2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

A beautiful photo taken by Jules Pearson which I had to share.

A few weeks ago I decided to finally upgrade my toolbox with a proper set of tools. Over the years I’ve been buying tools as I needed them and that has resulted in a bag full of random brands, missing pieces, and duplicate items. Since I use my tools a lot because of my cars, I decided to reboot my toolbox and put together a nice set of some great brands and great tools.

There are two very popular hardware stores in Kuwait, Ace Hardware and Bin Nisf, but there are a ton of other smaller or more specialized stores in Kuwait which is mainly why I wanted to put this list together. There isn’t one store that carries everything so if you want to build a kit with the best of different brands you’re going to have to visit different locations. Below is a list of my favorite places that carry some great brands, most of them are only available in the stores they’re listed under. I’ll only be listing the brands I think are worth mentioning, for example, Bin Nisf carries a lot of brands but not many quality ones. Also, some brands like Bosch, Dewalt, Stanley, Makita, etc are sold in all hardware stores so I haven’t mentioned those as well. Check out the places below:

A friend of mine put this list together on Twitter of the various trends we’ve gone through over the years and I thought it was so on point!

2010: Year of the Cupcake
2011: Year of the Froyo
2012: Year of the Gelato
2013: Year of the Karak
2014: Year of the Pistachio
2015: Year of the Pudding
2016: Year of the Chicken Burger
2017: Year of the Lotus
2018: Year of the Coffee
2019: Year of the Healthy Diet Boxes
2020: Year of the Shawarma
2021: Year of the Matcha

The only thing missing is the San Sebastian cheesecake phase we went through back in 2018.

via @_M87

Books for Cancer is an online-based used bookshop run by girls where all the proceeds go to Al-Sidra foundation to help support cancer patients psychologically and financially. They carry mostly English books but also some Arabic ones and they sell both children’s books and adult books.

For more info check out their instagram account @booksforcancerkw or check out all the books on their website booksforcancerkw.com

Thanks Fahed

Last month I posted about a restaurant in Avenues that accept cryptocurrency as payment and now there are two more shops that accept crypto.

Outwest: The local lifestyle shop now accepts Bitcoin as payment

VI BY VOGULARITY: The local fashion label now accepts Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum as payment

Better Books: They have over 10,000 books including some really old ones and they accept Bitcoin as payment.

If you know of any other local shops that accept crypto let me know in the comments.

Negochi is already known for being the largest hunting store in Kuwait but over the years they have slowly been growing their collection of knives with the aim of becoming the largest knife retailer in the region. Their store in Dajeej has two floors with knives on display and it’s going to get even bigger once their new shipment arrives in the coming weeks.

They carry a ton of knife brands including:
Boker
BYRD
Cold Steel
CRKT
Fox
Hazen
KA-Bar
M Tech
Schrade
Smith & Wesson
SOG
Spyderco
TAC-Force
Timberline
USMC
Volcan
Z Hunter

They have hundreds and hundreds of knives on display and you really need to see it to believe it. Their top floor which is dedicated to just knives feels like a museum. If you’re interested in knives you probably already know about Negochi but if you’re looking for an interesting cool place to pass by and check out, here is their location on Google Maps. They’re also on instagram @negotchi.knives

Yesterday the popular restaurant STREET posted that they’ll sadly be closing down their Kuwait City location:

Guess it’s time to say goodbye. As much as it’s hard to look back at the beautiful 7 years in our first home, every chapter comes to an end. Every single one of you lived these beautiful years in our Kuwait City location and has great memories as much as we do. But It’s time to move on… Every young kid eventually grows up. We love & appreciate every one of you all, and for the endless support!! ❤️ ❤️ ⁣⁣⁣
On to the next!!!

I hadn’t been there since before the pandemic but used to really like the place. They’re closing at the end of the month so you’ve still got a bit of time to pass by and have one last meal there. @st_almakan

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Meander (5.8)
Reminiscence (7.4)
Respect (7.0)
The Green Knight (7.4)

Other Movies Showing Now:
A Quiet Place Part II (7.3)
Anything for Jackson (6.3)
Black Widow (6.8)
Cruella (7.4)
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (6.1)
F9: The Fast Saga (5.2)
Free Guy (7.7)
Hard Kill (3.3)
Rogue Hostage (3.1)
Space Jam: A New Legacy (4.4)
Snake Eyes (5.7)
The Suicide Squad (7.5)

Classic Movie Showing Now:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (8.8)

The films below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Antartica (N/A)
Backyard Wilderness 3D (7.7)
Turtle Odyssey (7.2)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

I noticed recently on Twitter a lot of people complaining about Aramex. I thought I was the only one having problems with them recently but it looks like it’s everyone. Yes, I’m aware a lot of you don’t like them and prefer using other services, but from my experience, they offer the best bang for the buck. You also get what you pay for, so very affordable shipping but also fairly slow shipping which is why I don’t have an issue with their speed.

Recently things have been a disaster though. Not sure if it’s because of lack of staff or what exactly but not only are packages being delivered much slower than usual which I’m fine with, the mistakes they’re making is what I have an issue with. For example, I had one package go out for delivery only for the driver to say I rejected the package which I didn’t. It then took 2 weeks, 6 to 7 phone calls, 3 complaint tickets, and contacting their social media team twice just to get the package redelivered again.

This brings me to my post. Which company has the worst or best customer service in Kuwait? Everyone makes mistakes, that’s fine but good or bad service for me is based on how you go about trying to solve the mistake.

Worst: Aramex (Shop&Ship)
Like I said, it isn’t because they’re slow, it’s because they’re just terrible at solving problems when they do happen.

Best: Babel
This was difficult to choose because of the lack of options, but in the end I decided to pick Babel. I order delivery from them and their customer service is great. They always call to make sure the food arrived or call the next day to make sure if everything was ok. But really the reason I chose them is because of the one time I had an issue with my order, they went beyond what was required to make me happy even though I wasn’t even upset. They forgot to put the tabbouleh dressing with my order so I called them to let them know just as an FYI. They were very apologetic and insisted on resending the whole order again and even included dessert to make up for it even though I tried to tell them not to. Been a big fan ever since.

I’m curious to know what everyone’s Worst and Best is. Based on social media I’d assume it’s going to be either Aramex, Xcite or one of the telecoms.

Update: I was right! Looks like the majority of readers rank Aramex Shop & Ship, Xcite and Ooredoo as the worst followed closely by Talabat. When it comes to best customer service it looks to be Deliveroo which I also agree with.

China Great Wall is my go-to hole in the wall for hot pot. Hot pot if you don’t know is a way of cooking at your table using a boiling pot of soup stock that you throw your raw ingredients into. You can order the pot in different flavors like spicy or none spicy or order a two-way pot which is a pot split in half and containing two different flavors of stock. You then have two pages worth of items you can order to cook ranging from different proteins like beef or lamb, to veggies like mushrooms and greens. It’s a lot of fun and the hot pot at China Great Wall is pretty good.

The price is also great costing just 2.5KD for a single flavored pot or 3.5KD if you want a two-way. In addition to the pot you then pay per ingredient, so a dish of raw beef for example is 2.250KD, pakchoi is 1KD, morning glory 750fils etc.. The place is fairly small with just 5 tables so it tends to get busy really quickly.

If you’re interested in trying China Great Wall, their instagram is @chinagreatwallrestaurant and here is their location on Google Maps.

The popular Australian skincare brand Aesop is now available in Kuwait at Bloomingdales. For some reason, up until now the only way to get Aesop products was to order it from the UK or US even though Bloomingdales in Dubai carried the brand.

The only downside is the products aren’t available at the Bloomingdale location in 360 Mall yet, only on their local website. But the items are in Kuwait I believe since they offer same-day delivery on them and delivery is for free. The prices of the products all seem to be standard Aesop retail pricing as well. To see all the available Aesop products available to order in Kuwait, click here.

I’ve been collecting old video game ads from the 80s and uploading them to my Flickr account. I’ve got over 20 ads so far in the album including ads for the Intellivision, Coleco, Amiga, and Atari consoles. I also found some newspaper clippings of old video game tournaments which I thought was cool.

The big players in the video game business back then based on the ads were Alamiah, Alghanim (Xcite), and surprisingly, Marafie. Check out all the ads I’ve found so far here.

Cool footage of Salhiya and the surrounding area from back in 1984, but sadly, I didn’t spot Alamiah in the video nor the Korean restaurant on M2 in the video. YouTube

Thanks @forzaq8

Over the weekend I tried out the cotton candy experience at Spunsprinkles and it was wayyyy more fun than I thought it would be. I had pre-booked the experience for me and a couple of friends a week earlier since the few available slots they have get booked quickly. The space is pretty small but super cute and we had stools set up for us in front of the cotton candy spinner.

The first thing they made us do was pick the flavor of the cotton candy we wanted from 16 different ones available (not including their secret menu). After picking our favorite we got to choose all the various sprinkles and glitter we wanted with our cotton candy including edible stickers. Once we all chose how we wanted our cotton candy to look, we started building it. Although the experience is mostly catered towards children, it was honestly a lot of fun as adults which is why they get people of different ages booking the experience.

In the end, we all left with huge smiles on our faces and our tubs of customized cotton candy (my watermelon flavored cotton candy was delicious). The experience costs KD1 per person not including the cost of the cotton candy which varies from 1.5KD to 2.5KD depending on what you’re building.

Being stuck in Kuwait for the past 18 months has resulted in most of us looking for anything new and fun to try while here. This is something you definitely should add to your list to try with friends (or your kids). Their experience slots for the week fill up quickly but new slots open every Sunday at 4PM. Check them out on Instagram @spunsprinkles and if you want to book an experience yourself, here is the link.

It started off in 2008 as a group of domestic workers who got together to spend leisure time, cooking, and playing games. Then as the group got more popular, other domestic workers were coming to them for help, so they decided to do something about it.

“Before, nobody talked about domestic workers. They were there, but nobody could see them. But over the past 13 years, there have been a lot of changes.” – Ann Abunda

In 2010, they founded Sandigan Kuwait, a more serious group that advocates for the protection and welfare of domestic workers. They now assist and assess workers’ cases from different nationalities, and from different work sectors. They have a repatriation programme, offer legal aid, and provide psychosocial activities. In addition, every Friday they have a livelihood program for domestic workers.

It’s an inspiring story and you can read more about it on the International Labour Organization website ilo.org

via @AlHashemShaikha