Category Archives: Food

Food opposites

Posted on by

1

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some food in Kuwait is cheaper than you could even imagine. This deliciousness from a random, hidden but incredibly busy “restaurant” in Kuwait City was incredibly cheap. So cheap that when I asked Jeff just now if he remembers how much it cost (we went over a month ago), his reply was “nothing.” According to Saud (who introduced us to this place), the shawarma were about 300 fils each. That’s $1. Throw in the samosas and we paid a couple cents over $1 per person.

On the other hand, there are items that are unbelievably expensive in Kuwait. This week we decided to treat ourselves to some fresh US strawberries. 

img_1124

1.790KD = $5.96. For strawberries. But every once in a while you just gotta have some juicy, beautiful strawberries. And other times you find cheap shawarma that satisfies other taste buds. It’s all about balance.

Qout Market Love

Posted on by

1

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about Qout Market yet!

In my opinion, the atmosphere in Kuwait has changed a lot in the last 2+ years. I attribute it to the starting of Qout Market in November of 2013. Qout has helped move the underground culture above ground. New locally owned restaurants have opened, grocery stores have started carrying a larger variety of health food, other markets have started, there are shoot-off events like Nourish…it’s a beautiful thing!

IMG_6166

Qout Market is the 1st Saturday of every month from November to April and is open 9am-5pm. Abby and I have been in attendance at every market since the first one. We seriously love it. I could spend the entire day on the rooftop just walking around, soaking in the atmosphere. And of course eating delicious food! In my opinion, Qout Market doesn’t happen often enough!

2013-14 Qout Market season:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

There were a lot of upgrades this year. Everything just looked more put together and organized. And just plain beautiful. Emad (of eWood Woodworking) does amazing work and I loved seeing his touch all around the market. My favorite thing about the market being back was re-connecting with all the vendors. A new community is emerging and it truly keeps me going! Abby and I are now on a first name basis with several of the vendors and it’s been really fun getting to know new people outside of our school.

Some of my tried & true Qout favorites:

Here are some pictures from the first market of the 2014-15 season. Enjoy!

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Bonus: Jeff made us awesome Halloween costumes 🙂

IMG_6138

 

Celebrating in Sri Lanka

Posted on by

0

December was a big month for us! We celebrated our 5 year anniversary two days after Christmas 🙂 Sri Lanka is a direct 5.5-hour flight from Kuwait – the perfect distance for 2 weeks of exploring! It also has a variety of landscapes and is quite cheap.

We started with a few days in Kandy. We did some sight-seeing and convinced our driver that we wanted to eat where the locals eat. Highlights: bottle feeding elephants at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, the botanical gardens, Kandyan dancing, and sipping on drinks while enjoying the view from our hotel.

Then we moved on to Ambalangoda…with Patrick and Ashley! Although it was our first Christmas away from ‘home,’ we still had family with us and loved every minute. Our daily routine: homemade 3-course breakfast, beach, snacks w/ drinks and cards and then a homemade rice and curry dinner. The owner of the house we stayed at was a wonderful cook and we ate like royalty. My mouth is watering just thinking about the food! Highlights: beach, food, relaxing & chillin’ w/ Patrick & Ashley, riding in tuk tuks, river safari, turtle farm/hatchery, riding the train, beach and FOOD (always eating with our hands of course!)!

our Christmas tree!

We ventured to Hikkaduwa by train one day and explored Galle and Unawatuna another.

Hikkaduwa

Galle

After we said bon voyage to Patrick and Ashley, Jeff and I headed to the mountains and tea country (Haputale) for a quiet New Year. We were reunited with Dama (our driver) and found as many hole-in-the-wall Sinhalese restaurants as possible. Pure bliss. Highlights: miles and miles of tea, drinks and learning about cricket with Dama and hiking.

Lipton's Seat

We had the pleasure of eating with Dama’s sister and her family twice. We could have stayed forever drinking tea, hanging with locals and eating homemade Sri Lankan food!

We loved Sri Lanka so much we almost went back for an impromptu visit in February. But we didn’t get any additional days off school and decided to stay in Kuwait (more on that later too).

Hopefully they’ll be a blog post coming soon from Jeff with ‘Our Guide’ to Sri Lanka. Until then, here’s all our pictures!

Kandy
Ambalangoda
Haputale
Sri Lanka iPhone
FOOD!

[Fall 2013] A Kuwaiti restaurant…in Kuwait

Posted on by

0

Seriously there aren’t that many. There are just a few Kuwaiti restaurants in the country and a friend of ours helped us find a good one. It’s not too far from our apartment and it was a pretty cool to be able to sit down to a Kuwaiti meal (we’ve tasted Kuwaiti food before at AWARE Center functions, but never a whole meal).

Because we went way back in August I don’t have a lot to say besides it was a great experience! We ate lots of yummy food for cheap and we’d definitely go back. Check out Desert Girl’s post for the low-down on Kuwaiti food & restaurants. We ate at Freej Suwaileh.

all our pictures

Our Guide: Heidelberg, Germany

Posted on by

1

Where We Stayed:
Because we had such an amazing first experience with airbnb in Athens, we tried it out again in heidelberg – we were not disappointed! Our flat was perfectly suited for our needs and only cost us ~$70 a night. You can read the review on airbnb’s website, but if you don’t want to click through just take my word for it. Or thing worth mentioning is that it was NOT near the city center, which was fine with us. We definitely felt more local where we were.

What We Ate:


Oh man, where do I start? German food is heavy and delicious. We tried two local breweries or “braueri” , Lowenbrau and Kulture. Both were excellent. We sampled the schnitzel and liver dumpling soup at Lowenbrau and split a mountainous plate of pork in mushroom sauce, asparagus and spaetzle at Kulture.

We kept things light with salads at a little cafe off of Bismarkplatz called MEDOC. They were HUGE, fresh and delicious. Anyone looking to change things up a bit away from the heavy food, I recommend it.

Our other restaurant experience that’s worth mentioned was “Schnitzelbank.” It’s a hole in the wall place off of a side street and if you’re in Heidelberg, you need to go there. It’s family style seating, which means there are a bunch of long tables and you share them with whoever is around. It amazed us how many people didn’t know this when they walked in and it was fun to watch them squirm with the discomforting idea of sitting next to someone they don’t know. Lissa and I started with snails in garlic and butter sauce then split Gorgonzola schnitzel and a plate of bratwurst, fried potatos and sauerkraut. It was all fantastic. Do yourself a favor and find this place, try the garlic schnitzel and let us know how it is. We were dying to try it but couldn’t tear away from the other two.

What We Did:

Frankfurt is a wonderful walking city, and walk we did. It was vacation and I had a cell phone, so we grabbed a few geocaches throughout town. Have I mentioned that this is the single-best vacation game ever invented? We walked up and down the Bismarkplatz, visited the Shloss, hiked all over the Philosophenweg, and stopped at cafes and bakeries in between. Honestly, you only need a day or two for Heidelberg. We stayed 3 and were lazy, relaxed and laid back about it. We loved it.

Pro Tips:
* If you fly into Frankfurt, take the Lufthansa shuttle from the airport. They’ll bring you right to the crowne plaza downtown and they’ll do it for €42 per person, round trip (€40 if you flew Lufthansa to get there). Just be sure to make a reservation!

* As soon as you get into Heidelberg, buy a Heidelberg card. It gives you entrance to a bunch of places and, most importantly, gives you free and unlimited access to public transportation. It’s totally worth it.

* if you’re looking for a prepaid SIM card, go with TMobile. I’ll save you the hassle of checking out the other places, whose prices are absurd. We paid €10 for 100MB of data, which is more than enough for 3 days, even with geocaching 😉

Want to see all our photos?

Siblings in Kuwait – Spring Break 2013

Posted on by

4

One of the deals we are giving our 5 siblings is a trip (once) to visit us. Abby is here for the semester subbing and Andrew came to visit for his Spring Break! Shannon was studying abroad in Barcelona so they met up in Kuwait. It was a memorable week for all! (see Shannon’s post for proof)

There was a little miscommunication ..Shannon arrived on Friday, March 22nd and Andrew arrived 24 hours later. Luckily we like Shannon so it worked out just fine 😉

Shannon made it!

It actually ended up being quite an interesting experience: Shannon met a guy from Portugal on the plane. He was visiting friends but they weren’t able to pick him up at the airport. Our friend, Dana, was driving so we all piled into her car and took him to Marina Mall. We invited him to have breakfast with us at Pain Quotidian…and ended up finding out he was visiting some Kuwaiti royalty that he had met on a road trip. Crazy! We ended up hanging out with him all day and had quite a bit of fun being hospitable. Bonus: he’s a great (self-taught) photographer!

girls & the gulf

jeff, shannon & city

The afternoon consisted of coffee and pedicures. Saturday was another early morning to pick Andrew up at the airport.

We had an amazing breakfast (as always) at the Cocoa Room before heading out to the desert!

Full and satisfied, Dana, Andrew, Shannon, Abby, Jeff and I headed out to do some desert hiking. We found some interesting things along the way!

We also managed to do some GeoCaching…

…and found lots and lots of bullets in the process.

It wasn’t the clearest day but we had a great (HOT) time! Check out the entire album for many more pictures 🙂

Before they came, we compiled a list of all the things we wanted to do with them. [As you can see, we take our food very seriously!] It was actually a pretty busy week! We gave them a taste of a lot of things and know we missed even more. Contrary to popular belief, there’s actually a lot to do in Kuwait (if you’re looking). Some of the blogs I use to find goings-on: 2:48AM, Life in Kuwait, The Grapevine Kuwait.

Shannon introduced me to Red Mango…how did I manage to get through the first 7 months here without ever stopping to try it?!

We ventured to Souq Sharq (a first for all of us!).

We made at stop at the Fish Market.

We (finally) tried a nearby bakery and enjoyed some Middle Eastern sweets.

Strolling through the Old Souq.

Dinner at the Old Souq

Our last night, we ventured to one of our favorite restaurants for some Turkish food and shisha.

Jeff getting fancy with shisha

Abby’s friend from high school (Lance) was in Kuwait for a couple months working on the oil fields and joined us…small world!

Andrew’s turn 🙂

It was a great week!!

Check out the rest of our pictures plus all of our iPhone photos 🙂

Our Guide: Phuket

Posted on by

0

Where We Stayed:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

PapaCrab Boutique Guesthouse. It’s a tiny (1o room) hotel run by a German guy and his Thai wife and it’s perfect. It’s a 2 minute walk from the beach, right around the corner from some quality restaurants and about 5 minutes away from a bakery.  It’s clean, simple and comfortable – exactly what you need for spending maximum time at the beach. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a little general store in between the hotel and the beach which makes beverage runs quite nice 🙂

What We Ate:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


We ate at Kokosnuss German Bakery for breakfast, had some street food from the beach for lunch, and Skyla’s and Carbonara’s for dinner. I’d recommend them all to anyone. Breakfast was ham, cheese and homemade bread, costing us somewhere around $5 per day (total) for 3 people. Lunch was usually 3 servings of typical Thai food; Pad Thai, Noodle Soup with Prawns, etc. Each dish cost about 80 thb and whoever went and ordered got to have a beer while they waited. Total for lunch was usually ~300 thb or $10 total for 3 people. Dinner was slightly more expensive but the atmosphere at both places was worth it. At Skyla’s we had Pad Thai, Lettuce Wraps and Spicy Papaya Salad. At Carbonara’s we had pizza. I don’t remember the totals for each place, but they were slightly more expensive (120 thb – 150 thb) per dish.

What We Did:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Mostly stayed at the beach on Kamala. One day we rented a car (~900 thb) and drove up to Banana Beach, which is quiet, secluded and difficult to access. We snorkled, swam, ate food at a tiny “restaurant” on the beach and had a good time. We also went to the Farmer’s Market that happens on Wednesday. It’s a fantastic place to get food of all sorts 🙂

Pro-Tips:

* We didn’t find a single place that accepted credit/debit cards, so carry cash. Not a single bank in Kamala accepted our Kuwait cards, so we had to go to SCB on the main strip to have them charge our American Credit cards. Again – take out LOTS of cash, because plastic won’t work!

* Once you’re in Kamala, plan to stay there. Taxis, Tuk-tuk’s, busses and rental cars are pricey. Scooters are cheap and we thought about renting them but decided against it (and were thankful we did, as it poured that day!) and ended up grabbing a car for the day.

* Buy towels there, and make sure you bargain. I’m a big fan of traveling light, so packing a towel wasn’t going to be something I did. The towels are cheap quality, so don’t pay full price.

* Rent a chair and umbrella every day. They cost about 100 thb per person per day, but they are absolute MUSTS. You have to have a place to escape the sun or you’ll fry. Chairs and umbrellas are plentiful, so don’t pay more than 100 thb per.

* Beer is cheap in Thailand and they’ll open it for you at the store so you can drink it walking out the door. Take advantage of this, as drinks on the beach get pricey fast.

Our Guide: Bangkok

Posted on by

2

Trying out a new type of post here, outlining the specifics of our trip for those interested in repeating parts or all of it. I spent a bunch of time taking pieces from other guides like these to formulate our vacation, so I know how useful they can be to anyone that happens to run across them on Google. On to the guiding…

Where we stayed:

Lub D, Silom. It’s a hostel, but we rented a private room on the top floor. It was perfection. It’s clean, has it’s own bathroom (toilet + shower) and is in a great location. We needed a place to stash our stuff, clean up and crash at the end of the day. This was that place. It’s got a safe inside the room for your valuables and a small bar in the lobby. There are several 7-11’s nearby and street food vendors all over the place. What else do you need? If you’re looking for luxury this probably isn’t for you.

What we ate:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Street food. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to buy a single dish from a legitimate restaurant or grocery store. The street vendors in Bangkok (and Thailand in general) are phenomenal. Walk around in just about any direction for 5 minutes and you’ll run across some. They won’t speak English and they’ll only take cash, but when you’re paying 30 thb for a pile of pad thai, who cares? Be prepared to use some nonverbal communicative skills and lower your expectations on cleanliness. We never got sick from food, but they definitely aren’t held to the same level of cleanliness you’re used to. You’ve been warned.

What we did:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Lots.

We visited Lumphini Park, which is akin to Central Park in NYC. It’s a massive green space in the middle of the city, complete with monitor lizards of up to 4 ft. Walking it is a great afternoon (or morning?) activity if you pair it with eating from all the vendors surrounding it. It’s free but the tricky part is finding a gate that’s open. This doesn’t always seem to follow logical rules, so you may end up walking a fair amount around it before being able to enter. If you’re staying at Lub D, it’s a 10 minute walk down the road.

We got several massages from Suanploo Thai Massage. We have nothing to compare Suanploo with because we were so happy with them we never went anywhere else. From our viewpoint, they have fantastic value as their hour long thai massages are around 280 thb. The people that work there are professional, the space is clean and the atmosphere is relaxing. We didn’t even try to beat it for our money. Again, if you’re staying at Lub D it’s about a 10 minute walk down the street in the other direction 🙂

We took a river taxi and visited Wat Arun. You can do these two independently or together, just make sure you do them.

We went to the weekend market, which is basically a gigantic mess of people selling anything and everything. It’s hot, sticky and densely packed with buyers and sellers. It’s a great place to people watch and fantastic place to go if you want to buy knockoff stuff. We ended up walking around a bit, eating some food and taking a stroll in a nearby park. To get there, just hop on the BTS and take it to Mo Chit. Get off and follow the throngs of people.

Pro-Tips:

* In general, you’ll need to carry cash with you at all times. Very few places accept cards and all of the places we ate ONLY accepted cash. With that in mind, try and have small bills/change available for purchasing food. Nobody wants to break a 1000 thb for a 60thb meal.

* It’s insanely hot and humid, so dress appropriately and always carry a bottle of water with you. We were told to avoid the tap water.

* Bargain any time you buy something other than food and massages. This includes taxi, tuk-tuk and goods.

Athens – Day 3

Posted on by

1

Day 3…a couple weeks later (Day 1 & Day 2)! We’ve been pretty busy at school, with our masters and traveling to Dubai. Day 3 turned out to be pretty great!

We made breakfast at the apartment…yogurt with muesli and BACON (on the side, not in the yogurt ;))! Jeff ended up eating pork at almost every meal while we were there. This summer should be interesting!

We headed out to Dionysus Theater. Before going in we bought a combo ticket that allowed us entry into several of the most famous sites. The tickets are valid for 4 days so there is plenty of time to hit everything. The Theater is at at the base of the acropolis. We explored a little but decided to save the Acropolis for later.

Next we walked to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We were constantly amazed at how old and huge everything was!

In an attempt to save some money we tried to find a grocery store to buy food for a picnic. We failed. SO we ate at Smile again for lunch. This time we had the calamari. Except we ate it the way the Greeks do…grilled!

Our plan to go to the Acropolis in the afternoon was spoiled when we walked up to find out it was closed. With less than 24 hours left in Athens we panicked a little! We had to settle for seeing it from afar (again).

We consoled ourselves with a little more geocaching! It was a hard one…but Abby is getting to be a professional at finding those!

We continued walking around Monastiraki square and Plaka for gifts and souvenirs.

After 3 days full of walking we needed a few minutes of downtime (and drinks) so we stopped by our apartment before going to see the sunset at Areios Phagos (Rock of Aries near the Acropolis).

It was a little disappointing. But hopefully next time we’re in Athens we’ll be able to see a good one!

We went to the grocery store for the fixins to make our own Greek salad (minus the olives). It was fantastic! We aren’t huge feta fans but the Greeks sure know how to do it!

Entrance to our apartment. One of the coolest things about Athens is the ruins everywhere!

The perfect last dinner with a little TV!

Afterwards we went to Smile for one last visit. We couldn’t leave without having the famous Loukoumades! Connie treated us to homemade Greek yogurt with honey after the donuts…we’re going back just for that deliciousness!

We had AMAZING luck with the weather while we were in Greece! Even though we missed our original flight in Doha, we also missed all the heavy rains and flooding. Our 3 full days were gorgeous and we even got a little sun-kissed 🙂

Athens – Day 2

Posted on by

4

See Athens – day 1.

Yesterday consisted of lots of walking, a little running and lots more walking!

We started the day with the ceremonial changing of the guards at the Parliament. It takes place every Sunday at 10:30am and was pretty cool! (Video to come)

From there we walked to the Acropolis and bought 12€ tickets that grant us access to all the national archaeological sites and museums (valid for 4 days). We walked over to the Roman Agora before exploring the Ancient Agora. We’re still wrapping our heads around how old this stuff is!! While in the area we walked around Monastiraki square. All the while Jeff was on the look-out for geocaches 😉

About 3pm we decided it was time for lunch. We stopped for another round of gelato….

20130225-101038.jpg

…before another meal at Smile. We’ve made it a goal to eat there everyday we’re in Athens 🙂 This time Connie (the owner) surprised us with homemade Greek yogurt and honey. Words cannot express how good it was!

20130225-172017.jpg

After delicious beer and food, we walked to the Panathenaic Stadium. We were really excited for this…but it was even more amazing than expected! I dare say it was the best part of our trip! We toured the stadium (an audio tour is included in the 3€ entrance fee), saw all of the posters and torches for every Olympics since 1896 and ran a lap around the track. Priceless.

We had a quick pit-stop at the apartment before heading down to the port. We took the tram and walked the Zeas Port and back.

20130225-202415.jpg

We walked along the red (pen) lines.

We stopped for dinner in Mikrolimano at a place recommended by our AirBnB host. We were the only ones in the restaurant, but the fresh fish was worth it!

20130225-204542.jpg

Fried baby blunt snouted (mullet)

20130225-204559.jpg

Small gilt head bream

After dinner, we were surprised with an after dinner liqueur that we were told would make us sleep well and have good dreams – masticha, a traditional drink to the island of Chios. It was…interesting! We made it back to the metro by midnight and collapsed when we got to the apartment!

We’ve noticed that many Greeks have been incredibly nice to us since we got here! Connie at Smile, the server at Trehadiria (dinner), a random guy at the tram…we’ve loved it here and can’t wait to come back!