airways. I didn’t have many options since I was looking for an airline that would fly non-stop from the GCC to New York. My two best options were Qatar Airways and Emirates with the later costing a lot more. The flight from Kuwait to Qatar was around and hour and it had to be on one of the worst planes ever. There was no legroom, I have no idea how I managed to fit in my seat. The legroom was so bad I couldn’t even put my small bottle of water in the seat pocket in front of me because I my knees were hitting it. The flight was packed but luckily it was just an hour. Once we landed to Qatar we had to go through airport security. Because it was nearly boarding time for my second flight they had a fast track lane for us which was great. Once done we got to our gate only to realize we had to go through a second more intense checkpoint but that was fine since we had plenty of time to spare.

The Doha-NY plane was a lot bigger off course and newer. Its the Boeing 777-330 ER and it was equipped with a pretty cool and fast entertainment system with USB ports on the seats. They had over 200 on demand movies ranging from new stuff like Avatar and The Book of Eli to classics like Bullitt, Raging Bull and North by Northwest. They also had over 200 episodes of various TV Shows. I didn’t watch anything on their entertainment system since I had my Archos 7 with me preloaded with over a months worth of my favorite shows (I stopped watching everything once I booked my tickets and have been saving them for this trip).

The legroom was pretty good and I never felt uncomfortable. The plane took off at 8AM and I was able to quickly fall asleep since I hadn’t slept all evening. I woke up at various times during the flight but overall it was a lot more comfortable than I was expecting my trip to be.

I got to New York earlier today after a surprisingly comfortable 14 hour flight. The weather is great here and the hotel room turned out to be as big as in the pictures. I’ve got Arby’s, Wendy’s and White Castle just 5 minutes away which is going to prove to be a problem.

Had a large roast beef n’ cheddar from Arby’s today and it was great. Will post more details tomorrow since I’m currently extremely exhausted.

[YouTube]

I hate it when people say there isn’t much to do in Kuwait because from my experience there are a ton of cool activities here. One new activity I found out about is Milsim. This has to be one of the coolest things to do in Kuwait and its now going to be something I will do as often as I can.

Milsim is a military simulation that has a lot of strategy and some very cool realistic weapons. Unlike paintball which uses paint pellets, Milsim uses powder pellets. Also unlike the paintball here in Kuwait where you run around hiding behind inflatable balloons, Milsim uses real life locations for their games. I got invited to participate in a game today and I’m now in love with Milsim. Todays location was an abandoned prison in Doha near Entertainment City. They have different locations for different sized groups for example when there are 40 guys they like going and play at an abandoned residential compound that’s around 3 blocks large. Since we were 16 guys they decided on the prison location due to its close combat nature. Judging by the video above it seems they also have a very cool abandoned farm they use.

[YouTube]

First thing they do is split everyone into teams, todays mission involved the Marines and Delta Force vs the Taliban’s. I was placed in the Taliban team. We were then briefed on the mission which was the following… Marine One crashed and it was carrying the President of the United States. The Marines were with the president and the game starts off at their crash site. They have 15 minutes to defend their zone and protect the president before the Delta team reinforcement arrives. After an hour into play they would receive a radio call with the location of the landing in which they then have 30 minutes to get to that point and evacuate. As Talibans, our aim was to capture their president or capture a box that contained nuclear keys, if we captured any of the two we would win. Everyone was limited to just 4 magazines and each contained 20 rounds. There are no refills and although the weapons can fire at full auto its highly discouraged because you will run out of ammo very quickly. We also all had 3 lives, if you get shot (anywhere) you have to put your hands over your head and walk to the medical zone where you have to remain for 10 minutes before you go back and join your team.

How was it? A lot of fun that’s for sure and very exhausting. My team ended up losing, not sure how since we had a ex Austrian military guy, a local special forces guy and the Milsim owner, while the opposing team were made up mostly of newbies like me. We even had flares and smoke grenades! Oh well it was still a lot of fun and its something as I said I’m going to do a lot more of.

I took some pictures which you can check out below. The first video on top is a video they created to show the kind of weapons and gameplay style. Unlike paintball their games aren’t only about shooting but its about accomplishing missions and involves strategy. The second video above is one I shot today when me and some guys were getting briefed on how to use the weapons. This is seriously one very cool activity, and they say there isn’t anything to do in Kuwait…

If you’re interested to participate in Milsim its KD10 per person. That includes the weapon, gun magazines, vests, helmet, goggles, water and pelets. I think its actually pretty cheap for what you get. They cater to groups, individuals and even for corporate outings. For contact information you can visit their website at www.milsimkuwait.com.

After reading Fahad’s post below I felt like finally passing by Baking Tray in Kuwait City and trying it out. I had heard a lot about the place but hadn’t had the chance to try it out yet. The place is located in Kuwait City near the Wataniya Telecom building and opposite Saso Lounge (Google Map). The interior is cozy and the display of food was very appetizing. They have pies, sandwiches, pizza’s, pastas and a variety of pastries and desserts.

Everything looked really good but I managed to stay away from all the sweets and ordered some sandwiches. I was with Nat and so we ordered two sandwiches to share. She had the garlic chicken avocado sandwich with rye bread while I tried the Philly steak also with rye bread. The sandwiches took around 20 minutes to reach us and they looked very good. I tried both sandwiches and I have to say the garlic chicken avocado was really good and the garlic flavor was very light. The Philly steak on the other hand I didn’t like at all. In the menu it mentioned all the ingredients except for one which is Dijon mustard. I am not a fan of Dijon mustard and the whole sandwich was just plastered with it. I couldn’t taste anything except the mustard, the sandwich was just literally dripping with mustard and I hated it. Not sure why they didn’t mention it as an ingredient. Even the Philly steak picture on their website doesn’t look like it had any Dijon mustard in it so I am guessing its something they decided to add at a later stage after the menus were printed and pictures taken. Below you can see my sandwich on the left with the Dijon mustard dripping out while the one on the right is taken from their website.

Even though I was disappointed with the Philly steak I would still go back. I liked the atmosphere and I liked the large variety of healthy dishes they had. Prices are very reasonable except for the Philly steak. The garlic chicken avocado sandwich was KD2 which I think was the average price for their sandwiches. The Philly steak on the other hand was KD3.3 which was not worth it. For 500 more fils I could have had my favorite “NY Thing” sandwich from Napket. But as I mentioned, they had a whole bunch of items I still want to try so I’m going back again. Here is a link to their website [Link]

Update: Went back today for lunch. Ordered the EBT which according to their menu online says that it contains Fried eggs, Bacon, tomatoes (roasted). This time the order took under 10 minutes to get to me but when I took my first bite it turned out the sandwich contained Dijon mustard as well! Not really sure whats going on and why Dijon mustard is never mentioned in their menu but this time I sent it back and asked for an EBT without mustard. When I got the sandwich back it turned out to be really really good. It’s three simple ingredients but it tasted great and the place has now officially become my favorite lunch spot. I just need to remember to tell them no Dijon mustard every time I order something.

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

Your world rocked in 3, 2, 1….

And we’re back with part 2 of my original post (Herro Prease!) that seemed to cause more racial and homophobic controversy than health and fitness orientation and guidance.

Taste Buds
I’m often criticized for my diminishing taste buds. When on a strict diet, the food consumed tends to taste awful and total caloric intake is extremely low. I’m eating 6-8 small portions per day of gooky old-fashioned oatmeal, funky-smelling boiled eggs, cold and barely chewable chicken breasts, tasteless and dry brown rice, and a lightly sweetened protein shake that tries its best to taste like a Johnny Rockets milkshake, but is actually one notch above dirt, and dirt can taste like ice cream when dieting.

So Masta of da Universe, if taste bud BAD, how can we trust you, haaaa!?
Have you ever sat next to a person who has been dieting more than 3 weeks? He/she will stare at you eating that burger and those fries. Moreover, they’ll tell you how to lightly dip your food in ketchup. What’s even more annoying, they’ll screw you over for not eating your entire meal; I should know, since I’m that annoying person. Lastly, I base the meals I eat on the ingredients used and how I feel after consumption. Through trial and error, I’ve discovered how long it takes my body to clean itself out if I just ate a fatty and carby meal.

Breakfass!
I am not a morning person at all. I hate the sun and anything associated with looking at the sun. I’ll even wear sun-glasses indoors in the morning, and I could care less if it made me look douchey. (If anyone has any job offerings somewhere cold and dark, please let me know.) In the meantime, I can’t deny the sensation of breakfast food. Once in a while, I’d wake up early on weekends and just have this strong urge to ditch my gooky oatmeal and boiled eggs for some tasty restaurant-served breakfast food. Before I begin, you need to take these points into consideration:

• Upon waking from 8-10 hours of sleep, our bodies are deprived of nutrients and water.
• Our inner functions tend to work optimally in the A.M., providing a challenge to any calorie intake; you can actually get away with a large thick pizza for breakfast and it’ll have a hard time storing itself as fat (assuming your healthy and fit).
• Eating breakfast at a maximum of 1 hour after waking up will provide your metabolism with a boost from heaven. The earlier you eat breakfast, the better.
• Eating breakfast more than 90 minutes after waking up will skyrocket your chances of obesity by 150%!

If I was forced to keep just one app on my iPad it would have to be Zinio. Zinio has made me owning an iPad logical. I’ve already posted previously about the fact that I didn’t know what exactly I would use the iPad for but with Zinio its become very clear… magazines. I love magazines and I hate books (short stories are fine). Maybe if I was stuck on an Island with just a library I would take up reading but with my already hectic life I need to make the best of my time and books just take too much of it. It’s the same reason I don’t watch many movies, for the same amount of time it takes me to watch 1 movie I could watch 4 episodes from my favorite TV show. The problem we have in Kuwait is magazines are expensive costing KD3 and up per issue every month. In the US you could subscribe to a full year for the same price we pay for just a single issue here. I’ve tried subscribing to US magazines and having them shipped with Aramex but magazines can be heavy and in the end I was paying 10$ a year to subscribe to 12 issues of a magazine and then paying KD3 or KD5.500 to ship a single issue to Kuwait.

With Zinio I no longer have that problem. Zinio originally was a website which allowed you to subscribe to digital versions of magazines so you could view them on your computer. Now they’ve created an iPad app which allows you to view the magazines on your iPad. The magazines on the iPad look like the print version except it has a few advantages. For example I was flipping through an article in Car & Driver about a car and on one of the pages I noticed an icon, when I clicked the icon it opened up a gallery full of pictures of the car.. ones that weren’t available in the print version. Other nifty features is the ability to open the contents page and then click on the headline of the article you want to go to or view all the spreads as thumbnails and then select the spread you want to see. There was a Honda ad in the magazine with a button click here for a test drive, when I clicked the button it played a video commercial of the ad (which was actually a good one). You can also view the magazine as a spread (two pages side by side) or if you hold the iPad vertically you can view the magazine page by page. You can zoom into the page to enlarge the copy by other double tapping a location or by pinching the screen. Another cool feature is the fact that you can view a purely text version of the magazine in case you’re having issues for some reason reading the regular print version. Articles in the text format can also be emailed to friends or to yourself to print out and you can even control the font size.

When you run the app you have three main sections, featured articles, your library and shop. Featured articles is basically samples of articles from some of the popular magazines which you could read for free. Your Library is where all your magazine issues are stored. You can view your magazines either by titles or by date. It’s very organized and easy to navigate. Finally the shop section is where you can flip through the magazines available to subscribe to and order them. Once you download a magazine you don’t need Internet access to view them. Magazine sizes vary from around 20MB to 40MB per issue. The prices for most US magazines like Car & Driver, Maxim, Cosmopolitan etc.. are around $10 to $15 for a yearly subscription (similar to their print counterparts) while some magazines that are European imports cost a lot more. You can use your Kuwaiti credit card without any problems.

The Zinio app is free and available in the App Store (on both the iPhone and iPad). Here is a link to the Zinio website where you can check all the magazines they have available with their prices. [Link]

Has anyone stayed at Nu Hotel or any other hotel in Brooklyn? I’m looking to spend max $200 a night on a room in New York and all the good places in Manhattan are like $300 and up. How practical is it staying in Brooklyn and taking the subway to Manhattan every day?

Update: How about W Hotel in Hoboken New Jeresey?

Update2: After hours and hours of research and reading I ended up booking at Nu Hotel. I’m going to be staying in NY for 12 days and needed a decently sized room and most of the ones in and around Times Square were pretty tiny. I don’t mind staying in tiny rooms (I love EasyHotel Paddington) but I could never stay in one for 12 days. Subway station is 5 minutes from the hotel and I can get to times square in 20 minutes. Takes me as long to get to work every morning so its no biggie.

I felt like breaking my no carbs in the evening diet and decided to pass by with Nat to Johnny Rockets near Sultan Center for dinner. For some reason I felt like sitting at the bar and now I am not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I was watching the cook prepare a bunch of burgers and noticed he put a piece of lettuce that had something dark on it. Since he didn’t react so I figured it was maybe just part of the lettuce texture or something and I ignored it. A few minutes pass and the cook starts placing the beef patties on the buns. He turns away and goes back to the grill and that’s when I notice something moving on the bottom bun of one of the burgers. At first I thought it was just my imagination and maybe it was a piece of the patty that fell off or something but then the cook came back with the top buns and put them on the burgers in front of him and that black thing I saw was now crawling on the top bun! It was a fucking worm! I am sitting there in shock cuz there was a fucking worm crawling on the bun! Then the cook starts wrapping the burger to place on a plate. I tell the waitress who was standing behind the bar that there was a fucking worm on the burger. She’s like what? I am like there is a worm on the burger and I point towards the burger. She looks and spots it and gives out a little shriek. The cook asks her whats wrong and she tells him about the worm. He quickly takes the burger and throws it away. I was like no thanks I’m leaving. I put 500 fils on the bar which was the cost of the bottle of water I had ordered and got up to leave. Two guys were sitting on the bar near by asked me what happened, I told him there was a worm on one of their burgers and I walked out.

This is extremely depressing. I spent the next hour wondering why I decided to break my diet tonight and why I decided to sit at the bar. Why did I have to see this? Why couldn’t I have eaten healthy tonight? Now I am never going back to Johnny Rockets again. In fact I am never going to have any kind of salad or vegetable anywhere outside my house. From now on I am going to order all my burgers without vegetables and I am not going to have any salad with my meals (maybe just at Le Notre since I pick my own salad at the bar). This is depressing! Where will I go from now on for a quick burger???

Who would have thought having a cast would be a complicated thing when traveling. I’ve been in Beirut for a couple of days now and I am getting back today but for some reason security at the Lebanese airport is being very anal about my cast. Kuwait airport didn’t even bring it up as a problem but here I’m being treated like I am trying to smuggle a machete or surface to air missiles in my cast.

I get to the airport at 6:30am still sleepy and hungover when the first security screening stop me from going through. They’re like wheres your paper? I was like what paper? They’re like for your hand. I was like wtf? They then spent 15 minutes fondling my arm and passing it in and out of the metal detector before letting me through. Then I found out my flight got rescheduled till the afternoon so I left.

Fast forward to around 3:30pm and I get back to the airport and pass through the same security checkpoint and they stopped me again. This time I got bounced from one person to another each asking me if I have a paper for my cast. I was like what paper where do I get it from? He’s like from where you got the cast. I was like I got my cast done in Kuwait you want me to go get a paper and come back?? I don’t think they liked my sarcasm because they then wanted me to remove the cast so they could check if I had hidden anything. I told them I couldn’t remove it and wouldn’t remove it and in the end had to get my arm fondled for 15 minutes again and waved through the metal detector a few times. What a mess, glad I just had my hand in a cast and not my ass or something.

Today I got a phone call from a friend telling me my tires arrived from the States. I went picked them up and then headed over to Michelin on Canada Dry street to get them installed. Michelin are also the dealers of BFGoodrich and the guys there are pretty cool so I figured would have them install the tires for me. The result? They look hardcore!

I ordered my tires from Gavin at TireRack.com, I had previously ordered my Z4 wheels from him. This time I ordered 5 BFGoodrich M/T KM2’s. I had asked the local dealer if they could order it for me but turns out they’re not authorized to sell mud-terrain tires for some reason.

Anyway the tires look great, I love them and I’m glad I went for mud-terrain and not all-terrain tires. Next thing I need to do is black out the silver parts on the FJ (already swapped the silver door handle for black ones).

So far my set up is as follows for those of you who have FJ’s and want a similar setup:

Old Man Emu Full Suspension
2x OME-884 Front Coils
2x 2″ ToyTec Lifts Super Flex Rear Coil Springs
2x 90000 OME Front Nitrocharger sport shocks
2x 60020 OME Rear Nitrocharger sport shocks

Tires
Kind: BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2
Size: 285/75 R16

I ordered the lift kit from ToyTec
I ordered the tires from [email protected]

Thanks Troy for helping me out with all the shipping!

Update: I forgot to add something very important. You can get an OME lift from the local dealer in Kuwait and you can pick up some incredibly good BFG All-Terrain tires from the local dealer as well. Their prices are really good, OME is slightly more expensive than the US prices, the dealer is located in Shuwaikh at the corner of the turn that takes you to Ace Hardware. It’s the ARB dealer. For tires, BFG in Kuwait have the exact same prices as the ones in the States. They are located on Canada Dry right after McDonalds, the BFG dealer is the Michelin dealer. The only reason I got my stuff from the US is because I was looking for very specific items which weren’t available locally.

I use my In Focus posts to highlight some great businesses here in Kuwait and today’s post is no different. As I mentioned previously, I’m lifting my FJ Cruiser and installing large tires just like I did with my Wrangler. The previous place I had installed my Wranglers lift had shut down so I asked a friend from the FJ Club for a recommendation and he pointed me towards ORP.

ORP is short for Off Road Performance and that’s exactly what they specialize in. If you’ve got a 4×4 and want to install a heavy duty bumper, or get a suspension lift, larger tires and wheels, maybe a light bar etc.. then they’re the place to go. Personally I would love to install everything myself and if I had my own little house with an indoor garage I would attempt to do that but since I don’t, I have to get stuff installed at specialized places which I usually don’t like doing. With ORP I felt comfortable getting my lift installed there because the guys are 4×4 affectionados. I met two guys, both Kuwaitis. Yousef is the one I first spoke to over the phone while Saud I didn’t communicate much with since he was always busy working on a car. They’re both passionate about what they do and to me that’s extremely important.

First time I passed by ORP was to check out the location and see how much they would charge for my suspension lift install. Then I just set up an appointment, dropped my FJ in late at night and picked it up again the next evening. I needed to get the FJ aligned and they recommended I take it to a guy called John at Auto1 on Canada Dry street who also turned out to be really great. So overall I had a very good experience and their prices are very competitive. Now I have to go back and buy a shorter antenna since with the lift kit installed my FJ’s antenna is hitting every pipe in my underground parking. I haven’t even installed my large tires yet so I am starting to worry my FJ is going to be too big to take underground. Hopefully I should be ok.

If you need anything for your 4×4 I highly recommend them. They’re very easy to find in Shuwaikh. If you’re on Canada Dry street with McDonalds on your right keep going straight past the bridge and then do a u-turn at the round-about so you’re heading the same way you came from, then take your first right and drive maybe 100 or 200 meters and you will find them on your left. (see map above). Their website address is www.orp.com.kw and you could also call Yousef on 99422254.

An update for the 2:48AM iPhone App is now available in the app store. In this version I added the Bazaar Magazine category to the app so now you can read the magazine on your iPhone. Bazaar have also added a full RSS feed to their site so you can now add them to your feeds. I think I like the direction this app is going where I’m trying to get a variety of local entertainment in one app. If you have a suggestion that would fit leave a comment below. Next update will be for the Kuwait Blogs app. [Link]