Qatar Trip 2018 - Souq Waqif

Anyone who knows me will tell you I love Qatar and try to visit as often as I can especially during these difficult days with them being hated by a few GCC countries. I just love the country and the people who live there are so nice which takes some getting used to after living in Kuwait for so long. Our go to place is definitely Souq Waqif, it was the first place on our list as soon as we landed.

 This is the stable area where the horses that are used by the police are kept and you can walk around and see the horses in their stalls

 We had our dinner in one of the Qatari food restaurants, the first time I tried khanfaroosh

 Tribute to the Emir

You can find the food area which are stalls set up by the locals selling homemade food

 I am obsessed with falcons now and Souq Waqif has their own area dedicated to falcons with a falcon hospital as well, you can visit the various shops selling falcons and hold one

 I love the way the old architecture is captured throughout the Souq

There are so many areas to visit which can't be done in one day but come early if you want to see the old Qatari uniformed police riding horseback through the souq.

Over Jar - Death by Chocolate

While walking around The Avenues we came across Over Jar chocolate cafe and I remembered I had seen some fancy things on their IG page so we had to check it out. 

The teeny tiny jar of French coffee with a tiny brownie piece

 The chocolate cookie skillet with ice cream and chocolate injections (highly recommended)

 The brownie sunday in a jar: brownies, chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup, nuts and marshmallows with a waffle slice and whip cream

 I loved this quirky lemonade with some hairy cotton candy

It was definitely almost death by chocolate! There are several locations in Avenues, Sea View, Opera House and The View mall, you can find more information on their IG @overjar

Zafran's new Menu

I would like to thank Zafran for their invitation to taste their new menu items which were a great addition to the already flavorful menu they have. 

 This platter is the Zafran feast which includes all new menu items on one plate. There's two types of chicken, fish, prawns, kebob and lamb.

 This one is the fried rawa fish fry with the fish coated in dried coconut and rawa thendeep fried and served with a side of tomato chili chutney.

 Of course the chicken biriyani

And three new dessert items, flourless brownie, saffron rice with milk and a mango frozen ice cream pie.

My favorites were the mustard fish, lamb was good and the saffron rice dessert. You can find more of their menu items on IG @zafranindianbistro

Mishref Fairgrounds Exhibitions 2018

You can use the link to their website for more information.

Avenues Phase Four Preview

Today the media was invited to take a tour of the new Phase Four area of the Avenues. There is so much to look forward to and it is amazing. There are extensions to the Souk, Grand Avenue and Prestige as well as a few more addition like the Forum, a new Cinema area (VOX Cinemas – The Avenues in Kuwait, will house 17 screens with an approximate seating capacity of 1679, and will include 2 MAX screens, 4 Theater by Rhodes screens, 2 Kids screens and a new VOX experience for teens) and a Garden area with a glass dome.

The garden area brings in more greenery, light and water fountains

Extension to Prestige

Kuwait social media folks

The Avenue Eye

Some new shops due to open are NYX makeup, Aveda Salon, Tekzone, Monki and Etude house to name a few.

The amazing Forum area is just beautiful

The Souk area that brings some wooden lattice work

The 5 star hotel Waldorf Astoria (which was initially going to be Conrad hotel which meant a new design and a delayed opening until 2020) and 4 star hotel Hilton Garden Inn (might open in 20149 sometime) will be joining The Avenues over the next two years. There will be an addition of three thousand plus parking spaces with a total of more than 13,000 for visitors. The talk of the area being completed by the end of February may or may not happen, I doubt it as there is a lot more work to be done by that time but it will be a sight to see once it's completed!

My only suggestion is to build an indoor theme park like IMG in Dubai or areas like they have in Mall of America then The Avenues would be complete and tourists would only have to stay in the hotel and be connected to everything in one location.