Search: “kuwait”

Yesterday I ordered some dog treats from a brand called Fido. They’re a local business in which they produce 100% natural and single ingredient treats for dogs. I found out about them from an email they sent me back in March but then forgot about them until I was going through my starred emails and found them again. So I decided to try it out since who doesn’t want healthy treats for their dogs especially when they’re priced really reasonably.

They have two lines of products, treats and food toppers. I don’t have an issue with his food but I’m always looking for healthy treats since we spoil him a lot and so don’t want him eating crap.

I ended up ordering the following:

Air Dried Chicken Feet 0.950 KD
Air Dried Sheep Chew for Dogs 1.450 KD
Air Dried Sheep Ears for Dogs 1.250 KD
Air Dried Chicken Treats 1.300 KD

The total was 4.950 plus another 1KD for delivery.

My dog loves them. I let him try the chicken feet, chicken treats and the sheep chew for now, still have to try the ears, but going by his reaction to everything so far, I don’t think he’ll have an issue with them.

The odd thing is the pricing, it’s surprisingly really good for what you get. I will definitely be ordering more once my dog gets through his current stash. If you want to check them out their website is fidodiet.com

I just came across photos of the Kuwait Embassy in Brunei and it looks pretty cool. The embassy was designed by the Thai based studio Architectkidd, who were selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to design the interior spaces of the embassy and the ambassador’s residence in the Jalan Kebangsaan area.

There doesn’t seem to be a connection to Kuwait in the interior, that’s because according to Architectkidd, they didn’t want to rely on obvious symbolism or direct cultural references. Instead, they focused on how the space could reflect public values in a more subtle and practical way like by creating openness, accessibility, and spaces people can actually use and gather in. The interior’s expansiveness is also unique for a building with heightened security, and helps create a welcoming, non-institutional atmosphere.

The first photo on top of this post is the embassy’s reception hall, which will allow them to host public and cultural events in Brunei. The second photo is the main foyer, which is the first space visitors experience when they enter. It features an atrium with a tall skylight and connects to the reception hall, library, staff offices, and other areas. This is the most public part of the embassy and works as a flexible space that can also be used as a pre-function area for the reception hall.

If you want to check out more photos to the embassy, click here.

Yesterday it was announced that Kuwait’s airspace was reopening and flights would be resuming again. It also looks like the airport got a bit of a facelift during the closure.

There are photos circulating online showing a revamped interior of Terminal 1. This is the main terminal where most airlines operate, and previously the departure area was covered in grey aluminum panels. Based on the photos, it looks like the space is now finished with stone or ceramic tiles, although it’s hard to tell from the low resolution images.

I don’t want to judge it just yet, not until I see it in person, but the bar was set so low that any change is a good change.

The photos aren’t great quality, but they’re the best I could find.

Snoonu, the Qatari delivery app, is launching in Kuwait as part of its GCC expansion. From what I understand, it’s more than just a food delivery app. On the Snoonu website they describe themselves as a “super app” for food delivery, grocery shopping, laundry, car services, and tickets.

By services, they mean things like booking a gym session or ordering a cleaning service. You’ll also be able to buy movie and event tickets through the app, so it’s basically a one stop app for everything you need.

According to the press release, they’ll initially launch with food delivery, followed by a phased expansion into additional services. This expansion is also backed by Jahez International, which acquired a majority stake in Snoonu last year.

A couple of days ago @in_alkuwait posted a video of a Snoonu driver already out delivering, so it looks like they might have started. The Snoonu Kuwait Instagram account is also live if you want to check it out @snoonu.kw

Service Hero recently revealed the results of their 2025 Customer Satisfaction Index, and the top brands in Kuwait have been named, based entirely on you.

Service Hero is the region’s only consumer powered index, measuring how happy people are with the service they receive across different industries. It’s been running in Kuwait since 2010 and follows strict international research standards, so the results are credible and transparent.

Over 28,800 assessments were collected from customers across Kuwait, rating brands in categories like satisfaction, complaint resolution, loyalty, and more. This isn’t a popularity contest, it’s a data driven reflection of how brands are actually performing. Here are the winners:

Islamic Banks: Boubyan Bank
Retail Banks: National Bank of Kuwait
Car Sales: Lexus
Car Service: MG Motor
Private Hospitals: Royale Hayat Hospital
Apps: Keeta
Dining: Mais Alghanim
Fast Food: Pick Yo!
Clothes: Al Nasser Sports
Electronics: X-Cite
Home Furniture: IKEA
Internet Providers: Zain
Mobile Operators: Zain
Cafes: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Airlines: Emirates
Supermarkets: City Hypermarket

Compared to last year, there are a few changes. Two categories are missing this year, Entertainment and Health Clubs. I asked them why and I was told it was due to not having a large enough sample size across at least three brands to determine a winner.

Update: Service Hero reached out to let me know there was an error on their website. The Cafes category winner is actually The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, not Caribou Coffee.

This is going to be a new series where I highlight beautifully designed spaces in Kuwait that are no longer around. I figured I’d start with one I really loved and that still holds up today, Octium Jewelry.

The store opened in 360 Mall back in 2009 and was designed by the Spanish artist and designer, Jaime Hayon. Jamie works with different mediums, from design and sculpture to painting, ceramics, glass and installations. I think he’s fairly well known since when I mentioned him to my wife she immediately recognized the name and even pulled out a book she had about his work.

Jaime has an unconventional and playful approach to design. Most of the elements in the Octium store were custom made, with each piece of jewelry placed in its own unique display environment within this fantasy-like interior. The result was a space that felt more like an art installation than a typical jewelry store, and it helped put Octium on the map internationally. In 2013, the Spanish edition of Vogue listed it as one of the 12 most beautiful jewelry boutiques in the world.

In one of Jaime’s recent Instagram posts, he mentions his passion for designing beautiful doors. He’s fascinated by the idea of entering a space in a special way, that first point of contact. Looking back at the Octium door, you can tell this is something he’s been obsessed with from the very beginning.

I’m not sure exactly when the Octium store closed down, but their website is still online and feels like a time capsule that probably hasn’t been updated since. Check out more photos below taken from Jaime’s hayonstudio.com

Squatwolf, the Dubai based performance wear brand, has just opened its first store in Kuwait.

The brand started in 2016 from a small apartment when its founders saw a gap in the market for affordable, high quality gym wear designed specifically for the Middle East. Back then, most fitness apparel options available in the region were either expensive international brands or lower quality alternatives. Since then, the brand has grown into a popular regional and global name.

The new store is located in an alleyway in the Electra district at The Avenues Phase 4, behind The Body Shop and in front of Intersport.

Warah is a Kuwait-based HR platform designed for small and medium sized businesses. There are still a surprisingly large number of companies here that rely on spreadsheets or WhatsApp messages to track employee attendance and manage HR tasks. A lot of that comes down to not wanting to deal with hardware, maintenance, or complicated setups, which is exactly why Warah was created.

The Warah platform handles all the usual HR functions like employee records, attendance, leave requests, overtime tracking, and payroll. Managers can access attendance reports, employee hierarchies, and analytics all from a single dashboard. And since Warah was built locally, it also takes Kuwait’s labor laws into account, from public holidays and vacation days to an accurate indemnity calculator.

The feature that stood out to me the most was the attendance tracking. Instead of installing fingerprint or facial recognition machines, employees can check in and out directly through the system using geolocation, either through the web or mobile app. This removes the need for additional hardware, which helps reduce costs and is a big plus, especially for smaller businesses.

With the current economic situation, more and more businesses are trying to reduce their overheads. Warah was built with that in mind, offering different packages depending on the number of employees, with pricing starting from KD 25 a month.

I got access to a demo account to try it out, and I liked how visually clean and straightforward the experience was. Even though I know very little about HR, I was still able to navigate the app and understand everything because of the simple language they use. That’s intentional since they wanted to make the platform easy to use for anyone.

Demos and free trials are available, so if you want to check it out, head to warah.com

Jaber AlSabah is a 16 year old racing driver currently competing internationally in the British Formula 4 Championship. F4 is widely considered the starting point for drivers on their journey to Formula 1, and that’s the goal every driver is working towards, including Jaber.

Jaber first got into racing at the age of 12 when his dad bought him a racing sim. He was instantly hooked and would spend hours daily practicing and improving. Seeing how committed he was, his dad eventually took him karting at Kuwait Motor Town. From that point on, he knew this was what he wanted to pursue.

Jaber began his racing career in the Rotax Karting Championship, followed by the IAME series. After climbing through the karting ranks, he moved up to Formula 4 last year with a seat at Xcel Motorsport.

Kuwait has a pretty big car culture, and in some motorsports like drag racing, we’re actually very competitive. But when it comes to single seater racing, especially at an international level, it’s still pretty rare to see Kuwaiti drivers making their way up the ranks. That could be partly because until 2019, we didn’t have a proper race track in Kuwait.

Racing isn’t just a hobby for Jaber, it’s his career and something he takes very seriously. It demands a huge amount of time, focus, and dedication, and there’s very little room for error. His ultimate goal, like every driver, is Formula 1, but with only 22 drivers on the grid, he knows how competitive that path is. He thinks a more realistic route could be endurance racing like WEC or GT racing, both of which are still at a very high level.

KMT played a big role in Jaber’s journey, without it, it would have been much harder to get started, and he might never have discovered his passion for racing. Support from local companies like Gulf Cables, Warba Insurance, Motorgy, and Kuwait Airways has also helped a lot since racing is an expensive sport.

I’m a big fan of KMT, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing even younger drivers competing internationally. If you want to follow Jaber’s journey, he’s on Instagram @jab3ralsabah

Photos by Stanley Deslandes

Back in December, Kim Kardashian’s fashion brand Skims popped up in Kuwait for one week, and now the brand is back but this time permanently.

Right now they have a pop-up outside Bloomingdales in 360 Mall, except unlike last time where items were just for display and you had to order through the Ounass app, everything is now in stock locally.

The pop-up runs until April 20th, after which Skims will have a permanent display inside Bloomingdales. For now they’re only carrying the women’s collection, with no plans to add the men’s line anytime soon.

AD Middle East recently featured République in their magazine along with some really nice photos that were taken by the photographer Ingrid Rasmussen. I posted about République when they first opened, but looking at these photos now, I don’t think mine did the space justice.

The interior was originally conceived as a pop-up by Gastronomica founder Basil Al Salem after his travels in Vietnam. The look draws from Indochine design, which flourished between the 1920s and 1945 and blended French Art Deco elegance with traditional Vietnamese details. The space was designed by the group’s in-house design team which included Abdullah Al Muzaini, Ahmad Jankieh, and Ashish Bartwal, with styling by Jade Botanics.

République at Jõn closed down for the season already so if you wanted to pass by and check it out you can’t anymore. But the restaurant has now popped up at Cocoa Room at JACC for dinner.

If you want to check out the AD Middle East article, click here.

I just found out through a reader that Starlink is now officially available in Kuwait.

There are two types of devices you can purchase to get started, the Standard or the Mini. The Standard device costs KD122 and is meant to be permanently fixed. The Mini, on the other hand, is a smaller portable device that you can mount at your home but also take with you anywhere you go. The Mini device costs KD92.

Both devices offer similar download speeds between 135-305 Mbps and an upload speed between 20-40 Mbps. The monthly price is also similar at KD31 for unlimited data.

According to the website the kit ships in 1-2 weeks and you don’t have to sign up to a contract. So if you want to try it out for just one month you can. If you already have a device and an account you need to cancel your subscription and transfer the device to a new Kuwait-based account (you can’t just update the address).

From my personal experience I was able to hit 291 Mbps download speed and 57 Mbps upload speed with 19ms ping using the Starlink Mini and my device has obstructions so with the Standard device and no obstructions I can imagine it would be a bit faster and have an even lower ping rate.

Starlink isn’t faster than 5G and is more expensive, but the low ping rate is great for online gaming.

If you want to try out Starlink, head to starlink.com and put Kuwait as your location. This is a referral link that will give you and me 1 month free internet after activation.

I just published a post on Instagram about how I’m not going to post about the war over there. But, I will be posting about it here, at least for archival purposes.

When I initially launched the instagram account I gave it a different set of guidelines to follow vs the main blog, and one of those was that I wouldn’t post negative content. It’s why you’ll sometimes see a post here complaining or criticizing something, but you wouldn’t find it on my instagram account.

The blog on the other hand serves as a personal diary of a sorts, a memory timeline for myself where I come to and search for places, events, things and whatever else that happened during the past 20+ years of blogging. It would feel weird if in the future I wanted to find articles about this period we’re going through and not find anything. Especially since war blogging was how I first started in 2003.

Yesterday the airport getting damaged was pretty shocking and unexpected. I think the last time our airport got hit or damaged because of a missile was during the Iraq invasion in 2003, but I can’t seem to find any info on that especially now since all the news popping up relates to yesterday.

I’ve been using twitter to find most of my content like videos and stuff relating to different incidents happening around the region, but there is also so much fake stuff to sift through. So much fake content or inaccurate content that even when I come across a real incident it’s hard to tell if it’s actually real. A good example is how there is lots of content about Burj Khalifa being hit in Dubai which isn’t true, but then when I came across content about Burj Al Arab being hit I couldn’t tell if it was also fabricated.

On the other hand there are also a lot of funny memes on twitter which has been lightening up the mood.

Anyway, stay safe everyone, hopefully all this will be over soon.

I’ve known Duha for a few years since we used to work together, so I know how hard she works and how much effort she’s put into this (as well as how good her food is). Faye is her new restaurant, a chef led, upscale neighborhood spot opening today in the new Hessah Mubarak District. It’s built around how Duha loves to cook, Mediterranean ingredients typically around her, elevated through European techniques.

Faye isn’t a soulless concept, it’s personal and meant to feel like a place you belong. Somewhere warm, welcoming, refined but never intimidating. I passed by yesterday to check out the space and I really do love it. There’s both indoor and outdoor seating, but the indoor space is the star for me. The surreal organic ceiling flowing down towards the kitchen’s emerald green marble pass really gives the space a very unique look.

Duha also partnered with Seazen, the group behind concepts like Trapani, Okra, Masgouf and Melanzane. They’re handling the operational side of things so she can focus on the food and the brand.

Faye is soft opening tonight with a condensed menu, with the full menu launching after Eid. If you want to check it out, it’s right next door to The Neighbourhood at the entrance of Hessah Mubarak District (Google Maps). You can also check out their Instagram @faye.restaurant

The Swiss premium sportswear brand On just opened their first location in Kuwait at The Avenues. This is only their second location in the Gulf with the other store being in Riyadh.

The Kuwait store has On’s full range of footwear, apparel, and accessories across running, outdoor, training, tennis, and lifestyle categories.

If you want to check it out, the store is located in the Electra area near Pick, where the old entrance to Debenhams used to be. During Ramadan they’re open from 10AM to 4PM and then again 7:30PM to 1:30AM.