2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Some people like going to museums when they travel or visiting monuments and stuff but I prefer doing random non touristy things instead. Yesterday I passed by Costco on the way back from Coney Island. I love the place, I swear I would move to the US (or Canada) just for Costco. For those of you who don’t know what it is, Costco is a giant warehouse style store where they sell a variety of stuff from food, to electronics, to clothes, books, dvds and medicine all in bulk sizes or great deals. Sultan Center tries to do the same with their Sultan Center wholesale branch but fail miserably.

I love walking around Costco and checking out the absurdly large over-sized boxes of food and snacking on the sampling stations. Next on my to do list is a Wal-mart in New Jersey and the large Best Buy at the East River Plaza.

There are none! You would think by now they’re readily available at the Apple stores but they aren’t. I pass by daily and they’re always sold out. They have an option to reserve an iPad which I did yesterday but they estimate I can pass by and pick it up in 7 to 10 days! Hopefully that’s just a conservative estimate.

Back in April I posted about the Canon photography competition and encouraged readers to enter. Well the results are out and the grand prize winner was from Kuwait! The photographer was Sue Azmi and she entered and won with the beautiful photograph above. To check the results here is the [Link]

Thanks Sarah

This is my kind of site. [Link]

One of my favorite hobby shops in Kuwait which is the Tamiya dealer was featured on TV. You can check it out above. [YouTube]

I passed by Gray’s Papaya to try out their hot dog. It was recommended by a friend as a great place for hot dogs. No offense to hot dog lovers but compared to burgers I don’t think it’s too difficult to get a good hot dog.

For $4.45 you get two hot dogs and a drink. I don’t like toppings on my hot dogs just ketchup and mustard which is the way I had my hot dogs. The hot dogs were good but I wouldn’t call them the best hot dogs ever since they tasted like regular hot dogs. It was a cool place though and great as a quick snack when passing by.

I was walking around shopping when suddenly I spotted a Five Guys restaurant. I was caught by surprise since someone had told me there was no Five Guys in New York before I got here. Without hesitation I quickly rushed in and ordered my burger.

The way it works at Five Guys is all the burgers come plain and you tell them what you want inside (all the toppings are for free). I ordered a cheese burger which comes with 2 meat patties and cheese, I added three toppings, ketchup, mustard and grilled onions plus a small coke. Since they cook everything fresh to order it takes a bit of time to prepare your food so you go sit down until they call out your number. My number was 47 and when they called my number out I picked it up and came back to my table.

The packaging is very basic. They use brown paper bags with no branding and aluminium foil to wrap the burger with. Only the cup had Five Guys written on it. I unwrapped the foil to find a messy burger that looked very unappealing. BUT, the burger tasted AMAZING so it didn’t matter if the interior of the place was uninteresting or the fact the burger looked messy and came wrapped in foil. It was just like a wow! People THIS was as pretty close to a 5 out of 5 I’ve ever been!

The Shake Shack burger was good but the Five Guys burger was incredible and there was no line! Nat was just starring at me wondering why I was getting orgasmic over a burger since I was just munching and going amazing I love this non stop. When I left the place I was like I’ve got to go back and I sooo am going to!

Update: Below are pictures I took of another Five Guys branch in New York

As I mentioned in my Shake Shack post there are lines everywhere and I posted a picture of the line outside Shake Shack and one outside Abercrombie & Fitch. The picture above is of the line outside Magnolia Bakery and we even had to wait in line to get into Marc Jacobs!

Before I got to New York I had read about this stand people were buying for their iPad that was very cheap. It’s not really an iPad stand, it’s a business card holder from Office Depot that someone had realized works perfectly as an iPad stand. I passed by Office Depot in Kuwait and they didn’t carry it there so I passed by Office Depot here in New York where I ended up finding a few still in stock.

They had 10 left and I took them all so I could pass to my friends. How much does it cost? just 62 cents!

Due to the great success of the video Abu Halifa 1988, they’ve released the sequel, Fahaheel in 1988. [YouTube]

Thanks Simon

Crazy shit. [YouTube]

Inigo via Jalopnik

I passed by Madison Square Garden around 3:30PM for lunch to try out Shake Shack. When I got there it turned out there was a very long line so I stood in it and waited. 40 minutes later I got to the front of the line and it was my turn to order. I decided to go with one single Shack Burger for Nat, a double Shack Burger for me, two fries and two cokes. The bill came out around $21 and I sat down at a table and waited again until it was my turn to pick up my order.

I picked up my order around 10 minutes after that and it looked delicious. I love the way they serve the food in a carton box. I took a few pictures quickly and started eating. The burger was delicious. But was it worth the 40 minute wait? Don’t think so. I mean its a good burger but 40 minutes just to order?? According to the person in line behind me their lines are usually even longer! I guess everyone here is used to waiting in line so 40 minutes is probably nothing to them. I waited 30 minutes at the Apple Store just to pay for some items and I saw people waiting in line outside Abercrombie & Fitch to get in as well. Lines are part of everyday life here.

Now the Shake Shack seating area is also as impressive as their burgers. Since it’s in the park, the seating area reminded me a lot of the beer gardens in Munich except here you had beer AND burgers, they’ve got the Germans beat with that. In any case I can’t wait for Shake Shack to open up in Kuwait. I just hope there won’t be a line like at Pinkberry…

Here is a picture of the line outside Abercrombie & Fitch.

Found this cute little diner near my hotel on Smith Street that serves a really fully breakfast called The Lumberjack. Three humongous pancakes, ham, bacon, sausage and two eggs. Delicious!

I flew over to New York via Qatar Airways. I didn’t have many options since I was looking for an airline that would fly non-stop from the GCC to New York. My two best options were Qatar Airways and Emirates with the later costing a lot more. The flight from Kuwait to Qatar was around and hour and it had to be on one of the worst planes ever. There was no legroom, I have no idea how I managed to fit in my seat. The legroom was so bad I couldn’t even put my small bottle of water in the seat pocket in front of me because I my knees were hitting it. The flight was packed but luckily it was just an hour. Once we landed to Qatar we had to go through airport security. Because it was nearly boarding time for my second flight they had a fast track lane for us which was great. Once done we got to our gate only to realize we had to go through a second more intense checkpoint but that was fine since we had plenty of time to spare.

The Doha-NY plane was a lot bigger off course and newer. Its the Boeing 777-330 ER and it was equipped with a pretty cool and fast entertainment system with USB ports on the seats. They had over 200 on demand movies ranging from new stuff like Avatar and The Book of Eli to classics like Bullitt, Raging Bull and North by Northwest. They also had over 200 episodes of various TV Shows. I didn’t watch anything on their entertainment system since I had my Archos 7 with me preloaded with over a months worth of my favorite shows (I stopped watching everything once I booked my tickets and have been saving them for this trip).

The legroom was pretty good and I never felt uncomfortable. The plane took off at 8AM and I was able to quickly fall asleep since I hadn’t slept all evening. I woke up at various times during the flight but overall it was a lot more comfortable than I was expecting my trip to be.

A reader made me realize something funny. In today’s Arab Times (21 May 2010) on page 30 there is a Pork recipe! [Link]

Thanks Ravi