Until just recently, if you wanted good ramen in Kuwait you were basically out of luck. There weren’t many places that had ramen and the places that did usually had a pretty average bowl. But, last week a new ramen place opened up in Kuwait called Tampopo and it’s great!
The chef behind Tampopo is Maryam Alnusif (or Mimi), many of you might have heard of her since she is behind Shakshooka and The Secret Garden project. Tampopo is actually right next to the Secret Garden, it’s a small place with a main seating area composed of a bar running along the kitchen counter, as well as a bar facing the opposite wall and another bar stretching across the main storefront window. The menu is extremely simple with just three ramen dishes to choose from: Chicken, duck and vegan ramen. They also have a few cocktails and surprisingly, really great tasting non-alcholic Japanese Asahi beer.
I was there with some friends and so we ordered one of everything. My favorite ramen bowl was the vegan one followed by the duck and then the chicken. Because we got there early at around 6:30PM, we managed to find seating, but by the time we were done with our bowls, the place was already packed with people waiting to be seated. I loved the food, the atmosphere and all the people behind Tampopo so I’m definitely going back again this week. Plus its walking distance from my home which is pretty convenient.
Because Tampopo is still in a soft launch phase, they’re only open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 6PM to 10PM. But, starting next week they might start opening on Mondays as well. They also right now only accept cash but should start accepting knet next week. For a map of the location and to stay up to date on their store timings, check out their instagram page @tampopo.ramenshop
So last week there was a case of mass food poisoning in Kuwait because of a falafel restaurant in Hawalli. Supposedly the former partner of the restaurant conspired with an employee to poison the falafel and today Kuwait Times mentions they found the food to be contaminated with salmonella and other types of bacteria. Around 300 customers got food poisoned and yet none of the newspapers or news outlets have mentioned which restaurant had their food contaminated (at least none of the English outlets). I really don’t understand why news media continue to shy away from posting the name of the restaurant especially in a case like this where many other people might be infected and not know they are.
When there was an E. coli outbreak at Chipotle in the States, all the news outlets wrote about it, but if the same outbreak had taken place in Kuwait they’d probably just describe Chipotle as an American franchise.
Haven’t done this for a while but here is my Lebanon summer guide for 2018 in case you’re heading there in the next couple of months.
//////// FOOD ////////
Coara
Since I was with four vegans on my last trip, one of the places we really wanted to try was Coara. It had been on my todo list ever since I watched the video above. The food was incredibly delicious and the husband and wife that cook and run the place were extremely hospitable. I highly recommend it and it’s just an hour away up in the mountains from Beirut.
Onno
Originally a small Armenian restaurant in the poor neighborhood of Burj Hammoud, Onno became popular with the tourists after Anthony Bourdain fell in love with the place. The restaurant has now expanded with multiple locations around Lebanon, but the food is still great. My favorite location of theirs is in Badaro, it’s walking distance from the Smallville Hotel and it’s surrounded by some decent bars.
Kalei Coffee Co.
This is my favorite coffee spot in Lebanon. Not only is their coffee good but they’ve got a very chill garden area to just kick back in and take a break.
Hanna Mitri Ice Cream
I honestly have no idea what the place is called, I just know the name of the owner and I think that’s what most people go by. It’s a hole in the wall, literally, but he has the best Arabic ice cream you’ll ever have. All the ice cream is made fresh daily and depending on what time you pass by he might have sold out of specific flavors or even closed down early because he sold out of everything. There usually is a small queue outside the door but it’s never that bad. Oh and make sure you know what you want since the owner is the equivalent of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. If there is a queue and you get to the front and are confused, don’t expect to get any ice cream. If you’re stuck, just ask for a mix of everything.
Smoking Bun
Still my favorite burger spot and that mostly because it’s located in Mar Mikhael near all the bars. This is the #1 burger place to stumble into half drunk at 2AM. They even have a vegan burger which wasn’t bad at all.
//////// BARS ////////
Internazionale
This has been my goto place for a few years now. It’s located right on Mar Mikhael street and its a very chill bar with good music and a small outdoor seating. This is a great place to sidewalk drink while watching people walk by and a great place to socialize with complete strangers.
Anise
This is a small bar also located on Mar Mikhael and a few stores behind Internazionale. Their super pro bartenders probably make the best cocktails on the strip and their smoked rosemary whiskey sour is insanely good. This is the place if you want to have a good cocktail.
People – Aishti Rooftop
If you’re in the downtown area and are looking for a mid-day break then this is a nice place to stop in for a glass of chilled white wine or Prosecco. It’s located on the rooftop of Aishti and it’s usually pretty quiet during the day.
//////// BEACH ////////
Colonel Beach
Located to the north of Lebanon in the beach town of Batroun, Colonel beach is part of the Colonel beer brewery and restaurant. It’s not that big but its cozy and obviously they’ve got a great selection of their own beer to choose from. Check their schedule if you’re interested in beach yoga since they take place pretty frequently during the summer time. There is no entry fee to access this beach.
Lazy B
While Colonel is located in the north, Lazy B is located in the south in the town of Jiyeh. They have multiple pools including one just for adults and they also have a pretty large sandy beach area. What I like about Lazy B is that they don’t have loud music blasting and they have lots of private shaded areas with hammocks scattered all around. Lazy B also has a good selection of poolside food to choose from and there is alcohol of course. The entry fee is $30.
//////// ACTIVITIES ////////
Hiking
One of my favorite things to do in Lebanon and I always recommend visitors to go on a day hike. The Tannourine Cedar Reserve is a place I recommend often since the location is incredible and the trail fairly organized. Check out my previous post on hiking in Lebanon [Here]
ATVing in Lebanon can be pretty fun and adventurous especially if you head up to Faraya and take one of their 6-hour excursions. I’ve done it three times with different friends and we’ve always had a blast. For more information on this check out my previous post [Here]
If there are any other places you want to recommend, let people know by leaving a comment below.
Yesterday after passing by the clays and crafts store Herafy, I happened to see a sign for the “International Academy of Arts”. I was curious to know what it was, so I walked in to find an old cinema projector in the entrance and then the hallways covered with black and white old film photos. So I kept exploring until a guy who works there came up to me and asked if he could help. He ended up giving me a tour of the facility and explained to me what they do.
“International Academy of Arts” is a film school that teaches acting, directing, cinema makeup, editing, sound recording, radio broadcasting and more. They had different rooms for different subjects and they all seemed to be pretty up to date. No idea if the school is any good but if this is something you’re interested in it might be worth checking out. Their website doesn’t seem to be working at the moment but you can check out their instagram @i.a.arts.
Kuwait is on its way to become “a country with the strongest and fastest Internet in the Arab world” through the use of optic fiber cables, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting a source close to the Sate Ministry for Services. The source pointed out that majority of the advanced countries provide Internet with a speed of 50 gigabytes, whereas the ministry will provide 100 gigabytes starting from August. [Source]
And somehow I’m still stuck barely getting 10Mbps because I live in Salmiya.
The local Acura dealer now has an NSX in stock. It’s by far the most interesting car in the Acura lineup but at the asking price, they just have too many great and more exciting competitors *cough* McLaren 570s *cough*.
The dealer is selling the NSX for KD65,000 and it’s just the one displayed above. They’ve only ever imported three to Kuwait, one was sold to someone in Dubai and the other two were sold locally.
Last week I was given a very detailed presentation on the new terminal that’s under construction as well as a site visit to see the current progress. There was a lot of information presented but for this post, I rounded up what I thought was the most interesting. So here we go:
– The terminal is shaped similarly to other airports around the world for the same reason all cars have 4 wheels, it’s a shape that works really well for airports. But like all cars have 4 wheels, there is still a big difference between a Ferrari and a Kia and this applies to airports as well. Although airports can be shaped similarly, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll all function the same way.
– Eventhough the terminal is huge, you still won’t have to walk much. The distance from the terminal entrance to the center of the terminal is around 150m. The furthest a passenger has to walk once inside is 600m. That’s one of the advantages of the triangular shape of the terminal, less walking distance for the passengers.
– The original plan of the terminal was to open with a capacity of 13 million passengers a year with an ability to expand that up to 25 million if needed. The plans have changed now and the terminal will now be able to handle 25 million passengers from day 1.
– The terminal will have a level of service rating of “A”. Dubai, for example, has a “C”. The level of service is calculated using a variety of things including the distance between passengers in the terminal, facilities, wayfinding etc.. For an airport of this capaciaty, its generally very difficult to get an “A”.
– The terminal has enough gates to handle 21 Airbus A380s (above) but also has the capacity to handle 51 smaller aircraft all at once (below). Thats possible because the majority of the gates can either take one large plane or two smaller ones without having to make any modifications.
– The terminal will have over 5,000 underground parking spots dedicated just for the passengers. Our current airport in comparison has around 1,500 that is also shared with the airport employees.
– Nothing is off the shelf, everything is being custom designed and made for the terminal. There are some things that have never been done before even for Foster + Partners, so its a learning experience for everyone involved in the project.
– Landside is airport lingo for everything before immigration and security, airside is what they call the area after. There will be no mall located in the landside part of the terminal but the airside will have a retail space larger than Trafalgar Square (pictured above).
– There will be 44 immigration desks and 26 security screening machines just for economy travelers. Premium passengers will have their own immigration and security checks in a different area.
– The footing of the building (the foundation base) is 5m deep. I had no idea if this was a lot or not but I was told by architects and engineers that this is crazy deep, usually the footing is around 1m max. The reason for this is the footing has to support all the arches which support the whole roof and structure of the terminal.
– Speaking of arches, there are 800+ arches being used in the building.
– The airport will have a floor for arrivals and another for departures so the two don’t mix. The departure dropoff and the arrival pickup area outside the airport are 500 meters long each and composed of 4 lanes. So they both have 2KM each of temporary parking.
– The rendering above of the expansion of T2 where the terminal is mirrored is just to show that there is room to expand but the final design of the expansion terminal might look completely different.
– Nobody knows what DGCA will do with the current airport once T2 is up and running.
– The terminal is currently 1% behind schedule but the contractor has a catch-up plan in place.
– Contractually the airport is expected to be completed by September 2022. It might finish earlier but September 2022 is whats in the contract. Once the airport is completed it will be handed over to DGCA and it could then take up to a year for the airport to open and function.
I took random pictures at the site as well as screenshots from the powerpoint presentation. If you’d like to see them then click [Here]
Below is a video presentation I found of the airport as well that features a lot of animated renderings.
If anyone has any questions, let me know in the comments below.
Back in the 80s the British School of Kuwait used to be called Sunshine School. It started off as a nursery before eventually turning into a middle school. My class I believe was the second class to graduate from the school (Junior 4), but it was also the last class since the 1990 invasion happened and the school ended up closing down. Once the war was over it reopened again as BSK.
This past weekend while in Lebanon I found a bunch of photos, two of which I’m sharing here. The first one on top I believe was taken at Sunshine School when it was still a nursery, based on my age in that picture I’d say around 1980-1981.
The photo above was taken at their second campus. In total, Sunshine School had three campuses, the third one is still around but I think the first two were demolished ages ago.
If you’re in any of the photos by some weird chance let me know. I have another photo I scanned this weekend in which I found three current friends of mine in not knowing they were in my class back then.
This past weekend I got to fly out of the new Jazeera Airways Terminal (T5) and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s a brand new terminal and our current main terminal is a horrible mess so you would think flying out of this brand new terminal would be a far better experience, but, it really wasn’t that much better.
Parking & Check-in
Firstly, I used the Jazeera Airways Park & Fly service to check in. It’s a service they have where you park your car in their parking lot located away from the terminal, you then check in at the parking lot and take their shuttle back to the main airport. The reason I did that is the service costs KD2.5 a day while parking at the Jazeera Airways parking lot costs KD6 a day, so its a considerable amount of savings. I’m glad I checked in from their remote location since when I arrived to the main terminal, I noticed the check-in area was pretty packed, and they didn’t have their self-check-in machines installed yet either.
Passport Control & Security Check
Passport control wasn’t too bad, there weren’t a lot of people and so I didn’t spend too much time in line. The area did look a bit messy though, I don’t understand why the airport, both this one and the old one can’t get belt barriers set up in straight lines. Anyway the issues started right after passport control beginning with the security check. Between passport control and the security check there really isn’t enough space to set up a proper queueing system so we were standing a bit disorganized. The security machines were also pretty small without any prep space before it. By prep space, I mean an area before the machine to put your bag and start unpacking the laptop or removing your belt, watches etc. Also they didn’t have any bins to dispose of liquids in before the machine, you had to put your liquids in the machine and then dispose of them on the other side. Finally, not sure if its the same now in the main terminal, but the last time I flew out from the main terminal they were using the private security firm G4S for security control. At the Jazeera Terminal the Port Authority is in charge and I’m not exaggerating here, it looked like they were on their first day of the job. They were completely disorganized and looked like amateurs with very little confidence or experience to manage the security check. I’m 99% sure this must have been their first day in charge of security because I can’t imagine another reason why they were so all over the place.
The Terminal
Once I was done with the security check I decided to walk around and explore the terminal but there really wasn’t anything to explore. The duty-free section hadn’t been set up yet and there were no restaurants and very little seating. The terminal still looks unfinished, it was basically in the same state I had seen it in before they had opened. Thankfully, the Jazeera terminal is connected to the old main terminal so I just headed to the lounge there to kill some time and then passed by the newly opened Pick to grab a bite. When it was close to boarding time, I decided to head to my gate back in the Jazeera terminal to wait there, except it turns out there isn’t enough seating at the gate so you have to queue outside the gate until they’re ready to put you on the bus. Once you get into the gate you need to pass through another security check and like the first security check, it was a disorganized mess. This security check also lacked bins to dispose of liquids so people were just placing them on the floor around the security machine.
The Plane
Not related to the airport but still worth mentioning. Our plane was the brand new A320neo which they had just received like a week or so ago. It was very comfortable and not that noisy (engine sound). The thing I found odd was that the interior of the plane was a dark maroon color, both the carpets and the seats. It felt like I was on a Qatar Airways flight and not a Jazeera Airways one. Aren’t the interiors meant to be blue? I thought they were because of their press release photo (pictured above) so I found that odd. I kinda feel like this plane was possibly meant for Qatar Airways but was then taken by Jazeera? Can’t imagine why else it would be in this color. No screens, USB ports or any seat amenities of course, but that was ok with me since I carry everything I need with me anyway. I just wish they had screens somewhere with the live map so we knew how far into the trip we were but that’s the only issue I had with the plane.
Arrival
Coming back into Kuwait was a far better experience. Passport control went pretty smooth and so did the carry-on security check right after. After the security check is the baggage conveyor belts area which felt small. Our baggage did take forever to come out but I’m not sure Jazeera have any control over that. The airport is small so the distance from passport control to baggage pick up to airport exit is very short so if you’re only with your carry on, then you could be out pretty quickly from the terminal. Once I was out there were no signs telling me where to go for the shuttle bus back to their Park & Fly area, I also couldn’t find a Jazeera Airways employee to ask so I asked a security guy who told me to go to the side of the building. The shuttle was just arriving so I didn’t end up waiting long and ended up back at my car fairly quickly.
In Conclusion?
If you fly with Jazeera Airways right now you need to manage your expectations and treat their new terminal like it’s still in beta testing with a lot of bugs that need to be sorted out. Is it better than the main terminal? I mean I guess but marginally. Only the passport control area is an improvement but that’s about it. The conveyor belt area was a bit tight, there are two belts and the space around them is smaller than the number of people per flight so it gets crowded very quickly. If two planes land at the same time I can imagine it looking like a total mess but I think it would still be better off than the main terminal, but just slightly. The worst aspects of the new terminal are the unorganized and inexperienced security personnel along with the horrible gates that can’t hold passengers (at least Gate B3). I imagine things will get better but for now, don’t expect too much.
Every time I visit my parent’s house in Lebanon, I go through some of their old photos to see if I could find anything interesting to share. This trip I found the photo above, it’s a photo of my parents with some of their friends having dinner at Riccardo in the Sheraton Hotel sometime back in the 70s.
Kuwait’s Public Prosecution have arrested popular social media influencer 3bodka for misusing the platforms and abusing the Kuwaiti people.
3bodka, whose real name is Abdulla Al-Jassir, is being investigated for a video he posted on his social media page using an insulting word to describe the Kuwait people, after receiving criticism previously for posting a video of his dog that drowned in a swimming pool. The authorities received complaints from 20 different individuals about the video. The crimes that are being investigated carry a prison sentence of five years and KD100,000 fine.
He has been detained for three days as investigations continue, however, his detention is expected to end today. [Source]
I have to say, I am pretty surprised they actually arrested him. I thought for sure nothing was going to be done about it. If you’re out of the loop on what this is all about, check out my previous post [Here]
Cinescape just signed a deal with the company CJ 4DPLEX to bring their ScreenX theater technology to the Middle East.
ScreenX is cinema technology that brings a 270-degree viewing experience to the movie similar to the picture above. The technology projects the film onto the screen in front of you as well as the walls on the left and right of you and then seamlessly connects the three. Movies need to be filmed with ScreenX technology in mind for this to work and since the technology is new, not a lot of movies support it yet. Black Panther was a recent movie that had ScreenX support and the upcoming movie Ant-man and the Wasp will also support it so it’s going to start picking up.
I personally enjoy watching my films in 2D on a large iMax screen but ScreenX might be interesting since it doesn’t involve the use of 3D glasses and isn’t as gimmicky as 4DX. Check out the press release [Here]
A couple of weeks ago there was a very interesting discussion on Reddit called “What if I don’t want to fast?” about the laws that punish people for eating in public during Ramadan. Since Ramadan is nearly over, I wanted to ask my readers what their opinion about this is.
Personally, because I don’t cook, my biggest issue is with the law regarding restaurants having to be closed during the day. I actually don’t know if its a law, or just an unspoken rule, but whatever the case is, I don’t think restaurants should be forced to close, not unless you also want to close other sources of food like supermarkets and baqalas. I’ve basically spent most of this Ramadan having Chinese food since China Kitchen is one of the few places that deliver from noon and they’re located in Salmiya so the driver doesn’t get stuck in traffic. I actually don’t think I’m having Chinese food ever again once Ramadan is over.
Do you fast? Would you mind it if restaurants were open during the day? Do you mind if people drink water in front of you? I’m curious to know.
There have been rumors for some time now that Mercedes-Benz was planning to leave the current dealership in Kuwait and yesterday a letter started making its way around social media which confirms it. According to the letter which was sent to employees, the dealership agreement between Mercedez-Benz and Al Bisher & Al Kazemi Group of Companies will be terminating on December 31st, 2018.
I’ve already contacted my source at the dealership to confirm the authenticity of the letter and once they get back to me, I’ll post an update here. But, if it is actually true, then the next question is who will be taking over the brand? Currently, the rumors are pointing towards Al-Mulla Group who are also the dealers for Acura and Mitsubishi, but I had also heard that Al-Sayer were interested in acquiring the brand as well (but I’ve been told that’s not happening).
Al Bisher & Al Kazemi have been the dealers for Mercedes-Benz in Kuwait since the 1950s. The last time a big change like this took place in the local car market was when Arabian Motors Group lost the Ford and Lincoln dealership to Alghanim in 2016.
The brand new Kuwait Airways terminal (T4) will be opening next month on July 25th [Source]. All Kuwait Airways flights will depart and arrive from the new terminal which should greatly reduce the traffic flow at the main terminal.
According to an article in AlQabas newspaper, the opening of the Jazeera Airways terminal has alone reduced the traffic at the main terminal by 15%, so I’d expect the opening of T4 to reduce that by at least another 30%.
