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A few weeks ago I asked a friend of mine if she’d be interested in posting food related posts on the blog. She’s one of the co-founders of PantryBee and since she used to be one of the writers on the old local blog The Dusty Co, I figured she’d be perfect for these posts. Her first one is up and you can check it out below.

At PantryBee we like to think that we know a thing or two about food, sourcing it, cooking it, and more importantly eating it. Mark has given us this platform to share some of our favorite food things, be it restaurant recommendations, general know how, our favorite recipes, books and more. For our first post we thought to start with a cuisine we love. If you’ve seen any of our past Korean dishes on site you’d know that we are hardcore Kimchi lovers at the PantryBee kitchen. Kimchi is a traditional Korean staple made with seasoned fermented vegetables and salt that Koreans have with pretty much every meal. The word “kimchi” evolved from the Korean word ‘shimchae’ which means ‘salting of vegetables’.

Kimchi is one of our favorite superfoods out there. Because of fermentation it’s rich in gut healthy bacteria, vitamin A, vitamin C, as well as being low calorie, high fiber, and jam-packed with antioxidants. Though it takes a long time, making kimchi is pretty straightforward and simple and we really recommend everyone give it a go once.

Kimchi can be prepared in a multitude of ways, with different spice levels and using a variety of vegetables. The most classic version is made with cabbage and is super easy to recreate at home. The recipe below is a classic and highly recommended for your first go. If you don’t feel like making your own head over to Singarea to get your fix as they usually have a couple of varieties to choose from.

Easy Kimchi – Yields 3 cups
1 large head Chinese/Napa cabbage approx 500grams (available at lulu, sultan, and Saveco)
1/2 cup salt
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 Tbsp gochujang (this is a korean red chili pepper paste available at Singarea)
2 cloves garlic minced
2 Tbsp red chili flakes
Cold water
1 inch piece of ginger finely minced
3 spring onions cut into 2 inch pieces
1 daikon radish cut into matchsticks

Directions
1- Cut cabbage lengthwise into quarters removing the core then chop into bite sized pieces.

2- In a bowl add cold water and soak cabbage throughly before draining and transferring to another bowl. sprinkle well with salt turning every 30 mins for 1.5 hrs to make sure cabbage is salted evenly.

3- After 1.5 hrs Rinse well with water making sure to get between the leaves we recommend rinsing at least 3 times .then drain and set aside

4- Mix together the vinegar, gochujang, garlic, ginger in a bowl.

5- Add the cabbage in handfuls to the bowl, squeezing them of any excess water before adding them to the mixture. Add the spring onion and daikon and mix well.

6- Pack into a jar with a tight cover and let sit at room temperature for 2 days then chill in fridge for 4 days before serving.

Post by Hind
CoFounder of PantryBee where home cooking is made easy.

Niqashna is a platform for open debates that was launched early this year. In the first season they held three debates that discussed the following Kuwait related topics:

Debate 1: Arranged Marriage vs Love Marriage
Debate 2: Should children of Kuwaiti women be granted citizenship?
Debate 3: Kuwait’s Demographics: An imminent crisis or a potential opportunity

Niqashna is now starting their second season with their first debate being held this coming Wednesday. The subject of discussion is “Developing the Islands: Do you support ‘open’ tourism for Kuwait’s islands?”. It should prove to be a very interesting discussion, so if you’re interested in going to it, you can get more details [Here]

Also make sure you check out and follow the Niqashna instagram account @niqashna

I can’t believe this is actually happening, they’re finally turning Salem Al Mubarak Street into a pedestrian only street. When I posted about this proposal back in February, I was very adamant that it would never happen and looks like I was wrong, kinda (more on that in a bit). So far they’ve closed down and dug up half of the old Salmiya street. For those of you who aren’t very familiar with this area and the street, Salem Al Mubarak Street starts off at the end of the 4th Ring Road and goes all the way down past Al Fanar Complex and down past AUK and Symphony Mall. “Old Salmiya” which is turning into pedestrian only starts at the end of the 4th Ring Road and ends at Al Salam Mall where LuLu Supermarket is. I’m very passionate about this street because I’ve lived on it (literally) all my life. So I’ve experienced it during its heydays in the 80s, I experienced it during the invasion and after in the 90s, and I’m still experiencing it now on a daily basis since I live on top of one of the shopping complexes on that street. I care about this area a lot so lets start with the good things about all this, and then I’ll mention some negative stuff which are as important.

The Good
– Back in February when I mentioned this project I called it a joke. Mostly because if they were to follow the renderings that were shared with the public (like the one above), it would have meant demolishing the whole street with all the buildings and starting from scratch. So when I spoke to the engineer behind the project yesterday, I asked him about all these modern buildings in the renderings and turns out they were just placed there as inspiration to the current building owners. Phew! That means neither my building nor all the classic two-story buildings (pictured below) on the street will be demolished. For now at least…

– Work is going to be completed pretty soon, they’re aiming to have the street ready by Q1 of next year

– My building is going to be located on a pedestrian only commercial street, how cool is that? I mean its not Carnaby Street or Liverpool ONE, but it’s still cool. Might finally have a reason to buy a Boosted Board.

The Bad
– The street has currently been dug up but no consideration has been made for pedestrians and shop owners. Yesterday I walked down the street to LuLu and in a number of spots I was forced to walk in deep sand which is very difficult to walk in. There are a whole line of shops who just have sand right outside their door because the sidewalks were dug up and no temporary path were put in its place. From what I was told by my buildings landlord, foot traffic has decreased considerably and shop owners in my building have started to feel the effect. Temporary paths should be created to keep the area and shops alive. I’m meeting with the engineer behind the project next week and I’m going to bring this important point up.

– The parking situation in old Salmiya is a mess as it is and now by shutting down the main street which included a lot of parking spots, parking is even a bigger mess. The municipality has already placed signs pointing people to parking locations in the area, but as a resident of the area myself, I found these signs hard to understand, hard to see and they don’t seem to point anywhere. I’m curious to see what parking solutions they’ve come up with to go along with this project.

– Finally, they’ve killed a lot of trees. This is probably the saddest thing about the project. They’ve so far uprooted and killed I would say around 10 large trees, maybe more. These are trees that have been there from the very start of the street (pictured above) and have survived and endured so much. The first question I asked the engineer when he contacted me on Twitter yesterday was if they were removing the trees. He responded saying “Only some .. coz i try hard to keep it but it’s need a lot of work but I kept some coz in my idea that is the land mark of this street”. In my opinion ALL the trees should have stayed and it’s sad to see them being chopped up and bulldozed away. No idea if I can convince him to stop chopping down trees but will see when I pass by their offices next week.

Overall I’m excited my area is finally getting the attention it deserves. But now I’m just hoping the project is done right. Once I pass by the project’s office next and get more details, I’ll post and update.

Over the holidays Sultan Center sent me a Hiku device to play around with and try out. The Hiku is a small device that lives in your kitchen and can scan barcodes, recognize your voice and is basically used to create a shopping list. I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets, even my egg tray connects to the internet so I wasn’t going to say no to adding another gadget in my kitchen. Plus, I enjoy scanning barcodes for some reason, I even owned a CueCat back in 2001 which strangely is considered one of the worst inventions ever. Anyway, enough throwbacks for now.

The Hiku is a pretty tiny device that connects to the internet and the Sultan Center phone app. The way you use it is pretty simple. Say you’re running out of popcorn, instead of opening your notes app or whatever app you use to remind you about what you need from the supermarket, you just take the Hiku device and scan the barcode on the popcorn box. The Hiku automatically recognizes what you just scanned, beeps once letting you know all is ok and then adds that item to your Sultan Center shopping list. If the Hiku doesn’t recognize the item, it will beep three times. Some items like bananas for example don’t have barcodes, so instead of scanning a barcode, you press the button on the Hiku and just say bananas. The Hiku device will recognize your voice and add bananas to your shopping list.

Once you’ve got everything on your list, you can then add the stuff to your shopping cart and purchase them using the Sultan Center app or, you can just open the list the next time you’re shopping and use it as a reminder.

So what do I think of the Hiku? Currently I use the Clear app on my iPhone for my grocery list reminders. It launches instantly and its very easy to add an item to a list and swipe it off once I get it. I don’t think I’ll be changing my habits and start using the Hiku especially since I don’t buy my groceries online. The Hiku makes more sense for people who do order grocerries to their home, by having all the items added to your Sultan Center account, it makes it super practical to just checkout and have the items delivered.

But, the biggest issue I faced is that not all the items I scanned got added to my list even though the Hiku recognized the items. For example the popcorn I used as an example in this post, when I scanned the box the Hiku didn’t add it to my shopping list even though it beeped once to let me know it recognized it. I scanned a different flavored popcorn box and it also didn’t get added to my list. I figured maybe the items were out of stock so I manually checked for the popcorn on their website and one of them wasn’t available, but the other was. Even if both items were out of stock I think they should still get added to my shopping list so that when they’re back in stock I could purchase them. Popcorn wasn’t the only thing it didn’t add to my list, I scanned a bunch of items in one of my kitchen drawers, and in the end it just added two of them to my list even though again the Hiku recognized all the other items. Super annoying.

Another issue I have is with the price of the Hiku. Although the device costs KD12 on Amazon, Sultan Center are selling it for KD25. I don’t know why they’d sell it for double the price, if anything they should be selling it at cost price so that they could get more people to buy it, which in return will lead to more people using their app and website.

With all that being said, the Hiku is a fun little gadget. If you want to find out more about the Hiku, visit the product page on the Sultan Center website [Here]

I just got back from having dinner at Dai Forni, the new Italian restaurant at the newly opened Four Seasons Hotel. The hotel just opened up a couple of days ago along with the restaurants Dai Forni, Elements, Al Bandar and Al Soor lobby lounge.

Dai Forni is currently fully booked for the next 5 days because of Eid, but you could call and reserve spots for after Eid. Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant is still not open for now but will be opening in the next 2-3 weeks.

Four Seasons is located in Kuwait City opposite Discovery Mall [Google Maps] and their instagram account is @fskuwait. Their phone number is 22006000.

For more pictures of the hotel, check out my previous post [Here]

Now that Game of Thrones finished for the season last night, I thought it would be an appropriate time to share some great new shows I recently watched.

13 Reasons Why
This show first aired back in April but I just got around to watching it a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t sure at first if I’d like it but I got hooked right away. 13 Reasons Why is about a high school girl called Hannah who ends up committing suicide. Before she died, she recorded 13 tapes with each tape discussing one of the 13 reasons why she decided to commit suicide. The show is 13 episodes long with every episode covering one tape and I loved that format. Although a lot of people found the show disturbing when it was first released, but I don’t think it’s that bad. Actually the only thing I found disturbing in the show was her suicide scene which I forwarded through anyway since I don’t like watching emotional scenes like that (or rape scenes for that matter). If you have Netflix, watch this if you haven’t already.

Atypical
Atypical aired a couple of weeks ago and I binge watched all 8 episodes back to back in one day. I loved it and its right up there in my top 5 or 6 shows of this year but thats probably because the show deals with autism, a subject I’ve been fascinated with for some time now. The show follows an 18-year old high school student called Sam, who is autistic and has decided to try and find a girl friend. The result is a lot of super awkward scenes and some really great development of characters including the dad who’s played by Michael Rapaport. This show is also on Netflix, and is also a must watch.

Ozark
Starring one of my favorite comedians Jason Bateman, this show is far from being a comedy. Ozark is a super dark drama in which Jason Bateman plays the role of a financial advisor that ends up relocating his family to the Missouri Ozarks after his dealings with a drug cartel go wrong. It’s such an out of character role for Bateman especially when he’s mostly know for his character Michael Bluth on the television sitcom Arrested Development. But Bateman played the role so well that now its going to be awkward for me getting used to him again as Michael Bluth when the 5th season of Arrested Development premiers. This is the last show on my list here but if you had time to just watch just one, this would be the one I’d recommend.

Yesterday, a Jazeera Airways flight coming in from Riyadh collided with a military balloon similar to the one pictured below (actually might be the very same one). A friend sent me the video above which shows the balloon falling through the air and the damage done to the Jazeera plane. According to Jazeera, the plane continued to operate normally and land safely with all the passengers disembarking normally.

The Directorate General for Civil Aviation is currently investigating the incident to identify the on-ground and in-air circumstances that led to this incident.

If you’ve been to Murouj then you’ve probably noticed the construction taking place next to their large parking lot. That’s part of the Murouj expansion project and yesterday I was able to get a list of some of the places that are opening there:

Beit Shoukri
Blaze Pizza
Dean & Deluca
Häagen-Dazs
Illy Coffee
Katsuya
Mana by Ubon
Shake Shack
Shishawarma
Solia Mediterranean Food

There will also be a space available for pop-ups. I’m still trying to find out when phase 3 is expected to finish, and once I have that information I’ll update this post.

As you are probably aware by now, K’S PATH will be closing their doors by the end of the year. Since they still have a lot of cats and dogs yet to be adopted, they’ve decided to waive their standard adoption fee and now all adoptions are for free. They’ve got a ton of super cute animals left so if you’ve been considering getting a pet, click [Here]

A few interesting events are taking place this weekend. There is a comic con event called SuperCon starting from today, there is also the Aeropress Championship which is taking place at Barba on Friday and finally a new indoor market called Market Space thats being held on Saturday. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
CAP Collection: Contemporary Sculpture
SuperCon 2017
XE Pro Gaming Tournament
Western Music at Al Hamra Tower

Friday
SuperCon 2017
XE Pro Gaming Tournament
Kuwait Aeropress Championship

Saturday
SuperCon 2017
XE Pro Gaming Tournament
Yoga with the 3
MARKETSPACE by ARTSPACE
Q8 Readers Book Club

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.

Want to be an instagram influencer? Nowadays buying fake followers, likes and even comments takes only a few clicks of a button. So when I read an article on fake influencers on mediakix last week, I thought it would be worth sharing since instagram influencers are a pretty big thing in Kuwait. The ability to buy followers and engagement so easily now is making it harder for brands to find authentic influencers to deal with which in return is effecting legit influencers as well.

To make things even more complicated, there are support groups of a sort that make it even harder for brands to figure out if the engagement is real or not. Say you want to be a travel blogger, you could join one of these “support groups” which include other travel bloggers and then whenever you post a picture the other travel bloggers will leave comments on your photos and you would do the same back whenever they post a picture.

What I found interesting about this specific article is how they used around $300 to create and build a fake instagram account, and then got brand sponsorship deals. So if the whole influencer situation facinates you, check out the article [Here]

The popular internet speed testing website Speedtest.net has a global index that is updated on a monthly basis ranking mobile and fixed broadband connections around the world. So how is Kuwait currently doing compared to the rest of the world?

Mobile Internet
Rank: 56th
Average Speed: 19.59 Mbps

Fixed Broadband
Rank: 83rd
Average Speed: 14.73 Mbps

I’m actually pretty surprised with the fixed broadband speed since I would have expected it to be a lot lower due to the fact that fiber isn’t widespread yet. Actually I’m also pretty surprised with our mobile internet speeds since I rarely get over 4 Mbps unless I’m in Kuwait City and even then it’s usually around 15-17 Mbps.

Regionally UAE ranked the highest for Mobile Internet coming in 7th with an average speed of 43.98 Mbps while Qatar ranked the highest in Fixed Broadband coming in 49th with an average speed of 27.78 Mbps.

For more information and the full rankings click [Here]

One of the biggest boxing fights of our time is taking place this Saturday, August 26th. Its sort of a crossover fight since Conor McGregor, one of the biggest MMA stars who fights in the UFC is crossing over into boxing to fight the eleven-time five-division professional boxing world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. If you’re in Kuwait, here are three ways to watch the fight:

OSN: If you’re an OSN subscriber you can watch the fight on OSN Sports Box Office HD. The cost is $20 and here is a link with more information [Link]

Cinescape: Cinescape has partnered up with OSN to broadcast the fight at one of their theaters. Not much information on this yet other than this one post on the Cinescape instagram account [Here]. So you’ll have to check their instagram account before the event for more info.

Online: You can purchase the pay per view on the UFC website. Cost is 30 euros but includes one month access to UFC Fight Pass. For more details click [Here]

The main card will take place around 5 or 6AM Kuwait time so be prepared to either stay up late or wake up super early to watch the fight.

Update: Just to be clear, the fights take place Saturday in the US so its 5 or 6AM Sunday morning here in Kuwait.
Update2: Looks like Cinescape will no longer be broadcasting the fight

I’m currently in the south of France for my best friends wedding. I wasn’t planning on not posting while here but we’re currently staying out in the middle of nowhere and the internet connection here is the slowest thing ever. It took two tries and 5 minutes just to upload the single picture for this post for example. The closest place to where we are is a small town called Murs with another slightly larger one further away called Gordes. The biggest city is Avignon and thats a full hour drive away.

In hindsight, I should have prepared posts ahead of time for the blog, but I didn’t so sorry about that.