Category: Reviews

While in London I was able to walk around and discover the city without holding a large map and looking like a tourist because of a simple software I was able to get for my phone called A-Z London Maps. I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy my stay without this incredibly easy to use and practical software.

You don’t need a GPS device and you don’t need to connect to the internet to be able to use the map, the software installs everything onto your phone. To use the software all you need to do is type the name of the street you are in and the software will show you on a detailed map where you are. This helped me a lot since if I needed to find my way back to the hotel I would just check on the map to see where I was and then plan my route. Also if I found a street I liked I could easily find my way back. If I was using a regular paper map it would have taken me ages to find my location on it but with A-Z maps I just type my street and the software instantly circles my location on the map.

There are maps for London, Paris, Dubai, Barcelona, Helsinki and more but they only work on some Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones. You don’t need to buy it to try it either, you can download the map and try it out for 30 days before you decide to purchase it.

I only found 2 problems with the software or should I say there are 2 things I would have liked the software to do. The first is the option to work with a GPS device. Although every street corner in London displayed the street name it would have been more practical if the software automatically recognized where I was. The second thing I would have liked would have been the option to search for shop names and then have the software find it for me on the map. Of course thats asking for to much but still, it would have been nice to have.

Final score is a 4 out of 5. If you are interested in the maps you can check out the Lumisoft website for more details and trial downloads. [Link]

Sunkist
A classic, probably the best orange drink ever created.

Frutti
Tasted terrible! I also had what looked like red hair in my drink although I am guessing its supposed to be orange pulp.

Fresh
Tasted better than Frutti but just not good enough to beat Sunkist.

Now on a side note if you look at the orange illustration on the Frutti cup you will notice it resembles the orange on the Sunkist cup. If you also look at the shape of the Fresh cup you will notice it is the same shape as the Sunkist cup. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I have decided to no longer listen to my friends when it comes to shawerma places. First I got sent to Happy Duck which turned out to be a disaster and then I got sent to Weekend which also turned out to be as bad. Weekend is located opposite AUK in Salmiya and although I’ve passed by it numerous of times before, I never thought about trying it until recently when a friend recommended I give it a shot.

I ordered two chicken shawermas and a coke. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity I got the sandwiches, drove a bit further down the road parked my car and started eating. Its always best to have the shawerma while its hot and fresh but in Weekend’s, case I don’t think that really matters. The sandwich wasn’t greasy but that’s the only thing positive I have to say about it. The garlic was too liquid like and didn’t really taste like garlic although it smelled like garlic. The chicken was too moist and tasted terrible. The quantity of the chicken in the sandwich was also little although thinking about it now, that might be a good thing since the chicken was really bad anyway.

The cost of the chicken shawerma is 250fils which is normal. My advice? Drive down a further 20 meters to Malek al 3aseer (King of Juice) who make a much better shawerma. Final score 1.5 out of 5.

A friend recommended I try shawerma from a place in Salmiya called Happy Duck. At first I was hesitant but then I thought to myself, what if this back alley place with a stupid name turns out to have really good shawermas? I decided not to discriminate and give the place a shot.

I passed by the place late in the evening, it wasn’t too hard to find, I just took the exit on the Gulf Road right before were Crepaway (now called Divas) used to be located. The location wasn’t bad, they had ample parking space and no traffic around them. I went down, ordered two shawermas and a coke, came back to the car and started eating them.

My first impression was that the shawerma was really greasy. I munched away and went through the first shawerma without encountering anything out of the ordinary but when I hit the second sandwich something tasted really weird. Kinda like the chicken was under cooked or something which grossed me out so I threw it awat. I didn’t like their shawerma at all.

The price of their shawerma is 250 fils which competes with my two favorite shawerma places at the moment, Badar Al Badoor and Al Ghader, but Happy Duck is not even in the same league as them. Final score is a 1.5 out of 5.

Last night I passed by the French restaurant Fauchon in Laila Gallery for dinner. Laila Gallery isn’t one of the best malls on that street so having a lush restaurant like Fauchon in it is kind of strange. From what I heard though is that the owner of Laila Gallery is the same owner as Fauchon so thats why he opened it there.

I will start by giving a quick rundown of all the food we ordered. For starters we had two two dishes, one involved salmon while the other involved lobster. I then had a wild mushroom soup while Nat visited the salad bar. For the main course I had the beef fondue while Nat had the hamour and lobster dish. Finally for desert we chose 2 pieces of cake from their desert tray.

First the negatives. The starters were really forgettable, I would not order them the next time I visit. They tasted fine but fine wasn’t what I was expecting at a place like Fauchon. The soup was ok but I’ve had better versions at Nino’s and Lorenzo. Nat also ordered a mango juice but it tasted like water had been diluted with it which made it really nasty.

So after a disappointing start to dinner I was worried our main courses would also turn out to be flops but luckily that didn’t happen. My dish, the beef fondue was mouthwatering. The presentation of my plate looked very neat, it came with one large bowl filled with cubed beef and potatoes alongside three smaller bowls filled with different sauces for me to dip the beef into. The flavor was very strong and the quantity was very filling, I definitely made the right choice with my main course which by the way was difficult to choose because so many things on the menu looked good. Nat enjoyed her lobster but found the hamour pretty bland but in the end it kind of balanced out. Finally when done our desert arrived, I had the chocolate mousse cake while Nat had the same except with a raspberry mix. As expected since chocolate and cakes are their specialty, desert was delightful.

The interior of place was very stylish with silver curtains and pink lighting. Our waiter was very friendly and helpful and later in the evening the manager even came and spoke to us to make sure everything was going fine. The whole evening would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the disastrous start. The prices of the dishes varied from overpriced to decent. The lobster dish we had for starters was around KD5 which I think wasn’t worth it but on the other hand my main course cost around KD6 which I think was very acceptable. The bill in the end came out to KD32 but this is the maximum I think it could reach. Now that I know what to order I can easily bring the bill down to under KD20 the next time. For the final score I am going to give them a 3.5 out of 5. If the starters were good or if I hadn’t had the starters at all the score would have been a 4.

Although there are a ton of shawerma places near my house Dodo is the place I frequent the most. The staff are friendly and quick and they also have a wide range of sandwiches to choose from. Personally my favorite sandwich at Dodo is their chicken shawerma.

I don’t know how accurate this story is but I remember being told that the owner of Dodo was also the owner of Barakat, my favorite shawerma place back in the day when they were open in the old Salmiya near Fay (opposite Hardees). I think its true because one of the employees of Barakat now works at Dodo but it could be just a big coincidence. Dodo is a Lebanese restaurant that serves Lebanese style of food ranging from falafel to burgers to shawermas. One of the advantages of having shawerma at a Lebanese place is the garlic, and the garlic at Dodo is pretty damn good. As I’ve said before, there are only three things in a shawerma, the bread, the chicken and the garlic. The bread is easy to get right so no worries there. The chicken although the taste of it is important, even if you mess up you can cover up your tracks with good garlic since the garlic can cover the taste of the chicken. Now I am not saying there is a problem with the chicken at Dodo, on the contrary, the chicken is really good but the garlic is where its all at.

The size of the shawerma is pretty small and I usually have 3 to fill me up sometimes with a side order of their fries. The price of each shawerma is 300 fils which is cheap and I think with the quality of their shawerma they could easily price it at 350 fils and no one would complain especially when their most recent competitor, Vila Fayrouz Express charges 750 fils for theirs. All is not perfect though, Dodo suffers from lack of consistency which pisses me off. Sometimes I feel the chicken is undercooked and I hate it when that happens but luckily it doesn’t happen often. Final score is 4 out of 5. Dodo is located near La Baguette on Baghdad Street.

IKEA isn’t the first place that comes into mind when you think of Indian food but surprisingly, it should. When IKEA was still based in Shuwaikh their restaurant was tiny and had a limited variety of dishes. Now that they are based in The Avenues and have a lot of space they expanded their restaurant not only in size but also in the variety of dishes that they serve.

One of the dishes they used to serve every now and then as their daily special has now become a permanent dish on their menu, the chicken masala.

As I said earlier when it comes to Indian food IKEA isn’t the first thing that comes into mind. Swedish meatballs yes, chicken masala no. Despite how strange the notion of a Swedish furniture chain serving Indian food might sound, they somehow managed to get it right. IKEA serve extremely good chicken masala and they serve it alongside plain white steamed rice. Combined the meal is priced aggressively at only KD1.500! The portion is large and filling and the flavor is pretty darn good. Its currently my favorite dish at their restaurant and a favorite among many. With a cheap price tag, good portion and great flavor there really isn’t much to complain about. Final score is a 4.5 out of 5.

Baskin Robbins have a new milkshake called the Crunchy Shake. What makes it different from the regular shakes is that they blend a waffle cone with it so that while you are sipping your drink you get to taste the tiny bits of waffles. In theory it sounds good but my experience wasn’t.

First you get to choose three different flavors of ice cream for your shake. That is the fun part since you have a large variety to choose from but I went with the safe route and just chose chocolate mousse for my drink. The employee then took my scoops, dropped them into a blender with milk and a large waffle cone and then turned it on.

The flavor of the drink wasn’t that bad, the waffle cone bits actually do make a difference. The problem I had with my drink was that it was too liquidi, it was as if the employee put too much milk and not enough ice cream. That ruined the shake for me and after drinking half of the cup it just became really gross. I don’t know if this is how the shake was meant to be but I didn’t like it. Final score is a 2 out of 5.

Last night I had dinner at the Al-Muhallab Seafood restaurant at The Palms hotel in Bida’a. Since it was a business dinner and I didn’t pay the bill, this isn’t going to be a full review meaning I won’t give it a score at the end.

The restaurant is located right at the back of Palms and I imagine during the day you could most probably see the sea. They tried to make the restaurant look Kuwaiti but I didn’t feel it. When you first come into the place you go through an old wooden door which leads you to believe you will be walking into an old Kuwaiti house but once you are in the place opens up into this large cold space and it just kills the mood. I found the place too bright and not very cozy. The place should have looked like Oum Habib but instead you are greeted with a high ceiling, and old Kuwaiti artifacts hung around the walls in very Fuddruckers and Chilis style.

Now on the other hand, the food was really delicious. We chose a couple of hamours, lobsters, crabs, shrimps and zbeydi and then had them grill it for us. When the food arrived the waiters cut up the fish and served them to us which made dinner more enjoyable. The grilled shrimps was my favorite followed closely by the hamour.

Its a pity the place wasn’t designed nicer, thats the biggest let down. Even though the food was good I doubt I would go back. For me the atmosphere of the restaurant is as important as the food, they compliment each other and in this case the food was much better then the restaurant.

You can check out the Al-Muhallab Seafood website by clicking [here]

Tonight I passed by the recently opened Burger Bar in Kuwait City. I got there and found the two parking spots in front of the place empty so I parked my car and got down when the Holiday Inn security guard came up to me and told me I couldn’t park there. Since Burger Bar is located adjacent to Holiday Inn downtown, the security guard told me I wasn’t allowed to park in the two empty spots outside the restaurant. He told me I had to park across the street. I thought that was strange but wasn’t in the mood to argue and just went back into my car and parked on the other side.

The place from the outside looked like a Japanese restaurant and when I looked through the windows I saw what looked like Japanese waiters. I thought to myself this must be the wrong place, even Nataly was like “Mark this looks like a Japanese restaurant”. Once we walked around to the main entrance we saw the Burger Bar logo and realized we were at the right place. We walked through some dimly lit candles outside (very Japanese-ish) into the restaurant where we were greeted by waiters dressed in red silk clothing and black bandannas which again was very Japanese-ish. The place was empty except for one table with two men so we sat down wherever we wanted. We had two choices for seating, what looked like long benches or one of the booths, we chose the booth since it looked more comfortable. Our table was the smallest in the restaurant and I think it could easily fit 8 people. I don’t know if they were made for extremely overweight people or they believe that people eat in packs like hyenas but whatever their reason, it felt really awkward having the whole table for just me and Nat. The music that was playing was loud and guess what genre… it was country music. So, so far the place looked Japanese, had Japanese looking waitresses dressed in Japanese like clothing, playing country music and serving burgers. Pretty strange combination but I was like whatever, its “different”.

We got the menu and I decided to order the mozzarella fries for starters, the mushroom burger for my main course and a junior cheese burger for Nat (junior = slider). The waitress asked me what I wanted to drink and I told her Pepsi. She then replied saying they didn’t have Pepsi. I looked at her surprised thinking to myself what the hell, no soft drinks?? So I asked her what do you mean you don’t have Pepsi? She was like we don’t have Pepsi only Coca Cola. I was like god damn woman I thought you meant you didn’t have any soft drinks! Pepsi, Coke whatever its all the same.

The food arrived a while later and was fairly disappointing. The fries firstly weren’t that great, there was only a small portion of mozzarella over them and they weren’t even melted right. The burger had a strange flavor to it. The actual hamburger bun was great but the meat tasted like “kafta”? I am not sure what but it wasn’t very burgery.

Overall I wasn’t impressed. The mushroom burger was for KD2.500 and that was one of the cheapest burgers on the menu, the majority were around KD4 and KD5. The fries I believe were super expensive costing KD2.700 and they were sooo not worth it. Nats slider cost 750fils which is slightly more expensive then Burger Boutique which brings us to the question, is Burger Bar in the same league as Johnny Rockets and Burger Boutique? Hell no. Final score 2.5 out of 5. Although the Japanese Cowboy look is strange, the design of the place is still pretty cool. Other positives are lots of parking spaces across the street and the fact that you don’t have to call 4 years in advance to book a table is a plus. Food is lousy though but might be worth a visit just to check it out.

Yesterday I went to the movies with a bunch of friends including Marzouq, Nibaq and K.theKuwaiti. We went to the Al Fanar movie theater to watch Die Hard 4.0. After watching the movie I’ve realized that people will either love it or hate it, I am the later.

The movie is high budget so no where in it does it ever end up looking cheap or fake… except when it comes to the story. You can’t get a more 1990’s cliché styled plot then this one which is the main reason I think people will love it or not. If the movie was released in 1998 it might have been cool but today with great TV shows like 24 which are similar in idea (1 hero kills 2 million bad guys) the movie didn’t it cut it for me.

In fact I found the movie long and boring. It was over 2 hours long which is great if you’re watching an epic but an action movie? It should have easily been under an hour and a half thats for sure. Bruce Willis was great in the movie though. For some reason I’ve always wanted to see him in a movie matched up against Sylvester Stallone, the same way Al Pacino and Robert Deniro were matched up against each other in the movie Heat. Maybe they should have made Bruce Willis the bad guy in the upcoming Rambo 4. My favorite scenes in the movie were the ones that involved Kevin Smith since. they were funny and a change of pace from the rest of the movie, mind you it was Bruce Willis that made me laugh here more then Kevin Smith. Bruce Willis is like Will Smith when it comes to humor in the middle of an action movie. Since both were comedians before its easy for them to be serious through out the film playing a tough guy and then suddenly be funny without looking out of place. They are naturals and now that I think of it, maybe if Die Hard 4 wasn’t made to be taken seriously, and was more of an action/comedy it might have been more fun. Kinda like how Feast is a horror/comedy combo.

I personally didn’t like Die Hard 4.0 and don’t its worth going to the movies for. But, if you really want to go and watch something then just wait a few more days till Transformers gets released. I give this movie a 3 out of 5.

Blades of Glory
There wasn’t anything else better to watch at the movies so I watched this. It turned out to be cool and funny. Great cast, Will Arnett was the movie.

Ghost Rider
Sucked big time. I couldn’t even finish the movie because it was so bad. Big budget but B-rated acting and story. Nicolas Cage should have retired after Face/Off.

Wild Hogs
Its a cheesy family/children movie. I personally watched this movie because it starred William H. Macy but sadly he wasn’t at his best here. Some funny moments here and there but overall just cheesy humor.

Vacancy
The movie stars Luke Wilson who is incredibly funny, his last movie I watched, Idiocracy was hilarious so watching him being serious in this thriller was weird. The movie was fairly decent, its your everyday cliché slasher put together nicely.

Mr. Bean’s Holiday
I am a huge Mr. Bean fan but this movie was trash. It got so boring that I actually started forwarding the movie until I got to the good parts which was mostly near the end. The movie starts nicely and ends nicely but everything in the middle was just dull. It should have been a short sketch instead of a full length movie.

Perfect Stranger
I never paid attention to Halle Berry’s acting before, but after this movie I realized its not any good. She needs to act topless, thats the only way you won’t notice her acting. Bruce Willis was cool in the movie, he’s always been cool in his movies except in Hudson Hawk. Giovanni Ribisi wasn’t as annoying as he usually is. Sadly since the main star of the movie is Halle Berry, her acting skills killed it.

Not going to spend to much time on this review since there isn’t much to talk about. I had lunch at the newly opened Noodle Factory in the Avenues and I really didn’t like it. Me and my friend ordered the following:

Cantonese Duck Roll (KD1.950)
Peking Fish Ravioli (KD2.250)
Malaysian Char Kuey Chow with Beef (KD2.900)
Kung Pao Chili Prawns (KD3.950)
Vegetable Rice (KD0.900)
Indonesian Nasi Goreng (KD2.500)
2 Pepsi (KD1.500)
7up (KD0.750)
—————
Total: KD16.700

Everything we had was bland and tasteless and there really wasn’t anything we ordered that I actually liked. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was planning on having a milkshake from D*lush when we were done.

Would I go back? No I won’t. Do I think it will be successful? No I don’t. Final score 2 out of 5. Two points because the location is good, waitress was friendly and the place is nicely designed.

Slider Station is a new restaurant that opened up around a month ago. Its a local creation by the same guys behind Burger Boutique. I passed by yesterday night with Nat and a friend for dinner and I left the place extremely impressed and I will tell you from now that I gave the place a full 5 out of 5 rating without the slightest hesitation.

Since the place is pretty small you need to call ahead to reserve a spot. We called on Friday to reserve 3 places at the bar for Sunday night. I had seen the actual location before it was built, I saw sketches on how it would end up looking like and I even so pictures of the interior taken by various other bloggers after Slider Station was launched but even though, when I got to the place I was astonished. Pictures really don’t do the place any justice. I think its currently one of the nicely designed places in Kuwait, everything about it from the walls, to the chairs to the food conveyor belt, everything was paid attention to.

The food conveyor belt, thats the reason we asked for the bar seats. One of the coolest things at Slider Station is the large u-shaped bar taking up the majority of the space on the ground floor. Its surrounded by very comfortable seating and the bar has a built in conveyor belt. Each group at the bar is assigned a number and they serve your food by rolling it out on the conveyor belt. For example our number was 1 so all the dishes that came out on the conveyor belt with the number 1 in front of it was ours. Its a nice gimmick that is both practical and fun. The music that was being played was really cool and their choice of plates, cutlery and glasses were just spot on.

I could talk more and more about the actual look of the place but it would all mean nothing if the food wasn’t any good. The most popular burgers at Burger Boutique are the sliders. Sliders are mini burgers simply put and what Slider Station did was take them to a different level. I don’t know exactly how many different sliders they have but I think they were over 15 variations ranging from beef, to chicken to fish. Unlike in Burger Boutique where sliders come in groups of 4, at Slider Station, each slider order is just a single slider. This makes things A LOT more fun since you could mix and match sliders as you wish. I personally ordered the Roast Beef slider, the Wagyu slider with mature english cheese, the Caribbean crab slider which is a crab burger with a delicious mango sauce, and finally a Hammour slider. For appetizer we had two types of fries, the regular and the extra thin and crispy one. We also had buffalo wings and duck quesadillas. Everything was just really good, the presentation, the flavor, the buns, it was just perfect. There wasn’t anything I could find wrong with the place but I hadn’t ordered the dessert yet so before I could give it a final score I had to try their chocolate pudding. As you could already guess, I must have liked the dessert or else I wouldn’t have given the place a full five out of five. Yes, the chocolate pudding rocked!

So, good food, good atmosphere, good variety and good prices. I don’t know of any other restaurant in Kuwait that deserves a better rating. Final score five out of five. To get reservations call 2465047. They are open from 7PM to 11PM. You can also check out their blog by going to www.sliderstation.com

Pictures taken from SliderStation.com

note: I forgot to mention, they are located on the Gulf Road between Seef Palace and the House of Parliament.

Yesterday while at the Avenues with Nataly and a friend we decided to pass by D*lush and pick up a milkshake. D*lush is an American beverage joint which recently opened their first branch at the Avenues and hopefully will open up more branches soon.

I ordered the Sassy B which is a strawberry and banana shake, my friend ordered the Cookies + Cream which is an oreo cookie shake and finally Nat ordered the Lemon Lush which is a frozen lemonade.

My favorite milkshake is the strawberry shake at Johnny Rockets and so far the D*lush shakes are ask good if not better. Firstly they have a much larger collection then Johnny Rockets which makes sense since D*lush is dedicated to drinks while Johnny is a burger joint. The shakes themselves also taste extremely good, the Cookies + Cream which I tried from my friend is probably going to be my favorite milkshake from now on. Even my Sassy B was really good and I am glad they were actually sampling it out at the store in small shot glasses because otherwise I might have stuck to ordering the regular strawberry shake. I found Nat’s lemonade very sour but she was really happy with it.

The only negatives I could think of are the price of the drinks and the lack of sizes. The shakes are priced at KD1.750 or KD1.850 depending on what you order. Thats more expensive then the largest sized chocolate cream frappucino at Starbucks. They should offer a smaller sized cup priced at under KD1.400. On the other hand Nat’s frozen lemonade was for KD1.100 which isn’t bad at all considering the size.

Final score is a 4 out of 5. The shakes are awesome, they have a good variety so it should take you a while to get bored and the service was very friendly and fast. The negatives are basically the lack of drink size options and the price which is kinda related to the size problem.

www.dlush.com