2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I can’t believe this place is planning to open down the street from my apartment building in Salmiya. This is the mall that’s replacing the old building that had Family Bookshop, Alamiah and Waleed Toys. [YouTube]

Thanks Othman

Tonight I passed by the new Mexican restaurant in Jabriya called En Mexico. It’s a new place that has been open for around a month now. A friend of mine on twitter had recommended the place so I decided to see if it was any good.

The place is small, cozy and located right across the street from Champions Gym and only around 50 meters from Early Bird. When we arrived there was only one other table occupied and so we were able to quickly sit down and check out the menu. I already knew what main courses I was going to have based on my friends recommendation which was the grilled chicken burrito and the braised beef brisket tacos. I also orders chips and guacamole and the jicama and mango salad.

The salad came first and I didn’t think much of it. It’s made up of sliced jicama (which is a sweet vegetable) and sliced mango. Problem is neither the jicama nor the mango were sweet so the salad felt a bit dull. The chips and guacamole followed soon after and I thought the chips were great but kinda regretted not ordering the regular salsa instead of the guacamole dip. So far I wasn’t too impressed but I was hoping things would change with the main course and luckily things did.

Both the chicken burrito and the beef tacos arrived at the same time. I ordered both of the dishes without any bell peppers but didn’t change anything else. The first thing I started eating was the chicken burrito which was pretty good although I wished it had a bit of spice. Later I found out that they were serving it spicy but customers were complaining it was too spicy. They’re still fine tuning the dishes so by the time you try it the spice level should have been adjusted. Now the star of the night was the beef tacos and that’s the dish I’d go back for. One bite into the taco and I knew this was it. The flavors just burst into my mouth and it completely turned the dinner around. The taco is soft which makes it easy to eat and I really loved everything about it. Once we were done I wanted to order the churros with chocolate sauce for dessert but turns out they needed 20 minutes to serve so I decided to pass on it.

En Mexico is currently still in a soft launch but I already have a favorite dish there. Next time around I would probably start off with the chips and salsa, I’ll skip the salad and order two side dishes instead, the Elote which is a mexican style grilled corn on the cob and the jalapeño corn bread with honey butter. For the main course I’ll definitely stick with the beef tacos but next time will make sure to order the dessert as soon as the main course is served.

While I was leaving in my car after dinner I nearly ran over the owner while reversing which was a funny incident. He’s a cool young Kuwaiti guy who’s running the place at night while having a regular day job during the day. I told him I’d be back again which I will. They’re currently only open in the evenings and they’re easy to find as long as you can get to Champions Gym. You can check out their menu by clicking the links below:

En Mexico Starters, Mains and Desserts
En Mexico Salad and Sides

Imagine parking your car outside a super market overnight and coming back the next day to find your wheels are stolen. This happened in Sulaibiya.

Thanks Keith

Alghunaim Photo contacted me last week asking me if I’d be interested in reviewing the Spyder4Pro monitor color calibration tool. Since I’ve always wanted to try one of those tools I passed by and picked it up and then spent the weekend playing around with it.

Every monitor displays colors differently and my 27″ iMac never really felt very accurate when compared to other screens around the house. Even though there is an option built into the Mac system to calibrate the color, it involves a lot of eye squinting and results in a final calibration that I don’t trust. The Spyder takes away all the decision making from me, kinda like a little robot with a focus on keeping the colors on my screen calibrated.

First thing you need to do is install the Spyder software and connect the Sypder to a free USB port on your computer. When you run the software the first test it performs is to measure the ambient light in your room using the light sensor on the Spyder. Once it’s done measuring the light the software then asks you to hang the Spyder on top of the illustrated Spyder on the screen. The Spyder software then proceeds to perform a bunch of tests displaying various colors on the screen while the Spyder measures the results. After a few minutes the test is completed and you’re given an option to either save the new settings or go back to your previous one. You can also compare the new settings with the old one and they even provide you with a variety of pictures to use for comparison.

The best way to perform the before and after comparison is turn away from the screen while changing from one setting to the other. By flipping between the before and after I realized that before the Syder calibration my iMac screen colors were a very cool tone (cool = more towards the blue). After the calibration the colors are more balanced and even the screen brightness which was absurdly bright before is in a much more natural state after the calibration.

All is not good though since I do have a few quibbles here and there but they’re mostly the fault of Datacolor the company and not the Spyder product. My biggest issue is with the documentation or should I say lack of it. The manual doesn’t really tell you about any of the features of the Spyer and it’s also out dated. According to the manual the way to hang the Spyder onto the screen during the tests is with the help of the supplied rubber bands. But the model I got didn’t have any rubber bands and used a simpler newer method using a movable counter weight on the cable. Because of the lack of documentation there’s one feature that’s still confusing me. When connected to your computer the Spyder continuously measures the ambient room light and informs you with a a red icon if the light is different from when calibrated. What’s confusing me is what to do when the ambient light doesn’t match the one the test was performed with? Do I calibrate the display with different ambient light? Do I perform a test during the day and a test during the night? Do I switch between the different color settings myself? I have no idea what to do and the Datacolor website doesn’t even have the latest manuals uploaded yet alone answers to my questions. If you actually do end up purchasing the Spyder I would actually recommend you visit the product page on Amazon where one reviewer has a step by step guide on how to set everything up. That’s how poor the product’s documentation is.

But, even with the poor documentation I’ve still decided I’m going to purchase the Spyder4pro. The thing is it works and it works really well. Within just a few minutes after setting up to your computer you’ll start seeing results and the difference in some cases can be dramatic. It’s really something every serious photographer should have and also anyone doing any sort of design work. I highly recommend it.

Usually at the end of a review I’d proceed to place links to Amazon but in this case Alghunaim actually sells the Syper for prices slightly less than Amazon. He has three models in the store priced as following:

Spyder4expree KD38
Spyder4pro KD45
Spyder4elite KD65

The three Spyders are similar but each offers additional features than the other model. To see which one is suitable for you check out the chart [Here]

I’m going with the Spyder4Pro because it has the ambient light sensor which is missing from the Spyder4express and I also don’t really need any of the extra features from the Spyder4elite.

Alghunaim Photo is located in Baitak Tower in Kuwait City. Here my my previous post about them [Link]

I previously read Jazeera was getting their own terminal and I’m guessing this design is it. [Images Source]

The quote below is taken from the Jazeera Airways website:

Jazeera Airways Terminal
We are on track to have moved some 4 million passengers by end 2008 and project passengers in excess of 8 m by 2012. The Jazeera Airways custom built dedicated terminal is our response to protect the integrity of our service offerings and offer the passengers a dedicated Jazeera Experience that is second to none and maintain our On Time excellence. [Source]

Thanks Othman

I just found out Alshaya are bringing Muji to Kuwait! Their first store is set to open this year at The Avenues. How cool is that? [Source]

What else do we need in Kuwait? Here’s what I think Alshaya should get next:

– Selfridges
– Pret A Manger
– In N Out
– Barnes & Noble

Thanks Joseph

Ever since I started this blog I’ve been searching and requesting photos of Kids ‘r’ us and I haven’t really had much luck until today. Awhile ago I received two really hi-res photos of Kids ‘r’ us Farwaniya taken right after the Gulf War. I thought I would be happy to finally get some pictures but looking at them actually depresses me. It really sucks how it got destroyed and it sucks even more that until today we don’t have a toy store that’s as big or as cool as Kids ‘r’ us was. Actually what also sucks is that we don’t have any pictures to show people how cool of a place it was!

Pictures were taken by Adel Al-Yousifi and a big thanks to Abdulaziz for sending me them. You can view larger versions of the pictures above by clicking the links below:

First Picture
Second Picture

WiMD has setup free wifi at The Village in Abu Al-Hassany. They’re planning to roll out a country wide wifi network in the near future and for the next few months they’re testing the service out at The Village. No idea what the download speed is or if any ports are closed but my guess is their network won’t have a problem handling any bandwidth abuse.

According to Kuwait’s KUNA news agency, five Kuwaiti racers were attacked by a group of Emiratis armed with knives during a break in the fourth round race of the UAE Jet Ski Championship on Saturday.

That’s too much drama for a jet ski race. Fully story [Here]

A reader took the picture above in Dubai. For non-Arabic speaking readers, the mistake in the advert is the price. Instead of writing Emirati Dirhams they wrote Kuwaiti Dinars so the price of the C-Class starts at KD159,000.

Thanks Samer

I finally got around to fixing and updating the Kuwait Blogs app and it’s available to download right now in the store. Other than the fix to the thumbnails not loading I’ve also updated the blog list and now includes the following blogs:

2:48AM
2:48PM
360 Dewan
Aboflan
Ansam
Buz Fairy
Confashions
Danderma
Dusty Co.
Frankom
Grapevine
His & Hers
iLSul6ana
Ladies Who Do Lunch in Kuwait
Khaleejesque
Kuwait Music
Pink Girl Q8
Tidbit Du Jour
Trying to be Fahad
zDistrict

But all is not well. When I updated the app on my phone awhile ago it was freezing on launch. It was working perfectly fine when I tested before uploading to the store. It seems it’s working on some phones perfectly fine while others are facing issues similar to mine. Bare with me I’m not an expert in this. For now you can download it the way it is until I see if I can find a fix for it over the weekend. [US App Store Link]

If you could you please tell me in the comments if the app is working or not working with you that would be great. If you can include which iPhone you have and what version it is that would be even better. Maybe I could narrow the problem down that way.

Note: The included blogs might not all be the most popular but they are blogs I think are interesting and I’ve also tried to include a bit of variety in style and content.

Looks like there is a new radio station launching for the Indian community in Kuwait called U FM. I called to find out when they will be launching but the person responsible wasn’t in yet so will be calling back again later. The station will be available on the 98.4 FM frequency and they already have a Facebook page up which you can check [Here]

Thanks Tijoe

A man was arrested in front of a bank in Salmiya recently where he faked disability to help him in begging. The man was apprehended by police who monitored his activity for days during which they discovered his apparent disability was fake. Investigations revealed that the man came to Kuwait from his home country Egypt on a visitor’s visa to practice begging. It was also revealed that he managed to collect KD 1,356 within only two days of begging. He remains in custody pending legal procedures. [Source]

1,356 in two days is actually pretty awesome.

This is related to my previous post. A few years ago I posted a link to photos of Kuwait in the 1950’s. Well if you’re interested to see how Kuwait and the old Kuwaiti houses looked like back when they were still new then you should check out this photo set. There are around 100 photos to flip through, here is the [Link]