Search: “salmiya”

All I want is a 20cm Tefal frying pan from the Privilege line and I can’t find it. I know I saw it at Sultan Center before but when I went and checked today it wasn’t there. I went to 2 Sultan’s, the Salmiya and Souk Sharq plus City Center Salmiya and this other store that had a large collection of Tefal pans and none have the pan I want. Nat kept bugging me to buy any pan that its all the same, but I told her no. They are NOT all the same. Here are the specs of the Privilege line:

– A cool yet stylish dark exterior, made from PTFE, is tough, durable and easy to clean
– 5.5mm thick induction base for perfect heat distribution
– Stylish glass lids with stainless steel rims and adjustable steam vents
– Pouring lip on all pieces for safety and ease of use

In summary, it looks good, its affordable and I can’t find it.. here is the link with more info.

Today was the coolest, I did something I never did before, I spray painted in broad daylight. I woke up early today like 10ish. Nat went out shopping so I was home alone. So to pass the time I decided to cut out a new stencil so I could spray paint it. I decided to do one related to Samir Geagea since its currently Samir Geagea week in Lebanon. When I was done with my stencil around an hour and a half later I decided to just go out and try it. I didnt have anything else to do so I was like fuck it lets just go. I went to the regular construction site I usually spray paint at and tagged the walls. When I was done I drove around trying to find another construction site when I spotted something. You know the huge sewage system they are installing all over Salmiya? Well they have these huge concrete stuff laid out all over the place so I started tagging them. I must have tagged atleast 20 different ones all over Salmiya. It was really cool plus they are gonna burry the things later so no harm done. I did learn one thing today, don’t spray paint against the wind..

I didn’t know if this review should focus on their Shawerma or everything as a whole. So after a lot of consideration I decided I would focus more on the shawerma and just mention the other items. Sajj House has been around for a couple of years now. I first found out about it when I was in highschool I think, or first year of university. I started eating there though 3 years ago. In this time I was able to try many of their items, their shawerma, their Taouk sandwich, kofta, and a variety of sajj sandwiches. Everything I have ever had at Sajj House tasted incredibly good. Everything, from their Taouk to their Chocolate with Banana Sajj sandwich. Their prices are extremely reasonable and their service is very friendly.

Now that I have done introducing the place we can finally focus on their shawerma. I am not very picky with shawermas. I would and do eat shawermas from any place. It could be a small shawerma place in a backstreet of Hawalli, or it could be a shawerma place in Salmiya high street, if I feel like having shawerma I will head to the closest source. I have only had 2 bad experiences with shawermas through out my life, so in general I find most shawermas satisfying. But, I have never ever given a shawerma place a score of 5. So this brings us to a very important question. What shawerma would deserve a 5? Its very difficult since a 5 would mean this is the ultimate souper douper shawerma. You might have figured out where I am going with this review, if not I will tell you. On my way to Sajj House yesterday I was thinking about how I rate their shawerma. Is it a 4.5? or is it a 5? Could there ever be a place that would score a 5? Does a 5 mean a perfect shawerma? Then I realized something, Nataly had never had a shawerma at Sajj House, plus she is very picky when it comes to garlic. So I decided at the moment, if Nataly liked the shawerma that would mean it gets a 5. If she didn’t it would get a 4.5.

We went to Sajj house, we both ordered shawermas and then we drove off to our secluded spot (dead end next to the french school). We sat down, opened up the windows and started eating. She loved it. She didn’t mind the strong garlic which tastes really good, she loved the sajj bread they use to wrap the shawerma in and she loved the fact that the chicken wasn’t greasy at all. Thats when I knew, we hit the jackpot with Sajj House. They truly have the ultimate shawerma and its only for 350fils. What gives their shawerma a 5? Well as I mentioned above, they wrap the shawerma in sajj bread, which makes it very light, the garlic they use is perfectly blended and the chicken is not greasy at all. The chicken is actually grilled on coal flame not gas. To add to all this, Sajj House provides other items you can take with the shawerma. Say you want to have 1 shawerma and 1 zaatar sajj, when you order you know both of your items will taste incredible. This strong support from the other items on the menu helps push the score up. Their service is also very nice. Everyone from the Lebanese cashier to the Lebanese shawerma guy, they are very nice and clean. You also have 3 options of getting your shawerma, you can order delivery by phone, you can park your car outside and they will come to you, or you can go down and order it yourself. Their location also helps, they are located in Salmiya adjacent to the Restaurant Street but away from all the traffic (if you are heading towards platinum gym and restaurant street, if the cinema is to your right then you will come up to a small roundabout, if you go straight its platinum gym, if you take a left and continue going straight past the stadium on your left, you will find sajj house on your right). In conclusion, if I gave their shawerma a 5 you should know its really has to be something out of this world to get a 5, and the fact that Nat, an amateur picky shawerma eater loved it, then it just adds more credibility to my score.

update: Since I posted this review over a year ago I have to say the shawermas at Sajj House have become terrible. They have changed the recipe or something but I have now stopped eating there and my new favorite place is Badar Al Badoor. If I was to review Sajj House today I would give them a 2.5 or 3.

I was walking in Salmiya yesterday when I noticed that there seems to be a lot more DVD and VCD hawkers on the street. A few minutes later while passing some more hawkers I noticed something really cool. One of the street hawkers had a portable DVD player with a built in LCD screen. That guy has to be the smartest hawker on that street. He can use the player to attract people to his stand and then allow them to try the movies before they buy it. This way he creates better customer satisfaction and people will come back to him remembering him as the hawker with the portable movie player.

Have you guys seen the knew BKME logo? Its depressing. How can a bank like BKME be so stupid I don’t know. I don’t blame the designer. The designer is crap, I am sure he knows that already. I blame the people at BKME who accepted such tragic work. My god, its a disaster! Firstly, before I start talking about the logo, lets talk about the 4×3 Mega’s on the road where the logo is on. You DO NOT use yellow type on a white background. Its very unreadable. They not only used yellow type on a white background, they used it on their outdoor ads!! If you are driving up to the ad on the street you will not see “Al Awsat” written in yellow until you slam into the ad. Its impossible to read when its in a newspaper yet alone an ad on the street 50 meters away while you are zooming buy in you car at 100km/h. Thats their first mistake. Lets talk about the logo. Is that a pearl? Come on, who was the genius who thought of that? Very creative. I am sure no one ever thought about it before (Note: I am being sarcastic here). Even Gulf Bank uses the pearl for their Dana account. Anyway, whatever, fine, go with the pearl, but at-least be a bit more creative about it. It looks like a shop that sells marbles for kids. Their logo really pisses me off.

You know what the problem is? People think being a designer is easy. People think anyone can be a designer. People think that if they take a course in Adobe Photoshop at some trashy institute in Salmiya they automatically are designers. Thats bullshit. If thats true then what did I do for 4 years at university? Why do designers go get their masters then their PhDs? Taking a course in Photoshop at an institute just means you now know how to use 5% of Photoshops capabilities. Thats all. We spend the first two years of university not being allowed to use any computers in our design work. They teach us that the computer is just a tool, its just a means to get what you have in your head onto paper. Thats all. So they spend the first 2 years teaching us about other tools like drawing, painting, silk screen printing, sculpturing, stencils and tons more stuff. Not only that but as a designer you need to be creative, and have taste, both things which many people lack. Why is GianFranco Ferre designing clothes and you aren’t? Why is Philip Starck designing everything from hotel rooms to sneakers and you aren’t? They got it you don’t, its that simple.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. BKME is the one losing here. The new Osoul logo even has a readability problem. Osoul in arabic can be read as Osoul or Osoud. The reason for that is the L in the end is not shaped correctly. The L could look like an L or a D. It goes both ways. Fine the majority will read it as an L but the fact that it might be read as a D is a problem. Now the logo is out and I am sure Osoul is getting comments about it. It could have been so easy to fix but it wasn’t. Below is just a mockup I did in 2 minutes of what could have been done to avoid this Osoul/Osoud mix up.

Osoul Logo

Osoul Logo Fixed

But anyway this post has become to long so I will stop. Its just very frustrating for me because these bad designers give us all a bad reputation and image. The client needs to be able to trust us and bad designers make this trust harder to form.

I went for a long walk in Salmiya tonight and found a kid selling some DVDs. I don’t usually buy of these street kids since the quality of the DVD recording is usually terrible. I still decided to check out the dvds though and to my surprise I found Bumfights volume 1. What is Bumfights? Well these guys went around paying homeless people to fight each other and do stupid pranks like set their hair on fire or pull their teeth out using pliers all on film. When the dvd first got released it caused some controversy and thats when I found out about it. Its not a major movie release or anything so I was surprised to find it here on the streets. Its amazing how you can find the strangest stuff in Kuwait sometimes.

Today I found the old Pizza Hut logo and I realized how much I missed it. I don’t like the new logo, never did. I don’t like the new shop designs also. I used to really like the Pizza Hut in the old Salmiya where it was right next to Hungry Bunny. The place had carpet floors which I love in restaurants and it was also dimly lit. Now with the current logo and interior design the place looks really cheap.

I don’t know if this review will be very fair since the place I am reviewing I have been visiting for 26 years now. Yeah that long, and my parents were visiting it before I was born. The place is called Caesars Restaurant and its located in Salmiya. Its one of my favorite chinese places ever.. worldwide. In-fact every time I have chinese food anywhere I have to compare it to Caesars. Caesars just recently moved to a new location since their old place got demolished recently. The new location is adjacent to their old building so regular customers can find it easily. The new location is larger, is better decorated and now contains a lot more private booths. All the waiters are extremely friendly. I spend the first 5 minutes of my arrival saying hello to all of them. Its good to see them all. Some have been around since I was a little kid and have actually watched me grow up. I love the new private booths, they are very comfortable and they dont feel claustrophobic at all. For appetizers I ALWAYS have crab soup and prawn spring rolls. As I said previously, every time I have chinese anywhere else I have to compare it to Caesars and when it comes to the starters, Caesars wins by a mile. Their crab soup is simply the best soup I have ever had and I dont mean best chinese soup I mean best soup.. ever! The spring rolls? You can ask Nataly about them. When we go we usually order 2 plates of prawn spring rolls, one for her and one for me. Each plate has 6 pieces and they all disappear very quickly. For the main course I always have the sweet & sour chicken. Ofcourse I have tried their other dishes like the popular sizzlers and noodles, but I just can’t get enough of their sweet & sour dishes. Nataly keeps trying new stuff, yesterday night she had the sweet & sour prawns but before she had the fish sizzler and before that chicken with mushroom and bamboo shoots. One more thing left to talk about and that is the rice. Once again Caesars have the best rice in the world. We always order the fish fried rice and its easily the best rice you can ever have anywhere. Now with all this excellent food you would think the prices are just out of the world. In reality, Caesars is a very affordable chinese restaurant. This is what we had last night:

1 Large bottle of water
1 Coke
1 Crab soup
2 Prawn spring rolls
1 Fish fried rice
1 Sweet & Sour Prawns
1 Sweet & Sour Chicken

Total Price: KD10.500

As you can see the price for a very filling chinese dinner for 2 is just ten dinars. and this included shrimps. Very affordable. The only thing stopping me giving the place a full 5 stars is consistency. Every now and then something might not taste the way its supposed to. Maybe its me, maybe I am too picky but this is a minor issue I have. Also the location, its not really the place to be in Kuwait. So for the final score I give it a 4.5 out of 5. For reservations or to get the exact directions, you can call them at 5732885 and 5733044.

Here is a picture from the outside.

Update: Seems I couldn’t even spell Caesars right. I fixed it now.