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A reader emailed me a couple of days back telling me about the Onam Festival which would taking place at the Caesars Dakshin Restaurant over a period of two days. I was told I needed to pass by during those two days and order the Onasadya. The Onasadya is a traditional vegetarian dish in Kerala, India and since today is Onam Day, a festival celebrated by the people of Kerala, Caesars Dakshin is serving the traditional dish today and tomorrow.

I’m going to start by saying I have no idea what I just had for lunch, but it was delicious and more importantly a lot of fun to experience.

The dish is served on a large banana leaf and consists of around 20 different sides. When they first served the leaf it kinda looked empty and I didn’t know what to really do but then different waiters started coming by and filling my plate up with various colorful curries. They also filled up my dish with rice, gravy and also gave me a milk and butter drink. All the other diners were using their hands to eat and traditionally that’s how you’re supposed to do it but I decided to use a spoon since I needed to use my camera and phone throughout the experience. I watched how other diners were eating and mixing the different curries and I just tried to emulate them. Once I was done and asked for the bill they served me two kinds of desserts in cups. They were both different kinds of rice pudding desserts and they were delicious. All this for just KD3, it’s crazy…

Throughout the whole meal I was taking photos and sending it to my friends since everything was so colorful, flavorful and so random and unexpected. It didn’t feel like I was in Kuwait and I love it when that happens.

As I mentioned, the Onam Festival is taking place today and tomorrow only. The restaurant is in Jleeb Al Shuyoukh but isn’t difficult to find since it’s located on a main road right on top of Xcite. This isn’t a hole in the wall place, it’s a proper and pretty large restaurant. Below are the details:

Date: September 16 and 17
Time: 12PM to 3PM and 7PM to 11PM
Price: KD3
Location: Caesars Dakshin Restaurant

Here is the location on [Google Maps]

Don’t miss this!

Luckily it didn’t attack anyone but will most likely still get deported. Kuwaitiful has more information [Here]

I haven’t posted anything all day today because I was honestly contemplating on what to do about the comments. Recently they’ve started getting really nasty and I even had to delete my post on the dog shooting videos because I got threatened by a reader in one of the comments.

Freedom of speech does not include threats or random accusations.

My commentators can basically be divided into 3 groups:
1- Normal expats and Kuwaitis
2- Expats who really hate Kuwait
3- Kuwaitis who really hate expats

The last two groups are the issue and I think I’m going to start moderating the comments even more so than I currently am unless the two groups can learn to respect each other in every discussion. It’s frustrating and upsetting how ugly things can get.

I’m not going to change anything for now, but if this continues to happen I’m going to start deleting a lot more comments which I don’t want to do.

So please, lets make this work.
Thank you.

After posting about the Jamaican restaurant last week a friend suggest we should try an Ethiopian restaurant so I found out about one located in Hawalli called Al-Habesha. The place is located behind Bin Khaldoun street and right next to a bunch of other Ethiopian shops.

We walked into the restaurant and were greeted by a friendly lady who told us we could sit anywhere we wanted. There were a few tables occupied by other diners and the place filled up even more when we were leaving later on. They had Ethiopian TV playing music on the television and the place was decorated with bright red, yellow and green stripes. They didn’t have a menu but my friend from previous experience abroad kinda knew what we should get. The waitress asked us if wanted rice or Injera (their flatbread) and we said we wanted flatbread. She then asked us if we wanted vegetarian, meat or chicken. We went for one vegetarian and one meat. For the meat she recommended the tibs which she said we would like so we went for it.

The food arrived awhile later and it looked really good. The food was served on a large tray which was covered completely with their flatbread. The food was then placed on top of the bread in various spots. At one end of the tray was the meat dish which came in a small bowl with hot coals underneath to keep it warm. The reason I wanted to try Ethiopian food was because the flatbread is basically the plate and you eat your way through it which is an interesting idea. I also liked the fact that the dish is meant to be shared. Looking around the restaurant it was groups of two sitting and sharing a dish and I loved that.

Our dish was fantastic and unexpectedly good. The taste of the various stews (called wats) kinda reminded me of Indian food while the meat although not very tender was full of flavor. When we were done with our dishes we ordered Ethiopian tea which is regular tea mixed with cinnamon and a bunch of other spices. Finally we asked for the bill which turned out to be just KD5.5 for the meat and vegetarian dish plus two bottles of water and two cups of tea. I really loved the experience and would recommend the place but again, this is a hole in the wall joint so don’t expect much in terms of appearance. Finding Al-Habesha is easy, if you’re on Bin Khaldoun street in Hawalli, keep McDonalds on your left and drive straight until you see Subway on your left. The restaurant is located on the street behind Subway and Zawya Complex.

A Japanese Pop Culture Festival will be held at the National Library of Kuwait on September 12 and 13 in corporation with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Japanese Embassy. The Festival will include various events, among them will be a Shadowloo Showdown qualifier, Anime drawing contest, figure drawing contest and a cosplay contest.

Date: Thursday September 12 and Friday September 13, 2013
Time: 6PM
Location: National Library of Kuwait

Shadowloo Showdown includes the following games: Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition ver. 2012, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, King of Fighters XIII. To sign up to it or for more information on this festival visit this [Link]

via 360dewan

1- Caribbean Hut Restaurant
2- Tatami
3- Mais Alghanim
4- Al Boom Steak and Seafood
5- Edo
6- The Chocolate Bar
7- Fish Market
8- Solo Pizza Napolitana
9- Maki
10- Slider Station

That top 10 list is based on Trip Advisor and even though I don’t think I agree with it, I’m having trouble putting together my top 5 list yet alone top 10. My #1 would be Open Flame Kitchen but after that things get blurry. Whats your top 5 list?

The future is here (if you ignore the 90s style clipart) [Link]

This is an hour long BBC documentary about the 1991 Gulf War presented by father and son historians Peter and Dan Snow. [YouTube]

A whole bunch of new restaurants are opening up in Jabriya soon. The complex above is near Starbucks and will have iHop, Shake Shack and possibily a third brand as well.

The second complex above is near Champions and will have Johnny Rockets, Nino’s and Caribou Coffee.

Finally there is another new complex opening right across from The Early Bird but no clue yet to what restaurants it will contain. One things for sure, traffic in and around Jabriya is already unbearable and these new restaurants are only going to increase it.

Thanks Patrick

Last week I was craving Chinese food so I headed with a friend to Oliversan in Burj Jassim. Oliversan is the new Asian restaurant owned by the same owners as Maki. On any other day I would have visited Caesars or China Kitchen, my two favorite Chinese restaurants, but that evening I felt like going to a “nicer” place and until Peacock reopens, Oliversan is the only alternative.

The interior looks nice and cozy but like most restaurants during Ramadan, it was empty when we arrived. We were given the menu and I started looking for sweet and sour chicken (my favorite dish) which turns out they didn’t have. That was a good thing since it allowed me to try something new which wasn’t hard to do since their whole menu was full of dishes I hadn’t heard of before. We ended up ordering the following:

Velvety Creamy Chicken Corn Soup KD1.5
Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas KD2.5
Oliversan Duck Salad KD4.5
Sweet and Sour Ostrich Fillet KD5
Braised Short Ribs with Oolong Tea Leaves KD6.5
Regular Oliversan Fried Rice KD2.5

The soup arrived first. I generally wouldn’t order cream of chicken soup at a Chinese restaurant but they only had three soups on the menu and I felt like soup that night. Glad I did because the soup was actually the least disappointing thing I had that night. The Spicy Garlic Sweet Snap Peas came once the soup was done along with the Duck Salad. I wasn’t too impressed with the Duck Salad, not for that price point at least since I didn’t think there was enough duck in it. The dressing was good though and it was a pretty light starter along with the snap peas which left lots of room for the main course.

Once we were done with our starters the waiter brought us our main dishes. The food presentation looked great specially the sweet and sour ostrich. Taste wise my friend liked both dishes but I personally didn’t. I thought the sweet and sour ostrich was the better of the two dishes but it was slightly bland. The meat was surprisingly tender and had good flavor, its just the sweet and sour sauce that let it down. The braised short ribs I had high hopes for but I didn’t end up liking it at all. I thought it was too dry and it should have been served a lot hotter. My guess is since they’re still in a soft launch phase the menu is still being fine tuned which is why I left them this same feedback before I left.

The service was great but since we were alone in the restaurant I wouldn’t have expected anything less. One thing that I found odd was the food plates. The main courses were served in huge plates while our dinner plates were tiny (similar in size to the bread and butter plates). I found it very unpractical eating out of a small plate since I could barely fit a bit of rice with two pieces of ostrich without food starting to spill out of the plate.

In the end I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe I should have gone for the Spicy Chicken with Box Choy or the Mongolian Ostrich with Thai Basil since those two dishes were the other ones I was considering. Anyway if you’re interested in trying them out they’re located in Burj Jassim and their phone number is 22901051.

[Menu Shot 1] [Menu Shot 2]

Note: Interior shot taken from their website

It’s about time.

Thanks Patrick

Oliversan is a new Asian cuisine restaurant that has opened up in Burj Jassim Tower in Kuwait City. The concept belongs to the same owners as Maki and right now they’re in their soft launch phase opening in the evening from 7 t 11PM.

They serve mostly Chinese and Thai food and they’re located on the mezzanine floor. I haven’t tried them out yet since I just found out about the place and they were still closed when I was there.

Why do we have three different security checks at the Kuwait Airport? You have the baggage security check before the check-in counters, you then have one before the emigration counters and finally a third one before entering your departure gate. Can’t they all be combined into one proper security check like most airports? I think at least the one before the check-in counter should be scrapped since in the summer at peak travel season the lines it generates is just ridiculous. From the three security checks that one is the least strict.

In case you missed the Red Bull 5 Pics exhibition at 52 Degrees, photographer Alex Dennis Bolado created a virtual tour of the exhibition that took place there a couple of weeks back. Red Bull 5 Pics was a competition in which each photographer using just 5 photographs had to answer the brief “Kuwait through your eyes”. Check out the virtual tour [Here]

Once you’re done with the tour you can check out all the submissions including the winners on the Red Bull website [Here]

Al Jazeera is featuring some great black and white photos of the bidoon community in Kuwait with all the photos taken by award winning photographer, Greg Constantine. Check them out [Here]