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Sintoho, the Pan-Asian restaurant at the new Four Seasons is now officially open. It was the last remaining restaurant to open up at the Four Seasons and it’s located on the top floor adjacent to their Italian restaurant, Dai Forni.

If you do decide to head to the Four Seasons make sure you also pass by Al Bandar, their poolside lounge. It’s probably gonna be the spot to be once the weather cools down.

It seems a lot of people who own/drive/borrow yachts in Kuwait have very basic understanding of how to boat and have no idea what do in case of emergencies, not to mention the basic principles of navigating and driving a boat. So to promote safety on the waters in Kuwait, Al Kout is launching Marsa Al Kout Boat School. The Boat School will be organized in partnership with Maritime Concept Sea School and International Yacht Training, and will provide internationally recognized power-boating and yachting courses for residents of Kuwait free of charge.

The first question I asked them once I got their email was if there was a catch and there isn’t. The school will run from September 17th to October 7th and be divided into four groups with a limited number of people per group. The first two groups already filled up and only the third and fourth groups still have available spots. The course is 12 hours long and divided across 3 lessons (2 theory and 1 practical on the boat). After the course the instructor asses you using a test, and if you pass you get certified.

To sign up or for more information, you can call Al Kout on 23930101.

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.

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]

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.

A lot of people are becoming vegetarian or vegan for some reason so I figured it was worth putting this list together. Below is a list of restaurants that have a large selection of vegan and vegetarian dishes (not salads). I’m sure I missed out on a whole lot so let me know what else to add below.

BE Cafe
Fed by JM
Ginger
Greenland
Healthy Feast
OVO
Saravanaa Bhavan
Super/Foods
The Bowl
Udupi
Wilgrow

The new cultural center in Shaab, the ASCC is expected to open up end of this year and they’re now accepting artists for their residency program. The program is open to both Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti artists so if this interests you, check out their application website for more details [Here]

Thank dmvi

Last week police arrested a man who stabbed his wife at least seven times and the video of the arrest went viral. I just got to watch the video now and found it a bit confusing since in the video it looks like civilians are arresting the murderer, while the cop is on his phone the whole time.

The video starts off with a police officer ordering a man to surrender while he had his Apple earbuds on and the phone in his hand recording the whole incident. While he is recording the video, two men in civilian clothing get closer to the man, one of them looks to be carrying a police baton. Once the man surrenders and lies down on his stomach, the two civilians proceed to secure the man down and then one of them goes to get handcuffs before coming back and handcuffing the man. Finally a second policeman comes into the video and hands something over to one of the civilians.

Now my educated guess is at least one of the civilians is actually a cop himself, probably off duty or undercover, but its still weird that the first cop was on his phone the whole time. Check out the video above to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Selections, the bi-monthly cultural magazine posted a short article on Kuwait’s Modern Art Museum. One bit of information that caught my attention was the fact the building used to be an important school before, a fact I wasn’t aware of:

Interestingly, the museum is housed in one of Kuwait’s few pre-World War Two era buildings, an imposing former school that educated some of the country’s most prominent figures, including the current Emir Sheikh Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. Today, the unique building is managed by the National Committee of Culture, Arts and Literature, which is responsible for maintaining the collection and permanent displays on site.

You can check out the full article on the Selections website [Here]

Thanks cognitoas

Tiger Tiger
Originally a pop-up restaurant, Tiger Tiger is finally opening up a physical location and its going to be located at the end of the same strip where Gia, Joa and Habra are located in Kuwait City. Tiger Tiger will be located where Shisha Bar used to be.

White Robata
The owner of Slider Station and Burger Boutique is opening a robata restaurant at the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre called White Robata.

Sintoho
Opening at the beginning of September, Sintoho will be a fine dining Pan-Asian restaurant that will be located on the rooftop of the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel.

This is going to be one of my venting posts on Salmiya. The sidewalks situation on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya is a horrible mess. It’s a very pedestrian heavy strip, and probably gets the most amount of foot traffic compared to any other strip in Kuwait, yet the sidewalks are miserable.

There are a number of issues with the sidewalks in Salmiya including:
– lack of wheelchair or stroller friendly sidewalks
– building construction occupying the whole sidewalk
– large bushes taking up the whole sidewalk (pictured above)
– sidewalks that have deteriorated
– sidewalks that were opened up for work but never put back together right

Yesterday I spotted the woman in the photo above with her two kids having to get off the sidewalk and walk in the street because of a large bush. Recently I’ve also been noticing a man in an electric wheelchair roaming around Salmiya occupying the same road as the cars. It’s a total mess but of course nobody cares.

/end rant

Yesterday I dropped by the soon to open Four Seasons Hotel in Kuwait City for a quick tour. I hadn’t been there since back in September when the place was still mostly under construction so I was pretty excited to see how things turned out. My first impressions of the place is that its simply stunning and very tastefully done. It’s has a very contemporary look yet with some Arabic elements injected into the design. It’s going to be by far the best looking hotel in Kuwait.

Four Seasons will be soft launching in around 2 weeks time with the official opening at the beginning of September. From the five restaurants they have, the following three will open up during the soft launch:

Dai Forni – An Italian restaurant
Elements – A buffet restaurant
Al Sour – The lobby lounge

Sintoho the Pan-Asian restaurant and Al Bandar, the poolside lounge/restaurant will both open in September. The outdoor pool will also open in September while the indoor one will be open during the soft launch. Finally, the Aveda salon (for men and women) will also be opening up as part of the soft launch.

I took a few quick photos during my tour which you can check out below. Since I was also taking photos with my phone for my instagram story, I realized later that there were some shots I forgot to take with my regular camera. So check out the photos below and once you’re done head over to my instagram account @mark248am and check out my story there (from your phone). It should be up till around 3PM.

Four Seasons Kuwait is located in Kuwait City [Google Maps]

Update: As of August 14th the hotel has still not opened

Savour is a new food sector accelerator that just launched based out of Kuwait. Their aim is to help food entrepreneurs and food startups bring their products and services to market at super speed. Think of it like Shark Tank but locally and for food related businesses.

Savour partners with early stage companies from any part of the food supply chain, including: farming, ag-tech, food distribution, retail, wellness, consumer-packaged goods, food-related apps, and green/clean tech. Savour can help you reach your potential.

The way it works is say you’ve got an interesting food related business at the moment, like a small hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant, or a hydroponics growing system, or even an app that calculates tips. And this business is new and doing relatively well but you have no idea how to grow, or what options are available to you.You apply for the Savour accelerator program and if they think your idea is interesting with potential to grow, they’ll take you onboard, accelerate your concept, focus on your main points, connect you with all the right people, give you access to their network and to funding so they can help take your business to the next level.

The main Savour team is composed of 3 members but there are also 22 mentors for the program including the likes of Basil AlSalem, Mohammed Jaffar and Essa Behbehani. The 8-week program is free and is open to Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis alike including those residing outside of Kuwait.

Savour is holding a Q&A this coming Wednesday, July 12 at Richard’s Coffee Bar at 7PM. So if you have a food related startup and are looking for more information on this accelerator program, drop by their Q&A. You can also visit their website and apply to the accelerator since the application process is currently open until July 22nd. Here is the link to their [Website]

Someone posted an interesting query in the Kuwestions section, what is the oldest restaurant in Kuwait? One reader suggested Mais Alghanim which is possible since its been active since 1953, but I’m curious if there is anything older that is still around and active?

The two photos here were taken from the Mais Alghanim photo gallery [Here]