The Search for Kuwaiti Cuisine … in Kuwait

by David Farley on
People don’t come to Kuwait to drink alcohol. Nor do they come to eat pork. They also don’t arrive expecting to see pitbulls, to smoke marijuana, to watch Michael’s Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, or to look at any sort of pornography. It’s all banned in Kuwait (with harsh penalties for lawbreakers).

For tourists who hate being around other tourists, this desert country is an oasis: there are no tourists traps because, well, there really are no tourists here. Every place is an off-the-radar local spot.

It’s not surprise, then, that another aspect that’s not pulling people to Kuwait is the food. That’s because if you ask a local, as I did during a recent visit to this conservative and diminutive Middle Eastern state on the Gulf of Arabia, your question about the local cuisine will be greeted with a shrug. That is, until a Lebanese friend who lives in Kuwait City (one of the initial shruggers) called her boyfriend who called another friend who recommended one of the small handful of Kuwaiti restaurants in town.


In most countries, there are ethnic restaurants and then there are restaurants serving the default local cuisine. Here in Kuwait, however, it’s the other way around. One has to seek out a Kuwaiti restaurant; otherwise, you end up at a Lebanese place (which is the best of the best when it comes to eating in the Middle East), as I did at the excellent at Burj Al Hamam or Italian or Spanish (I had very good versions of both at the in-house restaurants in the new Hotel Missoni). Or perhaps one of the many unfortunate American chain restaurants (Applbee’s, TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday) that have set up shop here.
The entrance to Freej Swaileh is around the back from bustling Salem al Mubarak Street. Descend the broken escalator to the darkened basement to find a dining room separated by private booths. Dining privacy is important, especially if you’re a burqa-clad woman, so you can eat without the hassle of the burqa getting in the way.

The servers knock on the door before each visit. And when my waiter came to take my order, I just pointed to various items, not sure what any of it was. About 15 minutes later, my juice mocktail almost drained, the server knocked and entered with several plates. There was chicken majboos (see photo), a biryani-like recipe with a tender half chicken set atop rice and a tomato-based sauce on the side; markookh, a stewy lamb-laden dish with eggplant; and jireesh, a mash of spelt with lamb mixed in.

It turns out, Kuwaiti cuisine is really just an amalgamation of other cuisines: Persian, Indian, Lebanese, for example. According to Abdul Fatah Marafie, who comes from one of the richest families in the country, Kuwaiti cuisine began with the date trade. “The dates came from Iraq,” he said when I somewhat randomly met him and expressed my bewilderment with the lack of local cuisine. “Then they came here to Kuwait where we transported them to places like India and Iran and Arabia. We came back with spices and added them to our cuisine.”

Which is why these dishes all tasted familiar. And why it wasn’t a surprise when the waiter knocked one last time and brought in a try full of gulab jamun, fried syrup-laden dough balls from India….er I mean…legaimat, as they’re called in Kuwait.

Video: Eating live octopus in Korea (Warning: Graphic)

by Stephen Greenwood on

•••
The team here at Gadling has seen our fair share of shocking internet videos, and some of us have worked up the courage to eat some pretty questionable fare during our travels, but this clip from Fuel TV’s Strangers in Danger might just be the most revolting thing we’ve ever seen.

Eating live octopus, or san nachi is widely practiced in South Korea, but the octopi being served are typically small enough to be wrapped around chopsticks and eaten in one bite. In this graphic clip, BMX pros “Catfish” Yankush and Mike “Rooftop” Escamilla decided to take it to a new extreme by choking down some unusually large cephalopods – with mixed results.

If you’re hungry for more, check out what the guys decide to do at Korea’s DMZ after the break; or catch the full episode tonight at 10:30PM E/P on Fuel TV and tune in every Tuesday as these two athletes travel through 13 different countries to take on the best, worst, & wildest challenges in each culture.

In San Francisco, savoring a slice of heaven on France’s Cote d’Azur

by Don George on


September 20, 2011 — I’m sitting on the sun-washed terrace of La Terrasse restaurant in San Francisco‘s gorgeous green Presidio. It’s a spectacular Indian summer day, with the rays warming my bones and the bay sparkling in the distance under a cerulean sky. All around me, California Mission-style buildings – pale yellow walls, curving arches, terra-cotta roof tiles – shine.

I’ve been eating escargots and poulet roti avec pommes frites, and sipping a crisp Loire Valley Sancerre, celebrating because in a week I’ll be in la belle France, exploring the regions of Burgundy and Champagne. Moments ago I was poring over the itinerary, giddy at the prospect of traveling once again in the country that changed my life decades ago. Suddenly this combination – the frisson of anticipation, the dejeuner francais, and the sun, roof tiles and glinting waters beyond — concocted a terraced time machine-magic, and I was transported to a sunny scene 18 summers before, and a time-stopping, life-enlarging afternoon at the singular – and to my mind, sacred – restaurant called La Colombe d’Or, in St.-Paul-de-Vence, on France‘s Cote d’Azur….

I am ensconced under a white parasol at a red bouquet-brightened table, looking out on a somnolent scene of green hills and straw-colored houses with terra-cotta roofs.

I have just finished a plate of green melon and jambon de Parme, and now the waiter has placed before me with a flourish a platter of grilled sea bream, known locally as daurade.

Around me is a symphony of sounds: the clink of silverware on china, the splash of wine into glasses, the mellifluous laughter and multilingual chatter of diners in summery clothes.

We are all caught up in a buoyant bubble of bonte and bonhomie — a celebration of life’s bounty and of our own good fortune to be sharing it on this sun-dappled summer terrace in the middle of one of the most blessed places on Earth.

Little slices of lemon float in the pitcher of water on my table, and as I take another sip of wine and contemplate the still life — “”Daurade with green beans and rice” — before me, I feel a little like floating, too.

To my left is a vibrant Leger mural, wrought into a section of the terrace’s streetside wall. And straight ahead are the rustic interior rooms of this celebrated hotel-restaurant, where I wandered a half hour ago in search of a restroom and instead found an astonishment of modern masterpieces — canvases by Modigliani, Bonnard, Dufy, Utrillo, Chagall, Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Miro, among others, all given by the artists when they were still struggling unknowns to the generous and perspicacious owner, Paul Roux, in lieu of payment.

This place is an enchanted little world, I think — reluctant to take fork to fish, reluctant even to move, wanting to hold and savor this moment forever.

Awaiting me, I know, is a medieval meander through St.-Paul; an espresso at the Cafe de la Place, where I will watch local gentlemen enact their afternoon rite of boules; and then the piney Fondation Maeght, with its incomparable open-air display of modern art.

But for now the world is wondrously reduced to this: the sunlight catching in the canopy of branches above and blessing the hills beyond, the murmuring music of the diners behind me, the perfume of the flowers mingling with the scents of the chef’s seasonings, the exuberant atmosphere of artwork all around, the cobbled stones beneath me, the fish and bread before me, the wine as red as the flowers, the tablecloth as white as the parasol; an ineffable moment of ease and artfulness, a soul-fulfilling scene of life lived to the full — the whole afternoon floating like a lemon in a pitcher of Evian, a little slice of heaven on the Cote d’Azur.

[flickr image via Wolfgang Staudt]

An introduction to ceviche

by Kyle Ellison on

I was recently made aware of the unsettling fact there are people who are not familiar with ceviche. As this is easily my favorite dish while traveling both home and abroad, this disturbs me so much I immediately find it necessary to share its flavors with the world.

In the midst of a roadtrip across the state of Oregon, a fellow hiker on a Crater Lake trail inquired about the Spanish phrase etched across the front of my turquoise tank top: Mancora, Peru “El mismo Caribe pero con ceviche“. I informed him that I had picked it up in the Peruvian town of Mancora and that it proclaimed the town to be “the same as the Caribbean but with ceviche“.

That’s when it happened.

“What’s ceviche?”

If you, too, find yourself agreeing with this question, do yourself a favor and put this dish on your culinary radar and search out the nearest available ceviche outlet immediately, even if that place is Baja, Mexico.A native dish of Central and South America, the simple, citrus infused masterpiece traces its roots to coastal Peru. A dish comprised of raw fish which is freshly prepared, the cubed meat is then marinated in lemon or lime juice and served with an assortment of onions and spicy chili peppers. Like any good regional cuisine, the exact recipe will vary from place to place, such as the Peruvian ceviche being drastically different than the ceviche found in Ecuador or Mexico where it’s garnished with a spice the Peruvians call aji.

Frequently served with a side of sweet potato or peanuts, those who are concerned about the idea of eating raw fish can find comfort in the fact that the citrus in the marinade actually serves to naturally cook the fish. The result of the spice, citrus, and freshly caught fish creates an oral explosion that will send you running back to a coastal town whenever given the chance. Some things in life are possible to have too much of, and ceviche will never be one of them.

Not to be relegated to Latin America, various forms of ceviche can also be found in places such as French Polynesia where the fish is instead marinated in fresh coconut milk and served with carrots and red onions. The Tahitians call this poisson cru. In Hawaii, locals have been known to doctor the fresh ahi tuna caught in the offshore waters and prepare it with anything from soy sauce to sea salt to seaweed. Known as ahi poke, the dish is starting to creep its way onto appetizer menus along the west coast of the U.S. and beyond.

Having grown up in the middle of the Pacific ocean (Hawaii) and a frequent visitor of Latin America, ceviche and its various forms have forever been one of my culinary staples. Understandably harder to acquire in places such as central Oregon, where I currently find myself singing the praises of raw fish, I nonetheless felt it was my social responsibility to introduce this dish to the greater traveling world.

If this introduction turns one person on to what is easily my favorite dish on the planet, I can consider this to have been a noble cause.

Cocktails, Chilean style

by Laurel Miller on

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at the bar of the very lovely Alto Atacama Desert Lodge & Spa, outside of San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile. I’d just returned from an afternoon at 12,600 feet, exploring the Andean Altiplano Lakes of Miscanti and Miñiques, and I was feeling parched.

Small wonder I was thirsty; Atacama is the driest desert on earth. Visually and geographically, it’s like the Southwest on steroids. If the love child of Sedona, Arizona and Abiquiu, New Mexico inherited a chain of conical, snow-dusted volcanoes, the largest salt flat in Chile, and shimmering lagoons full of flamingos, Atacama is what you’d get. Kraig recently wrote a great series on exploring Atacama, which you can find here.

San Pedro itself is a surprisingly sweet little village of adobe walls and buildings, with a whitewashed church and dusty streets. It’s the world’s least offensive tourist-mecca. Alto Atacama is located about a mile-and-a-half outside of town, in the middle of a river valley sided by craggy, brick-red rock.

Native plant gardens dot the property, there are resident llamas, the small restaurant serves many locally grown foods. But these are mere details. My biggest concern that evening was soothing my dust-coated throat with a cocktail.

I most definitely approved of the pisco sour made by Sebastián, the bartender. Pisco sours are a tricky thing; too often they’re made with old lemon juice or concentrate or too much sugar, and the result is a cloying, flat-tasting mess. But Sebastián squeezed fresh lemon juice (limón de pica, or Peruvian lime, which may or may not be the same species as key lime, depending upon who you ask). The final addition of good pisco made for a smooth, tangy, refreshing libation.

Sebastián raised his eyebrows at my swiftly drained glass. “Was good?” he enquired.

“Delicioso,” I assured him. “Uno mas, por favor.” As we spoke I watched him expertly muddling a mess of quartered limóns with something brown and sticky looking.

He followed my gaze. “It’s a Mojito Atacameño. Invented here at the hotel. You like to try?”

[Photo credit: Frank Budweg]Never one to turn down a cocktail, I nodded. “What’s in it?” I asked.

“It’s made with chañar, a fruit found only in Atacama (I later found out that chañar-the fruit of Geoffroea decorticans-is also indigenous to parts of Argentina).”

“It’s very important. We use the arrope (preserved fruit in syrup) to flavor ice cream and other desserts. But it’s also a medicine,” Sebastián explained. The Atacameño’s– the local indigenous people, who have lived in the area for thousands of years–use chañar as a traditional cure for bronchitis and sore throat.

To further underscore the allure of this little round fruit, I bring you the following passage from author Edward R. Emerson (Beverages, Past and Present, 1908):


Its flavour is beyond description, and the way the Indians eat this fruit best shows in what estimation it is held. Early in the morning all hands repair to the chanares–chanar orchard (for, though wild, the trees grow in immense tracts) and proceed to eat of the fruit until locomotion, except in a crawling way, becomes almost impossible, and as soon as they have arrived at this state they crawl to the river, drink as much water as they can possibly hold, and then crawl back to the trees, where they stretch themselves out at full length and sleep until night, when they repeat the operation.

Sounds like the producers of “Intervention” could have had a field day.

Sebastián passed me a bottle of arrope de chañar to try. After a small taste, I realized that it reminded me, in appearance, consistency, and flavor, of tamarind paste. Tangy, a little sour, with an almost molasses-like sweetness. It was interesting, but not something I’d think of using in a cocktail. Nevertheless, I watched, dubiously, as Sebastián meticulously put together my Mojito Atacameño.

After muddling two quartered limóns, he added two tablespoons of powdered sugar (I assume because it’s traditionally used in a pisco sour, rather than simple syrup).

To this he added a dash of creme de menthe because fresh mint was out of season; the base was Absolut Mandarin Vodka (“You can use pisco, but I think vodka is better flavor.”).

When the finished drink was set before me, I contemplated it. It closely resembled the last fecal sample I’d had to submit after I accidentally drank unfiltered river water. The mojito had floaty bits of lime pulp and was cloudy from the thick arrope de chañar; It looked repulsive. I sniffed it, and took a cautious sip.

Fantastic. A beautiful balance of tart and sweet, with a clean, citrusy finish. Ass-kickingly strong. Sebastián was looking at me expectantly.

“Uno mas, por favor.”

My trip was sponsored by Wines of Chile, but the opinions expressed in this article are 100% my own.