Search: “kuwait”

Last week I got invited to Dubai to take part in the Porsche World Roadshow that was taking place there. I wasn’t sure what to expect I was just hoping I would be able to drive some cars really fast around the track and that’s exactly what happened.

Once we arrived to the Dubai Autodrome race track we were greeted by nearly 30 Porsches parked nicely outside the pits. The cars looked beautiful and I couldn’t wait to get in one. After a short briefing by the instructors we were divided into four groups and taken to our cars.

We had four different exercises we took part in, Handling 1, Handling 2, Off-road and Slalom. Handling 1 involved taking the brand new 911’s and Boxsters out onto the track where we drove them as fast as we could. Handling 2 involved taking out the Panemaras around the track. Off-road was obviously where we took the Cayenne’s and finally the slalom was a small competition involving the new Boxster.

I hadn’t driven any Porsche before so I really had a lot of fun driving them around the track through out the day. My favorite car had to be the Porsche 911 4S but the Boxster S was also surprisingly fast and nimble. With the amount of Porsches on the streets in Kuwait I keep forgetting that they’re not really affordable even though everyone seems to have one. Now like everybody else, I also want one.

The Kuwaiti futsal team scored a pretty strange free kick goal against the Jordanian team during their game over the weekend. Check it out in the video above. [YouTube]

Thanks Allen

I passed by The Cheesecake Factory at The Avenues this morning for breakfast. Every Saturday morning from 10AM to 2PM they have a special brunch menu and I was curious to try their pancakes since I had heard they were really good. I ended up ordering two dishes for myself, the Monte Cristo Sandwich and the Buttermilk Pancakes. What is the Monte Cristo? This is the description from their website:

Monte Cristo Sandwich
Crunchy French Toast Stuffed with Bacon, Grilled Ham, Scrambled Eggs and Melted Swiss Cheese Dusted with Powdered Sugar and Served with Strawberry Preserves.

The Monte Cristo was ridiculously good, probably my favorite breakfast dish right now. Their pancakes now are also easily my favorite pancakes in Kuwait. They were really fluffy and light and I had to stop myself from finishing them. Which brings me to a very important problem with this breakfast.

THE CALORIES!

If you’re a calorie counter you’re in for a treat. The Monte Cristo Sandwich is a whopping 1,618 calories while the Buttermilk Pancakes are 1,310 calories. Try to figure out a way to burn those.

Service was so so. Took me a few tries to explain to the waiter I wanted pancakes and even when I pointed at it in the menu he thought I was pointing at another dish. I also told him to bring all the food together but my Monte Cristo came first. Not major issues but still worth noting. The pancakes cost KD3 while the Monte Cristo I think was KD4.250. I highly recommend both dishes and it’s too bad they only serve them on Saturdays. Oh and of course I wish they were both just 500 calories combined instead of being nearly 3,000…

[YouTube]

I’ve featured a lot of talented Kuwaiti musicians on the blog from the likes of Faisal Al-Salem who’s a lead singer for a very popular Japanese thrash metal band and Naser Al-Marzouq, the young and blind Kuwaiti piano player. Mubarak Al Rashed is another Kuwait musician who I think is also really talented.

I found out about Mubarak a few days ago when a reader emailed me telling me about him. Mubarak is a cop by day and an extremely talented Hindi singer by night. It’s a pretty strange combination but if you watch him sing in the video above you’ll see how great is. There are even more videos of him singing [Here]

I also found this old cached Kuwait Times article which has a bit more information on Mubarak and how he got into Hindi music. You can check that article [Here]

Thanks Francis

Lidia al-Qattan explaining the Big Bang Room

I’ve being thinking about this post for the past few days trying to figure out what I was going to write exactly. The place turned out to be such a cool and surreal experience that I just couldn’t figure out where to start or how to say what I wanted to say. In the end I decided that I’ll be brief and not go into details so that you go there with no expectations other than having a good time.

Me posing outside the house with @kuzmoz

Last week a friend asked me if I wanted to join them on a tour of the House of Mirrors and since I had never been I decided to join them. The House of Mirrors belongs to Lidia al-Qattan, the widow of Khalifa al-Qattan, a renowned Kuwaiti artist. She started decorating one small wall with mirrors and through time more and more walls were decorated until the whole house inside and out was covered with mirrors.

The reception area with munchies

As I said, I’m not going to go into details because I don’t want to ruin the experience for you but simply put Lidia is such an amazing person. We were expecting the tour of the house to take around 30 minutes but it took us 3 hours and the 3 hours literally flew by. She was such an incredible host full of stories and the whole experience was seriously pretty trippy.

If you’ve never been to the House of Mirrors you should and when you do make sure you go with a bunch of friends since its an experience that should be shared. The cost of the tour is KD2 per person on weekdays and KD3 on weekends. The location of the house Street 94 Qadisiya, House 17 Block 9. You need to call ahead and make an appointed on this number 22518522.

With all the problems with the Kuwait Zoo we sometimes forget it still can be a nice place to visit. A friend of mine passed by last week and she wrote about it in a much more positive way than I could ever do.

Did you know that the entrance fee is [500 filss] ONLY?! And now that the weather is still breezy & the sun isn’t eating our heads, half a KD will grant you scenery, active animals, great open space, clear skies, and best of all- an adventure to remember.

Her pictures are also really great so check out her post [Here]

Elmnet in collaboration with Qualitynet are currently giving away 2Mbps internet for free at InfoConnect. Sounds too good to be true? Well it kinda is. Here are some things you need to know:

Pros
– It’s for everyone, expats and Kuwaitis
– It’s free and it’s 2Mbps

Cons
– You can only use their software to browse the internet
– You can only browse the internet and do nothing else internet related (no torrents, no online gaming etc.)
– You will have three ad banners on the screen the whole time framing the browser, one on the left, one on the right and one below
– You can only use it on a computer. You can’t use it on your smart phone or any other device like your gaming system or tablet
–

The salesman wasn’t sure if it would work with Macs or Linux operating systems

works on Macs but not Linux

Update: According to a spokesperson from Elmnet the connection isn’t limited to just browsing. You can use the connection for other internet activities like downloading torrents and streaming music from apps like Spotify etc.

I’ve posted bout Kuwaiti singer Aishya before but back when she used to perform with her sister Sharifa. Well Sharifa has stopped singing but Aishya is still chasing her dream in the States. Aishya now has a page up on ReverbNation with a bunch of her songs so check them out, she’s got an incredible voice. [Link]

Spotted the above pack at Sultan Center and couldn’t resist picking it up. After Sultan stopped getting Count Chocula, Cocoa Puffs became my favorite Friday morning cereal so when I saw this muffin mix I decided to grab a box to try out.

Making these muffins was super easy. There are two packs inside the box, one for the muffin mix the other for the Cocoa Puffs toppings. You take the muffin mix and empty it into a bowl. You then add an egg and some vegetable oil and mix it all up and that’s basically it. You then just pour the mix into muffin cups, add the Cocoa Puffs toppings on top and bake the muffins for a few minutes in the oven.

The result wasn’t that great. I thought the muffin tasted pretty good but the Cocoa Puffs toppings didn’t actually taste like the Cocoa Puffs cereal. I actually would have preferred the muffin without the Cocoa Puffs toppings. What I would do next time is make a proper home made muffin (not the ready made stuff) and just add Cocoa Puffs on top from a cereal box.

Back in November a Golden Jubilee monument of Kuwait’s Constitution was revealed in Martyr’s Park in Kuwait City. The monument looked really cool surrounded by a beautiful garden and a water fountain. Fast forward a few months and the design of the monument and surround garden is being finalized and two things caught my attention.

The first is they’ve now erected a high metal fence around the monument and monument garden. There is literally another park inside the Martyr’s Park and one that is going to be closed off to the public.

The second issue is they’ve basically cut the Martyr’s Park in half by building the Golden Jubilee monument park across the Martyrs Park from one side to the other. The oval running track which people used for exercising now ends in the middle as roughly demonstrated by the yellow box in the image above.

These two issues kinda seem like poor planning to me. I understand they probably erected the high metal fence to stop barbequers from barbequing inside the monument park but I think they could have created some sort of path way that would still allow people to at least walk up close to the monument but keep them outside the monument garden. Right now there is a hole in the metal fence which is how I got in a took my picture but once the hole is closed you won’t be able to stand in front of the monument or even get near it. It also sucks that the running track has been sliced in half since they could have shrunk the Golden Jubilee monument space slightly and built the whole thing inside the oval instead of over it. Oh well…

Photo taken this morning at 9AM by Mario Pulvida. You can view a larger version [Here]

Does anyone know what options a person has in Kuwait if they’re a victim of medical negligence? Is there a government number you can call to register a complaint?

Kuwait has the 4th highest average price per minute for voice calls in the Arab world and the highest among GCC countries. Lebanon on the other hand is in 1st place with the highest average price per minute while Egypt has the lowest prices. Check out the full graph [Here]

via BlogBaladi

Organica Fish & Chips has been open for a couple of years now but I just got to pass by and try it today. I ordered the large fish & chips platter which included 2 pieces of fish along with chips in addition I ordered an extra side order of calamari. I went to the Salmiya branch which has a lot of seating inside but since it was a nice sunny day I decided to sit outside.

While waiting for my meal I got served lemonade which I thought was a nice thing to do. Once my fish & chips basket came I snapped a few pictures before I dug in. I thought the whole basket tasted pretty bland and between the calamari and the fish I think I preferred the calamari. The tartar sauce which I personally believe makes or breaks a meal wasn’t that great either but it did help add some much needed flavor to the meal. On a side note if you want to know what good tartar sauce tastes like go to try it at Sheraton Hotel. Finally the chips were the most disappointing part of the meal, they were undercooked and soft which was a let down.

Overall, even though the fish basket didn’t awestruck me I still think it’s a good place to pass by for a quick bite. It’s not located in a mall, there’s lots of seating, places to park and the food was above average. Price wise the large fish & chips platter goes for KD3.750 (KD2.750 for the small) while the extra calamari cost me an additional KD1.400. They have three locations around Kuwait and if you want to find out more you can visit their website [Here]

Just before Christmas I decided to get myself a KitchenAid mixer. Originally I wanted to get the regular 4.8L mixer similar to the one I reviewed back in 2011 but it turned out there was a new larger 6.9L KitchenAid mixer and I ended up getting that instead.

I used to think the regular KitchenAid mixer was pretty hardcore but once I saw the 6.9L version the regular one started looking pretty tame. Other than the obvious size difference the other thing that sticks out is the fact with the 6.9L KitchenAid the head doesn’t tilt. Instead, the bowl is locked into place and then lifted up towards the mixer head. Not sure what the advantage of this is but I like it better this way.

Since I got the mixer I’ve baked an apple pie, five different brownies, a cake and muffins. I could have done them all with the regular sized mixer but I realized my mixing is a lot less messier using the 6.9L mixer since with the larger bowl, whatever is inside it tends to stay inside. Also because you can raise or lower the bowl to the mixing head I tend to lower the bowl first before I stop the mixer and that way whatever is stuck on the paddle or whisk gets released into the bowl.

The 6.9L mixer has one major disadvantage over the regular 4.8L KitchenAid mixer and that is the lack of colors. While with the 4.8L mixer you have 29 different colors to choose from, with the 6.9L version you’re limited to just 5. The other more obvious downside is the price. The 6.9L mixer is more expensive than the smaller 4.8L mixer and it’s selling for KD283 here in Kuwait. Whichever you end up getting be it the 4.8L or 6.9L they’re both a lot of fun to use.

I got my KitchenAid from the dealer Mabrook in Shuwaikh but I also spotted them for sale at Williams-Sonoma. If you’re interested, here is a link to the Kuwait KitchenAid page on Facebook [Link]