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Impossible Foods is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy products. They went viral a couple of years ago when they introduced their burger patty which not only looked like real meat but supposedly also tasted like real meat. Their burger patty was positioned as the future of meat since it used 96% less land, 87% less water and released 89% fewer emissions compared to burgers made with cow meat.

The Impossible burger grew in popularity and became available in a number of high end restaurants like Momofuku Nishi in NY and the Michelin-starred restaurant Public, but it also became available at more casual places like Umami Burger and White Castle. Now the Impossible patty has found its way to Kuwait.

The local burger chain Rock House Sliders launched the Impossible Slider funnily enough on April 1st. I haven’t tried it yet since I just got back to Kuwait, but I’ll be having some tonight since I’m really curious to try it. They have four different sliders made using the Impossible meat and they’re all priced at KD2.750 which is more than double the cost of their real meat sliders. So not cheap. But, if like me you’re interested to try it, RHS is on Talabat, Carriage, and Deliveroo. For more info visit @rockhousesliderskuwait

Singa Pura is a new Singaporean restaurant that just opened up last week. I think it’s the first ever Singaporean restaurant in Kuwait since I don’t recall there ever being one. I actually had never had Singaporean food before, nor did I know what to expect so I was very curious to try them out. Now that I have, I think the best way to describe Singaporean food is that it lies somewhere between Thai and Indian cuisine, but closer to Thai which makes sense since they’re near each other.

Although Singa Pura just opened, they’ve actually been around for a while in the form of a home catering business. They still have their catering business active so if you don’t want to visit the restaurant you can also do that.

When I passed by Singa Pura for lunch it was pre-opening and so we didn’t have access to the full menu or final prices. But, I’ll be passing by again soon and once I do I will update this post with their menu. For now, if you’re interested in checking them out they’re located in the basement of Dasman Complex in the city. Here is their location on Google Maps and they’re on instagram @singapurakw

Arabica’s Mall 30 location was featured in the design and lifestyle magazine Wallpaper* last week. I haven’t been to that location yet because it’s so out of my way, but I had seen photos of it and it really is a beautiful space.

The interior was designed by the Japanese design studio Nendo and opened up last December. If you’re interested in passing by, here is the location on Google Maps.

Here is the link to the article on Wallpaper*.

The store was also featured on Design Boom where they have even more pictures of the space.

Usually, when I write about new restaurants that just opened up I talk about the food, but not in this case. The Cardamom Club is a new Indian restaurant that recently opened up and I think it has the best looking interior of any restaurant in Kuwait.

The restaurant is part of the Napkin Affair group who also own the concepts Ubon, Ananas, Simsim, and Mana. They designed all their restaurants in house and until recently I had thought Ananas was their best work, but not anymore. So far I’ve been to The Cardamom Club twice and on both occasions, I thought the food was average but the interior really beautiful.

If you’re looking for a new place to try out you should give The Cardamom Club a visit, they’re located in Kuwait City right next to the pizza place Pinocchio’s. Here is their location on [Google Maps] and their instagram account is @cardamom.club

Mercer’s Quality of Living rankings list was recently released and the regional order has pretty much remained unchanged. I thought Saudi Arabia might move up from the previous years because of the recent changes that have taken place there but their ranking hasn’t really changed. Mercer puts together this list by evaluating a number of factors including recreation, housing, economic environment, consumer goods availability, public services and transport, political and social environment, natural environment, socio-cultural environment, school and education and medical and health considerations.

1 – Vienna, Austria
74 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
78 – Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
105 – Muscat, Oman
110 – Doha, Qatar
126 – Kuwait City, Kuwait
136 – Manama, Bahrain
164 – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
168 – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
231 – Baghdad, Iraq

The list above shows Kuwait’s ranking compared to neighboring countries but if you’d like to see how your home country ranks in the world, you can check out the full list on Mercer’s website [Here]

Thanks Basmah

Recently a decision was made to cancel the use of residency stickers inside passports. Instead, you’ll need to have a valid Civil ID card when traveling as a means of verifying your residency. The name on the Civil ID card has to match your name in your passport or you’ll risk being denied travel in or out of Kuwait. Having weird spellings or incorrect data on the Civil ID is pretty common, so if your info doesn’t match your passport, you now have to fix it. Yesterday someone on Reddit posted the steps below on how to go about doing this:

Step 1) Go to the PACI eEnvelope system website, if the website is in Arabic you can change the language to English, there’s an option at the top of the page

Step 2) Click on non-Kuwaiti Renewal

Step 3) Enter your Civil ID and serial no. which is shown on the back

Step 4) You’ll have to verify your mobile no. so they’ll send you a verification SMS

Step 5) Enter all data required (blood type is optional but if that needs changing too then you’ll need to also upload a lab report)

Step 6) Upload the required documents

Step 7) You’ll be sent an application’s reference number to your registered mobile no., which you can use to track your application’s progress

Step 8) Wait and wait, this will take a few days as your application needs to be checked manually, once it’s approved you’ll be sent a link on your mobile to make the payment of KD5, after that you’ll just go have to go to South Surra to replace your old ID with the new one

Thanks Stafa!

Since I’m in Qatar for the week I asked my followers on Instagram to recommend restaurants for me to try out. Below is the list I’ve compiled of all the recommendations. I haven’t tried them all so can’t vouch if they’re any good or not, but at least it’s a starting point for when you’re ever in Qatar:

CUT by Wolfgang Puck
Flat White (coffee)
Gastronomy (dessert)
Graze (grand & go)
Hakkasan
Halo (dessert)
Kava (coffee)
La Mar
Market by Jean Georges
Morimoto
Nobu
Novikov
Opal by Gordon Ramsay
Spice Market
Sugar & Spice (dessert)
Toro Toro

If there is a place I missed that you think should be on the list, let me know in the comments below.

Just over a week ago Deliveroo went live and since then I’ve only managed to use them once. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, my food actually got delivered ahead of time. But the reason I’ve used them only once is because only one of the restaurants I frequently order from are on Deliveroo while the rest are still only Carriage.

But, I have been hearing a lot of good stuff about them, mostly about how their customer service is so great. I think Carriage’s biggest weakness is their customer service which is why Deliveroo might be focusing so much on it. People have been getting Deliveroo credit for late orders, some people have gotten hand written apology notes and I personally had a good experience when I posted the photo above of one of their drivers looking super dope and asked for the jacket. They actually sent me one the next day and it’s actually a very cool jacket.

So what has your experience been like?

As many of you know I’ve been working on a blog redesign for sometime now. I don’t mind change, but I also like routine and when I’m used to a website being a certain way I don’t like it when they suddenly change things. With the redesign I tried to keep most of the things in the same place and just simplify the design a bit. I also had two issues I wanted to improve with the redesign:

1- I wanted the images and videos to be displayed larger on the blog
2- I wanted a mobile friendly version of the blog

I got the first issue sorted, with the redesign both the images and videos would now be embedded in a larger size. I did that by basically killing the middle column of the blog and integrating it into the sidebar.

What I haven’t been able to sort out is the mobile friendly version of the blog. My current theme can be adapted to become mobile friendly with a click of a button, and so can the new theme. But my issue isn’t with that, the problem I have is the fact there doesn’t seem to be a way to have the advertisement banners show while in the mobile friendly version of the blog. The banners are my only source of revenue for the blog and so have to be on the blog at all times. Right now if I turn on the mobile version of the blog, the banners get shoved down to the bottom of the page and that’s not good.

If anyone has any idea how to sort this out let me know, or if anyone has an idea on a different income model for the blog that doesn’t rely on banners also let me know. I’m open to suggestions.

If you want to give me your opinion on the new redesign, check out a live preview of the new design [Here]

Niqashna is a platform for open debates that was launched early last year. Every few weeks they discuss an interesting subject and tomorrow night they’re debating the subject of Christmas and other foreign holidays and their effect on Kuwait’s identity.

The debate is in Arabic but the Q&A will be in both Arabic and English. If you’re interested in attending (its free), you can get more details [Here]

Looks like the next big thing foodwise in Kuwait could be pizzas! This past year a number of local pizza concepts have popped up and I think more and more places will be popping up soon as well. I’m trying to compile a list of these local concepts (not franchises) similar to how I did with my coffee list and below is what I’ve come up with so far:

BARBA.
Brooklyn
Doppio
Feynman’s
Flame
Ovenly
Piccola Milano
Pinocchio’s Pizza
SOLO Pizza
Super Slice
Table Otto
The Tiny Table
Trapani
YELO!

I’m sure I’ve missed out on a bunch so if you know of any that should be on this list, let me know in the comments below!

Picture on top taken from @solopn

Over 4,300 books have been banned so far in Kuwait since 2014 with 700 of them being banned just this year alone. Random books like the Little Mermaid were banned as well as books written by local authors. The book bans were so absurd that New York Times last month published an article about it which you can read [Here]

Over the weekend, local designer Mohammad Sharaf installed a book graveyard next to Kuwait’s Annual Book Fair to protest the banning of the books. The book graveyard got removed by the authorities quickly but the pictures went viral sparking a conversation on the subject again.

Now Alqabas newspaper is reporting that the appeals court have overturned the Ministry of Information’s book ban stating we live in a different time where the world is a much more open place. This is obviously great news so I really hope its true. I’m hoping this ruling could possibly encourage someone to open up a large bookstore in Kuwait. The book fair was incredibly packed when I visited it with people buying books so there definitely is a market.

Can an engineer with experience in this field explain to me and my readers why our roads got ruined after the rain last week? In Lebanon and London, for example, it rains a lot but the roads survive, how come they didn’t in Kuwait after just a weekend of rain?

Also, why did some roads survive and some not? You can see that clearly on the Gulf Road where you would be driving and the road is perfectly fine but then get to one area where the whole top surface had disintegrated.