Search: “kuwait”

A couple of weeks ago the Ministry of Interior announced that expats are now able to get a physical driving license printed for a KD 10 fee. A lot of people were asking what the process was, and thanks to the Reddit user InsecureInflux, there are now instructions. Here are the steps he took to get his physical driving license:

• Go to your respective Muroor.
• Visit the typing section and request a physical license.
• Provide your civil ID and license; they’ll type out a form for you (fee: KD 1).
• Take the form to one of the counters inside; they’ll give you a paper with your license details.
• Take both papers to the stamping officer; pay KD 10 for the stamp.
• Obtain the manager’s signature on the stamped papers.
• Submit the signed papers at one of the counters.
• Wait approximately 10–15 minutes to receive your printed license.

Ian Caldwell was born in Magwa Hospital in Ahmadi in 1955 and lived in Kuwait until 1975. A couple of years ago, he pulled out boxes from his father’s loft filled with about 1,500 old slides, including many from Kuwait. He started scanning the ones related to Kuwait, ending up with about 300 photos that had never been seen before.

The photos were taken by Ian, his father Arthur, and his younger brother Tom. I’ll be sharing as much as I can from their collection, and I’ve started organizing them into groups based on different topics.

The first ones I’m sharing are photos taken of Souk Mubarakiya and the Souk in Fahaheel sometime in the early 70s.

To check out the photos, click here.

Cantina, one of my favorite Italian restaurants, is launching a pizza pop-up this weekend. It’s a spin-off of their Pizza Mondays and takes place in a beautiful hidden garden in the Design District in Shuwaikh.

A couple of days ago, I was invited to try some of the new pizzas during @chefbasmah’s friends and family night. The pop-up has eleven pizzas, up from the usual four at Cantina. I tried the fungi and the salami, and while the fungi was great, the salami (which also had mustard seeds) is now my favorite pizza in Kuwait. I also ordered the Margherita, which I always get at Cantina. Basmah’s pizzas are very crispy with no flop. She describes the style as “crispy Neapolitan,” and in true Cantina fashion, she’s using only the highest quality ingredients.

My favorite part of the pop-up though is the location. It’s tucked away in a secret garden area of the Design District, the same spot in Shuwaikh that houses Ovo, Cure and the Contemporary Art Platform. The garden has its own side entrance from the main road, a narrow corridor that leads you into a semi indoor and outdoor space that feels like a greenhouse. It’s temperature controlled, so even if the weather is warm, you won’t feel it inside.

The setup is super casual. You walk in, pick the pizzas you want and grab a seat at one of the two large communal tables. The menu is up on a board and it’s strictly pizza and soft drinks, nothing else. Also, no reservations needed, just show up.

The pizzas are small in size, so I’d recommend two per person, which is great because there are a lot of interesting flavors on the menu you’ll want to try anyway.

The Pizza Pop-up is happening only on weekends starting with this upcoming one. It’s open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 6PM to 10PM, and will go on every weekend until it gets too hot. You can spot the entry corridor to the pop-up from the main road, it’s to the right of Cure, and you should see a “Pizza” neon sign hanging above. @cantina_kw.

If you’ve driven by the Kuwait Towers over the past couple of months, you might have noticed a huge funnel-like structure towering over Bay Zero. Yesterday, I got early access to check it out before the grand opening this weekend.

The large funnel is a new water slide that’s part of Bay Zero’s new Thrill Zone. The Thrill Zone features around eight different water slides, including this funnel, which the manufacturer calls “The Abyss.” It’s the largest funnel slide in the industry and looks super iconic, especially with its vibrant colors. The entire zone is very colorful, and all the slides look epic. Oh, and I have to mention, even though the slides look big from the main road, it’s only when you get up close that you realize just how gigantic they actually are. They’re seriously HUGE!

If I’m not mistaken, the new Thrill Zone was created by White Water, since the water slides at Bay Zero look very similar to their previous projects. White Water is the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of water parks, and they’re also behind Qatar’s Meryal Waterpark, which broke the record for the tallest water slide in the world.

When I visited, workers were still busy finishing up the landscaping around the new rides, but everything will be ready and open to the public from this Thursday, April 24. On April 25, there will also be a special event featuring a concert by @sonsofyusuf.

The new Thrill Zone doesn’t require a separate ticket, the standard park entry gives you access to all the new slides. If you want to stay updated on the opening, or need info like opening hours and ticket prices, just head over to their account @bayzerokw.

WK, the popular local burger spot, just opened their first dine-in location—and it’s styled like an old school diner.

The new branch is in Kaifan next to the stadium and has both indoor and outdoor seating, plus plenty of parking. As a bonus, there’s a matcha pop-up inside called @meetmatchas.

WK is available for delivery on all the popular platforms and also has multiple pickup locations across Kuwait, including Ardiya, Fahaheel, Jahra, Khiran, and Sabah Alsalem.

Here is the location on Google Maps and you can follow them on instagram @wkwk.965.

It looks like Tim Hortons has jumped headfirst into Kuwait’s ongoing Matcha craze with a new full line‑up of ICED Matcha drinks. They’re introducing 4 bold & fruity flavors:

Iced Strawberry Matcha: Sweet meets earthy. The ultimate match!
Iced Spanish Matcha: Rich, velvety, and a great twist on everyone’s favorite Iced Spanish Latte.
Iced Blueberry Matcha: Tangy, chill, and berry-licious.
Iced Mango Matcha: Tropical + refreshing = vacay in a cup!

Bonus: Add mango popping boba for extra texture and flavor—it’s a pop of summer in every sip.

The 4 Iced Matcha flavors are available now in stores or delivery.

If you want to keep an eye on whatever flavors they might drop next, follow them @timhortons.kuwait.

Ghazi Sultan (1941–2007) was a Kuwaiti architect and urban planner. He was regarded as one of the key figures in Kuwait’s modernization and is best known for the Gulf Road waterfront project, including Green Island. The project also included a number of smaller artificial islands along the coast with my favorite being Turtle Island (Google Maps).

Turtle Island is a small artificial island located behind the Italian restaurant Johnny Carino’s. It has a children’s play area featuring a giant fish structure in the middle, while the rest of the island is filled with large turtle sculptures.

Part of the Ghazi Sultan photography archive includes photos he took when the project was completed. Although the photos aren’t dated, I’d assume they were taken in the late 80s. The island looked so different back then compared to today!

First off, what happened to all the colors? The island used to be so much more vibrant — a bright orange frame structure, colorful toys, and the giant fish even had a crawl space for kids. Even the turtles that surround the island were painted olive green with brown accents. Today, the island feels monotone. The orange frame is now white, the fish lost its crawl space and just looks like a grey blob, and the colorful toys were swapped out for dark red ones that are now in bad shape. As for the turtles, they’re now just dull grey concrete color.

To find out more about Ghazi Sultan, visit ghazisultan.com or @ghazihamadsultan

Bite Club, my favorite local cheesesteak concept, just launched three brand-new sandwiches today.

If you haven’t heard of Bite Club before, it’s a local creation started by a group of friends who are passionate about food. One of the reasons I love their cheesesteaks—besides the flavor—is the high-quality meat they use. Their commitment to quality ingredients extends across the whole menu; they even make their sauces in-house from scratch so they can control every ingredient.

Today they’re launching three new cheesesteaks:

The OG Cheesesteak – Sliced premium beef, grilled onions, cheese sauce, and mayo

The Pepper Pop Cheesesteak – Sliced premium beef, grilled onions, banana & cherry peppers, cheese sauce, and mayo

The Truffle Cheesesteak – Sliced premium beef, crispy onions, mushrooms, white cheese, and truffle mayo

I don’t like peppers so I didn’t try the Pepper Pop but I did try the OG and Truffle Cheesesteaks yesterday. The OG is one I’ll be ordering the most often since it’s similar to their classic cheesesteak except it uses grilled onions and cheese sauce instead of caramelized onions and sliced cheese. The Truffle Cheesesteak I also liked and I appreciated the fact that they hadn’t gone overboard with the truffle flavor.

They also sent over their chicken bites (Chickies) which I hadn’t tried before with their “Bite me” sauce. Those were unexpectedly good as well.

If you want to try my favorite cheesesteak in Kuwait, they’re available on Talabat, Deliveroo, Jahez and Cari. They also offer V-Thru pick up from their location in Hawally. Check them out @eatatbiteclub

One of the most frustrating things about Instagram is that once I upload an image, that’s it, you can’t swap it out with another one or edit it. Due to the pace I work with, I tend to make a lot of mistakes. I’m constantly editing my posts after publishing to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes, or even to improve readability.

On Instagram I sometimes make mistakes with the headline which I write on the main image, and once I make a mistake the only way to fix it is to remove the post and upload it again. If I catch the mistake right after publishing that’s not a big deal, but just now I caught a mistake on yesterday’s post and I can’t do anything about it.

Last night I published the Kuwait Pavilion post on Instagram and I accidentally used the promoted icon for the post, even though it wasn’t a paid post. I know how I made the mistake, I was working on a paid post in parallel and so used the same template when working on the pavilion post. I can’t edit it now and the post already has over 1,600 likes so I can’t delete it and publish it again.

What’s even more frustrating is that I had two main images I was deciding on for the post, the second one (above) which I didn’t use didn’t have the “promoted” icon. So frustrating!

Expats will now be able to get a physical copy of their driving license. Sounds weird that this is something new but until recently the Ministry of Interior had stopped printing driving licenses for expats, we only had access to a digital copy. Not a big deal if you just drive in Kuwait but the digital copy wouldn’t be accepted anywhere else in the world. This means if you traveled you wouldn’t be able to rent a car which sucks.

Thankfully the MOI has now changed their mind and allowing us to get printed driving licenses again. Mine expires next month which is perfect timing. The only caveat is that we now have to pay 10KD to get a physical copy which I don’t think is an issue. Source

Sealed is a new Kuwaiti dessert brand that specializes in molten cakes. When they sent the desserts over, the first thing that caught my attention was the ridiculously cool packaging. The desserts all arrived inside silver metallic boxes that were sealed in silver pouches that mimic air freight. The whole look fit right into my space, which has concrete floors and silver aluminum furniture. It’s a very futuristic look.

Once you open the boxes, the molten cakes are packed inside sealed containers with detailed instructions on how to heat them up. Sealed offers three main items:

Chocolate Molten
Cookie Molten
Chocolate Chip Cookies

The molten cakes come in two sizes: large and small. Instead of just writing “Chocolate” or “Cookie Molten” on the packaging, they use hand signs, which is a fun touch. The peace sign (✌🏻) is for the Original Molten, while the shaka sign (🤙🏻) is for the Cookie Molten.

I tried the desserts and they were actually really good, with the Chocolate Molten being my favorite. One of the boxes they sent over had a dozen small molten cakes in it, and I took them to family lunch yesterday—it was a hit. Heating up the cakes is super easy: you just unseal the packaging and then pop it into the microwave for 60 seconds. Really convenient.

Because of how cool the packaging looks and how good the molten cakes were, it’s going to be one of my new favorite desserts to take to gatherings. If you want to place an order, Sealed are available on delivery platforms like @jahezkuwait.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Interior deployed new mobile speed cameras across Kuwait. These battery-powered cameras will pop up in various locations and are really easy to miss!

I’ve come across similar cameras in Saudi on my road trips, and because they’re painted the same color as sand, they’re easy to miss until the very last minute. Also, depending on the road, it’s sometimes hard to tell if the camera is pointed at your lane or the opposite one.

These new cameras are being introduced ahead of the new traffic laws, which go into effect on April 22. The new laws include increased speeding fines, ranging from KD70 to KD150.

Stockroom Coffee recently opened their new location in KIPCO Tower, and I think it looks really great. Their Murouj branch is one of my favorite looking coffee spots, and this new branch was also designed by the same architects, FORM. The space has a sophisticated yet cool aesthetic. It’s minimal, but not simple since there are interesting little details everywhere you look.

It doesn’t show in these photos, but there is a seating area. And although this Stockroom is probably catering to the tower and surrounding office buildings during the day, it feels like it could be a chill place to hang out in the afternoon and evenings once the office crowd clears out. The new location is on the ground floor of KIPCO Tower and is open from 7AM to 10PM. Google Maps

If you want to check out more photos of the place, head to @formkw

Photos above taken by @mashkanani

The compound in Dasman that housed the original Kuwait Television studios, and later Villa Moda and Mais Alghanim, has been demolished. It’s located across the street from The Cheesecake Factory on the Gulf Road, near the Kuwait Towers (Google Maps).

I’m not sure how many people who drove past those old warehouse-like buildings knew how historically significant they were. The compound had been abandoned for over 20 years, but I always hoped it would be refurbished and redeveloped either into a creative hub like Qatar’s Fire Station, or a trendy retail space similar to Alserkal Avenue in Dubai.

Besides housing KTV, the first TV station in the Gulf, the buildings later became home to two other iconic Kuwaiti brands.

In 1987, “Mess Alghanim” which started off as a staff cafeteria for the employees of Yusuf Ahmed Alghanim & Sons Co, moved into one of the old Kuwait Television building and transformed into a warm family restaurant. It was also that year the name of the restaurant was changed to “Mais Alghanim”.

In 1992, Sheikh Majed al-Sabah opened the first Villa Moda there in one of the other buildings. He was the first to bring Western designers like Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren to the region. Until today when I think of that store I can’t believe how ahead of its time it was.

As a tribute to the compound’s history, I’ve put together an album on Flickr that includes:
– Black and white images shared by @badshaiji from 1975
– Photos Mais Alghanim when it was still open there
– Villa Moda store after it had shut down and been abandoned
– Photos of the compound taken in 2021 and 2024
– Photos of the compound now being demolished

Check out all the photos here.

Last week I posted about Gaza Cola on the blog and my Instagram account. It’s a new soft drink that was released in Kuwait, made by Palestinians to support Palestinians with 100% of the profits going to charity.

I posted it on my Instagram account not expecting it to do well engagement wise. I always read about how pro-Palestine posts keep getting low engagement, or are hidden from peoples feeds so I wasn’t expecting much but I was fine with that. Sometimes I like to post things because I want to, even though it might not get a lot of likes. Initially when I posted it, it got around 500 likes within the first half hour. That generally is a good sign because it means the post will most likely get 1,500 likes or more, which is usually the target I’m trying to hit.

To my surprise, the likes didn’t stop coming. 5 days later and the post now has over 67,000 likes (when I started writing this post it was 66,9766 and as I’m editing this post its now up to 67,523).

Not sure what caused it but around two days after I published the post it started going viral, first in Kuwait, then the world, and yesterday Kuwait again. It’s super cool, but it’s also been a lot of headache. I quickly started getting a lot of anti-Palestine comments, so first thing I did was delete all the negative comments and limit comments on that post. The local Gaza Cola account @gazacola_kw also started getting attacks as well, and they weren’t expecting it either.

I’m still trying to understand why this post went viral and none of the other Gaza Cola posts did. The product has been available in the UK since last year and the main @gazacolauk has photos of the can and everything so it’s really strange. Maybe my photo it just extra eye catching or maybe its my headline or maybe the Kuwait Towers in the background caught peoples attention. It could be anything really but all I know is that it’s currently the most engaged content on my account by far.

If you want to check the post on Instagram, here is the link.