Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait Reviews

Caesars Chinese Retaurant

ceasers kuwait

I don’t know if this review will be very fair since the place I am reviewing I have been visiting for 26 years now. Yeah that long, and my parents were visiting it before I was born. The place is called Caesars Restaurant and its located in Salmiya. Its one of my favorite chinese places ever.. worldwide. In-fact every time I have chinese food anywhere I have to compare it to Caesars. Caesars just recently moved to a new location since their old place got demolished recently. The new location is adjacent to their old building so regular customers can find it easily. The new location is larger, is better decorated and now contains a lot more private booths. All the waiters are extremely friendly. I spend the first 5 minutes of my arrival saying hello to all of them. Its good to see them all. Some have been around since I was a little kid and have actually watched me grow up. I love the new private booths, they are very comfortable and they dont feel claustrophobic at all. For appetizers I ALWAYS have crab soup and prawn spring rolls. As I said previously, every time I have chinese anywhere else I have to compare it to Caesars and when it comes to the starters, Caesars wins by a mile. Their crab soup is simply the best soup I have ever had and I dont mean best chinese soup I mean best soup.. ever! The spring rolls? You can ask Nataly about them. When we go we usually order 2 plates of prawn spring rolls, one for her and one for me. Each plate has 6 pieces and they all disappear very quickly. For the main course I always have the sweet & sour chicken. Ofcourse I have tried their other dishes like the popular sizzlers and noodles, but I just can’t get enough of their sweet & sour dishes. Nataly keeps trying new stuff, yesterday night she had the sweet & sour prawns but before she had the fish sizzler and before that chicken with mushroom and bamboo shoots. One more thing left to talk about and that is the rice. Once again Caesars have the best rice in the world. We always order the fish fried rice and its easily the best rice you can ever have anywhere. Now with all this excellent food you would think the prices are just out of the world. In reality, Caesars is a very affordable chinese restaurant. This is what we had last night:

1 Large bottle of water
1 Coke
1 Crab soup
2 Prawn spring rolls
1 Fish fried rice
1 Sweet & Sour Prawns
1 Sweet & Sour Chicken

Total Price: KD10.500

As you can see the price for a very filling chinese dinner for 2 is just ten dinars. and this included shrimps. Very affordable. The only thing stopping me giving the place a full 5 stars is consistency. Every now and then something might not taste the way its supposed to. Maybe its me, maybe I am too picky but this is a minor issue I have. Also the location, its not really the place to be in Kuwait. So for the final score I give it a 4.5 out of 5. For reservations or to get the exact directions, you can call them at 5732885 and 5733044.

Here is a picture from the outside.

Update: Seems I couldn’t even spell Caesars right. I fixed it now.




Categories
Interesting Kuwait

Swearsaurus

Swearsaurus is the world’s largest resource of multilingual swearing. It will teach you a vast array of swearing, profanity, obscenity, blasphemy, cursing, cussing, and insulting in a massive 165 languages – because it’s good to experience cultural diversity! Here is the link.




Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait Reviews

Wildfire Restaurant

Recently you might have noticed these ads on some buses advertising this restaurant called Wildfire. Well yesterday evening me and nat decided to pass by and give it a try. The place is located in Kuwait City in Mubarak Al Kabeer Street opposite the “Blockat” shops and the Chamber of Commerce building. The first impression wasn’t very good. The signage outside was in lime green and looked very cheap. When we got closer we saw the inside from the large window next to the door and the place looked small and like a hotel lobby with a small bar and small tables. Once we went in though we realized that it WAS actually a lobby / coffee shop for the restaurant which is located upstairs. Once we went in we were greeted with very friendly faces and led to the restaurant upstairs. When we reached the top we were once again greeted with smiles and they asked if we would like a private cabin. We said yes.. the first mistake. The restaurant on the inside is much bigger then i expected. Its clean, dimly lit and the furniture all new as it should be expected since the place just opened at the end of ramadan. The private cabin though was claustrophobic. The table was long and very slim like an oversized ironing table and the benches were very uncomfortable. It was also getting stuffy inside so we decided to keep the cabin door open. Then they brought us the menu which was the biggest surprise of the evening. Wildfire has simply the largest menu I have ever seen in Kuwait with nearly 200 dishes to choose from. Their menu has everything from extravagant cocktails and milkshakes to all types of dishes from Indian, Chinese and even Fish & Chips and Club Sandwiches. They even have lobster and crab for sea food lovers. The menu has 20 pages of everything you could imagine. We decided to have shrimp spring-rolls, kindu prawns, mongolian chicken and egg fried rice. We decided to skip the soup because weren’t that hungry but they did have shark fin soup which is usually my favorite. The shrimp spring rolls arrived first. They were too crunchy, had green peppers and weren’t very tasty. I hate green pepper in my food so my vote shouldn’t count here but nat doesn’t mind them and she also thought the spring-rolls were bland. The main course arrived soon after we finished. When he first put the food on the table I noticed the mongolian chicken was bright red. Thats the first time I see it like that, usually its dark brown, the kindu prawns also looked like normal prawns with a bit of light brownish sauce, again its not supposed to look like that. The food tasted as good as they looked, not very good. My mongolian chicken was not spicy at all and its supposed to be very spicy. Natalys kindu prawns tasted like normal prawns, the kindu part of it was tasteless. The rice was one of the worst I have tried, very boring in flavor and dry. We were very disappointed. The large menu led us to believe that we would keep coming back to try different things but after our meal we knew this would be the last time we would ever come back. The bill turned out to be 8KD, that also included 1 coke and 2 bottles of water. We left a 1KD tip and left. The waiters asked us how good the food was and I lied and told them it was great.. I couldn’t be bothered to explain why I didn’t enjoy the whole meal. The final score for the place is 3 out of 5. I would have given it 2 but the extremely large menu and the very friendly service helped raise the score. Maybe the Indian menu is better then the Chinese, maybe our dishes were not their speciality, whatever the case is, we didn’t enjoy our meal and we will most probably never go back.

Their website is wildfirekwt.com but it wasn’t working when I tried it now. Their phone numbers are 2476886 and 2476996. Below are 2 pictures from the outside.

Picture 1
Picture 2




Categories
Information Technology Video Games

Preorder your Sony PSP now!

Thanks to BusyNow for the heads up. Amazon.com is now allowing you to preorder your Sony PSP value pack for a price of $250 (KD73). The value pack includes a 32MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones with a remote control, a battery pack, and a movie/music/video game sample UMD. Sony is also tossing in a special UMD-version of the film Spider-Man 2 with the first one million PSP Value Packs sold. So preorder your PSP now, this is the link.

This is my order:
1 of Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) Value Pack
Sony Computer Entertainment; @ $249.99 each

1 of PSP Ridge Racer
Namco; @ $39.99 each

——-
Item(s) Subtotal: $289.98
Shipping & Handling: $5.48
Total Before Tax: $295.46
Tax: $25.48

TOTAL: $320.94

Update: Amazon has stopped the preordering. It seems the first batch of PSPs on Amazon have already been preordered.




Categories
Blog Info Personal

Our New Blog – 2:48AM

I just finished working on the site’s template. I think I am nearly done. I created this blog as a B-Side to Miskan. Basically I sometimes I have little things I want to say and I can’t say them on Miskan because I can only post once a day there. With this site I can post whenever I want, about whatever I want and even post pictures which didnt make it to Miskan . As a bonus, my wife (nat) is also gonna start posting here. She never had a blog before so this will be her first time. I would also like to thank Tivo Guy for hosting this blog on his server. Thank you!




Categories
Geek Personal Video Games

I did it, I built a gaming rig :(

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the fact that I was thinking of building a gaming PC for my sim racing needs. After a lot of flip flopping on the idea because of the high cost involved, I finally pulled the trigger.

I was put off by the idea of spending so much on a PC since it was just going to be used for gaming, and my Mac mini which I use to earn a living cost me way less. But after going back and forth in my head and reading about how prices were just going to go up, I decided if I could build a PC for 1,250 I’d get it. So I headed to Hawally to see what the prices were like since up till that point I was just checking local stores that had websites.

99% of the shops were selling everything for the exact same price as the ones online, so that wasn’t helpful. But then on my way to PCkuwait which up to that point had the best prices, I decided to pass by Limra Computers.

I posted about Limra all the way back in 2012, they’ve always been my go to place mostly for hard drives and other computer accessories. But for some reason I forgot that they carry everything in that tiny shop. So I passed by and gave him the full list of items I wanted and he quoted me a 1,300 KD. I still needed a way to drop it down to 1,250 so I decided to swap the motherboard from the Asus TUF B870E to the TUF B850Plus since it wasn’t going to make a difference for my use. That reduced the price considerably and I left to sleep on it and then came back the next day to buy it.

This was my final build:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D – 180 KD

Motherboard
ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi7 – 82 KD

RAM
Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 – 145 KD

SSD
Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB PCIe 5.0 – 135 KD

GPU
ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC 16GB – 570 KD

Cooler
ASUS TUF Gaming LC III 360 ARGB LCD – 58 KD

PSU
ASUS TUF Gaming 1000W Gold ATX 3.1 – 58 KD

Case
ASUS TUF Gaming GT302 ARGB – 40 KD

Total
1,268 KD including a Windows 11 Pro license

I compared my total price to NewEgg.com and surprisingly it was exactly the same. The different items varied in cost, like some things are cheaper in Kuwait, some cheaper on NewEgg, but the total still came out to be the same thing. That made me feel a bit better. So far though my experience has been a bit of a mess… on the software side.

I built the PC myself which was easy and the fun part. It’s been 25 years since I put a PC together and surprisingly nothing has changed, it’s still the exact same process. I’m glad I stuck to the Asus TUF ecosystem for everything since visually everything just looks good together.

But when it came to software, thats where things got mess.

I ran into issues installing Windows 11 since the installer couldn’t see my hard drive. Online I read that because its a new Gen 5 drive that some motherboards had trouble reading it, and after hours of trying different workarounds in the BIOS to get Windows to read my drive, it turned out the issue was with the Windows 11 boot drive I had made.

The first Windows 11 boot drive I made was using the Mac software called balenaEtcher.
The second one I did I used another software called Win Disk Writer. This worked. Hours wasted for nothing.

After installing Windows I then had to spend a couple of hours downloading and installing all the drivers. I didn’t know you guys still had to do this in 2026. Windows 11 couldn’t even read my built in wifi without installing a driver, wtf?

Currently, my computer looks like a Christmas tree with all these colorful LED’s. I have 8 fans, 7 of which have brights LEDs that are cycling through the rainbow. I have an LCD screen on my cooler for some reason that is playing an animation but can actually play videos as well. Even when the computer is in sleep I have some part of the motherboard glowing rainbow colors from the back. And why RAM sticks need brights LEDs?

This whole obsession with lights and screens INSIDE the PC is really bizarre, but whats weirder is I’m kinda liking it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months I didn’t end up getting more screens and LEDs to put inside the case.

I also have a bunch of technical issues I’m trying to solve at the moment. My TV is 120hz but when I set the PC to 120hz the screen starts to flicker every few seconds, so I’m forced to keep it at 60hz for now. The ASUS software that controls the LED’s also doesn’t recognize the case or the cooler so I can’t control those LEDs yet. My first experience running Assetto Corsa Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0 didn’t result in graphics that much better than my Xbox. But I guess I knew that would be the case already, Dirt Rally 2.0 isn’t a new game and runs in ultra settings on a lot weaker GPUs perfectly fine. But it’s all about the mods, and I think once I get all the technical stuff out of the way I can focus on gaming and downloading ultra realistic graphics mods to really get the GPU working.

So far I’m obviously regretting this purchase. It was 100% stupid and knowing me I’ll end up installing Duke 3D, Red Alert Aftermath or the original Theme Park and end up just playing those. But in the long run, at least I’ll have a good PC to run GTA6 if it comes out this year. Also maybe down the line I can get a second screen and set it up for flight simulation. I don’t know, I’m just trying to convince myself I didn’t make an expensive mistake.




Categories
Apps Information Promoted

Warah is a Kuwaiti HR Platform for Businesses

Warah is a Kuwait-based HR platform designed for small and medium sized businesses. There are still a surprisingly large number of companies here that rely on spreadsheets or WhatsApp messages to track employee attendance and manage HR tasks. A lot of that comes down to not wanting to deal with hardware, maintenance, or complicated setups, which is exactly why Warah was created.

The Warah platform handles all the usual HR functions like employee records, attendance, leave requests, overtime tracking, and payroll. Managers can access attendance reports, employee hierarchies, and analytics all from a single dashboard. And since Warah was built locally, it also takes Kuwait’s labor laws into account, from public holidays and vacation days to an accurate indemnity calculator.

The feature that stood out to me the most was the attendance tracking. Instead of installing fingerprint or facial recognition machines, employees can check in and out directly through the system using geolocation, either through the web or mobile app. This removes the need for additional hardware, which helps reduce costs and is a big plus, especially for smaller businesses.

With the current economic situation, more and more businesses are trying to reduce their overheads. Warah was built with that in mind, offering different packages depending on the number of employees, with pricing starting from KD 25 a month.

I got access to a demo account to try it out, and I liked how visually clean and straightforward the experience was. Even though I know very little about HR, I was still able to navigate the app and understand everything because of the simple language they use. That’s intentional since they wanted to make the platform easy to use for anyone.

Demos and free trials are available, so if you want to check it out, head to warah.com




Categories
Information

Where to get the Al-Arfaj badge from

Last week I posted about a very cool initiative called Al-Arfaj where they created a badge of gratitude and recognition for those on the frontlines. The initiative quickly took off beyond their expectations, and demand for the badge exceeded production by a huge margin.

Since that post, I’ve been getting messages and comments asking where to get a badge, so I decided to compile the places into a list. There are now a lot of people producing these badges to help meet demand, but the list below is of the companies who first adopted the initiative, so these come from the initial batches produced by @alarfajflower. All available for free and include the information card.

% Arabica
Available at almost all branches to customers who make a purchase, though they go fast, so if they’re out just check back another day.

Crown Dental
Available to their patients for now until they get more stock.

Dabdoub
Included with every purchase.

Elevation Burger
They are available at different branches which change daily. They announce the locations on their Instagram and no purchase is necessary.

Jibla Dental Center
Available to anyone who wants one, not only patients.

Pret A Manger
Available at their branches in Hamra, Sabah Al salem, Assima, and Messilah. No purchase necessary.

Rainforest Park Spa
Available to their customers for now until they get more stock.

Stock Room Coffee
Due to limited quantities they’re only giving them to their loyalty program customers at the moment.

Vol.1
Limited quantity available to customers at their branches in Downtown, Mishref, Salmiya, and Shuwaikh.

There are a couple more spots as well, I’m just waiting to hear back from them before adding them to the list.

Update: If you want to print it out yourself with a 3D printer, you can download the file from MakerWorld.




Categories
Cars & Bikes Personal

My Experience at the Ford Service Center

Last October I bought a Ford Ranger Raptor and posted about how great the car was, but how terrible the purchasing experience was. This is my first Ford, and I was worried that the negative sales experience would carry over to the service center, but thankfully, that turned out not to be the case.

I took my car in last week for the first 10K service and my experience was incredibly good, like I was surprised at how good an experience it was.

First thing I did was call Ford and book an appointment. I went the next day and as soon as I drove into the service center, their license plate reader recognized the car and a screen came on welcoming me by name (well, my wife’s name, since the Raptor is registered in her name because I’m an expat). I drove up to the second level where another screen displayed my appointment time and directed me to a bay number. No waiting in line, and the whole floor is just car drop-off with no loud sounds or the usual garage chaos I’ve gotten used to with every other brand I’ve owned.

The whole area was super clean and looked brand new. I parked in front of a desk, got out, handed over my registration, they told me what the first service included and what it would cost, then told me to go wait in the lounge. The whole experience felt very premium.

The lounge was also really nice and big. It overlooked the car drop off and pick up area on one side, and the new cars showroom on the other. There is an elevator that connects you to the showroom if you want to car browse, or you can just chill in the lounge.

When the car was done, I paid and left.

I’m actually really relieved that the service center experience went extremely well since I really love the Raptor and didn’t want the service center to ruin the joy of owning it.My wife also has a Bronco which I’ll have to take in to service eventually, so I’ll be dealing with them often

If you’re thinking of getting a Ford and want to know if their after service is any good, it is.




Categories
Cars & Bikes People Sports

A Young Kuwaiti Driver with Formula 1 Dreams

Jaber AlSabah is a 16 year old racing driver currently competing internationally in the British Formula 4 Championship. F4 is widely considered the starting point for drivers on their journey to Formula 1, and that’s the goal every driver is working towards, including Jaber.

Jaber first got into racing at the age of 12 when his dad bought him a racing sim. He was instantly hooked and would spend hours daily practicing and improving. Seeing how committed he was, his dad eventually took him karting at Kuwait Motor Town. From that point on, he knew this was what he wanted to pursue.

Jaber began his racing career in the Rotax Karting Championship, followed by the IAME series. After climbing through the karting ranks, he moved up to Formula 4 last year with a seat at Xcel Motorsport.

Kuwait has a pretty big car culture, and in some motorsports like drag racing, we’re actually very competitive. But when it comes to single seater racing, especially at an international level, it’s still pretty rare to see Kuwaiti drivers making their way up the ranks. That could be partly because until 2019, we didn’t have a proper race track in Kuwait.

Racing isn’t just a hobby for Jaber, it’s his career and something he takes very seriously. It demands a huge amount of time, focus, and dedication, and there’s very little room for error. His ultimate goal, like every driver, is Formula 1, but with only 22 drivers on the grid, he knows how competitive that path is. He thinks a more realistic route could be endurance racing like WEC or GT racing, both of which are still at a very high level.

KMT played a big role in Jaber’s journey, without it, it would have been much harder to get started, and he might never have discovered his passion for racing. Support from local companies like Gulf Cables, Warba Insurance, Motorgy, and Kuwait Airways has also helped a lot since racing is an expensive sport.

I’m a big fan of KMT, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing even younger drivers competing internationally. If you want to follow Jaber’s journey, he’s on Instagram @jab3ralsabah

Photos by Stanley Deslandes




Categories
Food & Drinks Promoted

Joe & the Juice Now Open in Hessah District

Joe & The Juice is opening their new Hessah District location today. The branch is in the Hessah Hub area and features a large dine in space along with a drive thru. (Google Maps)

Hessah District is one of the hottest spots in Kuwait right now, and their location is right at the start of the district, making it easy to get to. I also like that this branch has a drive thru since I pass by the area after the gym, so I’ll definitely be using it to grab lunch on my way home.

This new location will also help speed up delivery to nearby neighborhoods. And if you want to pick up breakfast on your way to work, they open early at 6AM and close late at midnight.

To stay up to date on any new menu items or locations, head over to @joeandthejuicekuwait




Categories
Design Information Kuwait

A Small Thank You to Those Keeping Us Safe

This is a great initiative by a group who created a badge of gratitude and recognition for those on the frontlines, symbolized by Kuwait’s national flower, the Al Arfaj.

The Al Arfaj blooms in harsh conditions, which makes it a symbol of resilience and the ability to rise under pressure. It reflects the people on the frontlines who protect Kuwait and continue to give it strength, so that like the flower, the country comes back stronger.

The badge is meant as a simple expression of appreciation for those who sacrifice for Kuwait’s security, safety and stability.

It will be available for free to anyone who wants to wear one as a sign of support. Right now it’s being shared organically, but in a few days it will be available to pick up from different locations around Kuwait. If you want one, they’ll be announcing the locations soon on @alarfajflower




Categories
News

Important New Update on the National Warning Alert

The Ministry of Interior has announced an update to the notification mechanism in the National Alert System on smart devices, in coordination with the activation of warning sirens across the country.

Under the new system, alerts issued between 10:00 PM and 8:00 AM will be delivered with a standard message tone, while notifications from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM will use a high-alert tone.

The ministry said the update aims to enhance the efficiency of the alert system, take into account public rest periods, and ensure timely and effective delivery of emergency warnings when required. Arab Times

I kinda had a feeling something would change after the first night. Glad they made this decision, I guess we don’t need to put our phone on airplane mode anymore.




Categories
Photography

A Small Moment After Battling the Airport Fire

I came across this photo in my stories earlier today that captured a small moment after the firefighters had extinguished the fuel tank fire at the airport. It was taken by the Kuwait Fire Force’s photographer and I got the high resolution photo from one of the firefighters who took part in the operation (@ponato). I thought I would share it because it’s genuinely uplifting and they definitely deserve the attention.




Categories
50s to 90s Geek Video Games

Thinking of Building a Gaming PC

Back in the 90s I used to really love PC gaming and was constantly upgrading my computer to be able to run different games. When Doom came out my 33mhz PC couldn’t run it (pictured above) but our “family computer”, a Pentium 60 could so I used to get permission from my dad to play on it. Eventually I took over that computer since nobody at home really knew how to use it except me (pictured below).

When I moved to uni in 96 I used to spend all my money on CDs and upgrading my computer. I remember the first legit gaming card I got was the Matrox Mystique. But then a new brand launched called Nvidia and I got their Riva 128 card which was great until 3DFX came out with their Voodoo cards. Games that were optimized for 3DFX looked so much better so got that but I remember I used to have a lot of compatibility issues so got the Nvidia TNT and then later got the TNT 2 Ultra. I think the last decent card I got was the original Geforce 256 before I stopped PC gaming.

Recently I’ve gotten into sim racing and was considering building a gaming PC for it. My Xbox Series X is great but some games like Assetto Corsa Evo, Assetto Corsa Rally and iRacing aren’t available on the Xbox while other games like Dirty Rally 2.0 have ultra realism graphic mods that the Xbox version doesn’t have. It was pretty hard to get a grasp on whats considered good or not good nowadays since I haven’t had a Windows PC in over 20 years, but with the help of Ai I think I kinda started understanding things and managed to build a really good gaming PC, but wtf is up with these crazy prices??

This is the build I managed to put together based on parts currently available locally, I think memory is the hardest thing to get right now:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Gaming Processor — 179 KD

Motherboard
Asus TUF GAMING X870E-PLUS Motherboard — 129 KD

RAM
Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 — 145 KD

Graphics
ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 OC — 580 KD

Storage
Samsung 2TB 9100 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD PCIe 5.0 — 117 KD

Cooling
Asus TUF Gaming LC III 360 Liquid CPU Cooler — 62 KD

PSU
Asus TUF Gaming 1000W Gold ATX 3.1 Power Supply — 58 KD

Case
Asus TUF Gaming GT502 — 54 KD

Total: 1,324 KD

That seems really insane, I thought I was going to end up paying like 500-600KD for a high end gaming PC but this is more than double that. I thought this might just be the usual Kuwait over inflated prices but seems to be pretty much the same even in the US. Crazy! How are you guys doing this?