2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Sintoho, the Pan-Asian restaurant at the new Four Seasons is now officially open. It was the last remaining restaurant to open up at the Four Seasons and it’s located on the top floor adjacent to their Italian restaurant, Dai Forni.

If you do decide to head to the Four Seasons make sure you also pass by Al Bandar, their poolside lounge. It’s probably gonna be the spot to be once the weather cools down.

As we’ve been going manaeesh crazy over in the PantryBee kitchen we thought we’d share a super simple manaeesh dough recipe that you can make to enjoy at home. For those who don’t know manaeesh, or manaakish, or the singular manoushe, it’s a popular levantine dish consisting of flattened dough topped with a variety of toppings ranging from za’atar to minced meat, cheese and more.

This recipe yields enough dough to make 8 manaeesh and is from our Chef friend Khaled AlBaker chief manaeesh maker over at Meem Cafe.

1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tsp sugar
3 cups flour
1 cup water

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add wet ingredients and knead for 15-20 mins continuously (work them arms out!). Roll into a ball and cover to rest for 1 hour at room temperature. Use it straight after resting or leave it overnight in the fridge for later use.

Note: If you use dry yeast 1/2 tsp will do. To activate the yeast add it to the sugar and water and stir. Wait approximately 10 mins until the mixture starts to bubble then it will be ready to use.

Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.

Over the years I’ve posted about different things to do in Lebanon and different places to go, but I’ve never really posted about any outdoor activities you could do (well except for paragliding and ATVing, but that was ages ago). I tend to like doing one outdoor activity whenever I go down to Lebanon, usually camping, but if I don’t have enough time then hiking. Hiking is actually something thats really easy to do in Lebanon and doesn’t require much in terms of prep, you just need transportation and a good pair of hiking shoes (or old sneakers). If you’re interested in hiking the next time you’re in Lebanon, below are two places I highly recommend.

Tannourine Cedars Forest Nature Reserve
The Tannourine reserve is a really great place to go hike and for a number of reasons. Firstly if you enjoy driving then you’ll enjoy the drive to the Tannourine village. The roads are long and winding with beautiful views so I’d highly recommend you rent a convertible for it. Secondly because the reserve is so high up the mountain, even during hot summer months the weather up there is bearable. Finally and most importantly, the reserve is beautiful and filled with huge cedar trees throughout the trail.

The reserve is also pretty well organized. The website isn’t that great but once you get to the reserve you get handed a map at the entrance along with a explanation of all the trails available. There are three trails available with the shortest lasting an hour and the longest nearly three hours. The hike isn’t that difficult although there are some areas that are steep, so you need to be a bit fit or else you’re gonna keep stopping for breaks. The trails are also clearly marked with wide paths and various signs at various intersections so it’s really difficult to get lost. The entrance fee is just 5,000LL (KD1) and the reserve is on Google Maps so it’s really easy to find. For more information you can check out the reserve website [Here]

Shouf Biosphere Reserve
The Shouf reserve is really easy to get to if you’re staying in the Beirut area. If you try to head to the Tannourine reserve during the middle of the week it could easily take you up to 3 hours while the Shouf reserve would take you half that. Like the Tannourine reserve, there are 3 main hiking trails with the shortest lasting just 20 minutes and the longest over 3 hours. But the trails are pretty tough due to the fact that the first half involves a very steep uphill climb to get to the top of the mountain. The trail is actually so tough that you really don’t get to enjoy the beautiful forest until you start making your way back down. The trails also aren’t clearly marked and there are barely any signs. Most of the time you’ll wonder if you’re heading in the right direction or if you’ve veered off the trail and are heading into the middle of nowhere. But its because of that I like this trail, it’s more exciting and feels like a proper adventure. You’ll spend a lot of time on the trail second guessing yourself, wondering if you should have gone left instead of right or right instead of left.

The biosphere’s website is also pretty well put together with a lot of information on all the different trails available as well as information on where to stay or where to eat in the area. The entrance fee to the reserve is 7,000LL and its also easy to find on Google Maps. For more information you can check out the biosphere website [Here]

If you’re really into hiking and camping, and have a bit of time then you could attempt one of the official Lebanese Mountain Trail hikes. The LMT trail is 470km long and divided up into 26 sections. You can get more information on the LMT by clicking [Here]

Like I mentioned at the start of the post, whats great about the two reserves I shared is that they’re easy to get to and very doable if you’re in Lebanon for the just the weekend. It’s a perfect escape from the city and great stress reliever. And best of all, both reserves are close enough that you’ll still have enough time to get back to the city and party after sundown.

Aramex Shop & Ship just launched a new service called Flex in which you pay for your shipments per 100 grams instead of the standard per 500 grams. Usually if you get a package that weighs 300 grams, Aramex would charge you as if it was 500, if your shipment weighed 600 grams then you would get charged for a kilo. By paying per 100 grams instead of 500, you should be able to save on shipping costs.

It would have been a game changer in the US mailbox forwarding market if it wasn’t for the fact that to be eligible for the new pricing structure, you need to pay Aramex KD35 a year. So whatever savings you would accumulate with the Flex pricing structure, you’d most likely end up losing it all with the Flex yearly fee. Not very practical unless you order a lot of items online. If you’re interested to find out more, click [Here]

Zipjet (an online laundry and dry cleaning service) analyzed a 150 cities, and then put a list together highlighting the most and least stressful ones using various factors such as green spaces, public transport, air pollution, traffic and race equality. Based on those factors, Kuwait City was ranked as the 23rd least stressful city in the world and coming second in the region just behind Abu Dhabi. Here is how Kuwait compared to other countries in the region:

1 – Stuttgart, Germany
19 – Abu Dhabi, UAE
23 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
32 – Dubai, UAE
60 – Doha, Qatar
73 – Manama, Bahrain
75 – Muscat, Oman
92 – Amman, Jordan
97 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
98 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
101 – Beirut, Lebanon
140 – Damascus, Syria
145 – Tehran, Iran
146 – Cairo, Egypt
150 – Baghdad. Iraq

For the full rankings and analysis, click [Here]

Thanks Sharan

The iPhone 8 just went on sale a few days ago in the States and its already available in Kuwait. Since it hasn’t officially been released in Kuwait yet the prices as expected are pretty ridiculous at the moment. Here are some of the current prices:

Best Electronics
iPhone 8 Plus 256GB: KD400

Blink
iPhone 8 256GB: KD315
iPhone 8 Plus 256GB: KD400

Eureka
iPhone 8 Plus 64GB: KD300

Mobile 2000
iPhone 8 Plus 64GB: KD300

The official Kuwait prices in comparison are as follows:

iPhone 8 64GB: KD245
iPhone 8 256GB: KD297
iPhone 8 Plus 64GB: KD278
iPhone 8 Plus 256GB: KD332

A bunch of places have pre-orders for the official release including Xcite and Jarir. The expected release date is September 30th.

If you’re hoping to get your hands on the iPhone X then you’re going to have to wait a bit longer since the iPhone X is scheduled to be launched in the US on November 3rd.

Thanks Frankom

The movies below are now showing at either Cinescape, Grand Cinemas or Sky Cinemas:

New This Week:
Estranged (5.4)
It Comes at Night (6.3)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (7.6) ★ ♦
The LEGO Ninjago Movie (6.8)

Other Movies Showing:
American Made (7.5) ★ ♦
Birth of the Dragon (4.1)
IT (8.5) ★ ♦
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (7.3)
The Limehouse Golem (6.4)
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (4.5)
Victoria and Abdul (6.1)

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

A Beautiful Planet 3D (7.9)
Dream Big 3D (7.9)
Humpback Whales 3D (7.2)
Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D (N/A)
Tiny Giants 3D (8.0)
Watermelon Magic 3D (7.4)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

A few weeks ago I got contacted by the US Embassy telling me that US ambassador Lawrence Silverman wanted to meet up for coffee. Originally they wanted to know if he could come by my office, but I thought that might be a bit weird since I currently work in a government office and it would be kinda awkward if the US ambassador came to our offices with his entourage just to meet with me. So I asked them if we could meet somewhere else and they were like sure, where?. Now in my head I was thinking, can the US ambassador actually have coffee anywhere? I didn’t know if there were any rules or security protocols that prevented him from doing so, but I wanted to meet somewhere casual, so I figured I’d ask anyway. So I proposed Arabica at Arraya and they agreed. First thing I then did was get in touch with Arabica and see if I could book a table. I didn’t want to get there with the ambassador and then not have anywhere to sit so Arabica ended up hooking us up.

I actually just got back from having coffee there with the ambassador since our meeting was this morning. His arrival was pretty dramatic as expected, first I got a message from the Cultural Attache saying “We’re approaching” and then I saw all the flashing lights of his convoy pull up a few moments later. He then walked over to Arabica with his security detail who ended up hanging out around the area until we were done with our meeting. It was my first time meeting with ambassador Silverman. I had met the previous ambassador when we flew together to the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, but ambassador Silverman has only been in Kuwait for a year and so we hadn’t had the chance to meet yet.

The meeting turned out to be pretty enjoyable surprisingly, I was worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about and end up with awkward moments, but there wasn’t a dull moment throughout the hour we were together. We kinda clicked from the start since we were talking about Oman and I mentioned how me and some friends of mine were planning to send our sport cars there for a road trip, and he mentioned that Audi recently launched their RS3 in Oman. I was like wtf? (in my head) How did he know that? Me and my friends were actually watching an RS3 review video that was shot in Oman when we decided on this trip. Turns out the ambassador had watched the same video and himself is a car guy so the conversation pretty much flowed after that with us talking about cars mostly.

Close to the end of the meeting we brought up the idea of him possibly guest posting on this blog, similar to how the previous British ambassador had his “Mondays with Matthew” posts. He was interested so expect those posts to come soon. I have to say, its occasions like this that make me enjoy what I do so much. It’s unreal.

If you’re ever interested in more content than whats on here, you can follow me around the web using the links below:

Twitter: @mark248am
Instagram: @mark248am
Facebook: /248am
Soundcloud: @mark248am
Spotify: interdigitate
Yelp: mark248am

If you do follow me on Spotify make sure you follow my “ice cream run 🍦” playlist which is updated constantly with tracks I’m currently liking. [Link]

Last week Apple released the series 3 Apple Watch and introduced the option of having cellular connectivity. Unlike with phones, the Apple Watch won’t use a regular sim card but instead uses what Apple calls the eSIM, which is a digital sim card. So will it work in Kuwait? No, it won’t, not for now at least.

According to my contact at one of the local telecoms, the eSIM technology is not yet available in Kuwait. This means if you do order the Apple Watch with LTE, you won’t be able to benefit from the cellular function for the moment, not until the local operators start supporting eSIM technology (I wasn’t given a timeframe to when that might happen).

If you’re also thinking of buying the LTE version now in hopes of being able to use it later once the local operators get eSIM, then you need to make sure you get the correct version. Kuwait uses the LTE frequency bands 4 and 5 and different versions of the Apple Watch support different bands. Check out the chart below which I took from iMore:

So if you want to get the LTE version from now, your best option is to order the watch from the States since it supports both frequency bands 4 and 5. The UK version for example just supports 5 which means you’ll only be able to use it with Ooredoo (if this source is correct). My guess is that local operators are currently scrambling to get eSIM fast so they could say they’re the first, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get eSIM support by early next year. But thats a guess…

A friend of mine mentioned The Great British Bake Off over dinner a couple of weeks back and that same night I found it on Netflix and watched the first episode. Since then I’ve been binge watching the whole series every night until I finally finished watching all the seasons that were available on Netflix. It’s now probably one of my favorite food related shows right up there with Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (not to be confused with the American version Kitchen Nightmares).

The Great British Bake Off is an amateur baking competition which starts with 12 contestants and then every episode one person leaves until you finally have a winner. What I love about this show is how super chill it is. Unlike the majority of the American competitive shows, there’s no dramatic music, heavy editing or any forced drama at all. Anyone who has watched the UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and then the US version would know what I’m talking about. The humor on the show is great and the two judges and the two hosts are really entertaining. Even the personalities of all the competing bakers are usually interesting, quirky or funny.

But there’s one major issue with the show. Ever since I’ve started watching it I’ve also started craving and eating so much dessert. All I’ve been doing the past two weeks is either trying to bake myself, or going from one bakery to another looking for interesting bread, pastries, pies or cake to get. On more than one occasion I put an episode on pause and then walked down to the Paul near my home to get some bread or pastries. The other night at 10PM I actually drove all the way to Avenues just to pick up some stuff from a bakery over there. Thats why I was trying to get through the show as quickly as I can, just so I could stop pigging out and go back to eating healthy again.

So if you’re into food shows and haven’t watched this show already then you should. Just be warned that you’ll probably put on weight doing so. The show is available on Netflix US to stream but not on the Kuwait. I use Smart DNS Proxy to get Netflix US working here and you can get more info on that at this [Link]

It seems a lot of people who own/drive/borrow yachts in Kuwait have very basic understanding of how to boat and have no idea what do in case of emergencies, not to mention the basic principles of navigating and driving a boat. So to promote safety on the waters in Kuwait, Al Kout is launching Marsa Al Kout Boat School. The Boat School will be organized in partnership with Maritime Concept Sea School and International Yacht Training, and will provide internationally recognized power-boating and yachting courses for residents of Kuwait free of charge.

The first question I asked them once I got their email was if there was a catch and there isn’t. The school will run from September 17th to October 7th and be divided into four groups with a limited number of people per group. The first two groups already filled up and only the third and fourth groups still have available spots. The course is 12 hours long and divided across 3 lessons (2 theory and 1 practical on the boat). After the course the instructor asses you using a test, and if you pass you get certified.

To sign up or for more information, you can call Al Kout on 23930101.

Cookbooks are a pleasure to have, use, and gift to others, and recently our team has been obsessed with “Palestine on a Plate – Memories from my Mother’s Kitchen by Joudie Kalla”. It’s our September PantryBee Bookclub of the month choice for millions of reasons, all of them delicious.

Palestinian-Briti Joudie Kalla is a caterer and a restaurateur in London with a Middle Eastern restaurant in Chelsea named Baity. Her cookbook is filled with classic Palestinian recipes that have been passed down to her from her grandmother and family, and like all great Arabic cooking it caters to carnivores and plant based eaters alike. Our favorite picks include: Sayadeyeh, Salatet jaj wa freekeh, kubbeh bil sanniyeh, Teta Huda’s mussaka and last but not least mejdool date scones.

If you want to hear a bit more, watch the quick interview with Joudie above.

You can order the book [Here]
Or get the Palestine on a Plate app for your phone from [Here]

Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.