Category: Reviews

I am not a big fan of zombie flicks and horrors but I end up watching a lot of them because Nat is a huge horror buff. I Am Legend is a movie I wasn’t too interested to watch, first because it starred Will Smith who I don’t really like and second because I had just recently watched Fido and Resident Evil: Extinction, both zombie flicks and both turned out to be crap so I wasn’t too excited to watch anything else similar. Luckily, I Am Legend is nothing like them.

A plague takes over the world and the only person still left alive is Will Smith, a scientist living in whats left of New York. He spends everyday living the exact same routine, hunting for food, watching DVDs and trying to find a cure for the plague that has turned everyone into zombies. The movie isn’t fast passed, it’s also not the regular cliché story where a group of people are trying to run away from zombies. The movie is much deeper than that with a story to tell. It actually reminded me a lot of Waterworld (which I loved) where Kevin Costner explores the vast underwater cities alone, except here its Will Smith exploring a completely abandoned New York City thats being overrun by wilderness. I completely wasn’t expecting the movie to turn out this way.

The zombies in this movie have to be the freakiest ones I have seen so far. Usually they are either slow or clumsy but the ones in this movie are extremely fast and agile. For me this is also the best Will Smith movie I have seen and his acting really is on display here since the majority of time its just him we’re watcing. Overall the movie was very captivating and there wasn’t a moment where I got bored. My biggest problem with the movie is the fact I would have wanted to see Will Smith explore the city more, I kept wishing the movie was longer and we would get to see more of the beautifully created abandoned New York. I guess once this movie started I wanted it to turn into an adventure. Final score a 4 out of 5.

Note: Movie gets released on January 10th here in Kuwait

Yesterday my friend asked me if I wanted to try out a new burger place called Marrybrown. I hadn’t heard of the place before but he told me it was an American franchise. That turned out not to be true because according to Wikipedia “Marrybrown Family Restaurant is a Malaysia based fast food chain”. Malaysia, America.. they both end with the letter “a” so I can see how he could have gotten confused.

We drove to the restaurant which is located at the beginning of Canada Dry street next to a car wash. It’s a really crappy location for a new franchise and the place isn’t even well designed from the inside. I checked out their menu and there wasn’t a single burger on the menu! Turns out Marrybrown is more like KFC and not McDonalds. I ordered a chicken fillet combo, swapped the fries with onion rings and also ordered a chicken ceaser wrap.

We sat down and the food quickly followed. After a few bites it became obvious that although the place looked shady the food seemed to be fresh and everything seemed to taste fine. Thats where the problem is with Marrybrown, its just too normal. There really wasn’t anything I ordered that would make me want to come back again. If I feel like a chicken fillet I would think McChicken from McDonalds or Zinger from KFC. The location and the interior doesn’t help their situation either. Maybe if I ever wash my car at the car wash next door and I feel like grabbing a bite I wouldn’t mind Marrybrown but I don’t think I would ever go out of my way just for them. The final score is 2.5 out of 5.

I got an email today from a reader informing me of a new burger place that opened up called Cheeburger Cheeburger. Its an American chain that opened up their first international branch here in Kuwait last month and according to their website, their burger was voted the best burger in 28 cities. The problem was where they opened up their location, Souk Salmiya. I hate that place, its probably one of the worst designed malls in Kuwait containing some of the crappiest stores and its always over crowded and parking is always nearly impossible to find. Still, I decided it might be worth the visit and so after work I headed straight to Cheeburger Cheeburger.

The place is located on the top floor in the food court and their location is surprisingly pretty big. The interior is themed like Johnny Rockets which is the 1940’s-50’s style although I doubt they copied Johnny since both restaurants launched around the same time back in 1986. When I got the menu I noticed they had a limited time special offer going on where 1/3 lb burger with fries and coke was priced at KD2.250 while everything else on the menu had 25% off. I decided to go with their combo and I ordered a side order of onion rings with dipping sauce. The way you order the burger at Cheeburger is you choose the thickness of the burger, you then choose the type of cheese you want on it (they have 8 kinds) and then you choose what toppings you want and if you want any certain sauce. I didn’t get too creative with mine since it was my first time, I just went with swiss cheese, ketchup, tomato and lettuce.

A few minutes after placing my order my coke arrived and it was in a jar! I thought that was pretty creative since I don’t recall ever getting my softdrink in anything but a cup. While waiting for my appetizers I noticed a bunch of Trivial Pursuit cards on the table near the salt and pepper shakers. At first I assumed that some kid had left them behind but then I noticed every table had a bunch of cards. Turns out they have them there for the customers to entertain themselves with while they wait for their food to arrive.

The first thing the waitress brought me were my onion rings and fries followed shortly after with my burger. The onion rings were skinny but delicious, the dipping sauce had a lot to do with it. Anyone who’s had the awesome blossom at Chili’s will recognize the sauce immediately, I love it. The fries were good but nothing to set it apart from the competition. My burger, well I can’t imagine it being voted the best burger in 28 cities. It wasn’t bad, on the contrary it was good, it just wasn’t special. Thats probably my fault though since I went pretty safe with the toppings. The bread was good, the meat was good, it was everything else in the burger that didn’t stand out. Maybe next time I could try their one pound burger, according to their website if you can finish it they would put your picture up on the wall and I can’t imagine it being that difficult to finish.

The place in general wasn’t disappointing, they had a lot of little things that made it special and thats what I liked about the place. For example nyone who’s eaten at Johnny Rockets knows how crap their paper napkins are, they are too tiny and too thin. Well at Cheeburger Cheeburger their paper napkins are kitchen paper rolls which is fantastic. I know napkins aren’t usually important in a restaurant review but I just wanted to use it as an example of the little things I am talking about. My biggest disappointment in the place is the location and location is everything. I hate Souk Salmiya and I know I am not the only one. If Cheeburger Cheeburger was open at say Marina Mall or in Jahra then I would go back again over and over but sadly I doubt I would go back to Souk Salmiya unless I really had to. If it was located anywhere else it would most probably get a 4 out of 5 but because its in Souk Salmiya I am giving it a 3. My bill came out to be KD3.150 which I think is a steal. You can check out their menu by clicking [Here]

I’ve been wanting to try out Ricardo ever since I was a kid. I used go have lunch at Al Hambra Restaurant with my family before the Gulf War and when I was done I would wonder around the large hotel lobby and then all the way to the back where Ricardo is located and it always looked mysterious and a place for grownups. Fast forward to the present, I no longer pass by Sheraton as much since there are a lot more restaurants available in Kuwait and more competitively priced. But, when I do pass by its always back to Al Hambra where they have one of my favorite buffets in Kuwait. Yesterday night though I decided to break my routine and finally go and try Ricardo.

I made reservations earlier in the day and we got there on time and were quickly seated in a non-smoking section as I had requested. Problem is like every other restaurant in Kuwait, all the best tables are in the smoking section. Still, ours wasn’t bad and we had a good view of the live band that was playing. When we got the menu I realized they had a much larger variety of dishes then I had expected. I was expecting a small menu with a few appetizers and a handful of main courses but instead I was greeted with two pages of appetizers, around eight pages of main courses and two pages of specials. Too many choices. In the end we settled for fried calamari and prawns and cream of mushroom soup for starters, then I had the salmon tortelloni for my main course while Nat went with the giant prawn ravioli.

Our starters didn’t take too long to arrive and when they did I was surprised by the quantity. They aren’t stingy thats for sure. The mushroom soup was one of the best I’ve ever had and the calamari and prawns was also really great. The tartar sauce that came with the calamari and prawns was the same one they use at Al Hambra which is what I use as a basis for all tartar sauces, its just delicious. So far I wasn’t disappointed.

Soon after our main courses arrived and thats where I wasn’t impressed. My tortelloni sounded a lot better in writing, salmon stuffed tortelloni covered with a creamy sauce containing two types of caviar and salmon and prawns on the side. The sauce though wasn’t that great and since the sauce was one of the primary sources of flavor the end result was a good dish but nothing special. Nats ravioli was also just good but the problem with her dish was that it was over priced mostly because the prawns weren’t really giant.

We didn’t have dessert although I was tempted to but as I said earlier, their food quantity is good and so we were really full by the end of our meal. Overall the experience was good, the music although not my style suited the candle lit table and the service was excellent as expected. The price on the other hand I have mixed feelings about. Our starters, the calamari and prawns cost KD6 while the mushroom soup cost KD3.5 which I think is very fair for both dishes. My main course the salmon tortelloni cost KD12 which isn’t too bad either. Nats dish on the other hand, the giant prawns ravioli was for KD15 which I think is over priced, it should also have been KD12. Over all the prices are a lot more decent then I was expecting them to be. Most of the pastas on the menu were under KD10 while the main courses ranged in prices from KD12 to KD20 with only one lobster dish costing KD35. In the end though I am going to have to give it a rating of 3.5 out of 5. Maybe if we had ordered different main courses the score could have been as high as a 4.5 but based on what we had and not on what we could have had plus the fact that I didn’t think the prawn ravioli should have cost that much, 3.5 is what I am forced to give it. I will be going back again thats for sure if I can pull myself away from Al Hambra that is.

Last night I met a friend at Blenz Coffee located in Marina Waves and I think I discovered the worst cookies, muffins and chocolate drink all in one place. I decided on Blenz as our meet up spot because it has a nice seating area outside with a great view and the fact that parking is abundant. There were only two other tables occupied and at first I figured its because not many people know about Blenz but now I know its probably because the food and drinks are really terrible.

I ordered a chocolate chip cookie, a chocolate chip muffin and an iced chocolate drink. All three of my items were the worst I have ever had. I only had a few pieces of the cookie, one bite of the muffin and two sips of the chocolate drink and then threw them away. They were just horrible! Lucky for us they only have one branch in Kuwait which means if luck is on your side you could live your whole life without having to experience the disaster Blenz is. My final score is a 1 out of 5 stars. The one star is because of the great view.

I think Ramadan put me out of touch with food in Kuwait. This is like the third time since Ramadan ended that I discover a new item at a favorite restaurant. Today for lunch I passed by Sbarro, I hadn’t been there since before Ramadan and today I found out they had a new item that seemed interesting. Its a stromboli and up until today I hadn’t heard of it before. It’s something like their stuffed pizzas except the dough is rolled up.

I usually order the stuffed sausage & pepperoni pizza but I decided to try the stromboli version today. Although it looked interesting it turned out to be let down. The stromboli was very dry and in some places there wasn’t any sausage & pepperoni just dough. Compared to the stuffed pizza, the stromboli was boring and bland. It costs 950 fils which is the same price as a stuffed pizza except I would choose the stuffed over it easily. Its worth a try though. Final score 3 out of 5.

Yes I like shawermas and it seems a lot of people know that because before I left to London around a million people recommended I should try the shawermas at Ranoush. Ranoush Juice is part of the Maroush group of restaurants which are extremely popular in London and the place was located near my hotel on Edgware Road so I decided to go ahead and try it.

Good shawerma in London? I found that hard to believe and I would never have believed it had I not tried it for myself. I’ve been reviewing shawermas for a while now and its always difficult to describe the taste of a shawerma, its not easy to explain why one tastes better than the other or why it tastes worse. It’s mostly because its not one single thing alone that makes a difference, its a balance of a variety of things and this was the case with the shawermas at Ranoush. There wasn’t anything particular I could single out about their shawerma which made it special but it was. Maybe it was because I hadn’t had a shawerma for a week, I don’t know but it just felt really good having it. It felt comfortable and so perfectly balanced. The garlic wasn’t too strong but wasn’t too weak, the chicken was great and the cleanliness of the place was top notch.

Price sadly was out of this world for a shawerma, 3.25 Pounds which is around KD1.900! It completely blew away the previous record of 750 fils for the Villa Fayrouz Express shawerma but luckily for Ranoush it’s in London and KD1.900 for a shawerma is a great deal in a city where KD5 burgers are practically the norm. This is why for the final score it gets a 4.5 out of 5.

I watched Saw IV while I was in London and I found it really lame. The gruesome scenes were pretty detailed and realistic which is great but the story was just really forced. Part 4 was just squeezed out of no where, the whole thing should have ended in the third part, they should never have done a fourth. Currently there isn’t much on at the theaters so it might be worth watching just to kill time. I would recommend The Kingdom and Stardust over Saw 4 if you haven’t watched them already. Final score a 2.5 out of 5.

I passed by McDonald’s today for a quick bite to eat and noticed they had spring rolls on the menu. I hadn’t had McDonald’s since before ramadan so I don’t know how long they’ve been serving them but I decided to give it a shot.

It’s very rare for a fast food place like McDonald’s, KFC, Hardees or Burger King to introduce an appetizer and have it succeed. The only successful appetizer I can think of is the popcorn chicken at KFC. With that in mind and with the fact that chinese food is the last thing I would think of finding at McDonald’s, I proceeded to order my spring rolls with caution.

I know this might sound crazy, I know that my taste buds can be screwy sometimes and I know the Chinese are going to hate me for saying this but… the spring rolls at McDonald’s weren’t bad at all. In fact they were pretty good. I’ve tried nearly everything that McDonald’s in Kuwait ever introduced to their menu and this is why I know to always expect the unexpected with them. When they introduced their Mushroom and Swiss burger I expected it to be the best burger they’ve ever created and it turned out to be the worst burger ever.

The spring rolls comes with a sweet chili sauce which is actually a big part of the reason the spring rolls are good. The price is also good, 550fils for 6 pieces. In the end, these spring rolls are not the best spring rolls in the world. They are not even close to being the best spring rolls in Kuwait but compared to what other fast food places are offering like the crappy Hot Rods at KFC or the overpriced cheese sticks at Burger King, these spring rolls are the best appetizers being offered at the moment and best value for money. I give them a 3.5 out of 5.

Reign Over Me
The movie was slow paced but it never got dull and the soundtrack and the whole mood of the movie was very indie which made it feel less mainstream and more artsy. I don’t usually like Adam Sandlers non-comedic roles but in Reign Over Me it suited him and Don Cheadle was also a great supporting actor.

The Good German
I love war movies and I was really looking forward to this one since it was filmed to look like an old black and white film. Problem is the story turned out to be weak. I still enjoyed watching it but not enough to recommend it. The movie stars George Clooney and Tobey Maguire. If you feel like watching a black and white movie get Vertigo.

Disturbia
A guy witnesses a murder and the killer finds out the guy saw him so he tries to kill the guy. A very cliché storyline and one that I hate.

Ocean’s Thirteen
This movie was wayyy better than the previous one. While Ocean’s Twelve was boring and starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, Thirteen stars Al Pacino and the whole story is based in fast paced Vegas. Lots of funny moments and the all star team of actors are all back minus the women thankfully.

The Bourne Ultimatum
Too many chase scenes, is that a problem? I know its weird but I found it exhausting to watch. I can’t imagine anyone but Matt Damon playing the role of Jason Bourne, he’s got this cold neutral robotic look that suits the part perfectly. On the other hand I could think of at least 20 other women who could play the part of Julia Stiles. Has anyone seen her in The Prince & Me? I have no clue why they couldn’t find anyone else…

Year of the Dog
How could they go wrong with a movie staring John C. Reilly???

Fast Track (originally The Ex)
Starring Zach Braff, Jason Bateman and Donal Logue, three very funny comedians from three different very funny shows (Scrubs, Arrested Development and Grounded for Life) so I was expecting this movie to be extremely funny. It wasn’t. The funniest parts I had already seen in the trailer and what was left wasn’t good enough. REALLY disappointing.

The good stuff:
– It’s pretty
– Excellent browser
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– It has an iPod built in
– Touch screen is amazing
– Decent camera
– It’s cheap, KD95 for 4GB and KD130 for 8GB (with shipping to Kuwait) prices the iPhone very competitively to other regular phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson

The bad stuff:
– Once you have an iPhone you realize its just a phone
– If you have a lot of numbers its a real pain finding a contact
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– Typing on the iPhone is a joke
– Battery life is a bigger joke, barely lasts a day with below average use
– Adding a ringtone is a hassle
– Majority of headphones won’t work with it
– Not as useful or fun without a wireless internet or GPRS connection
– You have a lot of basic phone features missing like forwarding an SMS, turning off the predictive dictionary, different phone profiles, searching for contacts etc.. etc.. etc..

Would I recommend it?
If you aren’t a heavy phone user yes.
If you don’t send a lot of messages also yes.
For everyone else, no.

Final score, 3.5 out of 5. Nat loves it although she has issues with it. I personally could never have an iPhone as my primary phone.

Update: I now use the iPhone as my primary phone and can’t imagine life without it. The software 2.0 brought with it the app store which has made the iphone a lot more interesting for me.

A few weeks ago a new shawerma place opened up called Mr Subs. I got emails from readers of the blog telling me about it and some friends also recommended it to me. What made this shawerma place special is that it was owned by Samir Saeed, the owner of Mr Baker.

The place is located in Jabriya, over looking the 4th Ring Road near where Mr Baker is. I passed by last week for dinner and it wasn’t that hard to find, you take the first right after Hardees, then another right so that you are driving in the direction of the 4th Ring Road and at the end of the street take a left to find Mr Subs on your left hand side.

Mr Subs serve a variety of stuff other than shawerma but I wasn’t interested in them. I ordered two chicken shawermas and was told I had a choice of 3 different bread to choose from. I chose the regular Arabic bread, the other two choices were a burger bun like bread and a bread that had olives in it or something. First thing that struck me about the place is how clean it was. It’s probably the cleanest shawerma place I have ever seen, the area around the shawerma grills were spotless which really impressed me. Sadly that was the most impressive thing about the place.

After picking up my two shawermas I went back to the car and started munching on them. I wasn’t very impressed. The shawermas reminded me a lot of the Kurdo shawermas which I am not a fan of. Its what I call commercial shawerma and its mostly because of the sauce they use. Notice I said sauce not garlic because thats basically what both Mr Subs and Kurdo use. Its a consumer friendly replacement to regular garlic most shawerma places use. The sauce which probably does use a bit of garlic doesn’t taste like garlic, instead it tastes more like mayonnaise which I can’t stand. Its also very liquidi which makes the shawerma feel greasy.

Another problem I had with the shawermas were the price, starting from 600 fils per shawerma its not cheap. The cheapest shawerma they have is the one that comes in Arabic bread, the other two choices of bread add 100 or 200 fils more to the price. At 600 fils a shawerma is also puts it really close in the price range of the Villa Fayrouz Express shawerma which tastes a lot better and is of much better quality. Oh and while I was waiting for my shawermas at Mr Subs I saw them pre grilling their burgers. They were grilling their burgers and then placing them in a container so that if someone ordered a burger they could just place it on the grill and heat it up. Although the place is really clean I didn’t like the idea they were pre-grilling their burgers. Anyway for the final score I decided to give their shawermas a 3 out of 5.

I went and watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry tonight at the movies and I really wasn’t expecting it to be good. All the recent Adam Sandler movies have sucked, sucked in comparison to his best two movies, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmor. Still, I decided to watch this movie because of Kevin James from The King of Queens and I am glad I ended up watching this movie because its easily the funniest movie I’ve watched this year. This is actually the funniest Adam Sandler movie since Happy Gilmor.

First lets get something out of the way, you get to see Jessica Biel in her underwear in this movie and she is hot!

Now back to the guys in this movie and there are a ton of them. First you have the two main stars which are Adam Sandler and Kevin James. Then you have a few main supporting actors including Dan Aykroyd, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Nicholas Turturro and Nick Swardson. There are also kameo cameo appearances by David Spade, Rob Schnider and Rob Corddry from the TV show The Winner. The movie is just packed to the brim with all these comedians so its really non stop laughter from the beginning till the end. It’s easily the funniest movie I have watched in a really really long time and it’s going to get a full five out of five from me. I was going to give it a 4.5 because I would have loved to have seen more of David Spade and Rob Corddry and maybe even a kameo by Ricky Gervais but I guess nothing can be perfect.

A while back Villa Fayrouz Express opened up on Baghdad Street in Salmiya. It’s a take-out version of their popular Lebanese restaurant of the same name minus the express. Since the place is in my neighborhood I had to try their chicken shawermas and I have to say I was surprised.

I was surprised because each chicken shawerma cost 750 fils! That officially makes it the most expensive shawerma I have ever reviewed and it also makes it the most expensive shawerma I know of in Kuwait. 750 fils, thats three times the price of a shawerma at Badar Al Badoor and more than double that of Dodo. So is it worth it?

It takes only one bite to realize why the shawerma is priced so expensive. Its the quality of chicken they use, it tastes fresh and healthy. From the chicken to the garlic its all just top notch quality. They also aren’t stingy, I can barely finish two sandwiches at Villa Fayrouz Express while at Dodo for example I could easily have three in addition to a side order of fries. The sandwich isn’t huge mind you, its fat and short but not huge.

So back to the main question, is it worth 750fils? No, I personally don’t think so. I mean I really don’t care where I eat shawerma (except for this one place next to my office) as long as it tastes good. I have now had shawermas ranging from 200 to 750 fils and I can confidently say that I would rather have Badar Al Badoor’s 250 fils shawerma over Villa Fayrouz Express. Not because for the price of one shawerma at Villa Fayrouz Express I can have two shawermas and a kofta sandwich at Badar Al Badoor, but I also felt Badar Al Badoor’s shawerma was more fun. Shawerma isn’t meant to be healthy or made from great quality, its supposed to just taste good and thats it. Still though for people who care about hygene and are looking for a good shawerma Villa Fayrouz Express is highly recommended. My final score is a 4 out of 5.

Disappointed, thats one way to summarize the movie for me. Maybe I was hoping the movie would stay true to the original cartoon or maybe I was hoping more then just a handful of transformers in the movie but whatever the reason is I didn’t like the movie.

Firstly I think there really wasn’t a proper story. To me it looked like the movie was written around the fight scenes. Its as if they went ok, we need to have one big fight here, two big fights there, a small one here and a nice big one in the end, now go write a movie. I know this movie is just an action packed movie with special effects made for the general audience but after Lord of the Rings this is no longer an excuse. You can have amazing special effects, lots of fight scenes, great characters AND a deep intriguing story and still make it mainstream and a box office success. Seriously with a franchise like Transformers how hard could it have been to write a proper script?

My second problem is the actual Transformers, they neither resemble nor act like their cartoon counterpart. I hate the super detailed industrial look of the movie robots, I prefer the sleeker and simpler cartoon version. Another thing, Megatron is supposed to be a gun not a plane, Ratchet is supposed to be white (thats why my MacBook is called Ratchet), Bumblebee is supposed to be a VW Beetle and Starscream is supposed to be annoying as hell! I used to love watching Megatron and Starscream argue with each other in the original cartoon but it doesn’t happen in this movie. I can’t help but feel this movie should have been an epic not a quickly scrambled together movie. Look at Star Wars and Star Trek! Because the story was short but the fight scenes extremely long, we never got a chance to get close to any of the Transformers, maybe Bumblebee since he had the largest role but he also hardly spoke. All of them actually barely had any speaking lines! My favorite part in the movie without ruining it for people who haven’t watched it is when the Transformers went to the guys house to get “the thing”. There were a bit of funny moments there and we got a feel of the different personalities of the robots but that was it, no other scene even got close to that.

Also, whats up with the heavy advertising in the movie? The guy is video conferencing with his wife and there is a huge ass “Cisco Networking” logo on the screen, a Transformer crash lands from space and visits the Pontiac dealership, another a Hummer dealer. Oh and they are ALL American cars! They took Bumblebee, a German VW Beetle and turned him into an American Cheverolet Camaro. Later in the movie you also have the Sprite machine and Xbox 360 transforming into robots which is fine if all these incidents above happened casually but instead they were very obvious which I felt was tacky.

On a positive note I really enjoyed the acting of the main kid in the movie and the visual effects of the robots was just incredible. The movie was fun to watch but I wouldn’t watch it again. My final score is a 3 out of 5.