Author Archive | Rami

Gustave Bouchon – Liquor, Wine & Cigar Concept Store in Byblos

By Rami on January 31, 2018 in Reviews

Last week I was in Byblos and a friend there took me to a new wine, and cigar concept store in town called “Gustave Bouchon“.

The reason I’m writing about the place is because it has a carefully curated and unique selection of liquors and wines to suit different drinking styles. I personally have little knowledge about pairing spirits with food and I know a lot of people who like me simply settle for whatever the waiters recommend at restaurants, or end up buying the same kind of wine at supermarkets because they can’t tell the difference between all the available ones. It is a rule of thumb for example to go for red wine when having meat, but then again red wine can vary in taste from dry to sweet and to really enjoy your mean you must pick the one that suits your food the most. So what I loved most about Gustave Bouchon is that they have a knowledgeable sommelier who’s specialized in pairing spirits and food, and can even suggest the right bottle for you depending on your drinking style, as well as the type of event/gathering you’re hosting or attending, and you can of course try whatever you choose before buying.

The palce also has a table that fits 10-15 people for those who would like to gather for some fine drinks. So you can choose the bottle you like and they will serve it to you along with bits and bites and a fine cigar if you’re a smoker, and they can offer several dining formulas (Sushi, French, or Italian) if you reserve ahead of time. The decor and setting of Gustave Bouchon make it ideal for group gatherings by the way, with decor inspired by The Austro-Hungarian Empire and bottles organized on shelves in libary style. The lighting and the vibrant bottle colors make it a really inviting place for passers by.

So in brief, if you’re looking to know more about spirits and food pairing or simply want to enjoy a fine drink, then I highly recommend you get the right partner(s) and go check out Gustave Bouchon. And if you’re lucky enough then you’ll probably meet the owner and he will tell you the story behind the store’s logo and slogan “The man the tale”.😉

Biel is Moving from Beirut Waterfront to Al Naher Area

By Rami on January 28, 2018 in Social

It seems like Biel which has hosted countless exhibitions and events at Beirut Waterfront is soon moving to Al Naher area (The road that takes you from Emile Lahoud road toward Chevrolet/Alfa). My friend Amer Tabsh just shared some photos on Facebook showing the new location with construction works in progress.

I have no idea about the reason for the move but I guess Solidere has probably plans to build something else instead of it at the Waterfront. As for the new location, people are definitely going to be criticizing choosing Al Naher area, but the owners probably had no other choice knowing that lands of big areas are almost not existent in Beirut. Somewhere in Jnah could have probably been an alternative.

In all cases, people crossing Emile Lahoud road everyday better be prepared for the traffic Jam the new Biel will be causing during each event hosted there!

Top 27 Events of 2017 in Lebanon

By Rami on January 27, 2018 in Events

When it comes to platforms that collect certain data, I have a thing for trying to get behind the scenes and get some relevant statistic. So last week as I was chatting with a friend form Lebtivity, I felt curious to know about the top events in the country by user interest, and she was kind enough to run a query on their website and provide me with this list.

So there you go, the top 27 events from last year ordered by user interest. And don’t ask why I chose to limit the number to 27! 😜

Lebanese Snapchat Artist Georgio Bassil Nominated for a Shorty Award!

By Rami on January 25, 2018 in Art

Georgio Bassil is a Lebanese architect and Snapchatter, going by the name @georgio.copter, who’s known for drawing cool monsters into his everyday Snapchat stories. At the end of 2016 he internationally rose to fame after winning The Snapchat Artist of The Year at the Ghosties Awards (a ceremony honoring the world’s most talented users).

I’ve personally been following Georgio for a while now and have always found his snaps to be vivid with those “Copter Monsters” looking creepy yet entertaining at the same time!

Fast forward to 2018, Georgio got an opportunity to once again make it big after getting nominated for a Shorty Award under the “The Snapchatter of The Year” category, and you can help him win by voting here.

The Shorty Awards (aka Shortys) is an annual award event honoring the best content creators across social networks, and I believe this is the first time a Lebanese gets nominated. Voting ends on on February 22nd with the ceremony event set for April 15th in New York.

Best of luck to you Georgio!

The Insult – First Lebanese Movie to Get An Academy Award Nomination

By Rami on January 23, 2018 in Movies

Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri just earned today an academy award nomination for his movie “The Insult” in the Foreign Language Film category! This is big news for us because it is the first movie to ever get an official Oscar nomination since Lebanon started submitting films to the Academy Awards in 1978, and will compete with four other submissions from Russia, Chile, Hungary and Sweden.

Ziad Doueiri stirred much controversy a while ago by the way when he filmed a previous movie, The Attack, in Israel. However, I noticed that almost everybody seemed to agree on praising “The Insult” regardless of their stance on Doueiri and his political views, so I really hope it manages to clinch the trophy!

The Oscars will air on Sunday March 4th on ABC Network and Jimmy Kimmel is once again hosting the event this year. You can check the full list of nominees for all categories here.

All You Need To Know About The Lebanese General Security Cyber Espionage Campaign

By Rami on January 19, 2018 in Telecom

My Facebook and Twitter feeds are infested now with news articles about the cyber espionage campaign dubbed as “Dark Caracal” involving the Lebanese Directorate of General Security, and so far I have seen all kind of comments from people who are oblivious about this revelation to others who now believe that every single Lebanese mobile phone is subject to the espionage campaign. So there you go, everything you need to know about Dark Caracal.

What?

Mobile security firm Lookout, and digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, released a report yesterday attributing a global cyber espionage campaign that they called “Dark Caracal” to the Lebanese Directorate of General Security.

The attack carried out by the hackers apparently seized control of thousands of Android phones from around 21 countries and resulted in stealing hundreds of Gigabytes. Researchers were able to gain access to one of the servers used by the hackers and found that the stolen data included: SMS Messages, Account credentials, WiFi details, Call records, Bookmarks and browsing history, Messaging apps databases (WhatsApp, Telegram…), Contacts, Installed Apps, Personal documents, Images, Voice recordings, and Listing of the phone storage content.

It is worth noting that all attacks targeted Android phones and there was no evidence of targeting iPhones. On the other hand, files stolen from personal computers included full backup images of iPhone mobiles. Moreover, I found it a bit weird that users from neither Israel nor Iran were victims to this campaign.

How?

In terms of hacking, the attackers did not utilize very sophisticated techniques to control the phones, they actually launched several campaigns that consisting of sending phishing links and fake applications to their victims in order to lure them into installing some malicious applications on their mobiles and computers which in turn uploaded their personal data to some remote server controlled by the hackers.

As to how these hackers were busted, the researchers claimed that they spotted several testing devices that were used by the hackers themselves to test their malware, and those devices had one thing in common which was a WiFi network called “Bld3F6”. Upon investigating a little, they were able to identify that this WiFi network was located very close to the General Security building in Mathaf.

When?

The researchers found that the campaign was first launched in 2012 and was still active at the time of publishing their findings.

Are we all compromised?

Certainly not. Some people made it seem like the General Security have super powers now and are able to infiltrate all our devices. If you use trusted WiFi networks, double check each link you see on the web before clicking it, and make sure to install legitimate apps only on your mobile, then you are most probably safe.

Conclusion

I have mixed thoughts about this. Is it ethical to spy on people? Definitely not, but all governments do it anyway, and assuming that the General Security is really tied to this cyber campaign then our government is no different. I’d like to believe that what they’re doing is probably protecting us from terror attacks, but I also value personal privacy and would feel outraged if I knew someone had access to my personal data…

Anyway, if you feel like reading more about Dark Caracal, you can find more details in the 49 pages report prepared by Lookout and Electronic Frontier Foundation here. One thing that I thought the report lacked was more details on how the researchers gained access to the servers utilized by the hackers, otherwise it is quite informative.

Ponder Upon This

By Rami on January 17, 2018 in What the fuck!

Switching to the newly rolled out license plates as the car owner did in the above picture requires passing the car inspection test at one of the mecanique centers. How on earth did this Renault 12 do it?!!

photo via Hamza Halabi

Hollywood Made a Bad Movie About Beirut – So What?!

By Rami on January 16, 2018 in Movies

Everyone and their mother seems to be upset about Jon Hamm’s new movie, titled “Beirut”, because of its bad portrayal of our Beirut city and all the stereotypes that appeared in the trailer.

The movie is written by Tony Gilroy (author first four films of the Bourne series) and tells the story of Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from a terrorist group that was responsible for the death of his own family 10 years earlier.

As the trailer shows, the movie is gonna give quite a gloomy picture of Beirut, and with everything bad going around us in the region right now,western people will unconsciously associate us with terrorism after watching it. But then again, you can’t just blame this movie for the bad publicity we have abroad… We have been ruining our country for over 40 years now and have made enough headlines so far for the whole world to judge us without the need to watch any movie about Lebanon!

And what are you expecting from Hollywood in the first place? A promotional tourism movie about Lebanon? In a world where everyone has a different point of view, why can’t we take their side for a second? We treat them as invaders but they simply regard themselves as our white saviors… Ever knew about the 1985 TWA Flight 847 that was hijacked by Lebanese people and rerouted to Beirut with 85 American passengers on-board? How about the 1983 barracks bombings in Beirut? Regardless what your political views might be, these are acts of terrorism to them and the average American had every reason to think of us as terrorists back then…

Even worse, back to our side, how do you label 15 years of civil war? We butchered each other, mass killings were nothing unusual over that period, and minors did join militias back then. Go read or watch some Lebanese war documentary to learn all about it… Do you only feel butthurt because an American is mentioning it now?

Instead of whining about the movie, just let it be and move on, if it’s really bad then it will eventually be a box office flop. If anything, you can probably brighten the country’s image by simply replacing the warlords that have been ruling the country since the civil war era and are the ones responsible for Beirut’s bad publicity everywhere!

Surprise Gifts For Child Beggars in Beirut

By Rami on January 9, 2018 in Social

Child beggars have increased around Beirut over the past few years and at times can be quite irritating due to their aggressive attitude. I personally usually just avoid giving them any money because I know they’re certainly part of a scheme that exploits children and I never want to end up supporting such thing.

This guy however roamed around Hamra during Christmas time and randomly gave toys to some of the kids he found there on the street.

What caught my attention the most is that they all kept asking for more toys for their brothers and sisters. Not sure if they really meant it though or if they were just acting smart to get more stuff, but either ways the smile on their faces was absolutely priceless!

Needless to say, the government definitely needs to address this issue because no kids deserve to grow up this way on the streets.

Raising Cane’s Now Open at The Spot Choueifat

By Rami on January 5, 2018 in Reviews

I’m lately becoming a less fan of fried food but the minute I saw Raising Cane’s open at The Spot Choueifat last week I felt curious to try their chicken finger after hearing about it from a friend living in the US.

For those who are not familiar with the name, it is a fast growing restaurant chain in USA serving one single item, chicken fingers. Their menu is quite minimalist with only 3 meal options, 1 sandwich, and a kids combo.

I ordered their most popular options which is the Box Combo (13,250L.L) with the purpose of comparing it to KFC, and despite the limited offering, it didn’t really take a lot to notice how much better Raising Cane’s is.

I don’t really need to go all poetic about how tasty the chicken fingers are, but they’re really GOOD! Freshly fried, tender, juicy, and best of all they’re not oily so your fingers won’t feel sticky when you’re done. The cane’s sauce that comes along is pretty good as well, just make sure to order an additional sauce on the side because you will definitely be double dipping. I know I did.

As for the sides, the fries are just average but the texas toast is tremendous! Bread lovers will surely appreciate it. It is grilled after being lightly brushed with garlic butter, so beware if you’re allergic to garlic.

All in all, Raising Cane’s is definitely recommended if you’re into that kind of fast food. And with two more branches soon opening in Hamra and Zahle (as I was informed by their staff), KFC better be prepared for some good competition in the coming months.

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