Danderma's Blog, page 4

Special Maryam’s Divine Brunch on the Rooftop!

A while back, OK a few months back, I’ve had the pleasure of being invited for a “special” lunch cooked by the one and only Special Maryam, the amazing young chef who is makes the luscious bagels and melt-in-your-mouth fresh pastas of Maria Rustica and, the one behind the menu of the one and only Bao, which I’ve had the pleasure in sinking my teeth into several times and if you’ve read my review you’d know how much I’ve enjoyed it.Lucky me headed to a “secret” rooftop in Kuwait City, on a 31st floor overlooking a dazzling 360degrees view of Kuwait’s capital.

Special Maryam offered to cook me brunch, and brunch it was for I arrived in the middle of the week at noon and there she was, away at the stove preparing a feast. I took my camera and hovered around her with the pots and pans and she chopped, stirred, and poured, and I clicked endlessly away. For the first dish she was going to serve, there was a hollandaise sauce involved and that she was whipped from scratch. The table was setup and waiting for me, the eggs were poaching away, and I was served coffee.

As I sipped my coffee I looked around and, in awe, decided that this place must be the coolest spot in K-town! How anyone can get any work done in that rooftop is beyond me. If I had been given the chance, I would totally purchase a rooftop of a building in Kuwait City and move to call it home. In that smouldering summer afternoon in August, the sun was shining over the ripples of the gulf and as you gaze one way, then you turn around and you are staring at the Liberation town, so close you could wave to the people peering from its windows if there were any!

You tear away your eyes by force and gaze around you, at the industrial decor, the exposed ceilings, the brightly coloured Vispa parked next to the vintage posters framed on the wall. You can feel the vibe of the place: fun and youthful, promising good times and plenty of laughs. I was in love instantly.

 

Its a food rooftop, hence the big bookshelf stacked with cookbooks! Yum!

Then I was distracted again by the sounds of sizzling, I rush over to Maryam’s side and peek over her shoulder, I must have been quite a pest that day but I couldn’t help it! Its like watching those chef’s on TV in action, but in real time and only for your!

A medley of mushrooms and something else was dancing around a pan, later a whisked sea of eggs would blanket those sizzling mushrooms and give them an omelette of a home. That home would slide off the pan, moving on top of a plate, get snowed in with flaked of falling parmesan, and then, looking all pretty and tantalising, will be presented to me so I could tear it apart and move it off the face of the earth.

Good? That’s not the question to ask. You need to ask me how it felt when being eaten, bite by bite. How silky smooth the omelette was, how the juicy filling felt against the silk. How, oh well, um… excuse me but I am hungry now.

I told you about the hollandaise mo? Why? Well, it goes well with poached eggs, and poached eggs there were! On top of a grilled slice of bread and asparagus springs.

Pouring the hollandaise down, the picture on the very top of the post is my favourite picture of that day!

A couple more touches and the dish looks so good, its a pity to ruin by eating!

Perfect hollandaise, mixing with the yolk of the medium poached egg, soaking the bread, perfect brunch!

No brunch is complete without a sweet end, and while I tore away at the egg dishes, there was another party cooking up in the kitchen. Of course I ran over just in time to see a cupful of batter descending onto the pan again. Yes, batter, pancakes, and I love pancakes

Fluffy is the word, as one perfect pancake was lifted off the pan and stacked against its sister, a knob of butter sealed the deal and melted away on top, sprinkled with pretty edible flowers and strawberry slices, then drizzled with maple syrup. I don’t understand how I stayed calm and took these pictures, took endless pictures actually in my quest to capture the perfect moment translating my joy at watching the beauty unfolding in front of my eyes. I wasn’t even close.

You’d think by 2016 the inventors of the modern world would have found a way to transport smells and offer taste of whatever you experience. Thankfully, my memory is still fresh, remembering how those gorgeous pancakes tasted and felt. Succulent, heartbreaking.

And because one sweet dish is not enough, here comes the last dish… can you take a wild guess? Grilled bread, melted white chocolates, grilled peaches sprinkled with sugar, crushed raspberries. Could you ask for more?

Well, apparently yes. A generous drizzle of pure maple syrup to bring the entire dish together. This one I took home, I couldn’t possible have another bite and it was too pretty to ruin. Needless to say it didn’t last the night.

And yes, the food was as good as they looked in the pictures. Down to the very last morsel.

The experience, of being made to feel special by an exceptional person, to have her cook for me, sit down the table surrounded by gorgeous views and awesome food and converse for hours until early evening, is one of my cherished moments of 2015. Surprisingly, I find it harder to publish my favourites posts and memories these days because, well, I feel like they should be perfected and not at all rushed, like a piece of art you’d want to go back to and polish until its ready to meet the word. Not that I’m saying my posts are pieces of art or anything but you know what I mean, at least after reading my blogs for years on end you’d know by now.

Thank you, my dear Special Maryam for the lovely brunch. It was my absolute pleasure to be there, and I can still feel that omelette on twirling on my taste buds. The answer is yes, always yes, whenever you have the time to have me over again, you will find me and my appetite knocking down your door.

Book Review: Turning Forty by Mike Gayle

This is a tough one, as I’m not sure if I liked it because it was good or because I somehow related it to it or, if its even possible, I didn’t like it. I have mixed opinions so the defining factor would be its “pull”, which to be frank began waning as I went further into the story. 

Growing up, passing the age milestones, is harder on some people than others. To me it started when I turned 12 and began dreading becoming a “teenager” and I was notorious for my almost-meltdown when big 3 oh was approaching. Now I’m 35 and the fast paced flipping of the calendar is beginning to make me nervous again, so you can imagine why the title, turning forty, had its pull on me.

When Matt starts the count down for his 40th birthday, he also spirals into what looks like his lowest point in life ever. He quits his job, loses his wife, loses his house, and has to move from London to his hometown of Birmingham and move in with his parents as he sorts out what his next move is. It could happen to anyone at any age, and as he embarks on his journey of deciding what to do with the tattering remains of his life his perspective on the difference between turning 30 and turning 40 is quite obvious and, to be frank, raw. At 30 you can pull of looking/feeling/acting/dressing like a 20ish person while being in a more financially secure and wisely sophisticated level, however, turning 40 is different. Its like a looming deadline of getting your act together one last time or else and that you may still look good but, whether you like it or not, you are not 20 anymore -or even close-.

There is a quote in the book that summed up almost everything that should have been said when turning 40, and it is quite frankly what I liked most about the book “If you haven’t got your life sorted at forty, no one,not even your own mum, is going to hand you a medal and say well done. Because the universal truth of getting older is obvious. If you are a lose at forty you will be a loser for life.” Well said, well said indeed. However, you’d think that Matt, a 39-years-old successful IT professional who have seen the world and lived abroad would be able to make better choices and not jump from one hasty relationship to the other, making erratic decisions on his way and plummeting even lower as the clock ticks. It really grated on my nerves and made me feel hopeless. I don’t even know what the ending is, I read it of course but I’m not sure  what to make of it, I was too bored by the end of the book with Matt to care.

Should you read it? Well, its not a bad book and there are many quotes like the one above that made very much sense and provided a moment of reality check that you need to sort through your acceptance of the process of growing old despite the many frustrating events that occur.

Bazaar’s Eating in Kuwait Guide 2016… and Me

I have a shelf in one of my bookcases that I’ve dedicated to books that come in a special “collection”. It contains the surviving copies of my old Mickey magazines, my 1001 nights stories, copies of my own two Dathra books, my collection of Ikea catalogue dating back to the start of this century, and my collection of the annual Bazaar eating in Kuwait guides from 2008 onwards. 

The oldest Bazaar guide I have dates back to 2008 but I believe they were being published a couple of years before then. I got my first copy when I was 27! My, its been quite some time! I’ve always waited for the guide to come out since then, drove to the nearest Starbucks when I learned it was there, drove around several Starbucks’s when I couldn’t find it, and when I finally did I’d sit down and flip through it with joy, checking the different reviews, interviews, and all that is new food-wise in K-town! I was never disappointed with the guide before and I never am, for every year the guide evolves and gets even better!

After all, what’s better than a food guide in a country where food is everything and the restaurant business is thriving, to be frank I think an annual guide is not enough, you’d need a bi-annual one published every six months to cope with the rate of restaurants opening up in Kuwait. How we are not the centre of the culinary world yet I don’t understand.

Back in 2012 I had the pleasure to appear in that year’s edition of the eating guide when Bazaar interviewed me in their “Blog Bytes” feature. It feels like a life time ago, blogs where the it thing back then, and I was over the moon when I flipped through the guide and found my picture and my words in the guide! I will never forget the first flutter of butterflies I got in my stomach that I got that day. Fast forward four years, and Lo and behold there I am again appearing in the Insta Foodies feature!

It was an honour to be featured in one of my favourite and coveted annual eating guides not once, but TWICE! I was on page 370, reading calmly, and there it was, the butterflies fluttering in my stomach again like it was 2012 all over again! Did you remember the page number? Its 370, so you’d waste no time flipping to my Insta Foodies interview first then you may flip through the guide :p

If you’ve never read the guide before then you are missing a lot. The guide is arranged by cuisine type, and pretty much every popular restaurant of that cuisine is found there with helpful reviews and tips. Phone numbers, locations, and even Takeaway menus are also available. More than

once a restaurant that is going to be opening soon is featured, and when I read that I know for sure that the guide was, and still is, as up to date as possible with the dining scene in Kuwait.

I’ve flipped through the eating guide on more than one occasion when I was starving but had absolutely no idea what to eat, and each time I’ve come across a picture that made me salivate accompanies by a number I’d use to order what I want to eat.

The January 2016 issue of Bazaar also happens to be their number 200! Happy 200 guys, wishing you many issues to come, how long till the 1000? Also, good job on the guide, excellent and quite enjoyable as always. Thank you for featuring me on your Insta Foodies section, that’s page 370 if you, my dear reader, made it here. Just in case you’ve forgotten it and don’t want to go back upstairs to read it :p

Book Review: After the Crash by Michel Bussi

This is book that I’ve found in the top-ten chart of Waterstones and, as I picked it up to read the description I knew right away that this the going to be my next read and that I am going to like it. Some books are just like that, you know from their idea that they are different, and good, and most of the time they do not disappoint and this one definitely did not.

I read the first page and I was immediately in the middle of the story. It starts in the end, or rather, at what was supposed to be the end. With a private investigator is writing up his conclusion on a case where he was assigned the task of finding the definite identity of the baby that was the sole-survivor of a plane crash 18 years ago and she could be one of two babies that was on board the flight. You read and you are propelled into the mystery, mercilessly, with every chapter a new conclusion and a new surprise. I wasn’t bored at all reading, going backwards and forwards, now and then, between Turkey and France!

After the Crash very well deserved to be on that top ten chart. It is originally in French but was translated to English and I’m glad they did. Keep on till the end until you arrive at the solution of the mystery and, I promise you, the truth will give you that OMG moment you’ve been promised from page one.

The Graze Healthy Snack Boxes

I don’t want to write a cliched post, you know beginning of the year and resolutions of being healthy that may or mayn’t backfire by December but just to be clear this post is not related to any resolutions made for 2016. As a matter of fact, I started the year resolution-free and simply believed it was going to be “a good year” for a change only I’ve been continuously haemorrhaging money on various mini-problems for the past three weeks so there you go. Resolutions or not, I was simply bombarded while in the UK with endless social media ads to try a “free graze box” and that it was good for you. I dismissed it the first few times it popped up wherever I was then one day it clicked in, what’s the deal with that graze thing that is popping up everywhere? 

Classic consumer response I suppose, but I’ve been in a deli where there was even a “graze” bar with little jars filled with snacks and mini plastic cups to choose what you’d graze on. I almost went online to order myself a free graze box but I was only there for a week and I would have missed the delivery, once I gazed at a display of graze snacks in the supermarket before deciding against picking them up, and then a girl I know in Kuwait told me she had ordered the graze box online but Aramex wouldn’t have it delivered for her here in Kuwait, god knows why not since its mostly snacks and biscuits, but by then it did indeed sink in that there is a healthy snack thing called graze and that, well, its everywhere!

So, while in W.H. Smith in Heathrow picking up snacks for the plane ride home I was looking for a bar of flake and a packet of salted Hula Hoops when I came again upon a display of graze snacks smack next to bars of snickers and bags of m&ms. What was I waiting for, I asked myself? So I picked three: Chocolate Pretzel dippers, Cocoa & Vanilla protein flapjack, and lemon drizzle flapjack.

I tried my first box of graze for breakfast at work, it was the Cocoa & Vanilla protein flapjacks and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed them! I’ve had many protein snacks before and if I’m to rate them this would come in number 2 or might even make it to number one! No powdery taste of protein, chewy, chocolatey, and actually delicious! The flapjacks came in three small slices and I’ve eaten them over a period of three days because I didn’t want them to finish!

The lemon ones were also good, chewy and zesty and if you close your eyes you could imagine them to be slices of lemon pound cake with a bit of a chew. However, afterwards the taste of the lemon would still be strong and linger too long for my liking.

The portions are small, or rather “moderate”, but are enough for a snack. The packaging is cool and actually practical, the cover that slides would totally seal the plastic container inside if, say, you opened it and mid-way through your snack you’ve decided to keep a bit for later. When you open them a day or two later the snacks inside would still taste the same having been sealed properly. The box is compact and would fit inside your handbag so you could take it everywhere, and you can get it wherever you can get other snacks so you have no excuse!

I now have only the salted pretzel dippers with hazelnut dip left and I feel a little bit sorry for myself. I’m not sure about you but I love the idea of having a healthier option of snacks nestled in between all the not-so-good for you confectionery bars. Not everyone have the time or the means to prep their meals and snacks before they leave their home and sometimes you just need something with a touch of chocolate to lift you up! I think their ads worked on me, I’m a graze fan now.

I am not sure of the origins of Graze, whether they are from the US and spread to the UK or vise versa. What I’m sure of is that they are tasty, made of good ingredients and even provide you with protein sometimes, can be sweet or savoury as per your liking, and even have brownies that I haven’t come across yet but going to hunt down!

Now, can someone have Graze be available in Kuwait? I know we have no shortage of food items or healthy food items- around each corner of Kuwait but I’d very much like it if I could walk into any co-op or ma67ana and pick up a box or two of something like graze to snack on instead of a packet of minstrels!

Fortnum & Mason’s Food Hamperling for Plane Passengers

Last Saturday, trudging through Heathrow Terminal 5 and grumbling, not wanting my vacation to end, I walked through Fortnum & Mason’s shop and headed straight to the tea rack, picking a box of Royal Blend tea bags to take home. While I was paying my eyes fell upon a stack of Fortnum blue boxes and a brochure announcing the “Hamperling”…

The hampering is this cool box filled with a meal of your fancy, be it salmon with the works or caviar, and its designed to be taken with you on board of the plane in lieu of what people deem “horrible plane food”. Personally, I might be the only person on earth who adore plane food and cannot wait for my tray to arrive, I love meals in small portions and neatly packaged little, well, packets. However, I do eat a meal before flying as I get too anxious if I’m too hungry and therefore decided to see if there was a “hamperling” that I take on board with me from F&M. The cool box was irresistible!

I flipped through the menu and to my delight there it was, a vegetarian plate option! It came with a salad, bread and butter, a cheese selection, chocolates, and a lemon posset. The food and the reusable cool bag cost £15 which is quite a steal if you ask me.

I didn’t get to eat it before the plane or on the plane so I kept it until when I arrived home and had it for lunch. Opening the box, this is how it looks like. Little packages, separated, nestling next to each other in an orderly fashion.

The first course is the salad… Butternut squash with rocket and sunflower seeds. It comes complete with a little bottle of dressing. Really cute!

And the other plate, three slices of rye bread with three pieces of cheese, two hard ones and a soft goat cheese one, and a dollop of chutney. Sadly the chutney was smeared out the covered cheese plate and looked a bit messy but of course the taste wasn’t effected and it was delicious.

My lunch came complete with a set of cutlery and a napkin. Very neat and organised.

The lemon pousset was a bit off when I tried it, and the portion was tiny so I reckon had I been able to eat it it would have been over in 2 spoonfuls. There was no butter for the rye bread, and the remainder of the desserts were the three little chocolate squares which, surprisingly, were sweet enough to finish off the meal.

Would this meal be enough for a plane ride? Well, the salad portion was perfect, it wasn’t too pungent and didn’t need reheating. The cheeses also were good, if you are a cheese lover you’d appreciate them of course, however the ration of bread to cheese was a bit off and I could have used a bit of walnuts or grapes on the side. At home I added dollops of mustard and a few cherry tomatoes as well and it was really delicious. Had I been eating that on the plane I’d have arrived home with clean plates but still half the amount of the cheese uneaten, it was too much for one meal even for a cheese lover like myself.

Now I get to keep the cool box! I can take it on picnics, or recreate my own lunch/breakfast for lunch. I know that we have endless diet meal providers that come in packed up portions in Kuwait but this is different. First, this is food food and not bland diet food. Second, this gives off a feel of luxury, like you are dining in F&M but on board of the plane. I wouldn’t mind subscribing to a good meal delivery service for when I’m at work that would provide interesting and gourmet breakfast/lunch every once on a while. For packaged meal lovers who are too busy sometimes to scratch their own heads let alone commit to meal prep, this would be a dream come true.

I wonder if someone could make a meal subscription with really good coffee for breakfast? Like, really really good coffee? Perhaps with a side of “continental” breakfast? Why not? We have endless food establishments in Kuwait and 70% of which do deliver. Something packaged nicely like this wouldn’t be too hard to pull off now, would it?

Attending a Baby Shower for the First Time!

Last week, I attended my very first baby shower ever!

Ee wallah, I swear, first ever!

I grew up in Kuwait during the time when new mothers held their receptions at home, I don’t know about you but in my time a new baby meant the new mother stayed at her parents place in  ground floor room and people arrived bearing gifts day in and day out for forty days straight, the Nifas period as its called in the Middle East. Then by the time my peers started becoming mummies, the baby reception was for a day or two at most in a private hospital or after the Nifas period in a baby-less celebration where the lady is all dressed up as a yummy-mummy and in either case, women arrive bearing gifts.

Then came the “showers” era… I don’t think its been around for too long, five years?  Maybe seven? Perhaps its been around for a decade but if its been, it wasn’t that popular and was mostly between groups of girls who went to private American or English schools. By any means, none of the friends my age had any bridal or baby showers when they got married or had babies and now that the younger generations are taking it for granted, they are either too young to invite old me or simply out of my circle of friends.

Then I was invited my dear friend PinkGirl invited me to her sister’s baby shower! And you’d think at the age of 35 that you have seen it all but it turns out that life is full of surprise and whomever decided to thrown that first shower that caught fire until it became a stable, thank you! Showers are much less formal than receptions and are so much fun! I had such a good time, I’m now glad to chalk it up as one of the few new things I’ve enjoyed experiencing in 2015!

So how does it go? I know that you most likely know, but let me tell you how this one went. There was a table that Pink had ordered from a local business with customised baby-shower themed items… little knickknacks filled with popcorn, cotton candy, Vimto drink, and the works. There of course was the baby shower cake with a little baby feet protruding from the womb and also little giveaways. All very cute with lots and lots of balloons.

Now, the fun part was really all about the games! Endless games, I don’t think we really had time to play all of them and because I relied on my SnapChat to document the evening everything is now all gone, I forgot to take backups! But I shamelessly stole the pictures off PinkGir’s baby shower post, I hope you don’t mind Pinkya!

There was the first one, writing down wishes for the baby and the one with the funniest wishes as determined by the mother to be wins a prize! There was a lot of laughing that night, especially with the baby shower bingo! There are not enough baby-related things to fill out a bingo card, I tell ya!

Now there were many other games, we spent the night running from one activity to the other, but I almost never won! Then again its just my luck, I never win anything. That was my luck that night until the play-doh competition. Players were requested to make a baby-themed figurine from play doh and I made a little yellow duckie! That’s the one on the right there

Book Review: The Stranger by Harlan Coben

While reading “The Stranger” I wasn’t exactly indulging in its beautiful words or delicious sentences, but I pulled straight into the plot from chapter one in a way that left me no other choice but to continue. A blissful family man attending a boring suburban life even when suddenly a stranger whispers something about the man’s wives in his ear, a single sentence, but it was enough to turn the poor unsuspecting man’s life upside down and send him down a long dangerous path.

Who would have known that words could be so menacing?

The book plays on a person’s most primal fear, the unknown. How well do you know the people in your life, how well indeed? How can you be certain that there are no secrets kept from you, year in and year out? Is it even possible not to keep secrets in a relationship, any relationship? And how devastating might they be? If you’ve known everything there is to know, every hidden secret, do you think life would be better, or are secrets kept for a reason?

The plot of the mystery unfurls quickly, its the speed of which that kept me hanging on the pages of the book, unwilling to let go. Though there were too many names and too many characters for my liking, I’ve come to resent books with more than a handful of characters now, and though the description of “fights” and “sports” were too detailed to the point of being bored, I do admit that I’ve skipped a few pages, I did like the very unlikely turn of events on the last few pages and when the truth was finally exposed I was satisfied. No cheesy conclusions, no sugar coated endings, its only the truth and the consequences one must live with when secrets are exposed.

I would recommend this book for a quick yet interesting read. It would be excellent for reading when, say, you are commuting on a train or running errands and you need a book to make you look forward to passing your time, waiting. Be warned, once you pick it up you will not want to put it down until you know what the stranger meant, really and truly.

Book Review: The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennesey by Rachel Joyce

After devouring and reviewing The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, it was only natural I’d be picking up its sequel “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy” which I’ve loved and enjoyed even more.

The main difference between the two books is the setting. While Harold was out in the world, trekking through England and sometimes sleeping in outdoors, meeting people and going places and having an astonishing adventure on his quest to reach Queenie, in the sequel it is much more sombre, for Queenie is sick and dying between the walls of the hospice surrounded by other patients who wither away and die themselves one by one. It is much darker, and despair peeks its ruthless head ever other chapter, reminding you if the impending ending awaiting its main character, good old Queenie.

In this book, Queenie is aided by a nun who helps her to write to Harold. Queenie was very much aware Harold was coming, she waited for him, she really did, and so did many of the other residents. She is remembering a good chunk of events from the days when she and Harold were working together, we understand the bond that did join Queenie and the Frys, and by the time you reach the end of the book you the reader know everything and cannot wait for Harold to do so as well.

Only, well, the ending broke my heart. And no, not because of the obvious ending that you know is coming if you’ve read book one. It really and truly did break my heart and again I’m left with the feeling that I’d like to look Harold and Queenie up and give them both a ring and tell them everything, everything. But of course I couldn’t do that because, well, they both do not exist now, do they? But perhaps that is the point, that some things are better left unsaid, but whatever that needs be saying should be said ASAP. I won’t ruin anything for you, but I do highly recommend you get both books and read them, back to back with nothing in between. Bring a box of tissues along, you are in for a good cry.

Vegetarian Options I wish for in 2016 Kuwait

To start off let me clarify one thing, this is not an ad. I’m a vegetarian living in Kuwait, a foodie, and I love eating out. I do not believe in house help or enslaving humans in the name of housekeeping, therefore I have to fend for myself to find something to eat after working for eight hours a day and returning home by 4 P.M. I am not shy to say I love eating out, we are the capital of 8000+ restaurants after all! Why Kuwait isn’t the capital of the culinary world still is beyond me, an overdue movement that I hope should start soon.

Therefore, I’d like it very much if vegetarian me was able to walk into a restaurant, day in and day out, and have plenty of vegetarian options to choose from. Something light, nutritious, healthy, new, and for the love of god NOT SPICY! Not only vegetarians, mind you, even vegans and people with allergies like nuts, lactose, gluten. Not everyone is willing to have a pillow-sized chicken sandwich for breakfast or a turkey croissant! Take for example the picture of the new protein-loaded falafel wrap from Pick, one of my favourite destinations for picking up good food in Kuwait with a cult-following of locals. The wrap is a protein-wrap, the falafel are vegetarian, and its good and fulfilling and I sometimes take it with a side of Pick’s lupin & almond pot to nibble on. My only complaint is that the wrap is too big.

So let me tell you, as a suffering local vegetarian, what I think would make my life easier when dining in restaurants this year:

No more rocket in sandwiches! Rocket is so 2000! Its coarse and peppery and half the population pick it out of their sandwiches anyway! Spinach is a much milder alternative while Kale is more hip yet can be  smelly or a tad bitter. Either way, no more rocket please! Enough is enough.
Breakfast to go! More grab and go options, granola and yoghurt or fruit compote for the summer and warm porridge for the winter. What’s wrong with porridge? Everyone I know loves it and I’m a recent convertee-now-turned-addict!
No more Quinoa! I love Quinoa don’t get me wrong, but when all the salads are replaced in restaurants into quinoa salads it becomes a tad boring! How many times can you have quinoa a day exactly? Also, not everyone can eat quinoa, myself and my mother for example cannot tolare it, it gives us a severe stomach ache.
Speaking of stomach aches, a nice reminder that spices and by spice I mean fiery cayenne pepper is not everyone’s friend. Children don’t like it, not all adults enjoy it, and its a catastrophe for people with stomach problems. Personally, a mouthful where cayenne is involved can render me bed-ridden for an entire day! Avoiding spicy food is the obvious answer for myself, of course, but how can I do so when some restaurants thinks its so edgy to provide a surprising burst of flavour in their dishes by lacing them, without warning, with cayenne? Treat spices like a nut-allergy and  go easy on the cayenne please! If a dish contain them, please announce it loud and clear.
Having informed baristas/waiters that a proper response to “I’m a vegetarian, I do not eat meat” is not “we have Turkey sandwich ma’am!” is a bonus. Not everyone is a vegetarian you say? Suppose I’m not, so I had a Turkey Sandwich for breakfast, a burger for lunch, then I want something for dinner that is not NOT NOT meat based, you see? Its not only fussy eaters who would like something not meaty for a change!
Veggies are your best friend and there are plenty of them to go around. Mushrooms especially giant ones can replace burgers, and food stores abroad have jumped on the Zoodles wagon and are even serving dishes made with Zoodles and other veggies. When will the trend catch up here?
Graze-like snacking? I’d totally subscribe for an entire year!

Vegans, like vegetarians have rights. Lactose intolerant, gluten-intolerant, and many other allergic people deserve to eat out as well or eat something other than a pot of tea or black coffee if accompanying people for lunch. If I had a restaurant I  would provide at least two vegan options and three vegetarians and gluten free ones.

What else would you like to see and/or not see anymore in restaurants in Kuwait? I’ve had it with the shrimp poppers, chicken Caesar salad, mini sliders, and molten chocolate cakes for now.