Categories
Travel

Hotel Urban

Just got to Madrid and the weather here is great unlike what I just saw on CNN about the dust storm in Kuwait and Saudi. I am staying at Hotel Urban and so far it’s super cool. The area around the hotel also looks pretty cool but haven’t seen much of it yet. My first impression is that Madrid looks a lot like St Germain and St Michel in Paris, except with a lot more graffiti.




Categories
Design Food & Drinks

Pepsi Natural

I love the bottle! [Link]




Categories
Kuwait Photography

Kuwait in pictures circa 1961

I promise this will be the last photography related post for this week but I’ve really been wanting to post this ever since I saw the pictures on Nibaqs blog. Someone Verity Cridland scanned and restored photos they she had taken of Kuwait back in the early 1960’s and then uploaded all the photos onto her flickr account. There are a lot of great pictures there so please check them out. [Pictures]

Thanks Nibaq!




Categories
Information Kuwait

The Tallest Skyscraper, Burj Mubarak

I thought this project was canceled but I guess its still on. Kuwait is planning to build the tallest skyscraper in the world, one thats around 30% taller than the current tallest skyscraper, Burj Dubai. [Link]

Thanks DJ




Categories
Food & Drinks Videos

145,100 Calorie Burger

That’s a lot of calories… [YouTube]

More monster meals [Here]




Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait Personal Reviews

Burger Review: The Butcher Shop


The Best Burger in Kuwait Challenge
A friend recommended I try The Butcher Shop burger for my Burger Challenge so I passed by a few nights ago to give it a shot. I’ve been to the Dubai branch before but haven’t been to the Kuwait branch one since they launched so I was looking forward to it especially since my friend told me their burger was “amazing”.

I passed by The Butcher Shop the night there was the big dust storm so they only had two tables occupied. All of Avenues was empty which I actually found pretty cool. I quickly flipped through their menu looking for the burger section and then told the waitress I would have the cheese burger medium well and a coke to go with it. It was around 8pm and I hadn’t eaten a single thing all day since I was busy with work so I was really looking forward to the burger.

The burger arrived shortly thereafter and to my disappointment it didn’t look very appetizing. The presentation was pretty dull and I actually had a hard time taking a good shot to use with this post. Looks aren’t everything of course and I was hoping the taste would make up for the presentation. It didn’t surprisingly. The bottom of the bun was very soggy while the top bun was dry. The patty although thick and tender didn’t have any flavor. It was a really boring burger even though it was the only thing I had eaten that day.

The cost of the burger is KD2.950 which is fairly decent for a place like The Butcher Shop but I wouldn’t have it again. I was thinking of giving it a 3 out of 5 but the fact that I was extremely hungry without food all day and still managed to find the burger unsatisfying and flavorless dropped it down another half point to 2.5 out of 5. If you’re at the Avenues and are looking for a good burger have Johnny Rockets or Ruby Tuesday instead.

The Butcher Shop is located at The Avenues
The cost of the Cheese Burger is KD2.950

Here are the burger places I’ve reviewed so far:
Applebee’s
Bredz
Burger Boutique
Fuddruckers
Hashi
Gaucho Gril
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Papa John’s Burgers
Prime & Toast
Ruby Tuesday
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
The Burger Hub
The Little Oven
Wimpy




Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait Photography

Dean & Deluca Pictures

A reader of the blog sent me pictures of Dean & Deluca so if you haven’t been there yet click on continue below to check the place out. By the way, if you’re a salami fan I think they’ve got the best salami in Kuwait… but thats probably because they don’t have ANY competition!




Categories
Information Kuwait News Strange

Kuwait Purchases Nearly 6 Million Doses of Emergency Nuclear Radiation Drugs

Deera Chat found an article online which talks about how Kuwait last month purchased nearly 6 million anti-nuclear radiation drugs. The question here is WHY? What exactly are they expecting to happen in the near future??? Here is the link to the news article. [Link] Here is a link to NukePills.com, the website which sells these pills. [Link]

What do these Potassium Iodide pills do? According to NukePills.com:

Potassium Iodide (KI) is used by health officials worldwide to prevent thyroid cancer in people who are exposed to radioactive iodides caused by nuclear reactor accidents and nuclear bombs. It protects against radioactive iodine by preventing its absorption by the thyroid gland located in the neck…

We don’t have any nuclear reactors in the region (I don’t think we do) so that only leaves a nuclear bomb, who would want to nuke us?




Categories
Kuwait Personal

Hotel Security Sucks

I always knew hotel security was just a gimmick of a sort to let guests feel more secure but I didn’t think they sucked this much. The picture above is of a large container I had in my trunk last night when I drove through a hotel check point at a major hotel here in Kuwait. The hotel had the large metal door that comes out of the ground and security guards with the mirror on a pole checking underneath the car while another one checks the trunk. When I was asked to open my trunk I was like shit now they are going to tell me to remove the case from the back of my car to open it and I really wasn’t in the mood. Surprisingly even though they checked the trunk and saw the container they didn’t even ask me what was in it (it was camera equipment if you want to know). Me and my friend were dumbfounded! Why do they even bother to look in the trunk? How do they expect a bomb to look like, a few red dynamite sticks with a golden colored clock like in the cartoons?




Categories
Information Internet Kuwait

Current ADSL Prices in Kuwait

Fasttelco
256 Kbps = 59KD
512 Kbps = 99KD
1 Mbps = 159KD
2 Mbps = 199KD

KEMS
256 Kbps = 70KD
512 Kbps = 110KD
1 Mbps = 180KD
2 Mbps = 300KD
3 Mbps = 500KD
4 Mbps = 700KD

Qualitynet
256 Kbps = 96KD
512 Kbps = 120KD
1 Mbps = 199KD
2 Mbps = 225KD
3 Mbps = 499KD
4 Mbps = 675KD
5 Mbps = 780KD
6 Mbps = 940KD
7 Mbps = 1000KD
8 Mbps = 1200KD

United Networks
256 Kbps = 96KD
512 Kbps = 129KD
1 Mbps = 192KD
2 Mbps = 360KD

[Source]

Note: These prices are per year




Categories
Food & Drinks Information Kuwait

Al Mayass Restaurant Caught on Fire

I just found out today that there was a fire at Al Mayass. I don’t know how I missed this but I guess it happened while I was in London. Hope it wasn’t too bad.




Categories
Kuwait Music Videos

Groovimania Kuwait with Dj Richard Murray

I am not usually a fan of parties in Kuwait but Groovimania (Jan 8th) looked pretty cool. Hard to believe the video above was actually shot here in Kuwait. [YouTube]

Update: The DJ removed the video from YouTube so it’s no longer available




Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait Personal Reviews

Burger Review: Papa John’s Burgers


The Best Burger in Kuwait Challenge
Surprise surprise, yes the Burger Challenge is still on. I’ve got a few places I still need to try out before I end this but I’ve been very busy (i.e. lazy) so I haven’t been able to get around to it. Anyway two people previously commented that I should try out this burger place in Al Manshar mall so I decided to pass by today and see what it was about.

First lets get the weird part out of the way. The place doesn’t have a name. I don’t know how that’s even legally possible! How could a place not have a name? I asked the employee what the place was called and her reply was that they don’t have a name but that it belongs to the same owners of Papa Johns Pizza. I think that’s very strange but I have a theory on why it doesn’t have a name which I will share later on in this post. For now though I’ve decided to call the place “Papa John’s Burgers”. Cheesy I know but its there fault for not coming up with one themselves and I need a name for this post.

Their burger surprisingly turned out to be really good. I had a cheeseburger combo with an extra cheeseburger on the side and although I wasn’t expecting to like it I actually ended up loving it. Their beef patties are ground fresh every morning and their buns are very McDonalds Fillet-O-Fish like so the end result is pretty similar to Johnny Rockets except for one thing, the sauce. The sauce they put with the burger is wayy better than anything I’ve had at Johnny Rockets, its kinda like the Rocket Single sauce except better.

Now the bad news. Their patties are pretty thin and I think that has to do with the price since their cheeseburger costs only 650fils. The result is too little meat for the bun, it looks kinda ok in the picture above but thats because I actually pulled the meat out so it would show in the picture. If it had double the patty it might have been a strong competitor for best burger in Kuwait but its not so I rate this burger a 3.5 out of 5.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way I can talk about other things not related to the review. First of all the price, its unbelievably cheap! Imagine a Johnny Rockets burger for only 650fils because that’s exactly what this is! A combo consisting of cheeseburger, fries and coke is only KD1.100! Thats cheaper than McDonalds and even cheaper than Naif! Their location really sucks, they’re located on the mezzanine floor of Fun Ahoy (an arcade/themepark) right next to Papa John’s Pizza. Which brings me to my theory on why the place doesn’t have a name. The owners of Papa John’s also own Fuddruckers so my theory is they needed a cheap burger place to serve the kids at Fun Ahoy so they probably use the same meat that they use at Fuddruckers and also have Fudds make their buns. Now legally I don’t think they can own another burger brand since they have Fudds so they just opened this random place that serves burgers and doesn’t have a name. Its only a theory of course so don’t take my word for it. If you do end up passing by which you should, be sure to do so in the middle of the week when there won’t be much kids around.

Papa John’s Burger is located in Al Manshar Mall in Fahaheel.
The cost of the Cheese Burger is KD0.650

Here are the burger places I’ve reviewed so far:
Applebee’s
Bredz
Burger Boutique
Fuddruckers
Hashi
Gaucho Gril
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Prime & Toast
Ruby Tuesday
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
The Burger Hub
The Little Oven
Wimpy




Categories
Information Television

Ultimate Survivor is fake

One of my favorite shows on the Discovery Channel is called Ultimate Survivor (Man Vs Wild in the States). The show follows a guy called Bear Grylls who gets dropped into the middle of no where and is expected to survive and find his way out. One episode it could be the Rain Forrest, another he could be dropped in the middle of the ocean etc..

So anyway I was researching Bear Grylls and found out there is actually a controversy. It seems the show is not what it appears to be. As a viewer we are led to believe that Bear Grylls is surviving with no help and in the middle of no where but some videos have popped up on YouTube showing otherwise. Even though he really does eat maggots and other absurd things, I can no longer watch the show. It just feels too much like fake wrestling (WWE). So if you’re also a fan of the show and Bear Grylls, sorry I am ruining this for you but its a fake. There is another show on Discovery called Survivorman which I’ve started watching and this one seems to be real and I haven’t found anything online that says otherwise.




Categories
Food & Drinks

Shake Shack Burger

I am sooo hungry right now! [Link]