2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Rafael Nadal the currently ranked world no. 2 in men’s tennis is in Kuwait right now for his exhibition match against David Ferrer, the three-time Davis Cup champion. The match is taking place today at the brand new tennis complex that’s part of 360 Mall and where the Rafa Nadal Academy will be located.

Tickets were being sold for KD75 back in December and I regret not buying one since they’re all sold out now and very hard to come by. Both 360 Mall and the Rafa Nadal Academy have been posting lots of stories of his visit, so if you want to see what’s going on then check out both their accounts @mall360 and @rafanadalacademykuwait

CAPSULE, the “Virtual Experience Center” have taken it upon themselves to recreate the Kuwait Motor Town race track virtually. The track is extremely accurate to the point they might have replicated the same tire skid marks that are actually on the track.

So if you’ve been wanting to experience the race track but haven’t been able to then this is a pretty good alternative since the simulation is fairly realistic.

If you’ve never heard of CAPSULE or been to it then you should check out my previous about it here. A virtual experience center is an arcade that allows you to experience virtual reality games. They’re located near Avenues and you can check them out on instagram @capsulevec

A bunch of new shows came out recently but below are currently my favorite three I’m watching right now. They’re still all new and ongoing with only a few episodes released so you can jump into them fairly easily.

Star Trek: Picard
I grew up in the 80s watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was one of my favorite shows ever and was really the only Star Trek series I ever got into. This new series continues off from the movie Star Trek: Nemesis which I’ve watched but don’t really remember which means if you haven’t watched it you’re fine. You also don’t need to be a Star Trek fan or to have watched a Star Trek series to enjoy it. Personally, while watching the show I kept wishing this was somewhat like the movie The Expendables where all the aging characters from the original The Next Generation show would back to form an aging crew that sail off into the galaxy to kick ass. It hasn’t happened so far but I’ll keep wishing! This show is available on Amazon Prime but you need a CBS All Access membership to watch it.

Avenue 5
Another sci-fi show but unlike Star Trek this one doesn’t take itself to seriously. Avenue 5 is a comedy by the creator of the show Veep that takes place in the future aboard a luxury space cruise ship. The show stars a bunch of comedians including Hugh Laurie from House and the always super annoying Zach Woods from The Office. Only three episodes are out so far and you don’t need to be a sci-fi fan or a geek to get into it. The show is available to watch on HBO.

The Outsider
I started watching this show thinking it was based off the 1967 novel The Outsiders which I read as a kid and the 1983 movie which I also watched as a kid and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featured an all-star cast which included Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Diane Lane. Turns out this show was actually based off the 2018 Stephen King novel and thats when I realized it was called The Outsider not Outsiders. But even after I found out about the mistake I couldn’t stop watching the show. The Outsider stars Jason Bateman and revolves around the murder of a young boy. A really well put together show with a filming style that reminded me a bit of Mindhunter and The Killing. Five episodes are out so far and the show is available to watch on HBO.

There are some other new shows that have come out recently but I haven’t started watching them yet. If you have one I should start watching right away let me know!

There is a new and large ice skating rink that opened up in Bayan a few days ago called Kuwait Winter Games Club Ice Rink. It popped out of nowhere with very little to no information and what’s even more impressive is the fact that the Kuwait 2020 Open Championship for Professional Arab Ice Hockey Clubs is taking place there right now.

All the information I’ve been able to find is in Arabic and there really isn’t that much information anyway but I was able to find out that the rink is an IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) approved size and that all future IIHF tournaments will be held there instead of the Ice Skating Rink in the city. My guess this new rink was created because they had announced that they were going to demolish the old rink (they’re not going to anymore).

Why are these things basically kept a secret in Kuwait I don’t know. I couldn’t even find a half-decent shot of the rink and had to get the one on top from the Jeddah Ice Sports Club while the video above from the Kuwait Ice Hockey Girls Team.

Oh yeah it turns out we have a Kuwait Ice Hockey Girls Team and a Kuwait Curling Team, a Kuwait Ski Team and also a Kuwait Speed Skating Team. Who knew? Nobody!

If you want to check out some more pictures of the rink or see the schedule for the hockey championship that’s taking place right now then check out the Kuwait Winter Games instagram account @kuwait_wgc. I’m going to try and pass by tonight to check it out as well. Here is the location of the rink on Google Maps.

Update: I dropped by today to watch the UAE team match against Bahrain. The ice skating rink looks like it still needs work, kinda felt like a pop-up ice skating rink. I guess the rink still needs work but they had to open as is right now because of the championship and then complete the work once the tournament is done. The rink isn’t centered under the roof properly which was super annoying when trying to capture a nice centered photo plus the scoreboard didn’t seem to be working either so I didn’t even know what the final score was.

Even with those issues it was actually really fun watching the game and I’ll probably be going back to watch some more. There isn’t an entrance fee or anything of the sort, you just walk in and sit wherever you want to watch the game. I think there was more closed off VIP seating than there was regular seating but really the best seat in the house is standing ringside anyway.

I have zero loyalty when it comes to mail forwarding services and I’ll flip flop between Shop & Ship, MyBox and MyUS without hesitation. They’ve all got issues and end of the day all I care about is getting my items to Kuwait at the most reasonable rate possible. I know Shop & Ship gets a lot of hate here but I have a nostalgic connection to the brand since I was one of their first customers 20 years ago. But, for the past few years, I had been using MyBox for all my US and UK shopping since they were cheaper than Shop & Ship. But recently I moved back over to Shop & Ship because of their FLEX membership program and because MyBox was starting to get on my nerves.

One of the most annoying things about MyBox was the fact they would send me an SMS, email and app notification all at the same time whenever a package arrived to my mailbox, a package shipped from my mailbox or when a package was out for delivery. Three notifications at the same time and there wasn’t a way to stop it (from within my account at least). Another thing I found annoying was that every single time I logged into my account I would get a pop-up asking me to rate my experience. Every single time and I really really hate pop-ups. The final straw I think was when they most recently started charging 90$ a year for the option of consolidating packages. I thought that was too much to pay but it made me go back and take a look at the Shop & Ship FLEX program since that was only $45 a year. I ended up realizing that I could actually be saving money going with FLEX so I shifted all my shipping back to Shop & Ship.

FLEX has been around for a while now but I never signed up for it because I was happy using MyBox. The service costs $45 a year and has a number of benefits but the two most important ones for me were:

– You’d be charged in 100g increments instead of 500g increments
– You’d get a 20% discount on shipments weighing over 3KG

The 100g increments thing is obviously useful but the 20% discount on heavy items helped me out a lot recently since I was ordering a bunch of car parts for my Datsun 240z and they were mostly all over 3KG (pictured above). So far these two benefits combined have helped me save a bit of money compared to if I had shipped it with MyBox. For example:

13.4lbs
S&S Flex: 23.93 KWD
MyBox: 26.500 KWD

8.56lbs
S&S Flex: 15.69 KWD
MyBox: 16.500 KWD

1.88lbs
S&S Flex: 3.44 KWD
MyBox: 4.500 KWD

So not major savings but enough to justify signing up to FLEX and, I’ve actually already made back the $45 membership fee in savings this past month alone. So if you use Shop&Ship but haven’t signed up to FLEX then you should since you could be saving a lot of money. For more details on FLEX you can check out this page.

Busiest Friday this season with so many different things going on so check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Mirzaam 2020 Expo
965 Outlet
Comic Con
Global Game Jam 2020
Open Track at Kuwait Motor Town
Kind Tunes

Friday
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
Mirzaam 2020 Expo
965 Outlet
Comic Con
Global Game Jam 2020
Carnival Festival
Cricket: Titans Vs Panthers
Treasure Hunt
Al Souq Market
Jazz at Home
G.O.A.T

Saturday
Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Mirzaam 2020 Expo
965 Outlet
Comic Con
Global Game Jam 2020
Carnival Festival
Inspire Series – Road Run 2020

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

Jojo Rabbit

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

New This Weekend:
Jojo Rabbit (8.0)
Gretel & Hansel (7.2)
Kill Chain (5.1)
Little Women (8.1)
The Great Alaskan Race (4.8)
The Knight & The Princess (8.7)

Other Movies Showing Now:
1917 (8.6)
Bad Boys for Life (7.2)
Daughter of the Wolf (5.6)
Dolittle (6.2)
Frozen II (7.1)
Jumanji: The Next Level (7.0)
Just Mercy (6.9)
Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs (6.3)
Spies in Disguise (6.1)
The Gentlemen (8.1)
The Grudge (6.3)
The Turning (3.7)

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

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Backyard Wilderness 3D (8.4)
Dolittle (6.2)
Turtle Odyssey (7.7)

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

Arraya Complex in Kuwait City recently set up an EV parking spot. This is the third EV parking spot I’m aware of in Kuwait with the other two being in Al Shaheed Park and Al Hamra Tower. I like how electric vehicles are slowly gaining traction in Kuwait but for things to really speed up we need more electric cars to be sold in Kuwait. Right now the Chevrolet Bolt EV is the only electric car I’m aware of that’s being sold in Kuwait.

The Porsche Taycan EV (pictured above) just recently got released but I’m not sure if we’re getting it in Kuwait since you can’t even price or configure the car on the Porsche car configurator page. If the Taycan does get released in Kuwait then we’re definitely going to see a lot more electric cars on the street. And of course, if Tesla opens up a local dealership…

الادارة العامة للمرور على تطبيق الواتساب على رقم

99324092 pic.twitter.com/ohlABK63Tl

— وزارة الداخلية (@Moi_kuw) January 24, 2020

Last week I posted about the WhatsApp number which you could report traffic violations on. It didn’t really work with me but a few days later the Ministry of Interior published the video above. I guess I’ll have to give it another shot.

Thanks Musaed

A few weeks ago a new restaurant opened up called ROTO which is based around the concept of a wood-fired rotisserie. The restaurant is owned by the guys behind Little Ruby’s and Chef Khaled Al Baker (@chefkb) whom I’ve previously posted about on the blog. I’m not generally a fan of rotisserie chicken but because Khaled is a friend of mine I decided to (translation: I had to) check the place out. Good thing I did because I’m now actually a huge fan of Roto.

I think the main reason for me not liking rotisserie chicken in the first place was because I only ever had it from those street side rotisserie places and I always found it too greasy plus I don’t like chicken on the bone. So when I told Chef KB that he assured me it would be a different experience, plus they serve the chicken off the bone so I didn’t have an excuse not to try it. Before even getting to the chicken though I have to say what I probably like most about Roto are the starters. Two things you need to have, his Burrata dish and the Corn Brûlée. I’ve literally gone to Roto just to have the corn brûlée, it’s that good!

The rotisserie chicken, on the other hand, tasted wayyy better than I was expecting it to. It definitely didn’t taste like a regular street side chicken and the ability to choose from a variety of different dipping sauces gives it an even greater appeal. Part of what makes the rotisserie taste so good is that it’s grilled in a Josper Rotisserie using wooden coal, so you end up with a nice crispy exterior, a juicy interior, and a slightly smokey flavor. But, what I liked even more was the pulled chicken sandwiches they have on the menu which have become my new favorite lunch thing. The Musahab panini with extra garlic sauce is my favorite one with the shawarma panini coming a close second.

Pricewise it’s fairly reasonable with the rotisserie chicken costing KD4.5, the musahab panini with fries KD3.5 and the corn brûlée for KD3. So a meal for two can cost around KD10 with drinks which is pretty good nowadays. Roto is located in Kuwait City in the new glass tower across the street from Crystal Tower [Google Maps]. They’re open from 1PM to 11PM and you can follow them on Instagram @ontheroto

Top and bottom photo taken from Roto

Last week Carriage and Talabat announced they were joining forces and that there were major improvements coming soon. Yesterday the first change arrived.

If you update your Carriage app to the latest version you’ll now see a bunch of major changes from a new updated interface, to the fact there are now over 2,000 restaurants listed. My first impression isn’t that great but only because it’s a pretty big change to an app I use on a daily basis. One of the first things I did after launching the updated app was going into my account settings and shutting off the options to receive Newsletter and SMS subscriptions. With this new update, the settings are turned on by default so if you don’t want to get spam, turn them off.

With this new update, Talabat has killed off some sections like Electronics and Flowers but left the Grocery section. The biggest change though is the increase in the number of restaurants available through the app since they’ve now added all the Talabat restaurants to the Carriage app. The new total is around 2,200 restaurants which is pretty crazy and means Carriage users now have access to some previously Talabat exclusive restaurants like PICK. Another major change is the fact there are restaurant ratings now so once your order is completed, you can now rate the restaurant you ordered from. Carriage Black still works since I see the discount being applied when I’m checking out, but other than on the checkout page, I can’t seem to find any info on it anywhere in the app which leads me to believe this might be something Talabat will be killing very soon (I hope not).

There are also changes happening behind the scenes. Talabat’s drivers will now start handling all the Carriage deliveries and Talabat will also be handling all the Carriage payments and customer support. The delivery radius has also decreased so some places that used to deliver to my place no longer deliver.

I’m curious to see how this new Carriage and Talabat partnership continues to develop. Hopefully, it means better overall service and experience since that was one of the major complaints people had about Carriage. Right now I care more about Carriage Black than better customer service so hopefully, they don’t phase it out.

Here is an updated list of all the restaurant and cafes now open at the Kuwait Airways terminal (T4):

Al Refai
Cafe Coco
Caribou
Del Monte
Le Pain Quotidien
McCafe
McDonald’s
Pizza Express
Raising Canes
Shake Shack
Starbucks
WH Smith (munchies/drinks)

While prepping for this post I realized that I hadn’t written a hotel review since 2015. I think that’s because I don’t travel as much as I used to and when I do, they’re usually quick weekend trips over to Dubai. I usually stay at the Vida Downtown Hotel in Dubai but this past weekend the room prices were more expensive than usual at KD67 a night which is more than what I wanted to pay. Hotel rooms are still one thing I’m not comfortable with paying a lot for, I only tend to sleep there and not really hang out in the room so can’t see myself paying so much money for it. So while looking for alternative places to stay I stumbled upon the Rove Downtown Hotel. The reviews online were all pretty great, the hotel was a 5-minute walk from Dubai Mall, a 10-minute walk to my best friend’s apartment, the rooms looked nice and clean, and most importantly, it was only around KD35 a night. So I booked and hoped for the best.

When I first arrived to the hotel check-in was pretty quick even though they were a bit busy. While checking in I noticed what looked like an entrance to a cinema on the far end of the lobby so I asked the receptionist if that was an actual cinema and he was like yes it was. Turns out the hotel had a small Reel Cinema movie theater that played current movies and was free for hotel guests. I was already impressed. After getting the room key I headed towards the elevators when I spotted a Zoom brand convenience store connected to the lobby. I decided to check it out and they had a ton of munchies as well as things you might need like deodorant and toothpaste. So far it seemed like the perfect hotel and I started hoping the rooms would be good because I knew it had the potential to be my new favorite hotel in Dubai.

As soon as I walked into the room I was relieved. The room looked like what I had seen in the photos, it was clean, modern, cozy and not that small. When booking a room they had only two options really to choose from, either a room overlooking Burj Khalifa, or not. I didn’t care about the view so I booked a regular room and so my view was of some random towers further down the road and it wasn’t that bad. My overall first impression was really great at that point.

Over the next two days, I really couldn’t find anything negative about the hotel. Even if I’m trying to be super picky the worst thing I could come up with is the lack of decent TV channels or the lack of Apple TV. At Vida, I could connect to my Netflix account on the room’s TV and also stream YouTube videos from my phone to it. But that’s really the only negative thing I have to say about Rove. Dubai Mall was really easy to get to with the closest entrance being the new Fashion Avenue extension and if you want to Uber somewhere, the cabs are all super close and never take more than a couple of minutes to get to the hotel.

If you’re looking for a great budget hotel to stay in the next time you’re in Dubai then I really recommend you check out Rove. I was so impressed it made me go back to writing hotel reviews again. Here is a link to their website.

Back in June McDonalds closed down their Gulf Road location but looks like they’re coming back again but in a new location. McDonalds will be taking over the old Ruby Tuesday location right next to the Kuwait Towers which I think is a better spot than their previous one. There’s a lot more parking and it’s right under the Kuwait Towers so it definitely has a better view.

No idea on when they’re opening but it would be safe to assume it would be sometime over the next few months.

Deputy Minister of Public Works Ismail Al-Failakawi announced that the new airport project will open in August 2022, according to the schedule, indicating that the second package project for the airport has been recommended for award at the lowest prices, and we are awaiting the final approval of the agency reports Al Rai.

Al-Failakawi said, on the sidelines of the inspection tour organized by the Ministry yesterday in the presence of Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development Khaled Mahdi, “There are no obstacles facing the project, as work is currently being done in cooperation and coordination with the contractor, consultant and the Supreme Council for Planning to remove any obstacles.” He explained that the project is going According to the schedule, there is no delay, as the completion rate was 26.9 percent. Source

I’m not trying to be pessimistic here but I passed by the new airport this past weekend (picture above) and I can’t see how it will be completed by August 2022. That’s just two years away which seems crazy but then again, it’s a Diwan Amiri project so maybe 2 more years of construction doesn’t seem too far reached.