2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003We found 10,830 results for your search.
Sam Chui, the world’s most followed aviation blogger recently flew on one of the new Kuwait Airways planes and reviewed it. Overall he really liked the new planes although he had major issues with the Kuwait Airport, but don’t we all. I’m surprised Kuwait Airways didn’t bump him up to first class from business since it didn’t look like anyone was there and it’s Sam Chui..
Jazeera Airways just rebranded their identity and launched their new face lifted website. Not sure how I feel about their new logo yet, going to wait and see their new plane livery before I make up my mind on it. [Link]
Thanks Sara
A reader who’s traveling to L.A. next week asked me if I could share a list of places to see and places to eat at. Problem with L.A. is that its huge and spread out so I’m not sure how practical a list like that could be. Traffic here is insane so trips around L.A. usually take an hour easily and most of the time a lot more than that. I’m also staying and hanging out mostly in the Armenian areas like Glendale and Burbank which are not close to any touristic spots I’m aware of, maybe the Griffith Observatory but thats about it. So again not sure my list would work for anybody else but I’ll share some below.
The best way really to find some great eating spots in general is to just open up Yelp whenever you find yourself hungry. If a place has 4+ stars and 200+ reviews then most likely that place is gonna be great. Since I’ve got relatives and friends in L.A. I’ve been pretty lucky so far on this trip with some really great food recommendations, but whenever I’m stuck I just go back to Yelp. Below are some of the best places I’ve gone to on this trip but for all the places I’ve been to, check out my yelp account mark248am.yelp.com
El Faro Tacos – I just found out on this trip that Lebanese immigrants to Mexico had a small influence on their cuisine in the form of the Al Pastor, which is basically a shawerma taco. This small hole in the wall specializes in the Al Pastor and is super authentic and super cheap, just $1.24 for a taco. They were so good I had 4.
Afters Ice Cream – Like In-N-Out but for ice cream. Afters is a California based brand and is currently only located there. I dropped by and picked up their “Anti Diet Diet Club” tshirt which is a spoof of the “Anti Social Social Club” brand, and while I was there I also enjoyed their billion calorie Cookie Monster ice cream in a hot glazed milky bun.
Baja California Fish Tacos – Best fish tacos I’ve ever had, they were crazy good. Order any of the fried fish tacos since there is no way you can go wrong. This place along with El Faro are the only two places I’ve given a full 5 out of 5 on this trip so far.
Eggslut – So this place I wasn’t really going in with high expectations but I ended up leaving impressed. I’ve had a ton of egg sandwiches in Kuwait mostly from EightSix and Eggcellent so really didn’t figure Eggslut could be that much better. It was! I ordered the Fairfax which had scrambled egg and cheese topped with their special sriracha mayo sauce, maybe it was their bun or the sauce but damn it was so good. Actually might go back there tomorrow morning for breakfast.
Sugarfish – Simple straight forward authentic sushi. They have set menus which is what me and my friends all ordered and everything on it was super delicious… except for the blue crab. AVOID the blue crab, it tasted like canned tuna.
The Drunken Crab – A Louisiana-style seafood spot with delicious crawfish tossed in their special spicy drunken sauce and served authentically in plastic bags. Its one my have to visit places every time I come to L.A.
Verve Coffee Roasters – If you’re looking for some good coffee while in L.A. and a place to get some work done, this is a great spot. It’s located in downtown so it’s probably going to be close to where you are and it’s super chill and not too packed.
786 Degrees – They make the best Napoletana pizza I’ve ever had, but not only are their pizza’s delicious and award winning, the people working there are the friendliest people I have every encountered anywhere. Super polite and super nice, they won’t let you pay for the pizza unless you love it!
Other notable mentions:
Norah – Best cornbread EVER
Baco Mercat – Go there for the Hamachi Crudo
Hopefully the spots above are helpful. I might add more to it before my trip is over.
A couple of weeks back I posted about Blaze Pizza coming to Kuwait and the Middle East. I had never had Blaze Pizza nor even heard of them up until a few days before that announcement, so I was curious to try it out. Since I’m currently in L.A., I ended up stopping by Blaze Pizza yesterday and figured I’d let you know what to expect.
What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. As a customer you create your own pizza which they then cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in 3 minutes. They have a few signature pizzas on the menu if you don’t feel like creating, but all the fun is in the creation.
To start with you get a choice of three doughs to choose from, the original, the high-rise (thicker) and the gluten free. You then get to choose your sauce, they had four kinds, regular tomato sauce, spicy tomato sauce, a white cream sauce and a garlic pesto sauce. After that you get to choose the kind of cheese you want followed by all your toppings. The process is pretty quick and familiar if you’ve ever been to a Subway or a Chipotle. Baking the pizza takes just 3 minutes unless you order the gluten free dough which takes 6. So by the time you are done paying and find a table to sit down at, your pizza would be ready.
If you manage your expectations beforehand, the pizza isn’t too bad. My friend ordered the gluten free dough and I thought that was a better option compared to my original one since it was thinner and crispier, but overall I didn’t like my pizza and only ended up eating half of it. Blaze Pizza isn’t going to taste better than Solo PN or even try to compete with it or similar real pizza joints, instead it’s going to compete with the likes of Pizza Hut and Papa John’s. I’m not so sure how it will end up doing in Kuwait, but more options is usually always a good thing.
For the past week I haven’t been in the mood to post at all. I’m on vacation and like everyone else who goes on vacation, I want to leave my work behind. But with the blog, its not that simple.
With your normal job you tend to handover your work to another employee and then take off, with the blog I don’t have anyone to hand over the posting to. I also can’t just stop posting, I mean I can if its a short trip but I’m out now for nearly three weeks so I can’t just not post for that long.
Putting that aside I also struggle to find stuff to write about when I’m not in Kuwait. When I first started blogging I used to post about my trip, places I’m checking out, things I recommend other people do and if you’re lucky, you’d catch one of my drunken rants before deleting it. But overtime I just kept getting more and more private. I don’t post about my trips anymore and I barely instagram anything as well. I’ve been to the States 4 times over the past 3 years but nobody except my closest friends knew about them. I did Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, and Philadelphia on one trip and barely posted two abstract pictures on instagram from my whole stay. I like it that way, I like my privacy.
But I think I’m going to go back to how things were before. I think I’m going to start posting about my trips again since it will give me stuff to write about which in return will reduce my stress when I’m on vacation. I do have a bunch of cool things coming up on my trip so we’ll see how things turn out.
If you’re expecting a package to arrive to Kuwait through the local post office then this info might be beneficial to you. There is currently an issue with the post office internal tracking system and so at the moment they won’t be able to track your packages. Neither you nor them will know where your package is until they get the issue sorted out.
Previously when a package arrived to Kuwait you would be able to check on the status by visiting tracking.moc.gov.kw but now you’ll just get a “No information, please check your item identifier” error.
No timeline on when this will get fixed, supposedly they’re waiting on the Minister who is currently MIA.
Thanks Abdulaziz
The upcoming Sheikh Jaber Al Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah International Tennis Complex is expected to be completed sometime next year and I just saw interior renderings of the complex for the first time so figured I’d share them here.
The International Tennis Complex is part of the 360 Mall expansion project and is expected to become one of the world’s best tennis facilities. It will house two main arenas with a combined stadium seating for over 7,600 spectators, eight indoor courts with over 500 seats and eight outdoor courts with 1,500 seats. For more pictures and information on the project, click [Here]
Thanks lovelykuwait
According to the instagram account @tafteesh_kw, the government has stated that Entertainment City will be reopening by 2021. There aren’t any other details but I’m assuming the park is set to get renovated during this time.
Originally I heard the plan to renovate the park was put on the back burner after the price of oil plunged below $50 a barrel since the government decided to be more frugal with spending. The aging rides desperately needed an update and by the time the park had closed down, majority of the big rides like the Australian Log Ride and the rollercoasters weren’t working.
There were rumors about Six Flags being involved in the original renovation project, no idea if that is still the case or not but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Photo by Ahmed Al Bather
Timmycatdog (Taymour Khajah) has a new music video out for his track “Flower Power”. The video also features appearances by Mosab, The Goddess Dalal and Turk Himself. If you like the track you can follow Taymour on instagram @timmycatdog
Kuwait City 1987. Vintage store front.
Mark Lowey (AbuJack), a construction project management professional and an amateur photographer lived in Kuwait between 1985 and 1988. The past few months he’s been scanning and posting some of the pictures he took during his time in Kuwait (and KSA) on his twitter account. I’ve taken a few of his photos along with the captions and shared them here but you can check out more photos on his twitter account @molowey
High technology in 1987?
A man and his dog, Mangaf Beach, Kuwait in 1988.
Shopping in Fahaheel, 1988.
Jack bin Mark and neighbor friends in Mangaf, Kuwait, 1988. (One cool kid has a sling-shot.)
Toshiba power plant at Mina Al-Zoor in southern Kuwait. Under construction in 1985; nearly completed in 1987.
Kids-R-Us, Kuwait City in 1985.
The popular breakfast spot The Early Bird is expanding with two new locations. The first (pictured above) is going to be located in Central Plaza Salmiya, the same mall that houses International Optics and Costa Coffee.
The second new location and the one I’m interested in is going to be in Crystal Tower in Kuwait City. It’s the same tower as my gym and right across the street from Arabica Coffee.
No idea when they’re opening up.
Movies get censored in Kuwait, thats a fact and no matter how much we complain about it there isn’t anything that can be done. Knowing and accepting movies get censored, how can movie theaters improve the experience for movie goers? One reader proposed an idea recently in the comments and it got me thinking, why haven’t local movie theaters implemented his idea yet?
The reader (Ally) suggested that local movie theaters should start declaring if a movie has been censored or not, and if it has been, then they should declare the duration that was cut and what was cut. So for example:
00:02:45 Censored
Censored content includes:
Reglious themes and/or imagery
Nudity
Sexuality
Right now with my weekly movies list, I check the films content advisory on IMDB, and if I read that there is nudity or scenes of sexuality, I mark the movie on the list that it might contain censorship. But this isn’t accurate and a lot of times movies I marked as not containing censorship ended up being censored. The most accurate way right now to tell if a movie is censored or not is to ask someone who has already watched it, but that isn’t practical obviously.
So Cinescape and Grand Cinemas, if you’re reading this, start being transparent with us, let us know if a movie is censored or not.
I wasn’t planning on posting about the DJI Spark until I got to use it on my upcoming trip, but because of the amount of interest I got on it from my instagram story and twitter over the weekend, I decided I’d at least post my first impression. First full disclosure, DJI released the Spark last month and when I saw Xcite had a preorder page for it, I got in touch with them and asked them if they could send me one over to review. They couldn’t get me a Spark from their first shipment since it quickly sold out, but Thursday they got in touch with me to let me know they secured me a drone from their second shipment and I passed by and picked it up.
The DJI Spark is tiny, like super tiny. Its around the same size as my iPhone 6 and it weighs just 300 grams. But don’t let the size fool you, this isn’t an indoor drone and it’s packed with advanced features of its older brothers. I’m not going to go into too many details since there are a ton of YouTube videos that do that, but I will highlight some things in this post which I think are cool.
There are three ways to control the Spark, either with your phone, with the optional remote, or using hand gestures. The last one is a bit of a gimmick but it works and it can be useful.
Hand Gestures
The Spark has a sensor at the front that will recognize your face and then detect your hand gestures which you can use to control the drone. You wave goodbye at the drone and it will fly up and hover away from you. You want it to snap a photo of you? Just give it the correct gesture and it will take your photo. This is pretty cool because it keeps things simple for those who don’t want more out of the drone other than snapping selfies. You can watch the video above of how this works.
Using Your Phone
The Spark doesn’t come with a remote control, instead you can download an app onto your phone and use it to control the drone using wifi. This means you don’t have to carry a remote around which keeps the Spark portable. The only downside is that the Spark’s flight height is limited to 50 meters and the flight range to just 100m when using the phone due to the wifi’s limited range. The top speed is also limited to 20km/h.
Remote Control
The first thing I did after picking up the Spark was buy the optional remote control. Personally I can’t use virtual control sticks in apps, maybe I’m old fashioned but I like physical buttons and joysticks. The second reason I wanted to get the remote control was because it increases the flight height from 50m to 500m and the flight range from 100m up to 2KM. That’s a HUGE increase. With the remote control you can also put the drone into sport mode which increases the top speed to 50kmh. Really impressive specs for something so freakin tiny. I still can’t believe how high it can fly.
I spent the weekend playing around with the Spark and as a complete drone newbie, I did find the experience overwhelming at first but that’s probably because I didn’t read any instructions and just winged it. Friday morning I woke up early and headed to my favorite open area in the desert to take some photos. There was an overcast so my photos were coming out very flat and dull, but I did manage to take one photo which I added to my instagram story. Saturday morning I decided to take the drone near Scientific Center and fly it there, that was a pretty scary experience because when I told the drone to come home and land, I freaked out because I got worried it would decide to land in the sea. It did’t thankfully and instead came back down to it’s original launching point. That same afternoon I wanted to see if I could fly the drone from my hand and then have it land back in my hand when I was done, all without having to leave my car. It worked! Because the drone is so tiny you could use your palm as a launch and landing pad.
If you’re a beginner like me, the drone has a bunch of automated and smart flying modes that will make your videos look professionally shot including:
Active Track: You highlight the subject you want the Spark to follow and it will follow it
Tripod: Keeps the drone stable and slow allowing you to film cinematic shots
Rocket: Starts filming you from eye level and then flies straight up while still focusing on you
Dronie: Starts filming you from eye level and then angles out and away from you while still keeping you in focus
Circle: The Spark films you while rotating around you
Helix: Rocket + Circle combined
Battery life is my only issue with the Spark so far. The total flight time is just 16 minutes which isn’t a lot especially if you factor in the time it will take you to get to the height you want, position your drone and also the amount of time the drone needs to fly back down to you. You’re definitely gonna need more batteries and I already ordered 2 from Amazon and they’ll be waiting for me in L.A. when I get there end of the week.
Overall I love this little thing. It kinda feels like having an invisible photographer friend with you everywhere you go. When I went out to the desert to take some photos, I tried the active tracking feature and had the Spark follow my car around shooting video of it while I was driving. In the winter when I go snowboarding I could have the Spark follow me shooting video of me face planting all the way down the slope. It’s tiny and light enough to take everywhere with you which is why I’m looking forward to using it on my trip.
If you’re interested in the DJI Spark, Xcite are selling them for KD169. Here is the [Link]
I only first heard about Blaze Pizza last week when I read an article on Bleacher Report about how LeBron James was a part owner, and how the brand was off to fastest-ever start for food chain. Then a few days later, Blaze Pizza announced that they’ve partnered up with Alshaya to open locations in Africa and the Middle East.
What makes Blaze different from other pizza places is that it was modeled after the Chipotle concept with a made-to-order approach. Customers create their own pizza which then gets cook in a high-temperature open-flame oven in just 3 minutes.
According to the press release, first location should open up in 2018. [Link]
