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A reader emailed me this old Video Club membership card he found dating back to the mid 80’s. Back then you’d pay to be able to rent a certain amount of videos and every time you rented a video they’d punch a hole in the card. That was back when The Video Club was one of the coolest video rental places in Kuwait.

Thanks Kyle

Persons who barbecue at unallowed public locations will be fined KD 1,000, the Director-General of Kuwait Municipality warned yesterday. Ahmad Al-Sebeeh, in a statement to KUNA, indicated that the authority, after realizing that some citizens and residents do not abide by public cleanliness laws because of soft penalties, decided to increase the fine for such a violation from KD 100 to KD 1,000.

There are specific locations for barbecuing in 144 public parks, he said, stressing that grilling is restricted to these places. Municipal teams will monitor such violations, he re-stressed, urging the nationals and expatriates to abstain from inflicting damage on public properties, such as the seaside green spots, with such random barbecuing, dumping of ashes on plants and littering. Beautification of the public spots costs the State millions of dinars for entertainment and well-being of the people, thus these properties must not be target of such harmful acts and conducts. [Source]

How come the fine for BBQing is KD1,000 but running a red light is just KD300?

SOLEdxb, the largest sneaker event in the Middle East is taking place after tomorrow in Dubai. If you’re attending the event pass by the Nike space since they contacted different sneaker collectors in the region and I have around 8 photos of my collection that will be on display at their exhibit (including the one above).

I’m not going to the event since I’m currently in Beirut but for more information on SOLEdxb check out their Facebook page [Here]

According to the Environmental Performance Index done by Yale University, Kuwait was one of the weakest performers and came in 126 out of 132 countries. What’s confusing is that Lebanon came in 94th place but the pollution there is so bad that we recently had an incident where one river turned red while another turned white!

So other than the recent tire issue, the desert pollution and the Mishrif sewage problem, what else is really so bad that we rank this low? I’m not surprised we rank low just surprised it’s at the very bottom of the list. [Link]

Thanks Erik

Diplomatic protection officers came across the Arabic man as they patrolled outside Mr Blair’s £4.3 million townhouse in Connaught Square, Belgravia, central London in the early hours.

When they asked the man, who appeared to be drunk, to stop urinating he allegedly refused to cooperate and a scuffle broke out.

Officers eventually discharged the 50,000 volt taser in order to place the suspect, who spoke little English, under arrest.

However the man collapsed and had to be taken to hospital, where it emerged he was a Kuwaiti government official, Ayedh Alrashidi.

Such a strange incident. [Link]

Thanks Uzair

Yesterday after dropping off my dog at the vet and heading to the airport I decided to pass by the old Ahmadi Drive-In Cinema. I’ve been wanting to pass by for ages and figured I’d quickly scout out the place to see where I could climb in from and then come back another day.

When I got there I drove up to the main entrance where cars in the old days would line up before driving in and noticed the main gate was closed. I decided I would drive around the complex to see if I could find some kind of hole or a low wall I could jump. But, as soon as I turned to the side of the building I noticed the side gate was left open. It caught me a bit by surprise and from where I was sitting in the car I could see the cinema screen inside. I had my camera with me and I still had time to get to the airport so I figured what the heck, took my camera and went inside.

The place is huge, I’ve never been to a drive-in theater before so I was a bit dumbfounded by the size. Once you’re inside you’re closed off from the rest of the world and it was around 6pm when I got there which was during sunset so the whole experience was pretty tranquil. I loved the place.

Although the place is not being taken care at least they haven’t demolished it. There are so many possibilities for this space, even though drive-in’s are long gone that doesn’t mean the place can’t be used for anything worthwhile. One thing I’d love to see take place inside there is car booth sales You’ve got a nice space that’s isolated from the surroundings as well as a place with history so events like that would fit perfectly. Even car meets and monthly flea markets could work really well in that space.

Whatever comes of the place I just hope they keep the structure standing.

Yesterday I passed by MRC, a metal and recycling company to check out how everything works. It’s one of these things I’ve always been curious about which is why I emailed them to see if they’d give me a tour. Their recycling center is located in Amghara and it was segmented into two parts, plastics and metal.

Plastic
You can easily tell you’ve arrived at their plastic recycling facility since you’ll be met with huge piles of colorful empty plastic containers divided into different groups depending on the color. They export both the plastics and metals for recycling abroad but before they can send the products out they need to be prepped. With plastics that process involves a few stages. The first thing they do is shred the plastic into small pieces. They then wash these plastic pieces in a large pool and are left to dry. Once the plastic pieces dry they are placed into another machine that melts them into long plastic strings which get chopped up into very tiny pieces. Those pieces are filled into sacks and then exported to different countries where they are recycled (mostly China).

Metal
For metal the process is a lot simpler than plastic although it’s a much more larger and difficult process since it involves large metal objects such as cars. Like plastic the metal gets exported but before they can export it all the metal needs to be shredded into very tiny pieces. After a bit of safety prep I was actually allowed up onto the large claw crane that was picking up cars and tossing them into a pile. I sadly wasn’t allowed to control it but it was still cool being up there. The cars and other metal objects are then placed into a large shredder, the first part chops the metal object into big pieces and then the second part chops them into tinier pieces.

If you’re interested in recycling MRC have a program called NewAir which they’ve tailored for companies. They will collect and recycle your waste products which include paper, cartons, plastic, metals, PET bottles, cans, electronic items and more. To sign up to NewAir to get more details you can visit their website [Here]

There’s a new burger place called Hashtag that opened up next to Solo Pizza in Kuwait City and I got to try it out tonight. I don’t usually have burgers in the evening but since I had been eating super healthy and clear for nearly 3 weeks I kinda had a weak moment when Fahad posted about it on Instagram. Once I was done with the gym I headed to Hashtag to try it out. I was actually hoping the place would be packed since it would have given myself an excuse not to cheat and drive off but it wasn’t so I parked my car and went in and ordered a burger.

If I was to open a burger place it would be very similar to Hashtag. It’s a very tiny joint in the middle of no where with just 4 burgers on the menu (my place would probably have just one). I ordered a double Hashtag which is 2 beef patties, 2 slices of cheese, grilled onions and their special sauce. I also ordered water as my drink and no fries since I didn’t want to cheat too much.

The burger didn’t take long to make and I sat down and quickly dug in. First impression it looked messy, juicy and delicious. Taste wise it also didn’t disappoint. The bun was soft the patties very juicy and tender and the onions were grilled just the way I like them which is slightly raw. The sauce on the other hand wasn’t that great and I didn’t think it did the burger any justice. Next time I’d probably have it with just ketchup and mustard instead.

My biggest issue is that the place is fairly expensive. A double burger and a bottle of water came out to KD5.250 (4.5 for the burger, 750fils for the water). I think that’s pretty pricy for what should be a small casual burger joint. If you’re interested to try them out (you should), they’re located in Kuwait near Solo Pizza in the building behind Tatami. Here it is on Google Maps [Link]

Just found out there is another mall/plaza popping up in Salmiya right across the street from Laila Gallery (next to Omnia Mall and Sultan Center) called The Cube. Based on the rendering it looks like it’s going to be another restaurants project similar to Bidaa and The Village but my biggest question is where will everyone park? The street is already heavily congested and the only proper parking spaces nearby are behind Sultan Center and Laila Gallery but those two lots already get super packed. [Link]

Every Friday we race our radio controlled cars over at a friends chalet and last week one of the guys decided to mount a Contour camera on his car and shoot some video. I actually bought my contour camera for this specific reason but after buying it I never got the guts to do it. After watching this video thought it’s something I’m definitely going to attempt this weekend. [YouTube]

If you’re ever in the Beirut Souk in Downtown Beirut then you have to check out the old Greek and Roman (I think) ruins which are preserved underneath the souk. Instead of demolishing the ruins they built on top of them so while you’re walking in the modern souk there are openings and spaces where you can can see the old ruins. I think thats a great way of preserving the old without sacrificing the new.

It’s taking place on April 27th in Dubai so hopefully I’ll be able to make it. [Link]

Since Mark is back on his strict diet he asked to review a Chinese place called China Garden. I really enjoy good Chinese food but when it comes to Chinese take-out in Kuwait I’ve become quite skeptical with the options we have. I’ve tried a bunch of places and there doesn’t seem to be one that really stands out, a place that serves good Chinese food that isn’t overly greasy and that isn’t overly expensive.

China Garden is a place that has been around for a while (it’s located next to Showbiz/Holiday Inn), but was purchased by two Kuwaiti restaurateurs, revamped and reopened around a week ago. There are a few things that make China Garden stand out from their competitors. First off, they’re “Green”, meaning they’ve gotten rid of all their styrofoam boxes, got rid of the majority of plastics and aluminum and replaced them with paper take out boxes that are made here in Kuwait. Their plastic bags have been replaced with fully recycled and biodegradable brown paper while they ditched their plastic eating utensils and replaced them with sustainable bamboo forks and knives. Even their menu’s are made from recycled material.

When I usually order Chinese take-out I like to place an order for an appetizer, a chicken dish, a beef dish, and some noodles. I typically finish all the food on my own so when it came time to ordering from China Garden I decided to go with Sweet Corn Chicken Soup, Shrimp Spring Rolls, Orange Chicken, Beef Black Pepper, Mixed Noodles and Nutella Wontons for dessert (who can say no to anything Nutella?). The first thing that struck me once the food arrived is that there is no way I could eat all this food by myself. Their quantities are pretty big and the food I ordered could have easily fed two or three people and definitely not just one person. I basically had a lot of food leftover for dinner.

The food was generally pretty good and I did’t have any complaints. The soup wasn’t too watery and wasn’t too sweet with a good mix of chicken and corn. The Shrimp Spring Rolls were 6 decent sized pieces and they were nice and crunchy. The Orange Chicken was the most impressive, the dish is sweet and spicy and cames mixed with orange peels, chili peppers, ginger and chicken. It looked really appetizing. My “safe” dish that I always order is Beef Black Pepper because it’s really difficult to screw up a simple dish like this. China Garden’s Beef Black Pepper was pretty juicy, the beef wasn’t overly cooked and it wasn’t too saucy. My only complaint is that there were way too many large pieces of onions, something which they can easily fix (and should do so). The Mixed Noodles were the last things I ate and I found them neither bland or greasy and actually hit the spot quite nicely. Finally the Nutella Wontons were the perfect way to end the meal, the moment you bite down on the crunchy wonton you’ll be welcomed with the taste of delicious Nutella, not to the point where it feels like you’re drowning in chocolate, but enough to satisfy your Nutella urges.

The total for my meal was KD10.700 which seems like a lot for one person but like I previously said this meal could easily feed two or three people (if not more) and if I had two other friends over, it’d come out to around KD3 per person, which seems like a really reasonable price to pay for the quality of food you’re getting. I would definitely order again from China Garden, they have a decent sized menu with a lot of choices, not to the point where you feel overwhelmed but enough where they can satisfy everyone’s needs.

They’re open Saturday to Wednesday from 12PM to 12AM and Thursdays and Fridays from 2PM to 2AM. To order you can call them on 25720010 or 25720070. They’re also available on 6alabat.

Posted by Patrick.

The same friend who shot the picture of the “Desert Dance Floor” also shot the video above he took at one of the campsites. That’s a lot of crap all over the place and surprisingly it’s not an isolated incident. It’s like not one single camper cleaned up after themselves. [Link]

I read about the state of the desert after the camping season finished but I didn’t think it was that bad until I saw it for myself today. I was heading south on the 40th when I noticed a huge plot of desert with trash as far as the eye could see. I went off-road and headed towards the area and was completely shocked at what I saw.

Campers had left all their trash behind including full sofa sets, toilets, trash bags and just random items like wood and god knows what else. And it wasn’t just one campsite it was the whole area filled with sofas and toilet seats all over the place. It’s absolutely disgusting.

Personally I think the municipality should just leave everything the way it is and not clean up after the campers. As long as someone is picking up the trash people are not going to learn to cleanup after themselves.