Search: “ace”

Eight is a restaurant that is open across the street from Arraya Complex in Kuwait City. It opened up over a year ago but I never ate there because the design of the place looked so dark and gloomy. But, today while walking by it I noticed they’ve completely redecorated the place and it’s now so much more brighter and better looking. I still haven’t tried it out but I did quickly flip through the menu and I might end up going back for their sweet potato and brisket dish. For now I thought I’d just mention the facelift since it’s such a major improvement.

I’m a big fan of Qatar Airways for long haul flights and have used them previously to fly to New York, Tokyo and most recently Cape Town. So last week when Qatar Airways invited me to fly out to Qatar to check out their new plane, I jumped at the opportunity. I had never visited Qatar before (other than during transit) so I was as excited to check out the country as I was their new plane. Plus, I had some friends who I hadn’t seen since university that lived there and really wanted to see them as well.

I left Kuwait Tuesday night flying out first class but on one of their old planes which I’m not a fan of. I think they have six flights a day from Kuwait and I know at least one of those flights uses the much newer Boeing 787 Dreamliner which is a beautiful plane with a proper business class. As I mentioned in my previous post, the new Qatar airport is insane, probably one of the nicest airports I’ve been to and such a huge improvement over their older one. After landing and checking into the hotel I decided to head to Hakkasan for dinner at the beautiful St. Regis Hotel. Why don’t we have a hotel like that in Kuwait??? Anyway after somehow spending KD55 for an unimpressive dinner, I retreated back to my hotel for the night.

Wednesday morning I woke up early along with at least a hundred media people from all around the world and via shuttle busses we were all taken to the old Qatar airport for a press conference. Qatar Airways was the first airline in the world to receive the new A350 XWB plane which is why they made such a big deal about it. This is supposedly the last completely new plane that will be released for at least the next 10 years and so all eyes are on it. The actual press conference was pretty boring until the Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker started a Q&A session. God damn he’s impressive, not only does he know his airline inside out but personality wise he’s such a direct and blunt person. He was really inspiring and I was just sitting there thinking how I really need to be doing so much more with my life. After the Q&A was over we were invited to check out the new plane which was parked outside on the tarmac.

The A350 XWB is the successor to the A330 and the A340 (you’ve most likely flown on them before), it’s also Airbuses answer to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. XWB stands for extra wide body and allows the airline to fit an extra seat in economy creating a 3-3-3 seating formation. Most of the new features of the plane are under the hood but the ones we will notice the most are the larger windows and the quieter engines. The plane is also supposed to be very comfortable for long trips due to a number of other features like low cabin pressure, pure air inflight and precision air management. The first thing I wanted to do once I got onto the plane though was to check out the economy seats. I mostly fly economy so I really wanted to get a feel for it on this plane. The economy seats on the Qatar Airways A350 are pretty comfortable, the leg room fantastic (I’m 6’1) and the media system super responsive and a considerable upgrade over the system I recently used on the Dreamliner which was already great. Once done with Economy I walked into the business class cabin which was very familiar since I had just flown business from Cape Town to Doha on the Dreamliner. The A350 business class cabin looked practically the same since the seats are provided to Qatar Airways by a third party and they use the same ones on their different planes. But, because the A350 has an extra wide body, the seat manufacturer is able to make the seats slightly wider. One thing I loved is the window shades in business class although like on the Dreamliner they don’t completely block the sunlight which can be irritating if you’re trying to reduce glare on your laptop screen or just want complete darkness.

[YouTube]

After checking out the plane I decided to head out and explore Doha and meet up with my friends. I ended up going to Katara Village and The Pearl both beautiful places. I also ended up having dinner at Opal by Gordon Ramsay which I also thought was unimpressive (they couldn’t even cook the burger right and the bun was crumbling like it was 2 days old). Generally I thought some parts of Doha looked like a mini Dubai like their downtown area and parts of their coastal roads but the other parts of Doha looked like Farwaniya. You have this huge contrast between the different parts of the city and it just makes things confusing since I kept flip flopping between liking and not liking Doha. They don’t even have highways so every trip no matter how short it was would take 30 minutes. On the plus side they have Uber which I used throughout my whole stay.

It was a pretty cool and quick trip. They’re going to be receiving new A350s every month and hopefully I’ll get to fly on one soon. For now though their first route is from Doha to Frankfurt and that’s not a route I’ll be taking anytime in the near future. Kuwait Airways recently announced that they’ve ordered 25 of these new planes as well but it’s probably going to be awhile before they start receiving them. Anyway if you want to find out more about the plane check out this [Link]

Last week I passed by Rice to Riches in Avenues to check the place out. It’s a New York based dessert place that serve a variety of flavored rice puddings. A friend of mine who is friends with the owner wanted me to try the place out and then write a positive review of it on the blog. Obviously that’s not how this blog works and I explained to him that I hadn’t even tried rice pudding before so I’m not sure I’ll even like it. And that’s actually what made me want to pass by the place. I get invited to a lot of places all the time but unless it’s something different, I’m not gonna find it interesting and so I’m honestly not going to go and try it out (sorry burger joints).

So Thursday after coming back from Qatar I headed to Avenues to see what Rice to Riches was all about. The owner and the operation manager were there so they ended up showing me around the place before taking me to their kitchen and showed me how their rice pudding was made. After the little tour they brought out I think like 12 different flavors and wanted me blind taste them. So I started going through the flavors one by one guessing the flavors while giving them feedback on what I thought. I wasn’t really sure how rice pudding was going to taste, I just imagined the rice I make at home mixed with chocolate and figured it would taste really gross. Luckily, it didn’t taste like rice at all. The rice pudding is served cold and the hazelnut flavor for example to me tasted like chocolate mousse and was my favorite flavor alongside the cheesecake flavor which was just as good. My least favorite flavor was the old fashioned which didn’t have any flavor added at all.

I wasn’t expecting to like rice pudding but I did (at least some of the flavors). If you’re calorie counting though you’re going to have to leave that at the door since this isn’t some frozen yogurt alternative. They have random humorous signs hanging proudly with messages like “Eat what you want, you’re already fat”, “Think with your stomach” or “If you want to look young and thin, hang out with old fat people”. Rice to Riches is officially opening on January 15th in Avenues Phase III on the top floor next to Elevation Burger. They’re going to be soft launching before that date so check their instagram to stay posted.

The past couple of weekends were fairly quiet but this weekend the events have picked up once again. Lots of things to do this weekend but here are my personal picks: The GulfRun Car Show at 360 Mall for sure, if you pass by on Friday or Saturday the Snodrops Market will be taking place alongside it so you’ll hit two birds with one stone. I’m also curious to visit the Marina Market as well since it’s the first time they’re holding it. On Saturday I’d start off the day with the Secret Garden Brunch and follow it up with the Madeenah Tour. Oh and I’d also recommend the rooftop movie Man on Wire as well for Saturday. For the full list of events taking place this weekend check out the list below:

Thursday
GulfRun Car Show
Marina Market
Rooftop Movie: Rosemary’s Baby

Friday
GulfRun Car Show
Snodrops Market
Marina Market

Saturday
GulfRun Car Show
Snodrops Market
Marina Market
The Secret Garden Brunch
TICA Cat Show
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
Character Design Workshop with Thuraya Lynn
Madeenah Tour: A Kuwaiti Haven – Reinvention of Bneid Al Gar
Rooftop Movie: Man on Wire

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]

The Qatar Digital Library have published an article about a scandal in Kuwait in the 1930s when one restaurant was accused of using cat meat instead of mutton. It’s an interesting read and it also sounds like an incident that could take place today. Kuwait really hasn’t changed much. [Link]

Dairy Queen is returning to Kuwait a decade after the Edina-based ice cream chain left the Middle East country.

The company plans to open 20 DQs in Kuwait over the next five years, according to Bloomberg . A franchisee had operated restaurants there from 1979 to 2003, but then the franchisee decided to leave the business.

Kuwait Dairy Queens will have a similar menu to U.S. locations, but will also have some different items, like a spicy Gyro sandwich. [Source]

My memories of Dairy Queen goes back to the mid 80s since there was a branch near my place in old Salmiya. Not that big a fan anymore though, would rather A&W be making a comeback.

I’m trying to put a list together of places that make turkey (to go) for Christmas, this is what I have so far:

Eedam Cafe (in Radisson Blu)
KD10.750 per KG
Order 48 hours in advance
Tel: 25673420

The Butcher’s Den
KD38 for around 5 to 6KG
Includes: Gravy, steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple pie, dinner rolls, stuffing bread and corn or brown rice.
Order 24 hours in advance
Tel: 22263140

Dean & Deluca (unconfirmed)
KD6.950 per KG
Order 48 hours in advance
Tel: 22242224

If you know of any other places that make turkey let me know in the comments.

The people behind Qout Market are putting together two day trips this weekend. The day trips will involve a farm-to-table brunch, tour of the farm and greenhouses, a small produce market featuring neighboring farms, and watching the sunset while sipping on tea.

The two day trips are taking place on Friday 26 and Saturday 27. Friday features Caveboy Grubs, Saturday features #NourasKitchen.

Bring cash should you wish to buy produce from farms and bring your own bags. Transportation will be provided and is mandatory. For more info and to to book a seat at the table click [Here] (link only works on your phone)

Big Show, Vince McMahon, R-Truth, Summer Rae, and Alicia Fox all from the WWE were recently in Kuwait visiting the US troops. Other than Vince McMahon I have no clue who the others are but damn Summer Rae is pretty hot. [Link]

Thanks Tuan

Apple’s CarPlay is an operating system for cars that allows you to connect your iPhone and control it from within your car display. Ever since Apple revealed it I had been eagerly waiting for a third party to launch a unit that I could buy and plug into my car. The first company to announce a unit was Pioneer and then at the end of October Alpine released their own CarPlay unit, the iLX-007. Right as soon as it became available I ordered it and I’ve now had it for around a month so I’ve decided to go ahead and review it.

This is my fourth Alpine unit with iPhone/iPod compatibility but the first to use Apple’s new CarPlay OS. There isn’t much to review in the Alpine unit itself since its basically useless without CarPlay. If you don’t have an iPhone the Alpine unit is just a $500 FM/AM receiver. It doesn’t have a CD player or even Bluetooth but it does have an Aux input. The only other thing worth mentioning is the fact I can change and fine tune the sound/speaker settings all from my iPhone using the Alpine Tune App which is a pretty cool feature. So anyway for the rest of the review I’ll be focusing on CarPlay itself.

After using CarPlay for over a month now I’ve developed a love and hate relationship with it. On one hand I love how seamlessly the iPhone integrates with my car but I also hate how the software feels unpolished as well. First lets talk about the good stuff.

[YouTube]

I recorded a video which you can watch above showing how easy and simple it is to interact and use CarPlay. My biggest reason for wanting CarPlay was the fact that Spotify is a supported app. Even though I could previously use Spotify with all my older Alpine units, this is the first time I can actually browse through my playlists, music and other Spotify specific areas all through my cars interface. I also like how well Siri works in my car now and how I could have her make calls for me or read or send messages which I dicate to her. And thats about it when it comes to the good stuff.

Now here is whats wrong with CarPlay… it’s still very new. It reminds me of the iPhone when it first came out and so I’m expecting a lot of things to get fixed pretty soon but for now here are my biggest issues:

– Maps. For some reason I had the impression Google Maps came built into CarPlay but when I got it I realized it’s actually Apple Maps which sucks big time in Kuwait. It shows you all the roads on the screen but it won’t give you directions and you can’t search for anything. It’s pretty much useless and I’m hoping Google Maps will work with CarPlay pretty soon.

– When your phone is connected to CarPlay, ALL notifications on your phone get turned off. Meaning if your phone screen is off and someone sends you a message on Whatsapp you won’t be able to tell since the notification screen doesn’t come on to let you know nor will you get a sound notification. You don’t even get a popup on the CarPlay screen informing you of a notification like you do if you get an iMessage or SMS. Same with email or any other notification, they all stop showing on your phones lock screen and you don’t get notified in CarPlay. This means I now drive around with my phone screen on and my notification screen pulled down so I can glance at my phone every now and then while driving to check and see if I got any notifications.

– If you get or make a phone call you can’t talk to the person from your phone. You can either talk to them hands-free on the cars speakers or using your phones speakerphone. There is no option to talk to them privately using your phone so if there are people in your car the only way you can answer a phone privately is to disconnect the phone from CarPlay and then mute the car sound system (since it automatically switches to FM when you remove the phone) and then answer the phone. Super unpractical and I mean come on Apple WTF?

– Not many apps support CarPlay yet. As of now there are a handful of apps that work but the two I use are Spotify and Sticher for podcasts. I’d like to see Google Maps, Soundcloud, Whatsapp, HypeMachine and YouTube integrated into CarPlay. Just to be clear right now you can use music apps like Soundcloud with CarPlay but in basic form. For example if you play a track in Soundcloud on your phone you can view the track name and album art on the CarPlay screen and forward, pause and reverse from the screen as well but that’s it.

So as I mentioned already, CarPlay is still in its infancy. I’m expecting a lot of bugs and things to get fixed with upcoming updates and I’m also expecting a lot more app support as CarPlay becomes more and more popular. For now though if you’re considering getting CarPlay just be aware of it’s limitations. I don’t have any regrets getting it and Spotify alone is worth it for me. My Alpine iLX-007 unit cost me $499 and I picked it up from Pacific Stereo since they were one of the first to carry it.

A video posted by Sulaiman 427 AlQassar (@slaimano) on Dec 12, 2014 at 1:36am PST

This past weekend the Kuwait Mile event was held where around 500 cars signed up to race down a mile long strip of the highway. The event was a success with lots of interest but sadly there were two accidents (which I am aware of) that took place that day. Accidents at a racing event are absolutely normal but what I was surprised with was the lack of safety barriers between the track and the crowd.

In the video on top of one of the accidents, the car loses control and luckily crashes into the barrier on the left. If the car had headed to the right instead then there might have been some serious injuries since there was only a metal fence separating the viewers from the track (check the screen grab above).

A video posted by خالد الزعابي ابو الجود (@khalidalzaabi) on Dec 12, 2014 at 4:50am PST

After I found out about the accident I started checking out photos and videos of the event and noticed a fire truck parked on the side of the track. I quietly thought to myself that can’t be safe for the driver if his car crashes into it and I thought of the Jules Bianchi crash in Suzuka this past year. Later on in the day a car crashed hard into the fire truck and luckily missed some firemen who were standing next to the truck as well.

It’s pretty cool that more motorsporting events are taking place in Kuwait but a catastrophic incident at one event would end up setting us back a very long time.

I’m at the Cape Town airport right now waiting for my flight back to Kuwait and I figured this would be the best time to write about one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited.

I booked my flight to Cape Town on impulse and not by doing a lot of research. I was at the Foo Fighters website checking out their tshirts when I decided to check and see where they were touring. I noticed they were going to be in Cape Town in December so I figured why not go watch them there. I booked the concert tickets and then messaged my friend in Cape Town telling her I would be visiting. I then booked my airline ticket and that was pretty much it. Around two weeks before leaving to Cape Town I started doing some research trying to see what else there is to do there. First thing popped up was the Sonar electronic music festival, it was taking place on the last two days I would be in Cape Town so I purchased tickets to that as well. I then kept researching and came up with a pretty long list of things I wanted to do in Cape Town and that included:

Bungee Jumping
Paragliding
Hang Gliding
Skydiving
Surfing
Kite Surfing
Hot Air Balloon Ride
Wine Tasting

Once I got to Cape Town I started planning my schedule.

Where I stayed
Because December is peak season in Cape Town and I was booking everything last minute I couldn’t find a good hotel to stay in so I ended up staying in a beautiful bed and breakfast called Radium Hall. The website and photos really don’t do it any justice and 6 nights stay cost me just KD160. Insanely great value and I’m so glad I ended up staying there instead of a hotel. The view from the balcony wow… I loved coming back home just for the view.

How I got around
While in Cape Town I was using the Uber cab service the whole time and I found it incredibly cheap and practical. 80% of my trips were costing me on average KD1 and my most expensive trips were to the airport and those cost me KD4. All the cab drivers were super friendly and they even have Uber Chopper in Cape Town where you can order a chopper and an Uber black car picks you up and takes you to a helicopter which will then give you a tour of Cape Town.

What I did
So I had a pretty long list of things to do but I decided to prioritize and ended up doing the following:

Foo Fighters
The first day I got there I did the Foo Fighters concert. It was being held in the Cape Town Stadium and I arrived five hours early hoping to be first in line only to find a fairly large queue already waiting. I still managed to end up center stage though and forth row standing which is super close. It was a great show and three hours long, they played all their greatest hits since back in 1995. I loved it.

Skydiving
I’ve been wanting to skydive for such a long time and even though I could have done it in Dubai I really wasn’t interested in jumping over a dessert/city. I wanted to jump out of a plane over a beautiful landscape and I’m glad I ended up doing it in Cape Town. I did the jump with Skydive Cape Town, it cost around KD80 including pick up and drop off. We were three jumpers at the same time (tandem of course) and we squeezed into the back of a super tiny plane that looked like it was 50 years old. Super freaky but that was part of the experience. It took us around 20 minutes to get to the right jumping height and then one by one we jumped out of the plane. I wasn’t the slightest bit scared I was just really curious to see how I would react when we first jumped out and my reaction turned out to be just pure excitement. They recorded a video of the jump and basically for the first 30 seconds while we were free falling all you could hear me scream was “fuuuuccccck yesssss!!”. I loved it. The company I jumped with seemed a bit old fashioned though when it came to documenting the jump. They took photos and videos from a camera that my skydive instructor wore on his wrist while in Dubai for example, based on the photos I’ve seen, they actually have another jumper jump with you to take photos of you. Also they gave me the video on DVD.. in DVD format so even though they shot the video with a GoPro in HD, the video I got was low res. Plus who still has a DVD player?

Bungee Jumping
The second activity I did was bungee jumping. This turned out to be a complicated activity to perform just because of the planning it involved. The highest bungee jumping bridge in the world is at Bloukrans Bridge which is a whopping 8 hours drive from Cape Town. I was planning of renting a car and driving there but then I found a quicker way to get there. I ended up flying out from Cape Town to an area called George and then renting a car from the airport and driving around two and a half hours to Nature’s Valley which is just 10 minutes away from the Bloukrans Bridge. I booked a room at the Tranquility Lodge for the night and they helped me book my bungee jump for the same day.

This whole two day trip was a beautiful experience. First of all the jump was insane. Like the skydive I wasn’t scared at all before the jump, in fact I was pretty numb. I had a bunch of things on my mind and so was too preoccupied to be scared. I was actually worried I might get scared while standing at the edge but even that didn’t bother me. But, as soon as I jumped the first second or two I was fine but because the jump is soo high (216 meters) it just felt like I wouldn’t stop and I was thinking what the fuck when will the bungee cord snap back up. It was exhilarating. The company running the bungee jumping was also extremely extremely professional. I mean every step of the way from booking till the end they were very organized. They also took some great photos and shot an amazing video of the jump which I later purchased from them on a memory card. Definitely worth the experience and the jump cost just KD20 (not including around KD60 for the flight, KD30 for the car rental and KD15 for the room).

The rest of the day I ended up spending it on the Nature’s Valley beach. I didn’t even know my lodge was located next to the beach but I heard a sound of a waterfall behind a large green bushy area so I went to explore and ended up finding myself on a large fairly secluded beach with waves splashing constantly. It was beautiful and that alone would have been worth the trip.

Surfing
Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to surf, probably because all the cool people used to be surfers on tv shows and I just wanted to be cool like them as a kid growing up. Cape Town is a surf town so it wasn’t very difficult finding a surfing school. I ended up booking a private session with one of the best and most expensive surfing schools in Cape Town called Stoked School of Surf. The private two hour lesson cost me around KD40 which isn’t really expensive just expensive compared to other options available.

This experience turned out to be wayyyyy more fun than I ever imagined. Not only that but by half way through my lesson I was already standing on the board and surfing to the beach. The whole team behind Stoked were very professional and they had two dedicated photographers covering the private and group lessons, one guy in the water with a GoPro while the other on the shore with a DSLR.

[YouTube]

Sonar Cape Town
I was pretty surprised to find out the Sonar music festival was coming to Cape Town. Even though the event was being held over two days I ended up just buying a ticket for the second day since there were two musicians I REALLY wanted to see, Jon Hopkins and Ten Walls. Both turned out to be the last acts of the night so I kept popping in and out of the festival all day long until I was back there at 1AM to watch Jon Hopkins and then Ten Walls at 3AM.

I have mixed feelings about Sonar, Cape Town definitely isn’t a partying city in the same way Barcelona is where I was back in May for the Sonar festival there. When I first popped in at 4PM there were literally like 5-10 people there only watching one of the performances (pic above). It looked like a really bad high school prom. Then later on during the day it started getting more packed but for example when Jon Hopkins was going to come on I don’t think anybody knew who he was except me, a friend and another couple who were there standing in front of the stage with us waiting for Jon to come on. Turns out the other couple were from the same town at Jon hence why they knew who he was. Both Jon Hopkins and Ten Wall were ridiculous and I’m so glad I watched them live.

Why Cape Town is amazing

Cape Town is a bit like Lebanon, LA and Miami all combined into one. I travel a lot and I’ve been to a lot of great cities but Cape Town is the first one I actually want to move to. I feel there are a ton of business opportunities here and I really really can’t describe how beautiful the city is. I loved the fact that if you want to go camping in the middle of nowhere or go to a beautiful private secluded beach, you can and they’re just 30 minutes drive away. The beaches! I went beach hopping one day and every beach we ended up at was nicer than the beach before it. The sand is snow white and the water a clean and sparkling blue. You have the huge table mountain right behind you as well so it’s such a pretty sight wherever you go. And the food… I literally just had sea food while I was here and everywhere I ate was just delicious. My favorite places were probably Beluga, Haiku and Willoughby & Co. I didn’t drink any wine while I was here but I didn’t have to since Cape Town beer is some of the best I’ve ever had as well. I was introduced to Castle Lite by the owner of the bed and breakfast I was staying in on the very first day I arrived and I was constantly drinking that for the rest of the trip. Oh and for those of you who don’t think Cape Town is safe, I found it as safe as New York. I was out past midnight in some dodgy neighborhoods without feat but I was also “mugging ready” meaning like in New York or any other city for that matter which I travel to, I always am prepared in case I get mugged. I always have a backup credit card and debit card in my hotel and I make sure I don’t wear my expensive watches or carry expensive electronics other than my phone.

I’m on the plane now about to take off so have to quickly end this post. In conclusion, Cape Town is a must visit city and it’s easy to get to, just one stop away with Qatar Airways or Emirates. Cape Town is where I am going to retire in.

A video posted by جرايمq8 (@jraymq8) on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:04pm PST

A truly below-the-belt incident has taken place in Kuwait after one player was spotted jabbing his finger up an opponent’s bum mid-game.

Both players fall to the floor after contesting an aerial ball, and one doesn’t take too kindly to the challenge as he commits what might just already be the weirdest foul of the season.

There also appears to be a hint of a bite in there as well, and the victim unsurprisingly reacts pretty angrily to the whole incident.

Bizarre. [Source]

Hahahahahahaha WTF.

Thanks Ammar

Dashboard cameras are cameras you mount in your car and record everything that takes place in front of you while you’re driving. I’ve been wanting to get a dash cam for sometime now but majority of the dash cams I had seen online were cheap looking no name ones. Although they were all very affordable and some had even gotten some great reviews, I was holding out for something better. If I was going to mount the camera on my windshield and have it in my face all day, I wanted something that at least looked decent and well made. Then out of the blue Garmin announced they were releasing a dash cam one day and I knew that was the one I was getting.

I’ve had the Garmin Dash Cam 10 for a few weeks now so I feel ready to give it a proper review.

[YouTube]

As expected, like all their products the Garmin Dash Cam is very well built. The unit feels very solid and looks great… until you mount it up on your windshield that is. I had a Garmin Navigator previously mounted in my car and it looked really sleek. I had the USB power cable come up from behind the dash board and plug in to the rear of the unit and because the suction cup is behind the unit the navigator looked like it was floating in front of the windshield. In my head I imagined the same would apply to the dash cam but I couldn’t have been so wrong. Even though the Garmin Dash Cam is pretty compact, once you connect the large suction cup to it and mount it into place it instantly doubles in height and becomes quite bulky. Then to make matters worse is the location of the USB plug, it plugs into the bottom right hand side of the device. That means I have ugly wire clutter around the unit adding to the overall visual pollution I now have on my windshield. I don’t understand why Garmin couldn’t have found a better solution, it’s like the designer who worked on the unit didn’t take anything into consideration. I mean they should have know people would most likely mount the dash cam on the left side of the windshield near the driver like everyone does with their navigators or that they will be mounted in the center of the windshield. So why would you have the power plug on the right? Wouldn’t it make sense to have it either on the left, the back side (like with my Garmin Navigator) or on the top left side of the device?

With those negatives out of the way it’s time to talk about some of the positives. The device works great. I have my unit set up to turn on and start recording automatically when I start the car and then to shutoff and stop recording when I turn off the car. I also have it set up so that once the memory card runs out of space to start recording over older videos. That means the dash cam operates continuously without any sort of action from me which is very convenient.

[YouTube]

The video quality isn’t anything close to say GoPro quality but then again these videos serve a different purpose. The camera can record up to 1080p and as you can see in the sample videos the license plates are easy to read both during the day and night. Obviously having a clean and crack free windshield improves the quality and in my videos you can see one of my window cracks on the right side of the footage which is a bit annoying but there isn’t anything I can do about it.

The Garmin Dash Cam 10 costs $200 which is really expensive compared to other more popular no brand dash cams. I originally didn’t mind paying this much because I expected a product that would be visually pleasing when mounted but now I know the Garmin is overpriced. The quality of the footage isn’t so different from the no name dash cams neither is the operating method so the Garmin really doesn’t have a major advantage to cost this much. But, since I already bought mine its too late for me but for anybody else I’d recommend they look at the alternatives carefully before deciding on the garmin.

For those interested, here is the dash cam on [Amazon]
They have the Dash Cam 20 as well which comes with GPS and records other data like your speed. I would recommend not going with that option if you tend to speed a lot.

Back in October I posted about a new Argentinian restaurant that was opening up called La Brasa and I was just told it’s now officially open. La Brasa is an Argentinian Grill owned by the popular local photographer Gustavo Ferrari who’s been living in and documenting Kuwait for 38 years now. He was always known for holding amazing barbecues and so he finally decided to open up his own place. All the meat is imported straight from Argentina and everything I tried during the tasting I went to was delicious.

The restaurant is located in the basement of Dar Al Awadi in Kuwait City and are open daily from 12PM to 11PM. On Friday’s they open at 7PM only if they have any bookings otherwise for the time being they’re close. Their instagram account is @labrasaq8