2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I remember Tommy being open in Marina Mall around 7 years back but they weren’t doing good (I heard) and they shut down. Now it looks like they’re reopening again but this time at 360 Mall. Their new location is right next to Signor Sassi in place of Yo Sushi! and also right next to Mango.

Interestingly the brand doesn’t seem to be owned by Alshaya anymore. When Tommy was previously open in Kuwait Alshaya had the brand but, I just checked out the Alshaya website and there is no sign of Tommy Hilfiger so it looks like it’s opening under new ownership.

I have no idea what this is. I was invited by a friend to the OMBEY Facebook page and the only information available there was “To raise awareness”. I’m intrigued. [Link]

– Have breakfast at Cocoa Room
– Have breakfast at Early Bird
– Take my RC cars out
– Ride my bike
– Go off-roading
– Take my dog out to the desert
– Play Battle Field 3

So far I’ve managed to have breakfast at Cocoa Room and take my RC cars out. Still got a lot more to do.

BirdTalk’s first proper episode is out and it’s an interview with artist Ghadah Alkandari. [YouTube]

The Tamdeen Group’s headquarters is featured in this months issue of Middle East Interiors. I just read the article on their website and thought it was great that companies today appreciate and spend on good design but for some odd reason the article online features tiny thumbnails. So although the office sounds great you can’t really see all the goodness.

Maybe someone from Tamdeen can email me some larger photos (and more photos if available) so I could post them here? Check out the article [Here]

via

Update: Here is a link with around 20 pictures including the ones above in a larger size [Link]

Last night Qaiss, the owner of Digumz called me up and he told me he wanted to offer my readers a limited time deal on the occasion of Eid. After a bit of discussion we agreed on a deal that would be cool for my readers while still being fair to him. Starting today and for 3 days only he’s reduced the KD15 monthly membership price down to just KD10. The offer is available starting from now and for the following days:

Thursday, November 3rd
Friday, November 4th
Saturday, November 5th

KD10 a month will allow you to rent as many video games as you would like as long as its one video game at a time. Your membership will also continue to renew at the special offer price of KD10 a month and not KD15. If you’re interested, here is the link to sign up [Link]

A new burger place opened up in Lebanon and their logo looks pretty familiar.

Franklin Marshall opened up yesterday (I think) at the Avenues Phase II opposite Paul Smith.

I was also at Marina Mall last night and noticed SuperDry is opening up in place of where Diesel was located.

Finally some sad news, it seems my favorite Japanese restaurant in Kuwait Kei will not be reopening at Marina Crescent and instead Nestle Toll House will be opening in its place. Originally Kei closed down for renovation but they then gave half their shop to Columbus Cafe Caribou Coffe and it seems now they’ve given the other half to Nestle Toll House. They still have their JW Marriott location but I preferred the Marina Crescent branch since it was right next to my house.

Toll House picture by Mohammed

I just heard that Shake Shack is opening a second branch in Avenues Phase III. I could understand with a brand like Pinkberry or Starbucks why you would need multiple outlets in the same mall but Shake Shack?

A reader sent me the video above because he knows how much I love these action scenes. This one is ridiculously good! [YouTube]

Thanks Ali

Bianca the owner of Early Bird is starting a new YouTube show called Bird Talk in which she will be video blogging about things to do in Kuwait other than the usual ones. I’m not a fan of video blogs but the trailer above looks pretty damn good and if her shows are going to look like that then I’m definitely going to watch them. [YouTube]

via Blogyac

Update: Found the video below in their channel and I think it’s their first episode.

[YouTube]

I’ve heard good things about Muscat but I didn’t think know it was actually so good it came second in the must visit city list for 2012. Pretty cool accomplishment and they’re right next door. Must add it to my to do list.

Top 10 cities
1. London
2. Muscat, Oman
3. Bengaluru (Bangalore), India
4. Cadiz, Spain
5. Stockholm
6. Guimaraes, Portugal
7. Santiago, Chile
8. Hong Kong
9. Orlando, Florida, USA
10. Darwin, Australia

[Source]

Thanks Yousuf
Photo by momentaryawe

The Gulf Run karting event is coming up pretty soon. The race is taking place in Kuwait City on the 25th and 26th of November and it’s going to be a non-stop 26 hour endurance event. If it’s anything like their previous Gulf Run events then you know it’s going to kick ass. They still have some open slots so if you’re interested in putting together a team to participate it’s not too late. For more information and details check out my previous post [Here]

Last year I upgraded the FJ’s head unit and this time around I decided to upgrade the speakers. I had to order everything online except for the amp which I luckily found locally. Upgrading the car sound system is a complicated process in Kuwait because of the fact we don’t have any good quality components available locally so your only option is to order everything from the US which means you can’t hear the speakers before buying them and you also have to pay expensive shipping charges.

I went looking for the items locally first but I couldn’t find anything I wanted here. The best brands I found here are Alpine, Rockford Fosgate, Pioneer and Kenwood. X-Cite is the Alpine dealer but they’re currently revamping their entire lineup so I couldn’t find anything except for the Amp which was part of their clearance sale. They’re also the dealers for Rockford but their collection was very limited. Pioneer and Kenwood aren’t really know for having the best sounding car speakers either, their head units are decent but their speakers are just average. The brands I was interested in were MB Quart, JL Audio, Polk Audio and Massive Audio, none of which were available in Kuwait.

After doing a lot of research I ended up going with Polk Audio for the subwoofer since I needed to install the sub into the FJ factory sub enclosure and some guys in an FJ forum managed to fit the Polk 8″ sub without too much modification. Since I was going with Polk for the sub I ended up going with the Polk 6.5″ components for the front as well. I also ordered a pair of 3.5″ Rockford Fosgate speakers for the rear pillars, some Dynamat for the doors (sound deadening material), a StreetWires Amp kit and some RCA cables. Shipping cost me nearly as much as I paid for the items which was depressing. The biggest culprits were the sub, the Dynamat and the Amp Kit. I also ordered some speaker adapters from tacotunes.com which would allow me to fit the front speakers into the existing factory FJ mounts.

For installation I headed to Zaharat Al Naseem again. They’re the best local car system installers and I used them last year to install my head unit. It ended up taking around 4 hours for the installation which was longer than expected since I had a few things that needed modifying and customizing. The most difficult part was getting the sub to fit in the factory box (check picture below) but with the help of a Dremel tool we managed to get it to fit nicely.

My sound system sounds pretty cool right now even though it still needs a bit of tuning. The best part is that everything fit into the factory locations so the car looks unmodified until you turn the sound system on. I’m not sure why we don’t have a high end components available locally, I guess the market is too small or just not interested in quality car sound systems.

Update: They’ve moved, here is their new location [Google Maps]

Because the rail underneath the car isn’t damaged it looks like the car was picked up and just placed over it gently.

Thanks Patrick