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Al Diwan Al Amiri released a preview video of the new Entertainment City and although I hate the fact they demolished the old one, I think I kinda like this one. I like it because they’ve combined a lot of different things into the place which might actually make it successful. Previously it was just an amusement park but the new version merges a mall, hotel, and sports stadium with the park as well as an aquarium and museum. The new Entertainment City is going to be now called “The City” and contain the following:

Outdoor Theme Park (6 theme zones)
Indoor Theme Park (Envisioned by Ubisoft)
Indoor Snow Park
Waterpark
Aquarium
Dolphinarium
Museum & Planetarium
High Street Retail
A Retail Mall
Luxury District (900+ rooms and apartments)
Icon Hotel (480+ luxury rooms)
Sports and Festival Arena (25,000+ spectators)

The only thing I really don’t like and should be changed is the dolphinarium. It’s 2021, we’re all much more aware and informed on how inhumane dolphinariums are. Even The Scientific Center canceled plans for their dolphinarium so not sure why we’re still trying to build one in Kuwait.

Other than that one issue I’m excited about this project. No completion date was shared in the presentation but going by their previous schedules, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first stage isn’t completed in around 2 years’ time.

Thanks @_M87

If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, BBT has a picnic area set up outside their location. When you place an order just let them know you want to picnic and they’ll hook you up with a picnic mat to use in the park next door. If you don’t know what BBT is then click here. If you want to know where they’re located, here is their location on Google Maps.

● Burgers take the lead as the most ordered cuisine in Kuwait
● The most expensive late night order wasn’t food
● Kuwait is officially the king of sauces, with extra sauce orders being the highest in the region

The home-grown region leading food and grocery delivery app, talabat, has compiled a list of some of their Kuwaiti customer’s best, weirdest, and wonderful ordering habits of the year. 2020 has been a year that we don’t want to repeat – however that doesn’t mean that we can’t find fun in some of how we’ve used talabat!

Lockdown: What was the most ordered cuisine?
We’ll give you a hint: two buns, salad and a meaty filling. That’s right – burgers! Of the top 20 most-ordered foods during lockdown, the first six, and twelve in total were from burger joints! Now the big question; Burger King, Elevation Burger or McDonalds?

This year, Burger King reigned supreme, featuring six times on the top 20, with the Chicken Royale Meal crowned as the most loved lockdown meal, with 2.5x more orders than the Elevation Burger’s cheeseburger – which came in second place product on our list. McDonald’s was also featured in 20th spot, with their McChicken Medium Meal.

The biggest late night order in Kuwait? 608 KDs
From the tales of the weird and wonderful, we’ve uncovered this little gem. This year’s biggest late night order came in the form of two air conditioners: 1x Hyundai Wall Mounted 24K and 1x Hyundai Wall Mounted 30k.

We’ve heard about the perils (or joys) of late night shopping, but this takes it to the next level!

Kuwait: The undisputed sauce loving champions of the region
It’s official. Kuwaiti’s are the undisputed sauce loving champions in the region. Our top three purchased extra sauces, headlined by the Santa Fe Sauce from Hardees, followed by Mayo and Ketchup Mix Sauce, also from Hardees and Sweet Chilli Sauce from McDonalds were ordered over 330,000 times this year. To put that into context, that’s 125,000 more sauces than the next closest market, Egypt.

Sharing kindness following a few taps
Food and groceries (and air conditioners) were not the only ways that Kuwaiti citizens and residents used talabat – they also used it to donate!

With over 35,000 KD donated during COVID, Kuwaitis have really shown their kindness. Customers also took part of donating to Beirut’s recovery in the #lunchforlebanon campaign. With over 115,000 orders placed during #lunchforlebanon, region-wide, talabat donated 100% off all profits as well as an extra 150,000 euros.

Over the weekend I picked up the brand new Porsche Taycan to review. I’ve been curious to try the Taycan ever since it launched because I think it’s the best looking fully electric car on the market right now by far (sorry Tesla owners). I was hoping the color combo of the test drive car was white exterior with a black interior similar to the launch photos, but the car I picked up was a metallic blue with a beige interior. Not the most exciting color combination and I was actually worried it would be difficult to shoot but the shots eventually came out great.

The Taycan is Porsche’s fully electric car. It’s not a hybrid, meaning, it doesn’t run on a combination of electricity and fuel, this is a 100% electric car similar to how Teslas are. My worry with electric cars always obviously is running out of power and being stuck on the side of the road. The Taycan fully charged has a range of over 400km, but when I picked up the car from the dealer, it only had a 77% charge. Kinda sucked cuz it didn’t help with the anxiety of running out of range. When reviewing cars I tend to put on a lot of mileage on the cars very quickly so I can get a proper experience with it. I had a whole day of errands to run and I wasn’t going to let a partially charged vehicle change that. So I decided I’d not focus too much on the range and just enjoy the car.

The interior felt very familiar right away because it still resembled a normal Porsche although all the buttons had been replaced by a large touch screen and the gauges were fully digital. There was a feeling of familiarity because it felt like a regular car and wasn’t stripped out like a Tesla where all the car controls moved to a tablet-like screen. The interior looked hi-tech with three displays, one in front of me where the analog gauges would usually be, a large screen in the center of the dash, and finally a large screen built into the center console which has all the controls. There is an extra option to add a passenger screen which I think would make the interior even more futuristic but the car I drove didn’t have it. I’m generally not a fan of touch screens for controls, but I wasn’t too bothered by the controls on the Taycan. The screen was large enough to make all the buttons big and easy to touch, plus there was haptic feedback so I could tell if I had pressed a button properly or not.

I started off by heading to Shuwaikh to quickly take some photos of the car in case I didn’t have time later that day but also so I could post some photos on my Instagram story. I then headed to Avenues for some Christmas shopping before heading to Bayan and different parts of Salmiya for some more errands. Anytime someone would message me on Instagram to ask me how the car was I had one response and that it was fast. The model I drove was the Taycan Turbo which does 0 to 100 in 3.2 seconds, that’s faster than my Lotus which is a difficult idea to grasp. It’s also not only fast 0 to 100, the car keeps acceleration effortlessly as long as you have your foot down on the power. One cool Porsche feature is the fake electric sound that you can get on the car. Electric cars don’t make sounds but for an extra KD150, Porsche will fit the car with the Electric Sport Sound option which adds a futuristic humming-like sound that makes the car sound like you’d expect an electric car to sound like in an 80s movie. It sounded super cool and I obviously had the option turned on all the time. I tried capturing the sound but didn’t have any luck but you could check out this video on YouTube if you want to hear it.

I ended up driving quite a bit of distance on the car, even headed over the Kuwait bay bridge to the other side to take some more photos of the car and by the time I had finished with the car and brought it back to the dealer, it still had around 28% battery left (120km range). I loved the car and if I was in the market for an electric car the Taycan would be an easy choice for me over the Tesla because of the looks alone. But, I wouldn’t go for the Turbo model which starts from KD47,300. Nobody needs a 4 door sedan to be that fast. Instead, I’d recommend the 4S model which starts from KD33,900. When I built my own car on the Porsche website with all the options I wanted the car came out to KD42,000 which is still way cheaper than the base Turbo model. So that would be my recommendation, get the Taycan 4S pimped out with all the options you want.

Someone on Reddit shared a vintage RCA ad for air conditioners that mentioned Kuwait. They shared a black and white version but I managed to find a colored version which you can check out here. If you want to read the text on the ad click here.

Pre-Covid we weren’t known for taking care of our environment and now during Covid with everyone staying here things have gotten worse. People here have a terrible habit of littering be it at the beach or in the middle of the desert and with the increase of kashtas, its become even more apparent. So the EPA launched an awareness campaign in the hopes of making people more aware of the garbage they’re leaving behind.

It’s a great short animation with humor which I think works since more people will end up sharing it. But, it’s in Arabic so not all my readers will get it. @EPA_kw

I recently found out that the oldest Persian restaurant in Kuwait was located down the street from where I live. Layali Tehran was the first Persian restaurant in Kuwait and has been around now for over 50 years. They were originally located in Sharq but had to move to Salmiya years ago. I don’t know much about Iranian food other than kebabs so I’m not the best person to ask about the food, but, I think the most interesting thing anyway is the idea of dining at the oldest Iranian restaurant in Kuwait.

If you want to try it out they’re located on Amman Street. Parking is a bit difficult but I parked across the street where there was less traffic and just crossed over. Their phone number is 25613312 and here is their location on [Google Maps]

This got me thinking, I wonder if the first Chinese or Italian restaurant in Kuwait still exists? I previously posted about the oldest restaurants in Kuwait and there were some good examples in the comments, check those out here.

Also just shared some interesting stuff on Twitter related to the oldest restaurants in Kuwait:
Oldest “liver” restaurant in Kuwait
Opening of Muwaffak Jabri Restaurant in 1961
Opening of the first Wimpy in 1969
Photo of the first burger restaurant in Kuwait Haroon El-Rasheed

My shawerma life needs a bit of an upgrading. Anytime I feel like having shawerma I tend to hit up the old school place Jeita which is down the street from me or Shawerma Shakir and that’s about it. I passed by another old time favorite recently, Bader Al Badoor but the shawerma was pretty dry and unexciting unlike I remember it so I don’t think I’d go back there. But, yesterday I tried a place on Restaurant Street called One Cut (pictured above) based on a recommendation by @thetravelingapron and it was pretty great. Made me realize I’m probably missing out on so many new shawerma places that have popped up over the years.

So I’m curious, what are your favorite shawerma places right now? Might revive my old Shawerma Review series again (circa 2007) if there are enough places I should check out.

It’s been 5 years since I last posted about Big D, probably the most controversial musician I’ve posted about on the blog. For some reason, he used to get a lot of negative comments to the point he had to release a music video in which he responded to some of the hate. Love him or hate him though I like the fact he’s still going and “Open Your Eyes” is his latest track so check it out.

Last year the first McDonalds in Kuwait that was located on the Gulf Road closed down and Burger King and Pizza Hut took over the location. A few days ago they finally opened it up and it looks great. I didn’t try it since I haven’t had Burger King in probably a decade (sorry BK I’m a McD guy), but the place does look really cool especially with the LED panels that display color animations all around the structure. The new location is open 24/7 which is great for those late-night munchies. Google Maps

Back in September I posted about the Kärcher OC 3 portable pressure washer and how great it was. I had purchased it for KD43 from Ace but later found out it was actually mispriced and should have been sold for KD68 (which is too expensive).

But now Xcite is selling the same pressure washer for just KD33. That’s even cheaper than how much I paid!

So if you were interested in the washer but couldn’t find one or thought it was too expensive before, here is the link on Xcite.

The video above has been circulating WhatsApp showing the observation tower at Entertainment City crashing down as part of the Entertainment City demolition process. I was thinking about the park yesterday on how they could have refurbished it instead of rebuilding a new one from scratch. It wasn’t the best amusement park in the world but at least it had a history and character. Not everything needs to be completely demolished for a new version. Disney Land has been around since 1955 and is still very current, Coney Island amusement park has been around even longer since the late 1800s and has gone through various stages of refurbishment and revival.

The American sportswear company Under Armour opened up in Avenues Phase I last month. I actually came by the store by accident while walking around Avenues to see if there was anything new. I didn’t expect to see Under Armour there especially since all the other big brand sports stores are located on the opposite end of the mall in Phase 4. The store is pretty large, they have sneakers, sportswear, a separate Project Rock section (a collection by “The Rock”) as well as a small accessories section where I spotted some cool workout gloves which I think I’m gonna end up getting.

If you want to find the store they’re on the top floor of Avenues Phase I, near Borders.

Update: Turns out they’ve been open in Al Kout since last year.

There is an interesting conversation currently on Reddit regarding companies who either reduced salaries because of the pandemic, or who missed or aren’t paying the salaries. Not sure how many of my readers are going through this issue but if you are and want to file a complaint you can do so by contacting the Public Authority of Manpower:

Phone: +965 69009600
Email: [email protected]

Check out the discussion on Reddit here.

When I posted about the National Library last year, most of the comments were regarding their operating hours which is 9AM to 1PM because it was as if they didn’t want anyone to visit the library. Well now with the pandemic, things just got a bit more complicated.

Last week I dropped by the National Library because I needed to flip through their newspaper archive. Usually you just give the security guard at the entrance your civil ID and then go in. But, because of the pandemic, they now have an appointment system like all other government offices. So while at the security desk I created an account at meta.e.gov.kw and booked an appointment before being let in. Once inside I had to have my photo taken at another security desk for some reason, that wasn’t there last year and they took my photo with my mask on so not sure what the purpose is.

I was told that nobody was allowed to go upstairs where all the books were. Instead, I needed to wait in a small room for someone to come to me so I could tell them what I wanted so they would go get it for me. This works if you know what you want exactly, but part of the experience of going to the library is finding books on a subject that you also didn’t know about.

I must have been the first person to ask to check their newspaper archive because they didn’t know how to go about it with the new rules. I spoke to two girls first who then had to call their boss who then told them to go get another guy, who then came and left again to go get someone else who finally could help. But he needed to know exactly what year and month of the archive to get (they’re large books archived by year and month). Luckily I knew which month and year so he was able to go fetch it for me but if I didn’t, not sure what the process would have been like.

So if you were planning to visit the library during the ongoing pandemic it’s no longer a good experience. I used to love dropping in randomly every now and then to go through their books and newspapers so it sucks that I can’t do that anymore. If you want to check out my previous post on the library, click here.