2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Café Kitsuné, the sub-brand of the trendy French-Japanese lifestyle brand Maison Kitsuné is opening in Kuwait.

Maison Kitsuné expanded their brand in 2013 by opening Café Kitsuné in Tokyo followed by a location in Paris in 2019. I’ve been to the one in Paris and I’m a fan of the brand like I’m sure many people are.

Café Kitsuné has over 21 locations worldwide and they’re now planning to open in Kuwait (lso set to open in Dubai). The details aren’t finalized yet but they’re planning to open in Abdullah Al Salem sometime this year.

Formula One picked up in popularity over the past few years because of the Netflix documentary “Drive to Survive” so a lot of new (and some old) F1 fans in Kuwait will find this tidbit interesting.

Back in 2014, Red Bull brought their junior driver Carlos Sainz along with their F1 car to Kuwait and then had him race up and down the Gulf Road. I managed to get some photos as well as a video from that day which you can check out here.

If you’re an F1 fan then you know that Carlos Sainz is now Ferraris main driver and so you might be kicking yourself for not meeting him back when he came to Kuwait as just a young Red Bull junior racing team driver.

Photo of Kuwait at night taken by an astronaut from onboard the International Space Station with a NIKON D5 and a 400mm lens on May 6, 2023.

via Reddit

Those of you who remember when the Korean supermarket Singarea was in Dajeej might remember they had a very cool Korean restaurant upstairs. That restaurant closed in 2012 and since then Singarea has moved out of Dajeej and opened several stores around Kuwait including their most recent one at Boulevard in Salmiya. When I first visited that location, I noticed they had an area in the back for a small restaurant and I got excited since I used to be a fan of the one in Dajeej. Yesterday morning the owner of Singarea got in touch with me and invited me to pass by for a tasting.

The whole invitation thing happened quickly and last minute since I’m traveling this weekend and we were trying to make it work before I left. I even struggled to find a friend to come a long but luckily I did because there was a lot of food to try. Since I was a fan of the previous Singarea restaurant, I didn’t really ask any questions about the place, I just headed there not knowing what to expect but figured it would be the run of the mill Korean restaurant.

But, when I got there and sat down, a few things caught my attention. The first were the expensive Devialet Phantom II speakers hung around the restaurant, then I noticed the heavy brass side plates on the table with handmade lacquered chopsticks. I didn’t think of it much until they brought out the first dish and my friend was like Mark, I think this is fine dining.

They didn’t have a menu because it was still being worked on so they brought out dishes for us based on their recommendation. The first dish was a custard egg with seafood, something I’ve never had before and the presentation looked pretty fancy. Right away they captured my interest and I was now really intrigued about the place. One by one the dishes started coming out, we got a grapefruit yuza salad next, then a seafood pajeon, tteokbokki (the best rice cakes I’ve had), both a beef and seafood Albap served bento box style, and more. It was a lot of food and a lot of different and exciting flavors to try. The seafood pajeon (the pancake like dish) is now probably my favorite Korean dish ever, it was so good and bursting with so many different flavors, it’s the dish thats going to keep me going back. But really everything we tried was visually interesting and delicious except for probably the galbi steak dish which I felt needed some sauce on the side to dip into.

Once we were done I sat with Penny the owner of Singarea, a young trendy looking guy with long hair and cool kicks. His father opened Singarea in Kuwait over 40 years ago and now he’s taken it over. He explained to me his concept of wanting to serve premium Korean dishes but without the high prices usually associated with it. He’s starting off small (the restaurant has only 6 tables) but has the ability to expand later. They hadn’t finalized the prices or menu yet when I visited, but they’re aiming for an average paycheck of around 8-10KD per person.

KI:WA (or just Kiwa) is aiming to open next week on June 1st. It’s located at the back of the Singarea store in Boulevard next to the lake, and they’ll be open for both lunch and dinner. You can stay posted on the restaurant and the opening by checking @singareamarket or @kiwa.q8

Update: So turns out the galbi steak dish came with a pepper cream sauce but I didn’t see it since it was hidden from my sight behind the dish 😅

This is really good news for anyone looking to open a business in Kuwait or currently pays rent on an office that they never use. Yesterday the Ministry of Commerce and Industry announced that it is no longer required for businesses to have an office if they don’t have employees.

Previously if you wanted to get a business license you had to have an office even if you didn’t need one. So what people would do is rent out cheap 250-300KD offices in basements of dodgy complexes in Hawalli and other cheap neighborhoods which they would never use or even visit. People had to pay thousands on rent just so they could have a business license. With the new rule, the home address can be used to obtain a license.

This is going to help out a lot of people and encourage a lot of new businesses to open in Kuwait.

Located in Sharq, the Cartoon Network theme park is a franchise by Warner Bros and is the largest indoor theme park in Kuwait. The park, which was developed in collaboration with Future Kid spans a massive 3,500 square meters and provides visitors with a unique opportunity to interact with beloved Cartoon Network characters and brands.

One of the key attractions of the park is the Ben 10 themed Immersive Adventurer ride, supplied by the UK-based dynamic media attractions specialist Simworx. This ride is a highly dynamic, 3DOF motion simulator, designed as a 16 seat ‘vehicle’ that uses 13 video screens to project media on all sides of the vehicle, even the roof, fully immersing riders in the world of Ben 10.

The park continues to evolve and improve, with a complete redevelopment undertaken in 2019, replacing all the existing rides and introducing new, exciting attractions.

To find out more about the park, visit @cnworldkw

This post is a paid partnership.

Although Apple Maps originally launched back in 2012, it only started working in Kuwait last week. I don’t know what took Apple so long but I’m glad its now finally working here. While I’m a fan of Google Maps, I find the interface of Apple Maps not only easier to read and follow, but also significantly faster to use.

If you’ve never used Apple Maps before you can now try it out.

Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, the San Francisco bakery that went viral in 2017 with the invention of the cruffin, officially opened in Kuwait today.

I dropped by yesterday for the soft opening that was hosted by @pltq8 and other than sweet and savory pastries, they also have a few sandwiches, protein shakes, juices and coffee.

They open 6am to 10pm daily and are located in Kuwait City next to Eighty Six burger, on the same strip as Crystal Tower.

iHop, previously an Alshaya brand closed down their physical locations back in 2021 before eventually closing down delivery as well. Now they’re back in Kuwait again but this time they’re Kout Food Group, the same company that has Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway amongst other brands.

They just opened their first location at CRE Mall in Mahboula and will be opening other locations including one in Avenues. They’ve also started delivery which is being handled by the cloud kitchen operator Kitopi.

I was always a fan of iHop since they had a pretty good affordable no frills breakfast and some great pancakes. Their Mahboula location is completely out of the way for me so I’m not going to be passing by anytime soon, but definitely will once they reopen in the Avenues.

Not a lot happening this weekend but there is a good variety of different things. check out the list below and let me know if I missed anything.

Thursday, May 18
Zahy Expo
IFK Cinema Night
Workshop: Palestinian Embroidery
Wejha Open Studio Nights
Artistic Studio Nights

Friday, May 19
Zahy Expo
International Museum Day
Voices from the Occupation
Lets Go Thrfting!
Touch of Hope Charity Concert
Indie Print Festival

Saturday, May 20
Al Hamra Music Night
Zahy Expo
Lets Go Thrfting!
Coffee Sunset Sea Cruise
Clothing Swap & Shop
Theater: Out at Sea
TEDxKuwaitCity

Exhibitions:
An Oasis in the Desert of My Soul
Hundred Best Arabic Posters by 100/100
I am Every Woman by Rasa Romanova
Voices of the Occupation by AUK

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

New This Weekend:
A Good Person (7.0)
Fast X (6.2)
From Black (5.0)

Other Movies Showing:
Air (7.7)
Assassin
BlackBerry (7.7)
Evil Dead Rise (7.7)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (8.3)
Guy Ritchie’s the Covenant (8.5)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (8.2)
My Fairy Troublemaker (5.3)
Ride On (7.2)
The Black Demon (4.2)
The Pope’s Exorcist (6.1)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Aladdin – 1992 (8.0)
Mrs. Doubtfire – 1993 (7.1)

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

Aquapark, which was the first water park in Kuwait got demolished a few years ago to a lot of people’s dismay. But, another waterpark was built in its place from the ground up with new games and it was given a new name, BayZero. The new park is the largest water park in Kuwait and this past weekend they reopened again for the new summer season.

Entrance to the park is 6KD and they’re open daily from 10AM to 10PM. The park is located right under the Kuwait Towers, behind McDonalds. Tickets can be purchased from their website bayzero.com.kw. For more info and photos, their Instagram account is @bayzerokuwait

Just a quick update on yesterdays post. After watching all the snapchat videos of people stuck at the Saudi Kuwait borders for hours, I spent the whole drive from Riyadh to Kuwait anxious about how long I’d be stuck there for. I figured if I arrived to the border around 3:30, I would probably leave around 6 because of the long queues. Well that didn’t happen.

I ended up arriving to the Saudi – Kuwait border around 2:30pm. The Saudi side of the border was pretty much empty, I didn’t have to wait at any of the passport control windows and just drove through basically. When I arrived to the Kuwait borders thats where I saw the long queue. Two lines of cars stretching maybe 15-20 cars long. Not as bad I was expecting it to be based on the videos I had watched. As I was getting ready to settle in for the long wait, a border control officer sees my car plates and waves to me to skip the queue and head straight down to the passport control window. Turns out cars with Kuwaiti plates didn’t have to wait in this line.

I moved out of the long queue and drove up to one of the free passport control windows, gave the guy my passport, he stamped it and I was done. No biometric scanning or anything. I was worried I was going to spend hours at the border and it ended up taking me less than 15 minutes to cross over, the fastest it’s ever taken me. I’m not sure whats going on, maybe they were forcing everyone to get a biometric scan but the lines were crazy long so now they’re just doing it for non residents?

A reader who landed in Kuwait on Sunday wrote that when he arrived, only the Kuwait/GCC queue at passport control were getting biometric scanning while expats weren’t. I’m assuming this is a soft rollout and eventually everyone is going to get scanned.

While driving out of Kuwait on Sunday morning I noticed huge traffic on the way into Kuwait. I thought it was weird because the border is usually empty in the morning. I later found out the traffic was because of the new biometric scanning. Every person entering Kuwait now has to get their iris, face and finger prints scanned. This applies at every entry port including the airport.

A friend landed in Kuwait yesterday and had to go through the process. I’m heading back to Kuwait today and going by the videos on Snapchat I’m worried I’m going to be stuck at the border for hours. Looks chaotic!

Update: I’m back in Kuwait and posted an update.

I’m in Saudi this week and yesterday I randomly came across Arby’s while on my way to a meeting. I was a bit surprised to find it because I come to Riyadh often and I wasn’t aware they had Arby’s here. Turns out they’ve only been open for less than a week! Obviously, I ended up passing by and grabbing a roast beef with cheddar.

It sucks they ended up closing down in Kuwait, I don’t eat much fast food anymore but Arby’s was one of the few places I couldn’t resist. No idea why they ended up closing down since they were always busy when I passed by so I assumed they were doing well.

Another brand that they have here which should come back to Kuwait is Popeyes. Like Arby’s, I’m not sure why it closed down since it also seemed to be doing well.