2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
I was dining at Köşebaşı in The Cube when on my way out I noticed Slice was opening up outside. I frequent Slice in the city quite often since they’re my favorite Doner kebab place. I always order the carb free Slice box which is basically sliced beef in a box with yogurt sauce. Good food and now conveniently located close to my house.
I was checking Reddit earlier this morning and a redditor posted about how he passed by Boulevard Mall and was impressed. At first I thought damn I’m so out of touch, a huge ass project like Boulevard which is pretty close to where I live opens up and I end up finding out about it from Reddit. So I asked the user if Boulevard was open and he told me it wasn’t to the public but I could go there and tell them I’m inspecting the location for leasing. Smart idea so I left the house and headed to check the place out.
Boulevard is located in Salmiya opposite Souk Salmiya and it’s a huge project which I’ve posted about a number of times before. The project is composed of a number of elements including a mall, a dinning boulevard, a gigantic park, artificial lakes, an amphitheater, basketball courts, football courts and much more.
I was lucky that as I was driving into the park there was a car in front of me who stopped at the gate first and spoke to the security guard to have him open it. Once he opened the gate I drove in right after pretending I was with the car in front of me. Once I was in I was basically able to go and explore the grounds without anyone hassling me.
The first area I explored was the main mall. The mall is the largest building in the project and consists of two floors with a very large centre court in the middle. None of the shops had started construction yet but the mall looked pretty much complete and they were just working on the escalators when I was there.
Once I was done with the mall I decided to explore the park outside. I headed to what looked like the dining boulevard which was an area where single story units surrounded a large artificial lake.
From there I headed further inwards into the park and found a large green field with a few rows of stadium seating on one side. I didn’t understand what this field was going to be used for since it was round but after checking the satellite view of the field on Google Maps I now realize it’s going to be a cricket field.
From there I continued walking inwards and spotted the amphitheater followed by the basketball and football fields.
I was getting hot with all the walking and it was starting to drizzle some mud so I decided to head back to the car before the weather got worse. There was still quite a bit of park to explore and a few buildings but I figured I already had a general idea of how the project was turning out. I didn’t have high hopes before especially considering how long it’s been since the project started but now I’m actually excited about it. I have no idea when it’s going to finish or what the hold up is. They have electricity and it looks like the shop owners could come in any day now and start working on their stores so I don’t really know what the delay is. Hopefully it’s going to end up opening really soon.
Awhile ago as I was pulling up into my street and into my buildings underground parking, I noticed a cop car parked on the side of the road. I then noticed a bunch of cars that were parked legally on the side of the road had tickets on them. So I pulled up next to the cop and I asked him if this was a no parking street, he replied saying no he’s ticketing them for “عرقلة” which means obstruction.
What exactly are these cars obstructing (for example the 4 pictured on top)? I checked the tickets and noticed he left the space where he’s supposed to explain what the ticket is for blank. That can’t be right or fair can it?
The Scientific Center is set to double in size with a new expansion project. The expansion will add the following new sections:
– Dolphinarium (Al Dalaphene)
– Exploratorium (Dar Al-Estikshaf)
– Education and Conference Center
– Visitor Service Facilities
– Exhibit Halls
– Shaded Surface Parking
I’m not too sure how I feel about the Dolphinarium since I highly doubt the dolphins here will be taken care of properly or be given enough space. But, I do like the expansion idea and going by the renderings in the article it’s going to look world class when completed.
Hungarian chimney cakes (Kürtőskalács) are a traditional Hungarian pastry that are hand rolled, coated with sugar and baked in a special oven. I saw them being made on the streets in Prague when I was there a couple of years back and I recently found out we have them in Kuwait at a very odd location, the Sea Wave kiosks on the sea side in Salmiya.
According to the employee at the kiosk the owner is Hungarian and he decided to make and sell these cakes at the kiosks to test the market and see if there is an interest. I hadn’t tried one before so I bought one and it was actually pretty good, very similar to sugar brioche.
The chimney cakes are baked fresh at the kiosk and come rolled in different flavors. Not sure why the owner hasn’t considered making them at markets like Qout since it’s something new and its easy to have while walking around. In any case you can check them out on instagram @hungarian_chimney_cake_kuwait
Top photo taken from cnn.com
Lulu Hypermarket opened up their Salmiya location this weekend and I passed by last night to check it out. I have to say, opening up Lulu in the new Al Salam Mall had to be the worst idea in the world and I’ll tell you why.
The Lulu in Qurain has a parking lot the size of 6 football fields and it’s always packed. Same with the Lulu in Al Rai which has parking in front, on the side and a super huge parking lot in the back the size of 4 football fields. Their Salmiya location has a parking lot that is too tiny for the mall itself to begin with yet alone a mall with Lulu in it. The whole are around the mall is now jam packed with cars parked in every conceivable spot be it in the middle of the main road or on top of sidewalks. The traffic around the mall has also increased considerably and there are now traffic jams where there rarely used to be any cars before. The ridiculous part is there used to be a multistory parking lot behind the mall but for some reason they decided to demolish it.
The other issue is the amount of people who want to shop at this Lulu. When I went yesterday you literally couldn’t shop. I was without a trolley walking around and I had difficulty maneuvering through the crowd. If you did decide to do some shopping then you were met with the longest supermarket cashier queue I had ever seen (check the picture above).
I’m not sure if its currently super packed because they just opened but I hope thats the case. I think its probably always going to be super packed because it’s the closest Lulu for everyone living in the heavily populated areas of Jabriya, Hawalli, Salmiya and Salwa. As it is right now though it’s just insane.
The Cube is a new complex that has opened up near Sultan Center on Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya. The complex is mostly made up of restaurants but there are also a few other non food related shops that have or are opening up soon. I passed by the complex yesterday and a few places like Xcite and Paul are open but the majority are still under construction Here is the list of places that are currently at the complex, the asterisk (*) indicates the place is currently open:
Tallu Hbabna Lebanese Restaurant*
Frost Gelato
Xcite*
Nutrishop
Sports Direct
Viva
Zain
Ooreedoo
Juan Valdez cafe
Haleeb Heil*
Köşebaşı*
Paul*
Leila
Fat Burger
Ciccolat Italiani
BGR
Zaatar w Zeit
Caffe Vergnano 1882
Before chocolate
Here is a map to the location [Map]
Update: The Cube is now officially open and so are all the places listed above (and more).
Just a quick update on the The Secret Garden Project meet up for this Saturday since I just found out there will be brunch at the garden from 10AM to 1PM. @saltbakery is making spiced fresh ginger cake, sweet potato scones and maybe some pies @mocucina is serving her vegan treats, foul, and fresh juices and @mimikuwait will be making those Turkish eggs (pictured below), using greens from the garden and her moms malted grain organic grilled toast.
Fore more information click [Here]
After being closed since the start of Ramadan, Gia has reopened again after expanding into the shop next door. Sadly their menu hasn’t expanded that much and they’re still serving the same salads which I think I’m over already. The new place looks great though with more seating inside and a few tables outside.
If you’re looking for a healthy cafe it’s hard to beat this place. [Link]
A few days ago someone started a thread on Reddit asking about budget accommodations in Kuwait and specifically about a hostel run by the Kuwait boy scouts. That reminded me about the Salmiya Youth Hostel which I found by accident awhile back and was surprised it existed. Doesn’t seem anyone has any info on the hostels except that there were six of them in Kuwait and they were all closed down by the authorities back in 2011.
If anyone has any information on the history of hostels in Kuwait let me know cuz I’m curious.
Looks like ATM skimming has made its way to Kuwait:
More than 400 people have reportedly had their accounts hacked in an automatic teller machine scam in Kuwait City.
…
They said security footage showed a small scanning device had been attached to the ATM, which enabled the hackers to scan the card information and personal identification number (PIN) of the victims.
The information was then sent to the Dominican Republic, where is believed a fellow scammer used the details to create fake cards and withdraw money from ATMs in the Caribbean country. [Source]
What is ATM skimming and how to protect yourself? Check out the video below.
[YouTube]
One of the consequences of Instagram is that people end up sharing just 15 seconds of video. It’s frustrating since I couldn’t find the full fight video on YouTube, the one above is two 15 second clips put together. In both clips the cops were at the scene trying to break the fight apart. [YouTube]
Theres going to be a bunch of food related posts coming this week since I’m trying to catch up on all the new places that have opened up recently but, I’m going to start off with one that just opened on up this past wednesday called The Foundry.
For those of you who’ve visited Qout Market you might recognize The Foundry since that’s where they started. They were one of the popular food stands at the market with a speciality sandwich called the foundry chicken sandwich which I looovvveeee. It features their very own marinated chicken, provolone cheese, avocado, sundried tomato and the foundry pesto sauce which has a slight hint of garlic. With the opening of their restaurant they’ve added more sandwiches (or sammiches as they call them) to the menu bringing the total to five including a vegetarian option called the avocado smash. I haven’t tried their other sandwiches yet but I will on my upcoming visits.
My favorite thing about The Foundry is that they’re located in Salmiya close to where I live. They’ve setup shop in the parking lot next to Eureka Salmiya and they’ve done a really great job with the space they had to work with. The place is small with around 5 or 6 tables but it’s really cozy and looks fantastic. Because the place is run by the partners who have full time jobs, they’re currently only opening in the evenings from around 6:30PM to 9:30PM. That’s a small window but understandable.
If you’re interested in trying them out, here is their location on [Google Maps] and here’s a link to their instagram account @thefoundrykw
So you know that parking lot in Salmiya I’ve posted about that’s filled with graffiti and is now getting demolished? Well whoever is demolishing the building messed up, not just once, not twice, but three times!
As you can see from the photos, the demolition has damaged the still brand new unopened mall in three different places.
What probably is worse is the fact that the demolition area isn’t cordoned off which means kids from the neighborhood could just walk into the demolition site or just go up the easily accessible stairs of the partly demolished lot. Sadly it’s not a big deal because most of us here have grown accustomed to the lack of professionalism involved in demolition. On a similar topic, a reader the other day left the following comment under the Family Bookshop post:
Speaking of demolishing. An Indian that works for our company became paralyzed from the waste down just this past month because the building next door was being demolished. The side wall of the building fell into their building knocking down the wall to his room.
That’s messed up.
