SneakyLily

Petaling St @ Clayton - Melbourne Food Review

2012-03-03T23:04:00.001+08:00

Yay, time for another food review! I've missed these, which actually means I've missed going out to eat >_<
Since coming back to Melbourne I've been jonesing for Malaysian food. Weird, since I just spent three months there and was tired of eating it, then straight away miss it... Apparently I wasn't the only one though, since after my mum's first trip to Malaysia she also missed the food. So when her birthday rolled round last week, her first request was to go out to eat Malaysian food for dinner!

Actually, I don't really like eating Malaysian food here in Melbourne, for 2 reasons..
1) It's generally not very good. It's rare to find great Malaysian food here...
2) WAY overpriced. How can I pay RM30 for chicken rice, which I know I can get for RM4 in KL and it'll taste way better.

Petaling Street Malaysian Hawker Food recently opened in Clayton, it's a cash only restaurant, which apparently also has branches in Swanston St, Box Hill, Glen Waverley and Glenferrie Rd. Petaling Street is the famous 'Chinatown' area in Kuala Lumpur. I've only been to Jalan Petaling once before, and the experience was so horrific I never want to return!

After having reviewed the menu for Petaling Street, I was excited, and being the 'Malaysian Expert' I got to choose what the group ordered (my Aussie family obviously doesn't know what anything is).

For entree we ordered Lobak, one of the favourite things I love in Malaysia. However, it turned out to be the most disappointing dish of the night. The filling tasted nothing like Lobak, just like fried mice-pork and garlic, no taste of spices or anything. Very underwhelming, don't order this...

However, it was only up from there!

Main # 1 - Deep fried whole fish with Thai style sauce. $10.80 (approximately).

A whole, small sized fish. The sauce was tasty and not too, apparentely these are a popular order. I generally prefer steamed fish to deep-fried though (which they also offered a few varieties of).

Main #2 - Mar Mite Pork Spare Ribs. $16.80

I love eating this in Malaysia, and I've never found it in Melbourne so had to try it. I didn't have high hopes, but surprisingly it was really good. In fact, it was AS GOOD AS THE BEST ONE I'VE EATIN IN MALAYSIA! Seriously! Mild, salty Marmite flavour combined with sweet sauce, on tender non-tough pork. The only difference is that these pieces didn't have too much bones, whereas in Malaysia they generally have heaps (I prefer it like this though). If I go back I'm definitely ordering this for myself!

Main #3 - Sizzling Minced Pork and Bean Curd. $15.80

This was really tasty, with minced pork and the bean curd cooked with egg, soy sauce, mushroom and onion. Very tasty and good, but too salty. Everyone liked it though.

Main #4 - Bak Kut Teh. $10.50

Ordering this is a risk, considering that Bak Kut Teh is my #1 favourite Malaysian food (so I'm a harsh critic) and I've never had one in Melbourne that wasn't disappointing (it's hard enough to find a really good one in Malaysia!). I'd prefer if it didn't have the tofu, and more pork instead... The taste? I'll put it like this... If I received this in Malaysia I would be angry... HOWEVER, it's the actually the best one I've ever tasted in Melbourne. So... if you really miss the BKT flavour it'll give you the hit, but don't expect it to be like back home...

Main # 5 - Vegetarian Curry Laksa. $9.50

One for the vegetarian members of the party, my sister said the taste was good but there was 'something missing' about it.

Main # 6 - Nasi Goreng

I didn't try it myself, but my very food-fussy friend described it as 'the best fried rice I've ever had'. So I guess it must be OK!

Dessert! Ice Kacang. $5

This was a huge ABC, we shared one amongst all of us coz we were full from dinner already. I usually don't like those 'colourful' Ais Kacang's (prefer gula melaka only), but I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted just like the ones I eat back in KL, it was freakin' nice! The only thing missing was green cendol-worms, but it definitely satisfies a 'missing-ABC-craving'!

Overall, I was really surprised how much I loved the food here, considering that I usually don't like Melbourne-Malaysian food. I don't know what the other restaurant branches were like, but I'd love to come back here to eat the Mar Mite Pork again. The service was sufficient and the food not too slow.

Petaling Street Malaysian Hawker Food (Clayton)

CASH ONLY

www.petalingst.com.au

Shop 7/367-369 Clayton Road

Clayton (where McDonalds used to be!)

(03) 8521 3608

Open 7 Days, 11am-10pm

A Valentines Date

2012-02-19T15:26:00.000+08:00

Valentines day. You either love it, or hate it.
Girls will love it, if they're hopelessly romantic and love to be doted on. Guys will love it, if they're unselfish or gentlemanly type. Well, I am neither, thus I've always hated valentines day (don't we all, secretly?). Maybe that's coz I'm just a sour loser.

Australia makes Valentines Day simple. The traditional gift is flowers, and it couldn't be any easier (unless you steal them from someone's garden -_-). Just pull over to your favourite roadside flower stall on the way home from work. An Aussie institution, the Flower Hawkers have been saving lazy guys asses (and preventing domestic abuse) for decades. Nonetheless, in all my life I've never once received flowers. Ok yeh, when I was in hospital... is that what it takes!?!?!

But in Malaysia, Valentines is a hectic-whirlwind-high-pressure-headache (for the guys). KL is bustling with nostalgia, commercialism and great expectations (on the guys). Forgot about V-Day? Impossible (she'll never believe it), for on every corner, along every street are restaurant windows plastered with this years rip-off special menu, and a sea of promoters guilting you with cute and colourful balloons, toys and roses. She'll know you didn't forget, you were just lazy, now everywhere is booked out and KFC-logo-red is not quite romantic enough. Better enjoy those chicken breasts, they're the only ones you'll be seeing tonight!

But there's one girl who is not un-charmed by the glowing plastic tables of KFC, for this is where I had my tasty and romantic dinner date with my darling.

We started out as friends, but as the night progressed it was clear that there was magic in the air. Something special was going on! For it was my first ever proper valentines date! And I flew half way around the world to be there!

Frolicking by the lake, it was a little bit cold for skinny dipping, and Sam wasn't too keen on an impromptu Booze Cruise. Of course, we did watch the sunset together.

And of course, the exciting part... PRESENT TIME! It was the first time I've ever received a Valentines Day present in my whole life! Inside that blue gift-box pictured below is some sexy lingerie too inappropriate for this blog!
I specially picked out some G-Rated cute stuff in Singapore just for Sam, see the Gingerbread Man toy below, from Universal Studios - irresistibly cute (PS. Got a blog coming up about Universal Singapore too!).

In conclusion, I learned that Valentines Day is much better spent with other girlfriends who appreciate doing stuff just to make you feel special - because we all deserve to feel special!

Guess Where I Am - My Mini-Holiday!

2012-02-06T10:19:00.001+08:00

It's been a while, where am I? You'll never guess..
IM IN SINGAPORE!!

Just arrived, checked into my hotel on Orchard Rd, and I'm lovin it!

It's been a busy month for everyone, a non-stop escapade from Chinese new year, gambling, house visiting... With all that going on I havnt been on the net in weeks (and it feels great).

And now... my mum's here! Her first time visiting Malaysia. Yep, so now I'm holidaying in Singapore with my mum. That means no shopping, no chillaxing at cool places, just lots and lots of boring sightseeing, early mornings and walking around outside getting sunburnt. Ok, well I guess local tours are prerequisite of a first visit, so I shant complain.

I'm only here for two nights, and I'll give you the downlow on my trip when I get back (coz I know you're SO interested).

The Comedy Club KL @ Velvet, Zouk

2012-01-20T13:41:00.001+08:00

I love comedy. Watching it, listening to it, participating in it? Can't you tell by the mind-splittingly hilarious jokes on my blog?

Last night I went to see The Comedy Club KL live stand-up at Velvet, Zouk. The two hour show featured three international comedians enlightening us on their views on the world, Malaysia and the things that grind their gears. If that sounds good to you there is still one show left, on tonight at The Bee, Publika.The audience was mostly expats - I haven't seen so many white people in one place since I left Melbourne!

The set list - click to enlarge

First up was Steve Northcott, the Canadian unofficially adopted by the hot and sweaty embrace of Malaysia. Particularly enjoyable were his observations and anecdotes about Malaysia's stereotypes and less politically correct attributes - he ain't afraid to go there!

For the personal security and safety of these guys, my photos are limited to low quality fuzzy blurs - to avoid any potential kidnapping for personal-court-jester-fication.

Filling the space between sober and drunk was Jimmy McGhie, whom I suspect was somehow technologically-scarred as evident in his loathing of the devices which are fast-permeating our society. I was a bit afraid of whipping out my phone to snap a picture in case I got in trouble. Sorry.

Rounding up the night, after we'd all claimed our free drinks and were shivering under the air-con, Phil Nichol awoke us from our frozen post-interval-dormancy with a blast of unbridled energy. Energy! His musical talent savoured in a not-so traditional way, with a few songs you'd think twice before setting as your ringtone.

There was four shows this month, with one left tonight, so if your fast head down to The Bee @ Publika. I highly recommend you check it out if you can! Tickets for RM63 and you can stuff your face with food and drinks at the same time.

You can get your comedy hit next month too, with The Comedy Club's February show running from the 14th-17th Feb. The line up features Malaysia's own Andrew Netto, Aussie Greg Sullivan, and the UK's Zoe Lyons. For more details and locations click to enlarge the picture below.

The Comedy Club February line-up

Speaking of, before the show I got my dinner-hit at Zouk's Terrace Bar, with their beef-bacon carbonara. I was dam shocked to find it's actually one of the best carbonara's I've had in KL (since most of them suck...). However the same can't be said of the snacks served inside Velvet. The hot chips looked good when I saw other people ordering them, so I assumed the calamari rings would be but dam... there was literally 6 pieces for RM16+... pretty uncool and left a lot to be desired (namely more food).

New Things I Tried Last Week!

2012-01-16T16:27:00.000+08:00

Well, of course I'm talking about food!

There's not much in KL that doesn't revolve around food or shopping. Well, there probably is but I just don't know about it. But I did unexpectedly get to try 3 new food stuff this week, things I never knew even existed!

Starting with Monday. On her lunch break, Yen Sun saved me from the monotony of home and fetched me out to eat. I hope you it's OK Lily, it's really green and vegetable-y. Obviously she was concerned that whatever she had planned was a bit too out-there for me, but I'm always up for something new so insisted we go.

Lei-Cha. Or as I like to call it, Thunder Tea! What an awesome name, thunder tea thunder tea thunder tea! Unless it refers to a subsequent thundering of you're bowels, it's a powerful name for a powerful food.

Lei Cha from a roadside stall in Maluri

Lei cha is a Hakka vegetable based dish, and possibly one of the only healthy foods I've ever seen in Malaysia. (From what I observed) you get a bright green opaque soup, which is painstakingly made by grinding up lots of.... green herbs/veggies to make one super healthy hot soup. Apparently some people don't like the strong herby-veggie taste, but I LOVED it!

Served along with the soup is a bowl of rice with different condiments you add in and stir through, and then you pour some of the soup on top. In the rice bowl we have green beans, 'green leafy vegetable', peanuts, bans, some tofu and some other stuff which I can't identify. The combination is so tasty, and it's really refreshing to eat something filling and healthy! I wanna eat it every day! o_o. I was so happy when by surprise Fion took me to eat it again on Saturday. Woo!

Ok, NEXT!

For dinner I tried this Chinese dish that I've never seen before - it's like a huge mixed claypot-steamboat! (I don't know the name, it's written in Chinese!). Inside was everything feast-ish you could ever imagine - prawns, abalone, scallops, chicken, roast pork, mushrooms, veggies... WOW. All cooked together in the pot on your table, you can imagine how tasty the soup is!

This was from newly opened Qube Restaurant in Bandar Menjalara. Menjalara really has so much good food, rite?

Finally, my voyage finished in Mont Kiara yesterday. After having breakfast and a very good coffee in Departure Lounge, I walked across the road to Little Collins Bakery and Florist. These guys have a wide variety of freshly baked breads, pastries and cakes, offer a florist service, as well as a cafe all in one!

Red velvet cake-pop with white chocolate icing

I'd heard of their famous Cake-Pops and finally had a chance to grab one. Cake-pops are like a cake lollipop - a ball of cake, covered in chocolate icing, on a stick. The flavours available yesterday were chocolate cake or red velvet cake. Since I've never tried red velvet, but heard a lot about it (seems to be quite famous here in Malaysia), I gave it a go.

The cake in the centre was really moist with a dense, soft texture. It wasn't too sweet. This was made up by the white-chocolate flavour coating, which was really sweet! If you bite it evenly, it balances out, but overall this is one for the sweet-tooths like myself.

Browsing over their blog I saw these amazingly cute cake-pops available for order. OMG! Hello Kitty - I want!

I've also tried their signature Banana French Toast, which is really superb with the banana, and pretty cheap around RM7.

Little Collins Bakery & Florest

17 jalan solaris 4

Mont Kiara, 50480

Open 7 days 8am-8pm

http://www.littlecollinskl.com

Current Phase: Nails - Pre-CNY Nail Manicure

2012-01-09T21:05:00.004+08:00

Warning: Girlie post ahead. Hey! Girl's do read this blog too ya know!

I go through phases, right... as I'm sure we all do.

Some of my past phases? Gravity, quantum-physics, iPad apps, vogue forums, ebay, hair masques, face masques (rolls eyes), baking, tv shows...

At the moment it's nails. This time it was spurred by seeing OPI's Muppets collection in Melbourne Airport duty free. I haven't really had a 'nails phase' before so it was refreshing! I'd never even had a professional manicure before, I'm lucky to have naturally long, strong, nice shaped nails that grow quickly so did it myself. But I know for a lot of people it's hard to grow them long because they are too soft, bend or split.

Nail art is really big here in Malaysia, especially inspired by those crazy-fancy Japanese designs. It's not popular among Aussies though, we prefer simpler, cleaner nails, the most popular probably the classic french manicure. I gotta agree, and my BF hates extreme nails and would probably pry them off my fingers while I was sleeping. I like shiny smooth plus a few sparkles for fun.

Japanese vs Australian nail trend - extreme opposite

Anyway, in the airport I spotted the OPI Muppets mini-pack of four colours. I pondered over it but decided it was dumb. Later I regretted, coz I couldn't stop thinking about the cute, sparkley colours. When I saw them in SHINS for only RM3 more than airport price, I grabbed em.

The colours are awesome, and my favourite is the sparkley pink. It's SO sparkley, bright, with heaps of multicoloured glitter inside. You only need one or two layers and it looks mad. I wore it for NYE.

But I really want this one, the uber-dream multi-sparkle-polish. So many sparkles, so many colours (faints). I'm definitely gunna buy it in the airport when I go back!

Coincidently, in perfect timing, my friend invited me to join her to do a gel-polish manicure the other day. I was super excited, being my first time, and started thinking about colours straight away. During a gel-polish manicure they buff and shape your natural nails, then paint the polish over your own nails (they don't stick fake ones on). The polish doesn't dry in air like normal nail polish, but it has to be set under UV light. They do a few layers of colour and clear, and the result is super shiny, perfect, bubble-gum nails!

The huge advantage over regular polish is that the result is supposed to last 2-4 weeks (instead of 2-4 days for normal nail polish). ~~Beam~~ Sign me up, Scottie! You can't do it too often though, because too much buffing of your nails will make them thin and weak.

I got candy pink! Duhh! And decided for my first time I'll try plain, maybe next time add sparkles. I can't stop touching them coz they're so smooth and flawlessly shiny. I love glancing at them every now and then, makes me smile.

By some other awesome coincidence, my birthday present all the way from my Auntie in Australia is a mega pack of nail polish! Previously here in Malaysia I had none, so always naked nails, now I have all the colours I could dream of! Wooo! Now all I need is that elusive Muppets one and I'm set for life!

Can't Resist Candy! Big's General Food Store has Imported Treats!

2012-01-06T14:44:00.000+08:00

Damn. I'm a sucker for lollies... chocolate... hot chocolate cake with ice cream...

THE SWEET STUFF!

I've always got a secret stash of teeth-rotting-goodness somewhere, remember my few KILO lolly bag after the visit to the Cadbury factory (my WonkaLand)?

There's one itch I haven't been able to scratch though, one lovable chockie I tried a few years ago in Malaysia: Peanut Butter m&m's. The perfect m&m; crispy shell, chocolate, soft peanut butter centre. YUMMM.

Not long ago, on another trip to Publika, I wandered around the new Ben's General Food Store, which is basically a grocery store with mostly (expensive) imported foods, and eatery in the middle (the same as Ben's General Food Store restaurant in Bangsar).

I high-tailed it to the candy and chocolate isle to see what international splendours they had. Amongst the Lindt and Koko Black, they had a few new types of m&m's, but the peanut butter were sold out! LAME. So instead I opted to try another strange concoction; Pretzel m&m's! I also saw Reeces Pieces, which I'd heard of but never tried, so I grabbed some of them too. These little packs of candy don't come cheap (like most things in that store), at RM4.40 each, but since I'd been searching for years I felt I deserved them.

The Pretzel m&m's basically just taste like giant crispy m&m's. Very nice though but since they're so big there isn't as many in the packet. The Reese's Pieces are addictive; crispy m&m-like shell filled with peanut butter. But not as flavoursome. I still want my peanut butter m&m's - the best of both worlds.

Also available at Ben's are the famous and much loved Red Rock Deli Chips - at a HUGE price tag of RM18, they didn't even have sweet chilli flavour >_<. They also had Shapes biscuits, so now I don't need to bring them over from Melbourne.

While I was there I had dinner at the eatery. It was Xmas night and everywhere was booked out, so this was the only place I could think of to walk in and eat. Anyway, I'd tried the one at Bangsar before and liked it. This one though, wasn't so good.

It was a weird and awkward vibe sitting in the middle of a supermarket eating, and at one end of the row of tables it smelled like fish (from the fish section), eww!

We shared a Big's Lasagne, which came with a side salad of your choice. Since it was like 9pm, most of the salads were sold out, and the remaining choices weren't so appealing. This is like cabbage, beans and chicken (or something), that stuff on the tops isn't worms, it's tahini - kinda like sesame paste. The salad tasted less bad than it looks, though slightly oily, and the lasagne was just OK. The taste was fine, but it was just like a big slab of mince meat - there wasn't much other flavour or texture too it, and it wasn't very hot!

Fortunately though the pizza we shared was pretty good. It was the "Breakfast Pizza" I'd previously tried, with a tomato base, eggs, sausage and beef bacon. The base was thin and crispy and not hard or chewy.

I don't think I'll be coming back to eat here, but I'll definitely be back to the store to buy more candy and Pop Tarts to take back to Melbourne - Even the imported price tag (RM11+) is cheaper than the imported ones in Melbourne (approx RM25-30!!!).

French Village, Colmar Tropicale @ Berjaya Hills

2012-01-02T22:28:00.000+08:00

All week we look forward to the weekends. When they finally roll around we dunno what to do and end up wasting the days away. What is there to do around KL that doesn't involve shopping centres, traffic jams and fighting for parking?!?! If you have any suggestions that are budget friendly please let me know by commenting below!

Last week, in all our boredness, we randomly decided to drive up to the French Village in Berjaya Hills (Bukit Tinggi). We'd never even heard of the place until Wes randomly discovered it while playing cars. Anything sounds better than staying home again, so off we went!

The Krew - why hide behind me!?

The destination

I haven't researched into the place, but here's a little about it. The 'resort', named Colmar Tropicale, is managed by the Berjaya group, and includes a bunch of different activities scattered around the hills, and a hotel. It is located randomly in the middle of the rainforest, 2,700 feet above sea level. Yep, I felt my ears pop when we were driving up.

I only went to the French Village area, and the Japanese area. There is a FlyingFox, but since it was raining it didn't seem like a good idea... The French area includes some Castle buildings and colourful Dutch looking cottages (pictured above, apparently they're the hotel rooms). Very nice for photography! Down below are some gift shops and cafes. The cafes appeared to suck, the usual overpriced, low-quality stuff like they serve when there's no other competition. I recommend you bring your own snacks and picnic if it's a clear day!

There was quite a lot of people around the French Village, and since there was nothing to really do than walk around and take photos of the buildings, after that we went to the Japanese garden. This included a walk around an... erm... Japanese style garden (obviously). There was a short but very steep walk to get there, for a few seconds I didn't think my weak legs would make it, but it's not that far! The air was much clearer and refreshing there, though still warm and humid. There was also a restaurant, souvenir shop and small botanical garden there. We didn't do much 'jungle walking', seen one forest seen em all.

It only took about an hour to get there, on the way to Genting then turn off. Better hope you don't get stuck behind some super-slow car, some of it is only one lane. Seriously there was one time, this guy, he was driving slower than walking speed, and would always brake when the road straightened out, not at the turns WTF. Maybe he had altitude sickness. Or maybe on the phone. Phones while driving is bad OK! But so is driving to slow OR too fast on mountains.

Visitor entry is RM12.

Colmar Tropicale, Berjaya Hills

KM48, Persimpangan Bertingkat Lebuhraya Karak

Bukit Tinggi 28750

Pahang

http://www.colmartropicale.com.my/

Christmas Lunch @ The Red Beanbag, Publika Solaris Dutamas

2011-12-26T21:38:00.001+08:00

Merry Xmas. 'Tis the season, with heaps and heaps of decorations and celebrations going on in KL this long weekend. All the restaurants are booked out so yeh... I had a lotta Maccas.

Publika - Beautifully decorated but empty :(

I did however have a nice Xmas lunch on Saturday the girls. We went back to Publika, I was excited to try a new place I'd heard about when looking for restaurant reviews there; The Red Beanbag.

The Red Beanbag is a brand new, contemporary restaurant/cafe. And guess what, it's inspired by the cafe scene in Australia. Ironically, for Christmas my sister and I received a red beanbag chair! They need not say more to pique my interest. Some of you know I'm addicted to restaurants who's menu's/style remind me of back in Melbourne (yes I do visit many Malaysian places too, for those of you wondering why I leave Australia jus to go to Aussie-style places).

The three of us shared a few dishes so we could try different things. Of course there was no other way for me to start my day than with coffee, which was ok but not as nice as BIG/PlanB's. I like that it's getting easier to find decent coffee in KL, and Publika seems like a haven for it. Screw Bangsar, I need never go there again! The mocha was a bit more to the coffee-ish side than chocolate though, for those of you not into coffee.

We just had to try their Christmas special dish - roast chicken with mushrooms and roasted potatoes in a creamy gravy. I'm usually weary of special menu's, but boy am I glad I tried this, it was the most delicious meal I had that day. So good that I'm tempted to drag my boy back there to eat it again today (but he doesn't like going to the same place twice in a row). The chicken was moist, the mushrooms had plenty of flavour, and the gravy was amazing.

Roast chicken with herb potatoes and creamy mushroom gravy RM25 - seriously good!

We also shared the baked eggs - a small clay pot containing a mix of eggs and sausage baked with a cheesy tomato sauce. It was pretty tasty and rich, but slightly peppery. Served with toasted bread, this is more of a man's hearty meal. It's smaller than it looks in the photo, but being so rich and cheesy makes it filling.

Baked Eggs - RM17.90

I'd heard that these guys do great French toast, so it was a must try. It wasn't just the regular eggy French toast either. The large thick slice of toast had a hint of cinnamon, and was generously sprinkled with sliced almond. It was beautiful with the maple syrup, and also served with strawberries. Would be better with some ice cream or marscapone.

French Toast - RM13.90

The whole cafe had a great vibe, definitely a cool place to chill and chat. I definitely want to come back here again to try some other stuff, and of course another French toast! And yea, admittedly I want to support any good Aussie-style cafe!

The Red Beanbag

Lot A4-1-8

Solaris Dutamas

Jalan Dutamas

50480 Kuala Lumpur

8.30am-5pm daily

It's located facing into the Publika outside square, on the second floor opposite Ichiban Boshi (across the road).

Dinner at The Bee, Publika Solaris Dutamas

2011-12-18T21:29:00.001+08:00

I'm feelin good to be back in Malaysia, and can feel the forgotten passion of 'food blogging' coming back over me. I kinda lost it there for a while, since being back in Melbourne I hardly go out to eat so don't blog it. Now I'm back, and have been searching other blogs for dining ideas, and remember how I loved contributing to that pool of food facts.

Publika Solaris Dutamas

On Saturday night I visited Publica Solaris Dutamas for the first time. This complex is relatively newly opened, and it was obvious. For a Saturday night it was pretty empty, and 80% of the stores in the centre were closed/vacant. I guess that's because it's new, hopefully it will pick up soon. Weirdly there was also hardly anyone there, good for parking though!

However the food and beverage outlets that were there/coming had great potential. Ben's by Big, The Bee (Jaya One review >here<), Chatime, Journal by Plan B (Plan B Bangsar review >here<), BIG General Food Store (clearly the Big Group have staked this place out), Angus Steak House, as well as a bunch of famous local hawkers in the 'Eat Food Village'.

The Bee

I've previously enjoyed breakfast at The Bee, Jaya One. I was surprised to spot them at Publika but have wanted to revisit for a while. The store is way bigger than Jaya One, with inside and outside seating, suitable for both dining or chilling. There was a stage for a live band, though I don't know when they play. Despite being Saturday evening, the place was only 20% full. I don't have a problem with this, means I'm guaranteed a table, but I think the hard working businesses deserve more.. The restaurant was located outside from the main shopping complex, opposite the outside 'stage'.

Since I first heard of The Bee I've wanted to try their burgers. UN-adventurously, I opted for the Australian burger, containing a beef patty, egg, beetroot, lettuce and tomato. It was served with fries, which were crunchy and delicious. See how it's stabbed with a skewer, it's not just because it looks interesting but it keeps the burger contents from falling out as you eat it (learned this from Grill'd).

Aussie with an Aussie burger

The burger itself was kinda small compared to some, which could have been disguised by just using a bigger bun. Although maybe the point is that its a light and gourmet burger, rather than a big greasy pile. The winner though was the patty, which did have that home made taste with garlic and herbs mixed into the meat, and wasn't dripping with oil. The flavour of the patty did overwhelm the rest of the burger so I couldn't really taste the egg, beetroot or sauces. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, though I suspect it may make most of their different burgers taste pretty similar.

We also tried the French burger, with mushrooms and sauteed onion. I could see plenty of delicious caramelised onions in there, but the taste of mushroom wasn't very noticeable.

We had to try the churros (spanish donuts). I used to love eating them from the Vic Markets back in Melbourne. They were served dusted in cinnamon sugar, with chocolate (cocoa mix) dipping sauce. They were pretty disappointing compared to the Aussie ones, the dough thick and heavy, when they should be light and crunchy. If you like Spanish donuts, you should try Molten Lava in 1Utama which specialise in churros, and have tonnes of varieties.

Churros

Despite there not being many diners in the restaurant, it felt like both the mains and dessert took quite a while to come out. It's not like I had anything better to be doing, but if someone was on their lunch break this would be annoying. Overall this is a pretty cool chilling place, I'd come back just to hang out and have a snack when bored or chill with friends. I liked Publika, despite it's emptiness, since it's close by my place and had a cool, contemporary & classy look.

The Bee - Publika

Lot 36B, Level G2

Publika Solaris Dutamas

Jalan Dutamas 1, 50480

Kuala Lumpur

http://www.thebee.com.my/

Johor Premium Outlets - My Review

2011-12-14T22:39:00.000+08:00

On Tuesday I visited the brand new Johor Premium Outlets mall. You might have heard of it, it's the latest big thing in shopping in Malaysia. The complex boasts a variety of mid-high end branded outlet stores - aka they're all discounted. Since the official opening a few days ago, we've all been talking and wondering if it lives up to it's claims. So here is my review for you, obviously based on my personal opinion and experience compared to shopping in KL. Note: I am not a complete shopping and branded obsessed person so my experience may differ to yours.

I've been to Johor once before with my BF for business. Today we were going to see the same customers, so thought we'd drop by Johor Premium Outlets to check it out. Since we had to be back in KL by night time, I had a freaky-ly early start of 5.30. We got to Pasir Gunang by 9.30, and the outlets around 11. At this time there were quite a few people there, but it wasn't packed (when we left at 1 there was tonnes of people though).

The early morning drive

General

Johor Premium Outlets is located nearby the Lebuhraya Hubungan Kedua Malaysia Singapora (highway). It's pretty easy to find from the highway, there are smallish signs at the relevant exits, but it's not like there are millions of roads around there anyway. There are two levels housing about 80 stores, a few of which are still to open. It is mostly clothing retail, with a few food and beverage stores, as well as a food court. There is ground level parking all around the complex, and you don't have to pay to park. I can imagine it would probably get pretty jammed on the weekends though, just like every parking lot in Malaysia (there may have been other parking areas I didn't see though). From the looks of the car number plates there were heaps of W's (KL) people there, as well as a fair few Johor and Singaporeans. There were travel/tour buses dropping people also.

It's Outside

As an open air complex it isn't inside one building, but the stores were lined up similarly to a shopping centre but with no roof. There is a bit of shade outside the stores, which you can crowd under if it rains, but for the majority there is not. This means only inside the stores are air-conditioned, but I didn't find it particularly hot walking outside, and there isn't far to walk. It would be annoying if it was raining though, and probably get super humid - particularly annoying to us girls who don't want our beautiful hair to get rained on.

Stores

True to their word, their are a number of high-end brands available, most notably including DKNY, Burberry, Coach, Tommy Hilfiger (yet to open), Polo Ralph Lauren (yet to open), Armani, Salvatore Ferregamo, Zegna, Calvin Klein, Guess. Burberry was one of the best and largest, on a double story lot, with most stuff discounted around 30%, some 50%. Most of the high end stores had a lot more clothing and less accessories/leather goods.

There was also plenty of mid-range stuff, including Tumi luggage, Samsonite, Cotton On, Roxy & Quicksilver, Vincci, The Body Shop, and sports outlets including Nike and Puma.

My Opinion

Overall, I didn't find the shopping to be as great as I was hoping - don't expect crazy sales. The stock and the pricing, was pretty much exactly the same as the "Sale" selection in normal stores here in KL, and in some cases there was even less discount than given during Megasales.

The discount was generally around 30%, with some things 50% and rarely over that, which is similar to regular discounted stuff in KL. The clothes were generally off-season stuff - that meant the high end clothing was mostly winter clothes - useless to most Singaporeans and Malaysians.

Is it worth driving all the way from KL for? No - the discounts aren't that good. Unless you're really bored, or wanna have a random road-trip with friends - that would be fun! However if you're from Singapore or Johor, or driving past anyway, you should stop by, it's a good weekend-filler.

My lunch - crispy crepes from Crepe Signature; it's OK, better than those in food courts

I don't know what else Johor has to offer, since I've never really been there, but I imagine it must be welcomed by locals so there's more stuff to do on weekends, as well as increase tourism from Singapore and KL visitors.

Johor Premium Outlet Mall

10am - 10pm 7 days

Jalan Premium Outlets
Indahpura 81000 Kulaijaya
Johor Darul Takzim
Malaysia
http://www.premiumoutlets.com.my/

Daiso Melbourne - The Weird and Wonderful

2011-12-10T15:14:00.001+08:00

Daiso... either you love it or you hate it.

Once you know about it, you become addicted to it, or you loath its existence (maybe because your GF always drags you in there for ages, and buys heaps of useless crap).

Daiso has recently come to Melbourne. We now have two stores, one in Richmond and one in Doncaster Shopping Centre. Daiso has been around in KL for ages, but actually it wasn't until not long ago I discovered it. I walked past it in Sungei Wang so many times, but thought it was just a 'cheap crap' shop so never bothered to look. That was until Jayz told me of all the interesting and cool delights lurking inside, and for a mere RM5. Over here the stuff in Daiso costs $2.80, and it is packed with the familiar cut-meets-confusing stuff.

I've only been to the one at Doncaster, and I had a great time picking through all the weird stuff. Sometimes ya just gotta buy something coz it's hilarious, and I've accumulated quite a bunch of weird crap from there. A lot of useful stuff too though, but still somewhat weird.

One of the reasons it takes a long time to shop in there is because the packaging is mostly in Japanese, and who has the time to stand there and figure out wtf every single item is. But some of the weirdness-winners are:

Finger Sacks

There are so many possibilities for these, none of them necessary or un-dodgy. Nose picking? Burglary and protecting your finger prints? DJ-ing without damaging your vinyl's? My friends from high school may recognise these, we were shown them once in ... ahem... a class. I won't mention what for, but I suppose 'good-on' the Japanese for main streaming protection.

Portable Disposable Toilet

We've all been stuck in traffic jam on the Federal Highway. Thank our lucky stars we weren't busting to pee at that time. Or were you? Well next time you need not fear, Daiso has all the emergency car toilet supplies you could ever dream of! When the person in the next car sends you a suspicious and guilty glance, think twice about what he's actually doing.

Daiso. Yes it's cheap. Some of it IS crap, like the 'toilet scrubbing' brush I brought which broke upon OPENING. But in Malaysia we have no 'consumer rights' to return such crap (do we???). 'Why you so stingy', it's embarrassing enough returning a toilet brush... It's still usable though OK, so rest assured my toilet is relatively clean!

RM5 RM5 RM5! The rules for successful shopping at Daiso? Set yourself a spending limit BEFORE you step into the store. It's the only way OK!?

Enjoying My Last Few Days in Melbourne

2011-12-04T18:40:00.001+08:00

Phew!

It's been a busy week. I've hardly been on the internet at all! And more importantly, missed so much important TV (I'm oldschool and still rank TV more highly than the internet as entertainment... given that there's half-decent programming on). Oh Lizzy McGuire, I'll never know what stereotypical teenage conundrums you've overcome this week (until the next round of repeats rolls around).

I've been driving around to a bazillion different places this week, I'm so sick of driving! But I figured out I can even get to Sam's place in just 25 minutes! Now I wanna go enjoy chillin' at her beautiful house more than ever, but my time's almost up! Because...

I'm leaving Melbourne again in a few days! Yep, time for me to go from my first home to my second home; KL. I wasn't lying when I said this blog is a tale of two cities, almost time again for #2 again.

I've been trying to spend as much time as I can with my BFF before I selfishly and sadly leave her again. Friday night I hung out at her house and we had a cooking lesson. I was supposed to teach her how to cook heaps of stuff, since I'm a master-home-chef, but we had to settle for one of the important basics: Burritos!

Being a master chef

Although they were way smaller than restaurant burritos (check out my post on High Tech Burrito, Glenferrie >HERE<), they were tasty and that's the important thing!

The best part of the evening was hanging out at Sam's pier. It's so cool having a river at the back of your house! If I did I would probably drink out there every night just coz it's such a nice environment... So for my liver's health (and own risk of drowning - I can't swim) it's probably good that I don't live near a body of water -_-...

My next few days are chocka-block full of all the stupid tasks I gotta do before leaving Melbourne. And also enjoying the delicacies that I won't be able to get once I'm in KL; peaceful clean air hanging out in my back hard, Lord Of The Fries chips with gravy, being able to drive out whenever I feel like it, chilling sessions with my homieZ, cooking whatever I feel like, and wrangling insane cats that live in my house and last-minute shopping, since I much prefer clothes here in Melb no offence but the stuff in Malaysia is 90% yucky (in my opinion). Tomorrow I'm going for one last trip to Chadstone. If you wish to stalk me you can find me there :D. No assassinations or rapists though please.

SneakyLily & SneakySam's City Outing ft. Oriental Spoon Korean Food

2011-11-27T10:21:00.001+08:00

Melbourne City
Beautiful. Unique. Clean. Eclectic.

On Friday Sam and I met up in the city for a... city reunion I suppose. The two of us used to hang out exclusively in the city, since that's where we went to school together. But since we've both changed schools now, and we both live millions of miles away from the city, we hardly ever go there any more. But when we do it's always fun, it's always like old times. Reminiscing about the things and places we used to frequent, how can the city seem to change so much in only a year.

Most city-based uni students will know the comforts of lounging round in the sun on the grass in front of State Library. But I never did that before, because 1) I'd get sunburned like crazy, 2) get dirt and grass all over me... But in the name of doing things just so you'll have done it, yesterday we lounged on the grass until we got stalked by pigeons.

For lunch Sam brought me to a Korean restaurant she'd tried once before, the Oriental Spoon.

Oriental Spoon is located on La Trobe St across the road from Melbourne Central. The restaurant was huge, and decorated nicely in modern-Oriental style. Being lunchtime we were given two menus; the big 'main' one, and a small single-serve dish one.

From the small menu I ordered a Pork Bibimbap (hot stone bowl with minced pork, shredded veggies, egg on rice). There is a choice of vegetarian, meat or seafood. I've had bibimbap a few times in KL and liked it, and this one was even better than the ones in Malaysia. They give the chili and sweet sauce separately, so you could add as much or little as you like. For me, that means lots of both!

Pork Bibimbap - $12

Last time Sam was here she had eel, and apparently it was awesome. So she got it again, this time in their Oriental Bento. The presentation looked so good, and there was a whole bunch of stuff in it. Eel, chicken wing, fish cake, veggies, boiled egg, and add $2 for kim chi fried rice (instead of steamed rice). I wanna get this next time, but with spicy pork instead of eel.

Oriental Bento w/Eel - $12

I loved this place, I'm really glad Sam brought me here. I definitely wanna go again soon. If only there weren't so many great food places in the city but so few chances for me to go there to eat.

Oriental Spoon
254 La Trobe St
Melbourne, 3000

High Tech Burrito Lunch @ Glenferrie Rd Hawthorn

2011-11-22T21:26:00.000+08:00

YumYumYum The very first time I ever tried a burrito... I was in Disneyland, California (on family holiday when I was 14). The main thing I remember was that it was full of beanie goodness. Oh-so-beanie!

High Tech Burrito bring California style burritos to Glenferrie Rd, Melbourne. And it's authentic, by the sound of it the owner is Californian himself. They pride themselves on making burritos which are healthier, tastier, fresher and better, and after trying them I must agree. Aside from burritos they also offer tacos, nachos and ... cookies! There are plenty of options for vegetarians and vegans, all the burritos can be ordered with tofu instead of meat, and sans cheese/sour cream for a dairy-free delight. The tofu used is the 'silken tofu' soft type.

Store interior - indoor and outdoor seating available

You can either choose your own filling to build your dream burrito, or select one from the menu. Alternatively you can try your burrito in a bowl with shredded lettuce instead of wrapped in a tortilla.

If you choose to DIY there's billions of things to choose from: Tortillas, beans, rice, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, coriander, jalapenos, guacamole, lime sour cream, cheese, black olives, chicken, steak, pork, or tofu. Wow!

Grilled Fajita Burrito bowl - $13.90

I ordered the Grilled Fajita Burrito in a bowl with lettuce instead of tortilla. It came with grilled steak (or chicken), sauteed capsicum and onion, melted cheese, Spanish rice and salsa with lime sour cream on the side. WOW it was extremely delicious. I always love the combination of fried onions+capsicum+salsa+meat and cook it myself sometimes. But then with the sour cream, and flavoured rice, and melted cheese through it OMG! So tasty! It was also really filling.

Thai Chicken Burrito - $13.90

Sis opted for something from the vegan range, the Thai Chicken (with tofu instead of chicken). It contained tofu sauteed in Thai peanut sauce with Asian salad, coriander, brown rice, sweet chili sauce in a roma tortilla. I was a bit suss at the sound of 'peanut sauce salad burrito' at first, but it was seriously really nice. Lighter and more refreshing tasting than my one, but don't order if you don't like coriander. My sister doesn't but I love it, so I was delighted when I got to finish it later.

The serving sizes are generous, everything is super tasty (a must for me), and the ingredients seem good quality and well thought out. You can either dine in or takeaway. I'm really craving to go back, if only it wasn't so dam far for me to drive, but I totally will anyway!

High Tech Burrito
838 Glenferrie Road
Hawthorn, 3122 VIC
Phone (03) 9818-1482

http://www.hightechburrito.com.au/

Full menu available on website

Ever Walk Into a Room and Forget Why You're There?

2011-11-18T12:03:00.001+08:00

Walking through the house to go fetch something - you get there and have totally forgotten what you were looking for.

Bedroom -> Kitchen

Time: 10 seconds
Memories lost: Priceless

Uhhhh. This happens to me all the time. Apparently I'm not the only one.

I read this article about the problem, describing a psychology study which has uncovered a possible explanation. Its not the going somewhere, or just being dumb, but its all about the doorway. Just like in Narnia, passing through a doorway and entering into another room apparently 'refreshes' your brain - your brain recognises entering a new room as a new event, and rubbishes what was just going on.

Doorway forgetting. It could be a good thing, maybe I was going to the kitchen to get lollies, but then forgot, so I end up eating less lollies at night (a good thing). But it could go the other way too; I end up in the kitchen, clueless as to why, and since I'm there anyway grab some lollies anyway coz I can't resist.

It only seems to happen at home though (luckily). It never happens at uni; head to the library - what was I here for again (um duhhh, it's a library). Arrive at a friends surprise party - you're the one surprised! At the airport - hmmm coming or going?

Actually no, there is another version of 'doorway forgetting'
Computer forgetting!
Ya know, you think of something you were going to google, or had been meaning to check. You open your browser, then find yourself just staring blankly at the screen, with no idea what it was you were gunna do. Opening a new browser window is like walking through a doorway, your brain recognises it as a new event and 'refreshes' your mind. Maybe that's where all my blog readers have gone - they kept accidentally forgetting. So you should put me on your bookmarks toolbar (wink).

Something I didn't forget this morning when I went to McDonalds was to try one of their new smoothies. Being un-caffeinated for the day so far, I couldn't resist the lure of the coffee frappe.

It came topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup, and well... tasted pretty much like a Starbucks frappe. But it did taste a bit powdery-weird towards the end... I don't go to Maccas for smoothies anyway, if I want a chilled treat I'll go for one of their AWESOME frozen cokes. Mmmm

My Melbourne City Photography Tour

2011-11-16T15:20:00.003+08:00

My sister and I have both been getting into photography lately. Between my Sony NEX-3 and her 60D there isn't much around our house that hasn't been photographed. But were always looking for other places to go to find other interesting stuff to photograph.

A few months ago we heard about a photography tour of Melbourne city. I love the city, and there's so much random stuff to see there, so I was excited to take a tour of the best parts of the city with my best friend - my camera. Awwww

Well... camera, cat and me = best friends

This post is photo-heavy, so continue reading after the jump...

The tours are run weekly by Photography Tours (Melbourne), booked through www.photographytravel.net. They also do full day, and night time tours of the city. The one we took was morning and went from 8.30-11.30AM. Around 10 people formed the group, most of whom were using DSLRs and had some beginner-pro experience with photography. At various stages of the tour we were given tips on how to best utilise our camera manual functions for the particular setting. We were also given ideas on how to make our pictures more dynamic, interesting, and how to develop our own photographic style.

A couple of Saturdays ago it was finally our turn. Starting bright and early at 8.30AM meant dragging myself out of bed at 6 (takes ages to get to the city by train...). The weather started out questionable, rain drizzling on and off, but by 9AM cleared up. I then understood why we started so early - there's not many people around that early so you can get better shots without tonnes of people walking through ~~and ruining~~ them. Oh and without looking like too much of a weirdo taking pictures of everything.

City-dwellers will be familiar with Melbourne's eclectic-artsy style. There are whole laneways covered with graffiti, ya never know what you could see. Here are some of my laneway shots, all taken with my NEX-3.

And there's the touristy shots which are iconicly Melbourne, I couldn't resist. Our awesome trains and trams (cough) and the Chinatown entrance.

There's such a contrast in variety; Melbourne's old-world charming buildings, and ultramodern structures. There are so many things that you walk past every day that you come to overlook. The details are all around us, you just need to step back and take a look.

I had heaps of fun on the tour! I'd love to do the night time one, and now the weather's warming up it's the perfect time. And you actually don't have to be constantly paranoid that someone's gunna snatch-theft your camera (unlike in some places AHEM).

Yong Green Food @ Brunswick St, Fitzroy (vegan/raw)

2011-11-09T11:37:00.000+08:00

I've been getting into the groove of food blogging here in Melbourne, which I never really did before... Mainly coz I rarely eat away from home. But lately I've been more adventurous and had the chance to try some new places, and jeez I'm just so generous and kind that I can't wait to tell you guys about it. Nahh, I know most of you don't care, but lots of people do google search for info on places these days (people like me), and as they say; if your not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Some of my family is vegetarian/vegan, so occasionally I get to try speciality places catering to this.

Last week I paid a visit to Yong Green Food, a vegetarian/vegan/raw food restaurant, in the vegan-chic suburb of Fitzroy. Yong Green is run by Koreans, so many of the dishes are Korean/Asian influenced. But with a difference, as you'll see. All I know about the 'raw food diet' is from Sex and the City, when the girls visited a raw food place and had the famous wheat-grass juice...

Half the menu is raw food creations, of which there isn't a lot of around Melbourne. I take raw food to mean foods which are served unprocessed, and not cooked using heat. Its not like they serve you "a carrot", they can chop and blend and mix the different ingredients with herbs and spices n stuff.

Brunswick St, Fitzroy has tonnes of options available for the non-carnivore, why-oh-why are they concentrated around there, so far away from me.

Fitzroy - oh so cool

This place gets really busy, it's pretty small, there are only 10-12 various size tables, and you can't book. Dinner starts at five, we arrived at six and there were only a few tables left. All the main meals were served only warm, not hot, I dunno if this is on purpose because its more like 'raw'(??). But I like hot food hot...

I'm going to do this backwards, because dessert is kinda the most important part, lol, messing up your virtual, imagined dining experience reading this blog. YGF have a few speciality desserts, which are all vegan and raw. On the menu is cheesecake, pecan pie and carrot cake. We got a pecan pie and green tea cheesecake to take away.

Pecan pie

I liked the pecan pie, a fine blend of nuts, it was really nutty. The green tea flavour in the cheesecake was barely noticeable, but overall the sweet taste and texture were nice.The green tea cheesecake is garnished with goji berries. I didn't know these were goji berries, I recognise them from Chinese home made soups...

Green Tea Cheesecake

For entree we ordered the kim chi pancake to share, served hot with a 'sour cream' tasting sauce (vegan of course). It had the texture of those Korean seafood pancakes, but with kim chi and chilli. The flavour wasn't very strong, nor was the chili. It was good to 'try' but next time I'll go for a more gluttonous entree like nachos.

Kim Chi Pancake

I ordered 'dragon bowl'. I didn't order it just because it sounded like Dragon Ball, the cartoon I used to be obsessed with! The bowl contained sliced vegetarian beef (not much though), salad leaves, bean shoots and brown rice. It came with miso and chilli sauce on the side so you can make it as spicy as you want. The dish was only warm, not hot, but a decent size. The fake beef was pretty nice, and I liked the brown rice. The others couldn't finish their meals because they were so full, but I could have eaten more... I'll put it down to my bottomless pit stomach though, I'm a freak.

Dragon Bowl

Sis ordered 'Korean bbq', containing sliced fake beef, veggies, salad, brown rice with a brownish sauce. I really liked the sauce on the beef, tasted a little similar to black bean-mushroomy sauce. Id like to order this next time, and if I could add the chilli sauce from the dragon bowl it'd be perfect.

Korean BBQ

We made mummy get 'teriaki chicken' since we'd heard good things about it and also wanted to try it. It came with brown rice and cold vegetables. The vegan chicken itself was good, "I can't believe it's not chicken". Great texture and taste. However honestly, I found the sauce kinda bland, and the chicken was barely warm, it would have been a zillion times better if it was hot.

Teriaki Chicken

Overall I enjoyed the meal, and left feeling healthy rather than choc-a-block full of oil, but some of the food could have used more flavour, and I wish it was served hot!!! I'd like to come back here to try their burgers, wraps and nachos. Id also love to try their chai latte which I've heard good things about.

Here are the contact details, as taken from their business card. The restaurant are open for lunch and dinner, and dine-in or takeaway.

St Kilda Sunday Snapping (photography)

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000+08:00

Happy Friday!

But I'm not gunna write about Friday, so let's talk about last Sunday. A rainy, drizzly morning in Melbourne, but we love it anyway.

My ideal Sunday mornings can go one of two ways, both of which are awesome.

1) Sleeping in after a big night out, aka Sunday morning bypass

2) Chilling breakfast and good coffee at a funky cafe

Today I had the benefit of both; big night of fun followed by chillaxed breakfast.

Headed in to St Kilda, Melbournes funky beachside suburb for some snap and cap (photography & cappuccino).

I'd love to live around St Kilda when I'm old (err or when I'm young now), but I say that about a million places I drive past and like.

My enthusiasm for photography has been revitalised recently, and I know St Kilda has heaps of weird and different stuff to see. I like stuff photography; capturing scenes or things that tell a story, make you feel something, or are just visually appealing/confusing/complex. I like people photography when it communicates something real, emotive and storytelling; an old person chopping char siu for their 50 year old shop; an upset kid who dropped their ice cream (I'm cruel). The Australian style of photography is often more arty, contemporary and abstract, which I love.

Reasons St Kilda is worth visiting for photographers (and everyone else)

- Sandy beaches, seagulls, waves and all things seaside
- Washed to shore piles of rubbish contrast clean beach areas (lucky dip of finders keepers)
- Old & eclectic architecture, homes and buildings
- Alongside new architecture styles
- Melb's famous contemporary and eclectic art randomly spotted
- Um there's an old mini THEME PARK (Luna Park). Think Genting style
- Tonnes of tasty and popular eateries around Acland St. Always busy, different styles of decor, great food
- Night time there's clubs, pubs & bars for the stalker/pervert/crime photographer
- Different types of people/weirdos for entertainment and 'people watching' while dining
- You might see me there :D

I only spent about 10 mins taking photos coz I had to meet people for lunch, so I plan on going back soon when it's sunny to explore more. It was so freakin windy on the beach I could hardly open my eyes - makes photography hard. But as I learned living bay-side in Docklands, it's always freakin windy around the sea (wind is dam annoying when you've got long hair -_-).

I had Brunch at a small cafe just off Acland St called 'Lost for Words'. It's quieter, more chilling, and more alternative than some of the other places. The coffee was nice, and my Breakfast Burrito was awesome - full of like egg and sausage and other breakfasty things.

There's also a bit of shopping on Acland St. It's basically the same stuff as everywhere else, but I found some unexpected cool stuff! Check out this cool drink bottle! The bottle part is made of flexible plastic, so as it empties you can roll it up and it doesn't take up space in your bag. Such a good idea, so often I don't bring a drink bottle because I don't wanna carry the bottle around all day.

Also found a planner for 2012 from Typo (stationary store owned by Cotton On brand). Cute Tiffany blue. Thought I'd better get it now since this in 2011 I didn't buy a planner 'till March and only the really ugly ones were left.

2012 pretty vs 2011 ugly

It's honest

2011 Melbourne Cup Horse Races... TODAY!

2011-11-01T14:00:00.000+08:00

Da dada da dada da dada da dada da daaaaa

Da dada da dada da dada da dada da da da da daaa

Melbournians will recognise that tune, it's the sound of the Melbourne cup horse racing carnival.
Also the sound of the ripped-off Pizza Hut TV commercial (yearsssss ago). At least I'll never forget the number for pizza!

Today is Victoria's public holiday for the 151st Melbourne Cup - the day that stops the nation (errr...). The Melbourne Cup is Australia's largest national horse race, held annually on the first Tuesday in November. That means many of us take the Monday off to make it a super-long long weekend. This year's cup was sponsored by Johnny Walker, as was my long weekend.

Cup week is all about two things: fashion (for the girls) and fun (gambling & socialising). Well, and horse racing obviously...

Many of us will be placing a bet today. Some people have been following the horse's progression for months, some look at the last minute tips, and some just choose the horse with the funniest name and prettiest colours (blushes). Some of my favourite horse names in this years Cup were Drunken Sailor, The Verminator, and Unusual Suspect.

It's been unpredictable and passionate, but the race was run at 3pm this arvo and the winner earned his place in Australian history. For all my disinterest, I sure did watch the race (on TV) and I must admit it was breathtaking (as in I was even holding my breath in suspense). I can only imagine the tension in the atmosphere down at the racecourse!

The winner was Dunaden, ridden by French jockey Christophe Lemaire. It was one hellova close race, coming down to examining the photos to figure out who won. Check it out, you can't even tell!

For many ladies preparation for the Spring Racing Carnival began weeks ago. Almost as important as the horses is the styling. Tradition has sustained since The Cup's beginning back in 1861, with ladies decked out in fancy attire. Essential to topping off the outfit is headwear; attention grabbing hats or fascinators, the more outrageous the better.

You'd die seeing some other chick in the same ensemble as you, but many ladies customise their outfits so this doesn't happen. The point is to stand out, not blend in. Numerous fashion competitions and judging are held, encouraging women to dress up classy (not trashy, you bogans) and celebrate the day in style. Here's a few of my funniest and favourite outfits from the week:

Ok, I should admit I've never actually been to the Melbourne Cup. Hopefully I will one day, and I'll make my own creepy hat. I think I'm pretty good at DIY-ing costumes (although these aren't really costumes).

Fantabulous Friday

2011-10-21T19:59:00.002+08:00

Fantabulous Friday

The day we look forward to all week. The day we're distracted and get no work done. The day we gaze dreamingly out the window thinking of outside.

Our way of life is changing so quickly from what it used to be. Not because we're all slowly growing older, but because technology is evolving even faster than we are! When I was a kid I used to daydream about the future. I loved watching "The Jetsons" and other 'future' based shows (Back To The Future is one of my favourite movies ever!), because I loved imagining the future.

Before I even realised it, the future was here. Back in the dayz we'd wake up and eat breakfast, get ready, read the newspaper and watch Sunrise on TV (I assume, coz I was only a kid back then). Nowdays we wake up, get on the computer and check ninemsn, twitter and Facebook. Before I even realised it the future was here, sans flying car and teleportation machine :(. I doubt we'll have hoverboards by 2025, but those old movies about the 'future' never predicted the crazyness of social media.

I have a like-hate relationship with social media. Unlike many of you, the only one I have is Facebook and I only check on there like once a week. But I get how weirdly easy it is to become addicted to checking it all the time, for no good reason. I suppose this blog is a type of social media, although the only person I'm socialising with is myself (and I already spend 24/7 with myself, it's getting boring!). But this is what the world's becoming. Instead of reading the (boring) newspaper and finding out what's going on in the world, we check Facebook and find out what's going on in our own (sort of) worlds. There's nothing wrong with that, maybe it just means were becoming more inwardly focused, but isn't that just human nature? Screw them all, I'm living only one life and it's this one! (Though there's obviously a lot wrong with the selfishness theory, but many of us subscribe to it).

Although I don't participate in the daily social networking buzz (strange for a blogger...), but I still love the internet. The way I see it, I was born at just the right time; early enough that I can remember the sepia days before computers and the net, when we played cricket in the back yard and cooked pancakes on Sunday mornings. But spent our high school years talking to our 'crush' on msn (while mum yell'd to get off the computer and go to bed), and used 'Encarta encyclopaedia' for projects. (Wow, Encarta you never knew how Wikipedia would come whoop your ass!).

Now the world's totally different; I sit here in the lounge room typing on my computer, while Mummy is next to me on her adopted laptop. The TV's on but no-one's watching, were too busy immersed in 'the net' whilst eating our dinner; the spaghetti bolognaise I just cooked.

I spent this evening doing what I always do; cooking. Tonight I cooked fresh-made bolognaise spaghetti sauce. Juz like Mumma used to make. I sit here eating it as we speak, I can guarantee it's VERY NICE!

My old housemates wouldn't believe that I can actually cook. Back when I lived with them I never cooked, and as the only girl in the house it was kinda my job...(?). But none of us ever cooked, we lived the typical student diet of instant noodles, microwave meals and Chinatown cheap eats. When we were lucky Ben would cook his "Best In Melbourne Bak Kut Teh".

Ben, remember cooking this?

It really was the best in Melbourne, with fresh and authentic BKT herbs smuggled from Malaysia for us to savour. Now he's moved back to Malz I can't have any more of his good cooking, so I've gotta learn for myself.

My contribution; crisping up the yao char kwai

Back in those days, living with the guyz in the city, our biggest treat would be when one of their Mums flew over from KL to visis their sons. I remember the very first time I tried BKT, when Hak Chai's mum flew over and cooked for us. That 'steamed egg & mince meat' stuff, fried green veggies, and amazing, amazing BKT. Since then I've been addicted, and I hate it that I can't cook it for my own family, only coz the herbs available here for sale suck. But I'm too pussy to try and smuggle it through customs, I've watched too many episodes of Border Patrol. Last time the customs people even took my coffee. MY COFFEE. What is the world coming to! Jee, at least I didn't get a freakin fine! =_=

Don't worry, soon I'll be eating authentic home made BKT in KL. Screw you customs!

Chocoholic Twins @ KoKo Black Chadstone

2011-10-19T19:46:00.001+08:00

I've been craving good hot chocolate lately, like the kind that tastes like you're drinking real chocolate. So I convinced Twin-Sam to go on a chocolate voyage to Chadstone shopping centre.

Initially I wanted to try the Lindt cafe, but after reading reviews that it's only average (the hot-choc anyway), I decided to go to Koko Black which I recently tried and liked. I'd like to try Lindt's ice choco's though, which Sam said are good, IF she'll accompany me there on another excursion. Melbourne has a lotta these chocolate-cafes nowadays; Max Brenner who made it famous (and I'm currently missing), San Churro, Koko Black, Lindt Cafe, blah blah blah.

It was a great sunny, warm day, I picked Sam up from school and off we went. We weren't expecting to find anything, but ended up finding Twin-Shoes. Were so ~~lame~~ cool, we love dressing up the same, next time we'll wear our shoes together. It'll look weird, like how it really stands out when you see two super-tall people walking together (or even one).

We'll be staggering round like the Melbourne twin towers, hovering over everyone on our super-tall shoes. Hopefully it's not a windy day so we don't blow over. I don't have many high heels, I love wearing comfy flat shoes, but sometimes they come in handy, ya know. They're a great alternative to flood pants; "My feet are soaked but my cuffs are bone dry! Everything's coming up Milhouse!"

When the time came to give in to my chocolate cravings we went to Koko Black, which was pretty full. I ordered their classic hot-chocolate. It's very rich and sweet, and most important chocolatey!

I'm on a mission to find Melbourne's best hot chocolate. Sucks that it's a solo-mission, any other sweet-tooth's wanna join me? I feel so lame going to these places alone to sit there. I guess I can bring my iPad and get some work done. In fact, that sounds like a great idea! Maybe i'll do that tomorrow and give Max Brenner or San Churro nearby my house a go.

Sam's drink looked amazing! She had some kinda caramel ice chocolate, and it had crunchy chocolate balls too!

It was so sweet and rich in flavour, she couldn't even finish it. But it sure does look irresistible right? Just like it's owner.

I think hanging out at Chaddy is a great after-school activity. Not too far away, plenty to do, lets go again soon Sam! Although we should really go to the city next time, lets go to A1 and take sticker photos!

Bye Bye Winter, Hello Sunshine

2011-10-14T09:41:00.000+08:00

Oh yea, Happy Birthday iPhone 4GS. People have queued for hours here in Melbourne to be one of the first to get one, not lame at all! Clearly it's not high on my priority list, since I'm using a freaking ancient and broken 3G... but I must admit I'm getting it sick of the broken battery meter, it freezing and putting itself on silent. Ok, I admit it, I want a 4GS too! Anyone wanna let me cutsies in line? :)

Spring has finally sprung here in Melbourne. Unlike last week, which was a wintery nightmare cold n rainy, today the sun has graced us with it's presence to tell us summer is only a few months away, yay!

I'm glad that it's clearing up now though, the miserable weather lately reflected my miserableness inside. But now in can relax a bit. The last 2 weeks were so dam busy and intense, I just handed in the biggest single assignment this semester, and had 2 other assignments and a test in the same week. Blah blah blah, winge winge winge, yeh yeh we all have things to do. Wtfff, but I made it through and survived without my brain exploding (knew u could do it brain! Must be all that TV I've been feeding you).

This whole time I've hardly been at my computer at all. After spending hours and hours struggling to finish my gruelling work in time, I don't wanna get anywhere near my computer during my "spare" time. I'm kinda dreading checking facebook which I havn't logged onto for ages, I'm pretty happy to never use it again but duhh... how else will you guys know about this dumb blog! So I spend the rest of the time doing 'real life' (non 21'st century) things, like cooking, cleaning and watching TV. Well... cooking and cleaning I do coz I have no choice, but I've been driven insane enough to like it sometimes.

My (mum's) garden

My mum likes gardening, so now being spring my yard is full of flowers. It's pretty, but seems like a lot of work. So I get to benefit from it by living here instead, though how do you really benefit from flowers...? I didn't inherit the green thumb, I guess its one of those things you start to like when your old. Though with our generation it seems more likely we'll be planting virtual flowers instead. Hmm.. come to think of it I did used to have a short lived obsession with gardening in Animal Crossing (Game Boy game). You could invent your own hybrid flowers if you did it right, ok!! Not lame at all!

T-Dog loves spring, but hates everything else. He's got a bad attitude!

I'm excited coz later today I get to go see my BFF. I always thought having a BFF, or even saying BFF is extremely lame, and it is, unless you have one! As I always do when I go see Sam, I'll report back here after! My sister said her most boring to read SneakyLily blog posts are the me & Sam ones! LOL! I guess it's pretty boring to everyone other than me and her.

We've been so busy lately I havn't gotten to see her for ages! As soon as she started mid-sem holidays I finished and had thousands of things due. Really soon it's gunna be exams, she's a hard working science-nerd like me, so she won't have much time to spare for me :( But we'll make the most of today!

Vanilla Cafe and Lounge, Oakleigh

2011-10-05T20:16:00.001+08:00

Mmmmm Vanilla. I love everything vanilla. Vanilla flavour, vanilla scent... well that's about all there is I suppose...

Vanilla Lounge is another of Oakleigh's many hot cafes. Any regular to the area knows that Oakleigh is busting with European style cafes, and the competition is fierce. Vanilla Lounge is opened only a couple of years ago, and is one of the most popular.

I've been an Oakleigh regular for a couple of years. Often on Sunday my family joins the rest of Oakleigh's (huge) Greek population, in search of a good coffee. My Mum's family grew up around the area, and also being Greek we love to occasionally indulge in the beautiful Greek cakes freshly made around here.

We used to frequent Nikos (Nikos Quality Cakes), but since Vanilla opened up we alternate between the two. Both are quite pricey.

Vanilla Lounge is on the corner along Eaton Mall. (I hate the name Eaton Mall... it was the name of a mean primary school teacher I had. Seriously, a few of my primary school teachers hated me wtf, two of them even called me a bitch! ME! To a 10 year old, WTF! I was a good, quiet kid. Discrimination against the not-cute smartass kids (I was dam ugly as a kid)). The menu is pretty extensive with snacks, light meals and main courses.

There are two main reasons we choose Vanilla rather than Nikos
1) Good coffee, I think I like it slightly better than Nikos
2) They have wedges, one of the only vegan options

However I find the pastries and cakes at Nikos a lot nicer. And sexier guys working there.

Here's my sexy coffee. Of course I need a large, regular is way to puny. Of course it was great, the Greeks know their coffee.

My sister and I shared the wedges, served with sour cream and sweet chilli. They were nice, hot and crispy, but on the pricier side (for cafe food) at $9.80.

My aunty had a toasted vegetable wrap. It wasn't very hot and needed to be reheated, and came with no side salad, as some places do. We also had the vegetarian panini (both $9.80), I don't know about the taste but it looked pretty average, also no salad (Nikos comes with tiny side salads).

All in all it wasn't spectacular, just an average meal. Maybe coz it was really noisy and packed being lunch time. But check out their beautiful display of cakes!!! Irresistible!

You even have a choice between large and small kok. Aren't we spoiled, ladies!

For the first time I tried their pastries, I brought my Mum a canoli (pastry tube filled with custard & chocolate cream). Yes it sounds tantalising, but it wasn't so great. The cream lacked texture and flavor, and the pastry was too hard. Will buy cakes from Nikos next time. The display is beautiful though, it's hard to resist trying everything!

Vanilla Cakes & Lounge

21/19-21 Eaton Mall

Oakleigh VIC 3166

(03) 9568 3358

‎

SneakyLily's Melbourne City Excursion

2011-10-01T22:26:00.000+08:00

Uuuhhhh... I shouldn't even be blogging at all right now. I have SOO much work to do, the next week and a half is gunna be crazy, I'm dreading it so bad. Just can't wait till it's all done and I can breathe again. Fingers crossed it all goes well though!

Beautiful Melbourne city. It is indeed beautiful, but I don't get that often these days. Yeh, yeh, I live in Melbourne, but in the suburbs, so it's a pain in the a$$ to travel to the city unless there's a purpose.

I do really miss the city though. I used to live in the CBD, everyday the buzz was right at my doorstep, now everytime I go there so many things have changed.

Heading into the city early in the morning, I only had a short time there to shop and stop for lunch. I was excited though, coz I got to head back to the area where I used to live and see my old house again.

The year I lived there was the best ever. Staying with a bunch of friends, well duhh, of course it's gunna be fun. Miss the life back then with those guys. Now all my housemates are back in Malaysia (cept CC), but I still get to see them all the time when I'm in KL.

Docklands has changed so much, there's a whole bunch of buildings that weren't even there before! Like erm.. the HUGE channel 9 headquarters I had no idea existed! But our cute little house was still there, still the same. People that live around there these days are way more lucky though, there is so many more shops/cafes/restaurants around, it used to be dead.

Big, random Channel 9 building right next door

When I lived in Docklands I used to often go to the DFO at Spencer St Station. Aparrently it's not DFO anymore, but most of the shops in there still seem to be outlet stores. We were on a mission to find something specific, but it ended differently... I wasn't planning on shopping, but I couldn't resist the lure of the pretty things calling me from the store windows! I just came back to Melbourne OK, I missed the clothes shopping here, I like the style of stuff way better than KL.

I picked up this pretty bag from Forever New (Australian women's clothing chain http://www.forevernew.com.au/, not affiliated with Forever21 which I hate coz their clothes are bad quality, weird cut and don't have small sizes). I love this shop, the stuff is sooo pretty, well made and unique. Spencer St DFO is the outlet store, and they have HEAPS of really discounted stuff. I first saw this bag when it was a new arrival last year, loved it, but couldn't justify the price. SOO lucky I waited, I got it for $19, down from $70!!! In the past few days I got a few more things at Forever New, I'll show you guys next time.

Oh. Actually that was the only thing I brought that day... seemed like more...??

After DFO we trained back to Flinders St to check out Degraves St for lunch. Degraves St is well known in Melbourne for its restaurants and cafes. It is a small lane way off Flinders St, randomly & surprisingly packed with quirky little places to eat. It's always busy, and seating is limited, so you need to either be lucky or plan ahead. (Degraves St runs between Flinders St and Little Collins, between Swanston and Elizabeth St)

In all my years living in the CBD I never went to Degraves St for 2 reasons: 1) didn't know which restaurant to try, 2) being poor students we lived on the Indo Mie diet, with occasional cheap Chinatown dinner (what a time of malnourishment...). So I'm on a mission to try it out for myself.

We felt like having potato wedges, so random picked a place where we saw it on the menu-board. That place happened to be RMB cafe, Degraves St, on the corner.

The outside seating was fully packed, and luckily we spotted one empty table inside. The guy working there who seated us was dam sexy. What a nice way to dine. We got coffee and wedges. My flat white coffee was great, very smooth and creamy the way I like it. The soy latte was also quite good apparently. But there is an abundance of good coffee in Degraves St, that's what the place is all about.

The wedges were served with the mandatory sour cream and sweet chilli. They were hot and crispy, as good as everywhere else. But the thing that blew us away, the serve was MASSIVE. There was only two of us, so it was my king-kong appetite that came to the rescue and I managed to finish most of them. YuMmMmM. I'll go back there next time I'm feelin ~~greedy~~ really hungry.

I had so many plans and dreams that day. I was gunna go to Nasi Lemak House, I was gunna go to Chatime, but we ran out of time. At least that gives me something to look forward to next time... I'm totally craving the nasi goreng pattaya from Nasi Lemak House...mmmmmmmmmmm

Man VS Machine: Printer FML's

2011-09-27T11:06:00.001+08:00

(...it took me ages to actually figure out what FML meant)

Don't kick a man when he's down. The printer lives it's life rebelling this motto.

Top of the food chain, rulers of planet earth. But man has one technological enemy - the printer.

I think it's fair to presume we've all battled with them before. And never do they cooperate. I think I've had more than my fair share of Lily-VS-Printer battles.

My Enemy

ALWAYS at the worst, most dire and desperate times; when you're on some kinda deadline.

The other day, finishing a big fat dumb assignment half an hour before the deadline (my bad). Rush to print it... NO PAPER FML! Scrounged around and miraculously found a few more sheets.
Print. PRINTS SOMETHING COMPLETELY RANDOM. Using my last few pieces of paper. WTF.

Try again to print, INK EMPTY. I'm not kidding, three things in a row! But the cartridge had just been filled days ago. Forced it to print anyway, and finally it did. Although the last few pages were on the back of used, scrap paper! Great.

Other FML incidents purposely inflicted by the printer:

Good thing you had refill ink

- Printing assignments at school? Fair chance it'll print to another room.

- Else instead it'll get totally mixed up with a few other peoples work. Or they'll take it and it will be missing altogether.

-Have a thousand lecture slides, and wanna double side them, few slides per page? Don't count on it, it'll print one slide, one page, million pages. Byebye paper and toner (crucial for printers next assault)

- Assignment time again, relax, you've finished! Don't count on printing it though, ink is suddenly empty. Good thing I had a spare cartridge in the house...

- Morning flight, just did web check in. Time to print your boarding pass. Out comes a blank paper. WTF I refilled the ink 2 days ago. FML. Ran a few more sheets through eventually it worked

- How about when your halfway through printing and the ink runs out. Happened to all of us rite?

- Actually got the double-sided printing working? Don't get too excited, the second side will probably be upside down.

- Multiple pages or slides per page? How about print them in reverse order. Great for making lectures more ~~confusing-~~ entertaining.

Back to Melbourne...

2011-09-19T09:00:00.000+08:00

Going back to Melbourne...

yes & no

For someone who has a blog, It's weird how rarely I'm on my computer these days. Other than when I'm doing work, when I try to avoid the temptations of the internet, I've barely been online at all lately.

When I log into Facebook after not having been on for a few days I think WOW this is so boring, how the heck to people spend all day on here. I guess they have it on their phones though... still... boring except for stalking people. Is that what you all do? If it's your real friends it don't count OK :-)

For those of you who don't know or haven't picked up on it, I've just returned to Melbourne. Those three months went dam fast, stupid MAS government don't let me stay for more than 3 months at a time - ANNOYING! Nonetheless I shall be back in KL soon anyway. Enjoy the refreshing break from me.

But I'll still be here annoying you, and I have one hellova backlog of restaurant posts I've gotta do. But for those of you who find food-blogs boring, don't worry, I do less of them when I'm here in Melbourne and more uh... weird random posts... like this.

Sometimes even I need a break from the hectic craziness of KL. There have been a few things I've been looking forward to about Melbourne:

- Actually being able to get car parks, AND you don't have to pay to park at most shopping centres.

- clear blue skies

- healthy food!!

- clean streets, neat gardens and there not being rubbish thrown EVERYWHERE

- not seeing any street cats & dogs (sad)

- being able to walk around the neighbourhood without fear of getting robbed/kidnapped/raped

- proper Big Breakfast, foccacia and Aussie fish & chips!

- good coffees everywhere!

- generally polite and courteous people in public (cept for Fri/Sat latenight...)

- not hearing about Justin Beiber and Taylor Swift 100 times a day

Things I'm not looking forward to:

- Sardine-packed crowded trains

- The long long train journey into the city (OK trains just generally suck, but whilst unreliable they are efficient)

- obviously the cold weather, but now winter is ending and its finally warming up

- limited and overpriced restaurant options

- everything closes at 5pm. WTF do people do after work? (apparently go home and do nothing!)

- Hardly any free public wifi spots

Both places have their own great features, but I'm looking forward to enjoying my home city for a while (even though I'll have plenty of annoying work to keep me busy).

Before I left back to Melbourne my friends sent me off with one last party at Phuture. It was a great night, thanks for everything guys! Looking forward to my welcome back party >wink<. I was really glad some of the girls were able to come, much better than the usual sausage-fest. haha.

Birthday Cupcakes for my BFF

2011-09-16T21:34:00.003+08:00

Mudcake Cupcakes! Adorable & Irresistible

Only the best for my best friends birthday cupcakes!

I baked these myself last night; mudcake cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing. That's special cake-glitter on them! Sparklez (but you cant see in the photo). And yes, they do taste as good as they look!

Proud chef

It sucks that I missed Sam's birthday this year because I was in Malaysia. So to make up for it I gave her birthday-surprises before I left and after I came back. Today I finally got to see her to give her part II (part 1 I blogged about >HERE<).

Today was the first day it's been warm here in Melbourne. The last few days I've been tortured, even right now I'm wearing two layers of PJ pants, and two thick long sleeve jumpers. AHH! But it was a nice 22 degrees today n sunny. It's been so long since I've seen blue sky (and KL is always gray). It's so much nicer, so less depressing looking.

Sam and I had lunch and did a bit of shopping while catching up. I went a bit crazy buying junk food though, dam I can never resist candy! They were half price so I had to stock up OK... I even found Mars Caramel, full of only caramel? YES PLEASE! J-j-j-jealous!?

Almost as amazing as these presents my mum got me...

I can verify that these flavours, black forest and rum & raisin are amazing. I'm never going to Malaysia again without them! Maybe if your nice I'll bring you some :D

In celebration of the sun and warm weather today, I felt like dressing colourful. Then I realised I hardly have any colourful stuff. Watever, so I wore the new cute bag I brought yesterday!

Along with my chocolate-stash, I found this bracelet today. Wanted something like this for ages! Its suede braided together with a silver chain, you wrap it around your wrist a bunch of times then tie it up.

To wrap up this boring post, here's a random picture from my garden. Taken from my sisters awesome new 60D. AWESOME!

Mid Autumn Festival 2011 ft. Starbucks Mooncakes!

2011-09-12T16:50:00.000+08:00

Happy Mid Autumn Festival everyone!

The day almost passed me by, although who can avoid all the decoration around the shopping centres where they're selling mooncakes.

Mooncakes, mooncakes, all varieties flavours and colours, all you can ever dream of and imagine. Some are gross and some are nice. I like the sweeter ones, and ones with nuts. And of course who can forget about delicious snow-skin mooncakes. This year was the first time I tried them, thanks to OneWorld hotel, where I got the opportunity to make them myself with the Zuan Yuan restaurants mooncake-master. I told you guys about it back >HERE<.

MasterChef!

Another type of mooncake I've been craving to try was Starbucks special release coffee mooncakes. Yea, I'm addicted to coffee, so of course I needed to try them. Ok, I'll admit, half the attraction was the super-cute box they came in!

The cheaper two pack box cost about RM34, and comes with the varieties tiramisu and caramel macchiato. So cute!

I liked the caramel macchiato best. Inside was red bean, with a 'yolk' of caramel in the middle. I love caramel, it was pretty good. They weren't very sweet either for those of you anti-sweet ~~weirdos~~ people, and the coffee flavour is pretty mild in both.

The tiramisu one wasn't so good, I found it kinda weird. Replacing the 'yolk' part was some biscuity stuff, which was kind of salty.

Last year I celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival in Malaysia, our family had a BBQ. It was the first time I've lit and hung those paper lanterns, it was surprisingly fun! Blogged >HERE<. This year I'm lighting fires in my own house instead. No, not coz I'm addicted-to-arson, it's to keep warm in this crappy cold cold cold.

Dinner time @ Xian Ding Wei, 1Utama (non-Halal)

2011-09-10T21:04:00.000+08:00

Ahhh I've been so busy this week. And the impending due date of yet another assignment means I'll be busy for the foreseeable future. Wish I had more time to compose creative blog posts dammit >_< But not long and it'll all be over though, can't wait!
Anyhow...

I've written about Xian Ding Wei before >HERE<, a very positive post. I love this place, and I've since been back to the various outlets lots of times. I guess it's kinda dumb for me to re-blog the same thing, but I like this place OK, and you should too. Plus I ate different stuff anyway.

For those of you who missed my last bulletin, Xian Ding Wei Taiwanese Tea Room offers wallet-friendly Taiwanese cuisine. I think their target audience is youngsters like me, and families, or um anyone? Most of their meals are available ala carte or in sets, though after adding rice it's not much different priced to order the set. They have a fantastic range of drinks and desserts, the Ice Blended dessert-drinks look awesome!

This visit was at 1Utama, located on the ground level next to the rainforest entrance (opposite Cravings). I've been here before, the service is proficient and as with all the stores, the layout clean and comfortable. They were having a promotion, buy two sets and get a free snow-ice dessert. We usually buy the set anyway, and an ice dessert, so it was perfect.

For entree we ordered the Sweet Potato Balls (a favourite) but the waiter informed us there would be a wait, that's ok though we just wanna eat them doesn't matter what order (though when I went to the curve they said must wait at least 30 mins, so cancel that). The sweet potato balls here aren't like your fried pasar malam kind, they are really light, almost hollow. Crisp on the outside but chewy-ish when you bite into them. Really different, and the taste is great (if you like sweet potato). They don't taste all oily either.

Sweet Potato Balls - RM5.90

For my drink I had pearl milk tea, since I'm currently going through a milk tea obsession (ironically I hate the taste of milk on its own). It was only OK, not great. It wasn't too sweet, and the tea taste was pretty strong and bitter, which I know some people prefer it like this. The one I had in the Curve outlet was more smooth and nicer. And I would have liked it if the cup was filled to the top... Their honeydew bubble tea is nice.

Pearl Milk Tea - RM4.90

Cheesy Pork Chop Set - RM19.90

One of the most common Malaysian-Taiwanese foods is their deep fried chicken/pork. It's one of my favourites, popularised by pasar malam nuggeto. This is the Cheesy Pork Chop Set. I found the coating flavour wasn't as nice as the fried chicken. The cheese was pretty bland (didn't stand out) but nice for something different.

3 Cup Chicken Set - RM18.90

This is my favourite dish here, I'll probably order it most times I go. Chinese 3 variety/cup chicken served on hot plate. The portion of chicken is nice and tender and very generous, I love it since I eat a lot. The sauce is rich and slightly sweet, not over salty. Of course I love that the sets come with lu rou fan (pork rice) at no extra charge, yumyum! Interestingly, I tried the Kung Pow chicken at The Curve outlet and the sauce tasted basically the same, but with boneless chicken instead (and not as much given). I'm inspired determined to learn how to cook this when I come back to Melbourne!

Here's the Mango Snow Ice that came with the 'buy two sets' promotion. It's the type of really finely shaved ice, with mango nectar and a little bit of fresh mango. The snow ice's here are nice but not super fancy.

I like this place, it's a good choice for when you want something nice but can't think of what to eat. They have outlets in Sunway Pyramid, One Utama, The Curve, Sungai Wang Queensbay Mall Penang, Autocity Penang and The Spring Sarawak.

Week Long Long Weekend

2011-09-05T13:03:00.000+08:00

It's been a fun few days this week. Last week was two public holidays, so heaps of people took the whole week off! Malaysian celebration season is the best; just like with Chinese New Year, during Raya everyone leaves KL and goes back to their hometown. But since most of my friends are actually from KL, that means were all still here to play while everyone else is gone. And everything is more enjoyable because NO TRAFFIC.

Breezing down the highways, actually being able to find car parks. So good.
I finally got a chance to lunch at a spot I've wanted to try for years: Meng Kee Char Siew, Glenmarie. Aparentely they're famous for their char siew (BBQ pork). This is very tantelizing for me as, out of all the 'meat rice' (chicken/duck/crispy pork/bbq pork) foods char siu is my YUM YUM favorite!

I got some nice and flavorfull chicken rice, with roast chicken and char siu. I freakin love chicken rice, and try to eat it as much as I can when I'm here in Malaysia. I dam can't justify buying it in Melbourne, you know how much one dam plate of chicken rice costs there? RM30! I kid you not! WTF I hate you Melbourne.

Anyway, I was thinking how could this char siu be any different from any other. Melbourne has lots of really awesome char siu thanks to our huge Hong Kong population, who are the super masters of cooking, I doubt Malaysia could beat that (besides the fact that it also costs 30 dam ringgit). I was worried they'd be sold out by the time I arrived at 2ish, but despite being packed they weren't. The whole time sitting in there you just hear CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP the char siu.

Restoran Meng Kee Char Siu

No. 20, Jalan Pekedai U1/36
Hicom Glenmarie Industrial Park

40150 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

The verdict? It was freakin good. Yes, it was different. It was the meat, it was really tender and not chewy. Every char siu I've had before was somewhat chewy, even the fresh soft ones, but this was different. And it didn't get stuck all in your teeth. Five thumbs up!

After that we had a surprise-meetup with the usual gang at Delicious, Mid Valley. I don't usually go there coz I don't find it so delicious, specially for their prices, but they have soooo many dessert selections there, it was hard to choose. I got stickydate pudding with ice cream and butterscotch sauce, but I kinda regretted after I saw Yen Sun's amazing looking chocolate cake with ice cream. It was OK only, not as good as the one I cook myself.

And to top the day off, I got a great shopping bargain find. I'm not a big shopper, I know I know you're thinking YEH RIGHT, WHAT GIRL ISN'T, but it's true! Weirdly I'm a money saver and my boyfriend is a shopping addict. But I came across a great deal on a great jacket, and thought I deserved a reward for all my stinginess. A wool, winter jacket from the Korean brand Mind Bridge in Robinsons, at 70% off! WooHoo! Usually clearance stuff never has small sizes left, but obviously Malaysians have no use for winter jackets so I was lucky. It shall be perfect for Melbourne, when I go back and suffer in the stupid cold again.

Ta daaa! I'ttl look great with boots, of which I have many :)

I kinda hate shopping in Malaysia, especially the department stores. Unlike in Melbourne where its enjoyable, I find the vibe in department stores here to be really... awkward and uncomfortable. And most of the cloths seem really old and auntyish, and always the same. I also hate going in shoe shops where all the workers are guys, which seems to be most here, specially when there's not many other people inside. Melbourne shoe stores are always staffed by ladies. I don't know but it makes me feel really uncomfy, maybe there's something vulnerable about trying on shoes, sitting down, yanking your shoes off exposing your bare feet, feeling flustered and hot, rushing trying desperately to jam in your food in the shoe, leaning down and worried they can see down your top. UHH! I've saved hundreds of bucks on shoes just because it was creepy and awkward just entering the store. Come to think of it that's probably a good thing then.

Departure Lounge Breakfast @ Solaris Mont Kiara

2011-09-02T00:09:00.000+08:00

I don't even know how I found out about this place, probably in my ~~crazed food search rampage~~ googling 'big breakfasts' and it popped up. I've found myself at Mont Kiara more and more lately, while half the time it's Dominos, I found quite a few neat new places not too far from home. Just annoying that I only stumble upon good places by chance, there's so much out there I'm missing out on!

Anyhow, Departure Lounge attracted me for three reasons:
1) Well priced Design-Your-Own Big Breakfast
2) They get us coffee lovers
3) Good value

Located at Solaris Mont Kiara and also Damansara Uptown, they serve breakfast all day, good for those of us who zombie into breakfast at 4pm after a looooooong night (not that I've had any of those recently -_-). When I arrived there at 1pm on Sunday the place was full. Lucky there was a few tables empty outside. I guess people go there to eat then spend ages and ages and ages ~~wasting space~~ chilling there, no one ever seemed to leave. OkOk maybe I do that too sometimes.

So here's the star: the Do It My Way breakfast platter; from a list of the usual breakfast items, you can pick:

3 items for RM8.90

5 items for 11.90

7 items for 13.90

My first thought? Duhh how can I have any less than seven! That's Miss.Greedy thinking. When you actually look at the list you realise how huge 7 items really is. Even Mr.Greedy settled for only 5; scrambled eggs, chicken sausages, hash brown, turkey ham and +RM1.50 to upgrade from canned to fresh sauteed mushrooms. Not bad considering the last 'big breakfast' I had cost RM24 without tax.

5 piece breakfast platter - RM11.90 + RM1.50 fresh mushrooms

Uncharacteristic of me, I actually wasn't in the mood for big breakfast that day and decided to be adventurous. I love foccacia's in Melbourne, so I tried the Grilled Chicken toasted sandwich (grilled marinated chicken, caramelised pineapple, lettuce, tomato in foccacia bread). It came served with some mayonnaise-y coleslaw.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich - RM13.90

Initially I was sceptical and unimpressed with the size; looked like the stingy end of a loaf. But when I bit into it WOW I totally forgot about that. The flavour was SO good, the sweet, warm marinated chicken with whatever mayo and all the other stuff in there. Maybe it was the caramelised pineapple that gave it the sweetness, but the flavours worked so well together.

My daily coffee hit was a cappuccino. It was pretty standard, satisfying, better than Chilla Cup where I went later.

Cappuccino - RM7.50

The Cookies and Cream smoothie was OK, it had that powdery taste many cookie-shakes have, presumably because of the grinded up cookies (duh). I suppose maybe its not easy to achieve that AMAZING cookieshake like creaminess of Max Brenner. I wouldn't order it for myself though.

Cookies & Cream - RM12

They also had a selection of other breakfasty stuff, salads and sandwiches.

I'm craving pancakes now!

We didn't hang around for long because I wanted to sit somewhere that I could stay for a long time and do some work (that ended up being Chilla Cup with a GIANT coffee). I'm glad I found this budget-friendly breakfast land though, shall head back. I'm pretty happy with what I've discovered in Mont Kiara lately :-)

Departure Lounge

10 Jalan Solaris 4

Solaris Mont Kiara

50480 Kuala Lumpur

Mon-Sat 8am-7pm

Sun & public holidays 8am-5pm

Selamat Hari Raya!

2011-08-30T17:56:00.000+08:00

Today Malaysia and the rest of the world are celebrating the end of Ramadan.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all Malaysians!

Woohoo, today's the day you've been waiting for, fasting all month counting down to. I hope everyone has a fun and safe trip back to their kampung, enjoy grandma's cooking and seeing your family.

This Hari Raya is a double celebration in Malaysia, as today is Merdeka day eve - that's Independence day. And yep, even here it'll be a stars and stripes celebration!

I've been here for a few Merdeka's now, and I love how Malaysia gets really into the celebration. The song nonstop on the radio, even I know (some) of the words. A countdown at midnight tonight, fireworks everywhere. In fact I heard plenty of fireworks last night for Hari Raya.

Last year I celebrated Merdeka in Penang with the boyz, blogged >here<, on another mini-roadtrip. This year though everywhere is booked out, so it's KL for us. I love the countdown celebration, but I have no idea what I'll be doing tonight. Although knowing my luck I'll probably be stuck at home, sitting in the dark on my computer eating junk food. Celebrating from behind the illuminating glare of the screen, like some kind of late-night internet stalker.

But it's still cool! Australia doesn't even have an independence day, or maybe we do, Australia Day? But there is no cool big-united celebration like here, everyone stays home and BBQ's apparently...? For some reason Australian celebrations are pretty lame compared to other countries, its just like everythings closed, go home and sleep children. Maybe it's because of our small and boring-old population though.

For me it's business as usual though. Plenty of work and assignments to get done this week, hope i'll have a chance to blog again soon. Happy Holidays!

One Day Roadtrip: Destination Kedah

2011-08-26T18:35:00.000+08:00

Roadtrip!

When I hear that word it always fills me with excitement. Don't need any other details or description, just that word is enough. Even though roadtrips aren't always exciting, maybe it's just my desperation to get away and do something different.

When it comes time for a roadtrip for boring purposes I always try to spice it up. We can pretend its like the movie Eurotrip, or we're in The Amazing Race. Make sure you have a lotta tasty and unhealthy snacks, and there must be at least one McDonalds stop.

So yesterday it was time for a roadtrip to Kedah. It was strictly business; 12 hours to get there and back, with no food stops, only stop to for the meeting. Of course I was on board straight away, I've never been to Kedah and probably never will again (not because I don't like it, just I have no reason to go there).

Leaving super early at 5.30, I refuelled my body with some Maccas hotcakes, big breakfast and apple pie. Dammit I really wanted a thickshake though! Then it was time for the long, long, 450km drive.

It was pretty interesting once reaching Kedah. For the first time in Malaysia I saw rice paddy fields. No wonder they call Kedah the rice bowl of Malaysia.

Rice Paddy Fields

We arrived at Alor Star for the business meeting nice and early. The people were really friendly, they took us to lunch at one of Kedah's most famous restaurants, No. 88 Curry House.

This place was awesome! I only wish I could have take photos to show you guys. The open air conecpt was fresh and cooling, the place decorated in a modern-meets-traditional wooden style. 88 is famous for their curries, most notably the fish head curry. It was one HUGE fish head in a light, sourish, mildly coconutty curry. We also tried a bunch of other different curries; mutton, beef rendang, chicken, squid and prawn. The prawns were HUGE, but the beef rendang, OMG it was SO good. Seriously I've never had rendang anywhere near as good as that.

That fantastic lunch was a good re-energiser for the long drive back. It started raining so that means it was also a SLOW drive. The North-South Expressway is so scary, no wonder people say its cursed. You know how many accidents I saw that day, EIGHT! Unbelievable. I hope everyone was OK!

It was exhausting but we made it there and back in one day. Mission accomplished! I liked Kedah. People from smaller towns often seem really friendly and welcoming. I wonder if I'll ever go back one day, although if I do it would probably just be another one day rushed roadtrip.

News Today: The (un)Changing Face of Jennifer Hawkins

2011-08-23T14:29:00.000+08:00

Good morning Ninemsn.
Good morning SneakyLily. Here's what i've got for ya today. Important stuff I sayz.
Huh? This is front page news? Speculation as to the activities of Jennifer Hawkins face? Surely there must be something more worldly or significant going on somewhere?
Nup, this is it, take it or leave it.
Ah, well OK, I guess i'll take a looksie....

So this is the news today? I've been kinda suspicious of ninemsn for a long time now. Their front page stories often confuse me... trivial and satirical matters which make for quirky-pun headlines. I suppose no one really expects ninemsn.com.au to be a serious news medium, and I choose to keep it as my home page (more out of habit than anything). I did a quick google-news search to see what ACTUAL important news was going in the world, but the first result kinda freaked me out and got me thinking that maybe google news is no better than ninemsn:

Sodomy II: Doctor tells court he found Saiful's anus healthy
-Malaysia Star - umm....

In Libya's Wake: Pressure Builds on Assad
- TIME - ok, this one seems important

Hubble's Gaze Extends to Edges of Universe
- Voice of America (not Britney folks...) - this is cool to me

Northwestern researchers report breakthrough in ALS research
- Chicago Sun Times - medical breakthrough not related to plastic surgery; not newsworthy

Hurricane Irene heads toward Bahamas
- NEWS.com.au - Surely that's important!

So, here we find ourselves discussing Jennifer Hawkins 'changing face'. Did she or didn't she (have plastic surgery that is), and why should we even care?

For those of you who don't know (everyone outside of Australia...) Jennifer Hawkins is a much loved Australian Icon, kinda like the Australian Amber Chia; 'internationally famous' but only known within Australia. She won the title of Miss Universe in like 2004 and no one ever got over it since.

Admittedly I think she's pretty good looking, accurate physical representation of the Australian female :-) And like a lot of people, I quite liked her up until she hosted that channel 7 reality show...uhh. She lost the respect of a lotta people there. Nonetheless, a few years have passed and we've all kinda forgotten. So why does ninemsn think I should care about whether she's had plastic surgery. That gosh-darn-news publication, pertaining to gossip of all things!

'Hawkins' face has changed'. Comparing pictures from 2002 and 2011. Her face has slightly changed. Wow! Big news! Oh wait, could it be coz of that thingy.. ya know... the passage of time! Admittedly, she does look slightly better now, but not really different.

Duhh, since winning Miss Universe and become rich and 'famous' don't you think she's learned a little about applying makeup, buying expensive skincare, maby a little botox here and there? Who cares? She looks basically the same, but her makeup's been professionally done; eyebrows drawn on and some teeth veneers. Why are these guys so persistently looking do push her down, to de-credit her. BUSTED. Most importantly, why does it matter? Is it supposed to make us (the miserable, low-life public) feel better about ourselves? Well it's a good excuse for me to post pictures of pretty girls on my blog. tehehehe

Jenn in 2002 (right) . Even shorties can win Miss Indy (centre)! woo!

2011. Still nice!

It's been nearly 10 years. I know I sure look different from 10 years ago. If ninemsn did a comparative piece on ME then and now they'd probably fill the internet! Leg extensions! Face reconstruction. Umm... massive brain implant? :-D Umm maybe it's called puberty. The growing from a child to a man. Ermm I mean woman. Though I suspect Jenn had already completed stage.

For ~~humor~~ evidence sake tried to find a picure of me in 2002 to spice it up a bit. But alas, those were the pre-digital days and no such image exists (in data). Probably for the best, I was an ugly kid.

Revisit Plan B with the Girlz

2011-08-19T14:36:00.000+08:00

Yesss! I'm back!

It's been storming a lot in KL recently. A few days ago there was a storm in the middle of the night. The storm probably wasn't any worse than usual, but when you're laying in bed in the quiet darkness of the night it sounds pretty hardcore. till BAM. POWER OUT! Middle of the night, this month... spooky! Nahh, I didn't think about that, I was more annoyed at the loss of my air-con! Living at the top story of the house, it gets dam hot up there real fast! Well I guess all of Malaysia does haha, I am thankful to have such luxuries! In Melbourne my place doesn't have air con, I should be used to sweltering through 40 degree nights >omg I hope I'm not in Melbourne next summer...<

Welcome Back

I haven't had much time to blog all week. Last weekend I woke up nice and early again to meet the girls for breakfast. We were dressed in sunshine.

We were heading to Plan B, I was excited after how much I loved it >last time<.

Plan B's coffee, and the rest of the Big Group, make fantastic coffee, one of my favourites. There just too small! (for me). I was craving it all morning.

Me and Fion are the Coffee~~Addicts~~Lovers

I'll preface this by saying I think we were all a little disappoint in the food that day... I wanted Potato Wedges but my mistake, they are only available after 3pm. I got French toast instead with caramelised banana and marscapone. It took a REALLY long time to come, and now that I look at the web menu it was supposed to have 'macadamia brittle' and it didn't. Last time I ate at Ben's (Pavilion) I ordered the much-raved-about macadamia cheesecake sunday, and there were NO macadamia nuts on it (the expensive part >rollseyes<). Kinda getting disappointed. The French toast was pretty small too, not really worth it, I had to try really hard to eat it in tiny bites or it would have been gone in a second. I should have just got the big breakfast which I know is good (posted about it last time).

French Toast - RM19

Then there was the breakfast omelette. It looked pretty good... but umm... try at your own risk, accidents do happen. That's all I'll say.

Turkey Ham Omelette - RM18

Yen Sun and Fion both had... I can't recall the name... some kinda poached egg on toast with avocado spread and lots of leaves (obviously). I heard the report wasn't great... the avocado spread was really stingy and therefore barely tasteable, and the bread was overcooked and hard. I know those kinda breads 'cut' my mouth when there overcooked, I hope that didn't happen to them.

Poached egg with leaves - approx RM16(?)

So yea... not so great. After this I think I'll just come to Plan B for coffee and snacks, not proper food. MmMm I do want some chocolate cake though, and the coffee alone is enough to bring me back.

Good though, coz it means we will try more different places.

How Can I Blog When I Should Be Doing Important Stuff //frustrated//

2011-08-16T15:15:00.000+08:00

Ahh, I feel like I'm swimming in an ocean of things I need to get done. Deadlines are approacthing, but I'm not stressing yet coz I'm working towards it, I'm getting there. But how can I blog when I have so many 'proper things' I'm supposed to be doing. I've been so inundated with work that I feel guilty just thinking about blogging. Do it in my spare time, what spare time, have spare time then should be working. There's always a job that needs to be done and I'm the only one who can do it. My treat to myself is 'play internet' while eating lunch then back to business. Today I do my readings instead while eating lunch, a hands-free task.

Not long ago back in June I was on holidays, so free, wishing for something to do. Now all at once I'm inundated with business and assignments. How do I choose, both need to be done now both critical in different ways. Do I sacrifice my school work for real work, real world problems of business and money. But I pay prime price to attend school, focus on work at the expense of school? Fail uni need to repeat pay fees suffer guilt, all because of a short term project. Let down myself or those depending on my work?

So how can I blog at a time like this. In a couple of months my assignments will be done and my (current) projects completed. I hate dumb 'all-at-once' deadline schedules, but it always happens to us rite? Only solution is to stop procrastinating and don't let myself stop working. No more breaks, do it till its done. But then my head goes blank I can't think practically any more. What's the point if what I'm producing is as empty as my head has become. Oh well, at the same time I feel proud of what I'm accomplishing, I know the effort I'm putting in is worth it. To be honest, it's not like I have anything better (more practically important) to do...

Janwa Thai Restaurant @ Bandar Menjalara

2011-08-13T19:43:00.000+08:00

Malaysian's love Thai food, and so do I. Now, of course I've never been to Thailand, so I don't know what real Thai food is like, or how what we have here compares to it. I find Thai food in KL to be pretty similar to what we've got in Melbourne, but it's better here coz people do more of the 'shared order' thing rather than a single dish for themselves (get to try more stuff!).

However I rarely ever go to eat Thai food, I dunno why. Maybe coz I don't know where to go, or I don't know how the food at a place is, or it's too far away, or too expensive, or don't even know the shop exists. Ok, well there's a whole lotta reasons.

By a stroke of madness, luck, and hunger-desperation I happened to come across Janwa Thai Restaurant in Banda Manjalara.The small restaurant looks pretty unassuming and unspecial, but I heard that it's well know and well liked by locals. So let's give it a try!

I didn't take much notice of the drinks menu, but it seemed like the usual local suspects. I've been in a coconut-water-loving-faze lately so ordered that, and Wes had cendol, it was just normal.

Coconut - RM4

Cendol - RM3

There were only two of us dining that day, but we were greedy and hungry so ordered a lotta stuff. Well also because we couldn't choose and wanted to try everything! The menu comes with pictures which is a must for me, because I don't know what things are by unfamiliar names.

I love Pandan Chicken, so that was our entree. It was really really nice, generous size, great flavour, but quite oily. We had two each, but next time I want like 10 for myself. Yeh, I really liked it...

Pandan Chicken - RM2 per piece

We chose three main dishes to have with rice, the first being Green Curry Chicken. To be honest, it didn't look very appealing when it was served. I think that has more to do with the tableware though, and I learned a long time that you can't judge based on restaurant looks here in Malaysia (many of my favourites are the ugliest and dodgiest looking places). I really liked it, it was coconut-creamy and spicy. It also had eggplant in it which I enjoyed, and they weren't stingy with the chicken. I drowned my rice in the nice, spicy sauce.

Green Curry Chicken - RM12

My choice, based on the menu pictures, and being scared of all the seafood, was a safe one of deep-fried battered chicken strips. I regretted ordering it, it was really normal and average, like the stuff you can find anywhere. I should have tried something more adventurous, but the problem is I dunno what anything is so I don't know what to choose. The chicken strips were thin, hot and crispy, but pretty oily.

Deep fried chicken fillet - RM12

Lastly, at Wes's request we had fried battered prawns, because he really likes them here. Kinda like tempura-prawns I guess. Ya'al know I'm ~~scared of~~ don't like seafood, but I know he loves it so I gave em a try. To be honest, they were pretty good, the batter was really light and crunchy, its almost like it's not prawn. But then it was prawn, it had that weird prawn texture in the middle, and after eating one I got freaked out and couldn't do it any more. But the taste admittedly was good, it's just my own aversion. So he got to eat them all himself, lucky!

Deep fried prawns - RM15

Overall, I really loved this place and after writing this stupid post I'm freakin' craving it. You happy now? And all that food for just over 50 bucks, not bad! All of the dishes ordered were the small size serve, and they were pretty generous. All the dry stuff came with sweet-chilli dipping sauce, it was kinda like sweet-chilli overkill, I'd have liked some other kinda sauce to try. The restaurant is fairly small only, I'm not sure how busy it gets at dinner time.

Janwa Thai Restaurant

no. 99G Jalan 5/62A

Bandar Menjalara

52200, Kuala Lumpur

tel: 03-6276 5658

Girlie-catchup @ Ben's General Food Store, Bangsar

2011-08-11T00:31:00.000+08:00

Rise and shine early Saturday morning!

Those of us fortunate enough not to be employed on day 6 of the Malaysian work week (Saturday) arranged for an anti-boys breakfast session. With a whole list of breakfast and tea places we want to try out, it's hard to pick just one, but we decided to check out Ben's General Food Store in Bangsar. Yen Sun had heard tantelizing things about their chocolate cake, so the investigation team (Myself, Yen Sun, Elaine & Fion) were called into duty!

I've recently become a big fan of all the restaurants I've tried owned under the Big group for the following reasons:

Good coffee sourced from Market Lane, Melbourne
Contemporary and fairly priced menu
Good coffee
Relaxed, clean, modern, comfy decor
Good coffee

But they're too small! I'm addicted, I need more more more!

Ben's General Food Store has a different vibe than it's brothers, more of a deli-market-cafe atmosphere (as opposed to chill-catchup-spot). With long, communal tables, and bag hooks under the tables for us ladies, the place had more of a sharey-rustic-casual feel. There were plenty of staff around, and complementary water for customers.

The menu here was pretty different from that at Plan B and Ben's Pavilion and KLCC (which are somewhat similar to each other). Their specialty seemed to be pizza and salad, with heaps of choices for each (including sweet pizza). There wasn't heaps of choice for foods and desserts other than those. As with all the Big group restaurants there were freshly made cakes on display, but only 3 or 4 types (as opposed to the millions of desserts/cakes at the others), from memory Lemon Meringue Pie, Carrot Cake, Black Forest Cake, Chocolate Cake, as well as puddings.

We girls shared some salad and pizza, choosing two-person-serve selection of two salads; Caesar Salad and Marinated Button Mushrooms. You could view the salads in the casing nearby the cakes. You don't need to be psychic to guess what I had to drink, coffee (RM6.90), and it was just as awesome delicious as at Plan B (one of my faves so far in KL), so great that I had 2... I wish these places offered a large size coffee though. Elaine's ice-chocolate looked really tempting too!

Ice Chocolate - RM10.90

Served on two plates, the Caesar Salad was standard, the lettuce crisp and not wilted (unlike some places...), not overdone with dressing, and Gruyere-cheese-crisp crouton things (unique and very nice!). The Marinated Button Mushroom salad consisted of the mushrooms served with barley, all marinated in spring onion, soy and lemon. The flavour was unique and not overpowering, but not bland. You can order their salads in single serve, mix for two people, or three people.

2 Salads - RM19.90. This is just half, it was served across two plates

The salads were served quickly while the pizza cooked. Since we were there for breakfast (despite it being after 12) we tried the breakfast pizza. That may have had something to do with my request not to have any seafood pizzas though... haha. The size was about that of a Domino's large, the base thin and crispy. We had trouble slicing it with that dangerous-round pizza-slicer-utensil thing so just used a knife.

Breakfast Pizza - RM19.90

It did taste really breakfast-y! Tomato sauce, eggs, sausage, cheese and beef bacon, though it could have had more toppings towards the edges (maybe I'm just greedy though, my home made pizzas look like a veggie-meat abstract art mess). I really liked that it wasn't as heavy and oily as Domino's pizzas (although there is a time and place for them!). Intrigued but not daring enough, next time maybe I'll try one of the sweet pizzas, maybe the chocolate, banana and mascarpone.

We were pretty full by the time we finished all this, and my two coffees haha. But the day wouldn't be complete without trying the famed chocolate cake, it was the whole reason we went there! Yen Sun and I reserved enough space in our tummies and dug in. Served hot with vanilla ice cream, with chocolate ganache layered within the cake, and melting down onto the plate. It was like something I make for myself as a midnight snack back in Melbourne, and it goes without saying it was amazing!

Classic Chocolate Cake - RM9.90

I think chocolate cake should always be eaten hot with ice cream. Sometimes chocolate cakes tend to be: really sweet but not much chocolate taste, or realy chocolatey, less sweet and cocoa-bitter. This was in the middle, perfect balance (to my tastes when i'm in sweet-mood). If you're a freak who doesn't like sweet things, why would you order cake anyway duhh, so don't get this then if you're just gunna complain. must.appreciate.amazing.chocolate.sensation.

I prefer the other Big outlets to this one, just coz of the more 'usual' menu style which is more to my tastes. Pizza and salad is kind of a limited option, and often I only like to eat pizza when im in the mood for it. However I would like to bring Wes here coz I know he likes salads, and gormet-Melbourne-style pizzas (and I can have my goooooood coffee!). The Big Group are definitely doing something right, dare I say they're my favourite bunch of "proper" restaurants in all of KL.

It was a really good breakfast session with the girls. I can't wait for our next one, hopefully we can organise it before I leave back to Melbourne!! Where are we going next girls?!

Presents in the Mail! Yay!

2011-08-08T16:16:00.000+08:00

Woo! I received a pressie in the mail! Exciting

It's always fun getting packages in the mail, like a replay of your childhood birthdays (unless the packages are textbooks -_-). Maybe that's why people take so naturally to ebay and web shopping, it's like your birthday all the time!

The pressie was from Caroline at Salt and Vinegar. Her blog keeps me updated on all things KL-cute, like the cutest and randomest stuff in store at Kinokuniya (KLCC), best&worst Japanese gift-magazine mooks (P.S. I love the L'occitane tote mentioned in >THIS< post), local beauty-finds and travel.

A few weeks ago I participated in her blog giveaway. I never win anything so I was super excited when I did, and even more surprised when I saw all the great stuff she sent me. I wasn't expecting it at all!

Check it out! I really love all this stuff!

The main give-away prize was the Cath Kidston fan. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the other goodies she generously threw in too! Chocolate My Beauty Diary face-mask, dangerously delicious, I'm torn between using it straight away or saving it forever. I've actually been going through a 'face-mask-faze' lately, how did she know! And I love love love the bracelet; its one of my favourite colours, and the style is perfect. I have trouble finding bangles small enough to fit my small wrists, and this hinged one fits perfectly. Check out the super-cute animal mini-pegs, I've already started bundling together my annoying school print-outs with them, makes my work a little less tedious.

I thought it was pretty lucky-coincidental that the all the things she sent me were things that I've been wanting lately. Like my face-mask-faze, I'm also in need of more hair-treatment, and I've been planning to buy a new makeup brush set for ages! Seriously!! Then I came to realise... ahhh maybe all us girls aren't so different afterall. She didn't need to be psychic, these are things we all love, so smart! So readers, if you're in a jam trying to figure out present ideas, all this kinda stuff is perfect!

Thank you so much Caroline! I really really appreciate your effort and generosity!
You can check out her blog over here at http://caroline-ho.blogspot.com/

Ramadan Buffet @ Cinnamon Coffee House, One World Hotel

2011-08-05T00:12:00.007+08:00

Now there's somethin' you don't see everyday! (in Australia that is)

Visiting Malaysia in the middle of the year means that I'm here for some of Malaysia's biggest events: Ramadan and Raya. Throughout Malaysia people celebrate in a variety of ways. One of the most exciting aspects of the season are the great feasts at the end of fasting. If you can't make it home for grandma's cooking, no worries, there will surely be a restaurant that's got you covered!

When I think of Ramadan feasts, I think of buffets. Well, for greedy people like me buffets are always a winner. For those who are fasting there's no better way to reward yourselves after sundown! I'm always hanging around 1Utama, so it's pretty convenient for me that only a stones-throw away One World Hotel are putting on a spread of home-cooked favourites throughout August. Cinnamon Coffee House at One World Hotel is hosting a nightly buffet dinner from the 1 - 31st August, 2011.

Let's have a little sneak-peek...

mmmmm, hungry yet?

View the rest of this long and picture-filled post through the link --->

Always excited about the chance to eat tonnes of different food at my leisure, I couldn't wait to try their buffet myself. I haven't been to a buffet for ages, is it strange for me to admit I was craving it...? So the other night my waiting was finally over and I headed to Cinnamon Coffee House to give it a try!

Greeting me was a huge variety of temptations. How does one know when to start, and considering the budgeted stomach-space, I surely can't try everything. I was determined to try as many new foods as I could, as well as squeeze in some of my favourites. Catering to everyone, there are a variety of different cuisine types including Malay, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Italian and a crazy-huge assortment of desserts.

Of course the feature of the night are the home-style traditional favourites including nasi minyak sari shawal, kari daging tetel berkentang, ayam masak rendang raya, ikan tenggiri goreng belada, duang sambal petai hirisan, ketam goreng berempah, nangka muda lemak cili padi dengan tulang ikan masin and more. If you're Australian and don't know what all that means, don't worry, as they say a picture speaks a thousand words (click pictures to enlarge).

Of these, I especially loved the ayam kari kapitan (first picture). They even have udang rendang salat terabu (prawn) and ketam masak padang (crab), special!

Cinnamon's talented chef who specially prepared the delicious home-style favourites for Ramadan.

Some of the other special features were the make-it-yourself nasi kerabu station (the fragrent blue rice is really cool) and DIY rojak!

I can't possible go over the hundreds of foods they offered, so here are a few favourites from the different cuisine types.

Indian

Offering the famous salmon rassem soup, tandoori meats and of course everyone's favourite satay, in chicken, beef and lamb!

Chinese

Alongside the offering of dim sum, yong tau fu and other Chinese foods...

Sauteed abalone with vegetables

Steamed fish in ginger sauce & braised japanese bean curd with seafood

Wok-fried chicken with kong pong sauce and chestnut(very nice!) & wok-fried prawns with salt and sze chuan pepper

Western

Including a pasta bar, pizza (chicken satay & beef rendang, nice!), selection of cheeses and breads, and most spectacularly; roast lamb with roasted vegetables.

Seafood

Salads

There were a great selection of salads and cold dishes from around the world. The speciality is the make-it-yourself Caesar salad, with all the ingredients you could possibly want at your disposal.

They even had Dolmades, a favourite of my (Greek) family

Desserts

Now what you've all been waiting for... desserts! The selection was amazing, my only regret is that my stomach didn't have enough space to try all of them twice!

There was of course the required, much loved cendol bar, and my favourite fried cempedak.

That's what I call great twin-towers: Chocolate fountain and Macarons!

One of the special features was the teppanyaki ice cream, 'cooked' on an ice grilled and resulting in a smoother texture.

And more petit fours than you could possibly dream of...

The walnut layer cake is amazing, must try!

Delicious, cream filled crepe suzette

I was saving the best for last; the delicious Malay traditional snacks!

I hope you all weren't hungry before reading this post or you sure will be now. Good news is you can get in on a piece of the action this Ramadan.

The Ramadan buffet at Cinnamon Coffee House, One World Hotel runs for dinner from 6:30pm to 10:30pm at RM108++ for adults and RM45++ for children 4-12.

Working hard to keep all their customers happy this Ramadan, Cinnamon Coffee House also offers two more options for enjoying their delicious feasts:

Private Group Dining - private function rooms with selection from set menus from RM130++
Hari Raya open house catering - call Conventions & Events for more information on +60377122289
Take-away gift packs - festive favourites from RM180++

For reservations or orders call +603 7681 1157

Cinnamon Coffee House at One World Hotel

First Avenue

Bandar Utama City Centre

47800 Petaling Jaya

Selangor

Mini-Penang-Roadtrip

2011-08-02T16:11:00.001+08:00

Phew! I had a whirlwind weekend.

Penang Roadtrip Mini-Holiday! Woooooo!

I'm in Penang B*tch! (that song line actually did play!)

At the extreme last minute on Friday, we decided to embark on a brief getaway Saturday to Penang to help give B a birthday celebration he'd never ~~remember~~ forget.

I love Penang, well I just love any rare chance to get out of KL (Melb doesn't count!). But damm 17 hours is not enough! It was rush rush rush, coz of work commitments we couldn't have time to do or see any of the cool things Penang has to offer (besides the food). As a bunch of clueless KL kids we have no idea what to do, see or go in Penang (not that we'd have had time to) so I know there was so much we missed out on, but next time right!

My last trip to Penang was just as brief, 1 year ago, posted >HERE<. And just the same; arrived at night, left in the morning.

I'm not exaggerating, the trip went a lil somethin like this: Reached Pulau Pinang at 10pm Saturday night, changed at hotel, went to birthday celebration, hotel to sleep, wake, go for breakfast, leave!

But it was heaps of fun anyway, as it always is when you travel with a bunch of close friends.

The Family Portrait

The Hat Family Portrait

So the trip consisted of 3 things: the sights, the nightlife, and the food!

The Sights

Well, since we didn't have time to actually go anywhere or do anything, all the sights were experienced from the hotel balcony. But they were nice anyway! Wes was the only one who even stepped foot on the beach; on his random, unexpected morning run.

There are soooo many high rise apartment buildings and hotels along the coast, I really wanna buy one and keep it as a holiday house (erm.. when I win the lottery haha). I can totally see why so many foreigners go and work in Penang, it's just got a whole different, cool feeling compared to KL which is just like... congested. Makes your mind feel clearer. Even though it's by no means a quiet city, there is heaps of traffic jams and crazy drivers just like here, there's just something chill about it...

The Nightlife

The whole purpose of our visit was the nightlife, to celebrate B's (<- see very discreet!) birthday with him. Happy Birthday btw! We joined the crowd in Mois to have one hellova celebration. And there is really only one way to celebrate properly; with champagne duhh. Don't worry, imma sneaky-smarty pants, I drank lots of that blue bottle there instead; water!

We responsible girls all remained sensible though, someone needs to look after those clowns!

The DJ at Mois was great too, almost heard some of my fave hard-style hits till he morphed them into Top30 pop tunes... yeh Justin Beiber Penang loves you.

The Food

Every region of Malaysia has it's own famous foods, and Penang is home to some of the country's favourite. But not my favourite... I must be the only person in the world who doesn't love Penang's Food Delights (with the exception of Alvin). Coz they're all SEAFOOD. And not the normal seafood like fish, but the super freaky alien-ish ones. People look forward to holidaying in Penang for great seafood, I look forward to returning to KL for delicious not-seafood. But at least all the other guys were super delighted, and I'm sure you all would be too. For the other 99% of the normal, sane population, you will love Penang for their fresh, varied and creative seafood! So these descriptions are meant with humour, not offence OK!

Even for a seafood-hater like myself, I must admit the food from the hawker place we had lunch was awesome (the non-seafoody bits). Some of the breakfast favourites included:

Penang Char Kueh Teow
Everyone knows Penang is famous for their Char Kueh Teow, and the one I had for breakfast really was great; spicy & flavoursome (cept for the seafood bits that I picked out, don't know why we just can't order it without...).
Cendol
Well I always love cendol anyway (but the ones in KL & Melaka are better!). I was relieved in the rare comfort of knowing it couldn't have any seafood in it.

On the smorgasbord of things which fascinated, shocked and made me shudder:

Penangs famous oyster omelette
Asam laksa (blended fish laksa)
This plate of random tentacle-leggy-engine looking things. It is the culmination of every food I've ever been scared of, all on one fascinating plate.

Popiah, I was excited about it till I realised it was all seafoody too...
And lots of seafoody steamboat sticks

Ahh, all this makes me glad and thankful for my breakfast today of lovely, normal KL chicken rice. I'm sure there are many nice non-seafoody things in Penang too, but the whole point of going there is to try their famous specialities. I do like fish and lobster though, so next time I go there I'd like to find some good ones of those :-). As long as Alvin is there too to mediate and take my side.

I hope I can go back to Penang soon, and this time for a few days so I can see all the cool things I know are there. But I really doubt I'll be travelling anywhere else aside from Melbourne any time in the next few years, so I'll just remain content with my KL bak-kut-teh loving life.

Rainy dayz and Mondays always get me down

2011-07-30T12:43:00.000+08:00

I hate rain!

People here in Malaysia like it when it rains, coz it brings (slightly) cooler weather. Fair enough, I suppose you guys never get any other break from the heat. But I hate it. Coz I just hate rain, no matter where no matter when. Just enough to avoid drought in Melbourne is OK, and preferably Australia can rain as much as it wants when I'm in Malaysia, perfect!
Generally, here in KL when it rains it storms. And it extra sucks here coz so many things are outside reliant:

Can't go out and eat hawker/mamak foods
Can't go pasar malam.
It's extra humid and sticky
Random road floods = traffic chaos
Lightning striking and blowing up my modem/computer

The weird/cool thing is, usually after storms here there is this eerie calm feeling. Like the calm before the storm, except after. Last year I noticed an abnormal amount of broken, lightning struck trees around my neighbourhood. Scary, I imagine it was so close to being my house. I'm really paranoid of the power circuits in my house blowing and exploding my precious computer awwwwww.

One of the better parts of all the storms KL has though is that the traffic lights around my neighbourhood often go out. No traffic lights = much better traffic flow! It's not like people particularly obey them anyway, so it's just extra confusing whether people are gunna cut you off or not. At least when the traffic lights are down, people just go for it but are somewhat cautious. Everyone gets through faster, dead traffic lights FTW!

Anyhow, I have an awesome and exciting weekend planned, but I won't tell you why 'till after. I'll leave you with a couple of great photos I captured this past week that I really love. Both were snapped by sheer luck, right place, right time, when I usually wouldn't have my camera with me.

Bird

Dragonfly

Dragonfly closeup

Kissaten Japanese Fusion @ Jaya One

2011-07-27T12:00:00.000+08:00

Yes I do. Well in the few times I've been there I did.

The Japanese love doing fusion with their cuisine, don't they? Or is it that we like doing the fusion... I don't know. Either way, theres lots of fusing going on. And the result? Some of it I like, some of it I don't.

Kissaten is another of these Japanese-Western fusion restaurants, located at Jaya One. (non-Halal)
The difference with them is:
1) They have their own really unique and innovative dishes that actually sound awesome
2) not stingily portioned
3) well priced.

Onto the food! There are plenty of drink options, from the usual bottomless green-tea, to local favourites like teh and coffee ice, a range of international beers, the usual's like ice lemon tea, even proper espresso based Illy coffee (they're OK, not the best, but good enough that I'd order again if I was to go in the morning). What I wish I could find there but cannot is Calpis soda's.

Today I had Teh Ice, it was normal.

Teh Ais - RM6.90

Kissaten is famous for is their Teriaki Burgers, and their Pizzas. Last time I tried the Char Siu pizza... OMG its awesome. But two big to order for us two during this meal, so had to go without. TRY IT. Last time I had the Teriaki Pork burger, it was amazing, so this time I tried Teriaki Chicken Fillet burger.

Teriaki Chicken Fillet Burger - RM12.50

This was served on an open, toasted bun, with lettuce and spinach (I think) underneath, mayo, and a chicken fillet cooked with teriaki sauce. There were a few wedges on the side, they were actually fantastic, I'd get a side order of the wedges next time. The burger of course was nice, however the chicken fillet still had the skin on which was annoying coz I didn't like the texture so had to peel it off. I actually preferred the Teriaki Pork burger from last time, the taste of the patty was more complex (blended with herbs), it had egg, and was an overall more enjoyable eat. Ill get that next time.

Katsudon Set - RM24.50

Wes ordered the chicken Katsudon set, which also came with green tea, miso soup, and some other soup. The egg omelette is a little undercooked (which I hate but you guys seem to enjoy). I didn't try it, but Wes orders it every time so obviously he really likes it. The portion was very generous, clap, clap, clap.

Pan Fried Gyoza - RM8.90

And no visit to a Japanese restaurant would be complete without Gyoza. The Gyoza here were awesome, lots of filling inside and plenty of flavour. They weren't too oily or soggy either.

I think this place is worthy of SneakyLily's List of Places Tourists Should Try, just as long as you try the Char Siu (BBQ Pork) Pizza, OK!

Kissaten

L-12a-1-1, Palm Square

Jaya One

72A Jalan Universiti, 46200

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Phone: 03-79541990

View the menu on their Facebook Page >HERE<

Cooking Snow Skin Mooncakes @ Zuan Yuan, One World Hotel

2011-07-24T22:19:00.001+08:00

I come to Malaysia twice a year; the end of year quarter, and mid-year quarter. The end of year has fun events like Christmas, New Year and Chinese New year. Mid-year has it's own cool stuff too, like dry season, durian season, Hari raya, Merdeka, and Mid-Autumn Festival, or as many of us locally call it, Mooncake Festival.

Last year my household celebrated the Mooncake Festival with a BBQ at home, which I wrote about >here<. I remember my first time trying Mooncakes, back in Melbourne at a Malaysian Aunties house. I thought 'what, such a tiny slice, what kinda cake is this!'. I bit into it and was pleasantly surprised. It was my first time tasting red-bean paste, and I realised the serve was so small because of their rich taste and texture. Until I came to Malaysia I didn't realise how many delicious varieties of Mooncakes existed, and how highly sought after they can be.

Not many Aussies can say they've cooked Mooncakes with the some of the countries finest, specially trained chefs. So I jumped at the chance to learn how to cook snow skin mooncakes with the chefs of Zuan Yuan Chinese restaurant at One World Hotel!

Snow skin mooncakes are the ones with the soft, stretchy outer, served chilled. I love snow skin mooncakes, and snow skin ice-cream for that matter, so I was keen to learn the insider secrets to impress my family back in Australia.

I joined fellow food bloggers from taufulou.com, foodpoi.com, and lionelong.com at One World Hotel for our cooking lesson. We were making Low Sugar Wheat Grass and Green Tea Snow Skin Mooncakes. Those of you doubting my cooking abilities obviously haven't read my own cooking tutorials posted on this blog (or maybe you have and that's the problem...).

To make the snow skin, we combine icing sugar, glutinous rice flour, shortening and green tea powder. Rub the shortening into the dry ingredients until any lumps are blended in. Add water and mix with your hands until the paste forms a non sticky dough. The snow skin is now prepared, all you need to do is roll it around the filling!

Snow skin ingredients and prepared wheat grass filling

Now for the most fun part, bashing it on the table! You place the mooncake ball into a flour-dusted mould, and whack it side-side-back-front onto the table to embed the shape and emblem. I want to get one of these moulds, got multiple purposes, cooking and self defence!

Mooncake mould

Look at those great professional looking mooncakes us novices created!

And you didn't think I could create such a masterpiece, ha!

After all that learning and cooking and mooncake-mould-bashing we were super hungry and needed an energy boost. Snow skin mooncakes must be chilled to set before serving, so while waiting of course we had to check out some of the other types of mooncakes One World Hotel were offering!

Left to right: Low Sugar Qi Zi Tong Kwei and Chinese Almond, Honey Grapefruit and Mango, Low Sugar Wheat Grass and Green Tea and Low Sugar Royal Milk Tea and Charcoal.

I've never tried this many types of snow skin mooncakes, very excited! I really loved the Royal Milk Tea and Charcoal (on the right), I'm a lover of milk tea, so I could eat a hundred of these! Ok, so I guess I'm partial to the sweeter ones, also loved the Honey Grapefruit and Mango.

Supreme Mixed Nuts and Shanghai Single Yolk Baked Mooncakes

We also tried a couple of Zuan Yuan's baked mooncakes. I don't really like egg-yolk mooncakes, so I preferred the Supreme Mixed Nuts flavour, the filling reminded me of some kinda dessert back in Australia.

None of us greedy food bloggers had eaten dinner yet, so of course we couldn't resist getting into some of Zuan Yuan's signature dishes.

Chicken and Lotus Root Soup

I always love dishes containing crunchy lotus root. This is just the kind of food I miss and crave when I'm back in Melbourne. No fair that I have to wait months before I can get this stuff!

Honey Glazed Boneless Chicken with Crispy Ginger

This was my favourite! The Honey Glazed Chicken with Crispy Ginger Flakes is one of Zuan Yuan's signature dishes, and I can ~~see~~ taste why. It was amazing, the chicken was not over-sweet, and the corners were caramelised. The ginger flakes are specially prepared to be light, crispy and not oily. I'll just have a whole plate full of this for myself, please!

Sauteed Eggplant

Instead of the usual green veggies, we tried the Sauteed Eggplant. It's not easy to cook eggplant well, overdo it and it goes mushy. Somehow they manage to overcome this and keep the eggplant's texture firm, but melt-in-your-mouth. This sauteed dish is fairly oily, and flavoured with garlic and basil. Check out the colour contrast of the purple and yellow, great presentation! We washed all this rich, tasty food down with Zuan Yuan's fried rice.

Fried rice with prawns

Chatting over dinner we discovered we were all durian lovers. I've been going all out this durian season, I don't care how heaty and dehydrated it makes me, there are only a few months a year I can get it so must make the most of it! I wasn't aware that Zuan Yuan offer amazing desserts using Malaysia's favourite fruit. Sorry to my Melbourne readers, you'll have to come here to try this speciality! Words can't even describe how amazing these durian desserts were, a picture says a thousand words.

Durian Pancake with Cream, Deep Fried Durian Puff, Durian Ice cream

Need I say more?

I can't wait to go back there to get some more of that honey glazed chicken and the durian puff with ice cream into my tummy. Come to think of it, those milk tea snow skin mooncakes were pretty addictive as well. Lucky me I don't live too far from One Utama, and since I'm a ONECARD member I get 10% off the mooncakes too, woohoo! Special thanks to Bok from taufulou.com for inviting me along!

If you wanna get some too, head to

Zuan Yuan Chinese Restaurant

Ground Level, One World Hotel

First Avenue, Bandar Utama City Centre

Petaling Jaya, Selangor, 47800

You can try their mooncakes dine-in or takeaway, don't worry I didn't cook any of them!

To order call Zuan Yuan at 603-7681 1159.

Since now I know how to make snow skin, I started pondering, if I could make any mooncake filling what would it be? I was kind of surprized and embarrased at my own answer... cookies and cream flavor! What about strawberry sherbet! Hmm... Or for something more traditional, maybe coconut-red bean. MmMmMm.

What about you? If you could create any flavour mooncake, what would it be?

Plan B @ Bangsar Village - Melbourne Style Brunch!

2011-07-20T14:39:00.001+08:00

Sorry if this review is a bit long, when I'm enthusiastic about something I tend to go on and on...

Ok, not quite brunch since it was the middle of the afternoon, but I just like using that word. BRUNCH.

Finally I've found a place I'm happy with, Plan B at Bangsar Village (old part). I wanna go here every single week! But I guess that won't happen since Bangsar is far away and it's pretty crowded there. Open one in PJ near the Curve or Tropicana dammit! PLEASE!!! How about Mont Kiara??

Seriously, how is it that I didn't know about this place before (maybe because I've never in my life been to Bangsar Village...). If any of you guys reading know of similar places, PLEASE let me know by commenting below! You know I'm freakin desperate! (good coffee being an important criteria)

By their own description, Plan B is a 'modern Aussie-meets-New York-deli' style place, priding themselves on their coffees selected from Market Lane, Melbourne. Yeah! See, it's not just me, Melbournians really appreciate a good coffee! And now there is someone smart enough to deliver it to us in KL, bwahahaha!

The Coffee:
First and foremost I needed a coffee; cappuccino it is! I know you're all wondering with baited breath, SO, was it up to scratch? YES! Perfect, couldn't have wanted anything more.

Cappuccino - RM6

The blend was smooth, warm, creamy, like a hug, exactly the type I like best (not acidic or burnt, I know some people prefer this). The art on top was very cute, and it was served with a piece of biscotti for dipping, nice! The only shortcoming, what makes a cappuccino a cappuccino is the layer of froth on top. It completely depends on the barista's skills, when done well this should be light, thick enough to pick up with your spoon, and distinctively creamy (95% of places don't get it creamy tasting at all, its just like eating a bunch of bubbles). The froth on this cappuccino was barely noticeable, but I was only interested in the awesome taste of the drink anyway.

Wes ordered an Ice Chocolate, which he used to love drinking in Melbourne. I think we both didn't realise the breakfast platter came with two drinks, so it was an extra bonus when my coffee ended up being covered by that.

The Food:
I've been craving potato wedges, not having had them since my last visit to Stadium Cafe. At Plan B, they serve them with the necessary sour cream but not sweet chilli, so remember you need to ask for chilli sauce.

Potato Wedges - RM9

They were awesome! Hot and fresh, they seemed like the nicer type of more 'home made' wedges, rather than the cheap-mass-frozen ones, but I don't actually know for sure. The important thing is that they were delicious, and the serving size was enough to satisfy me.

My other most loved and searched for food, Big Breakfast! Wes ordered Plan B's Breakfast Platter (two eggs any style, served on toast with crispy turkey bacon, golden hash brown, juicy breakfast sausages, baked beans, sautéed mushrooms & roasted tomatoes + fresh orange juice & a choice of coffee or tea).

Breakfast Platter - RM24

Big Breakfast is one of my favourite foods in the world, and this is the best one I've had in Malaysia! It had all the perfect elements, and the were all tasty and of good quality. I loved the hash browns and roasted tomatoes. I guess they were out of sausages as it was missing, but they made up for it by giving and extra hash brown (yay!). To my surprise, the Breakfast Platter also came with a glass of fresh orange juice and a coffee, so I didn't have to pay for the cappuccino I initially ordered! That's great value which I appreciate, so I ordered an extra coffee after that since they were so good.

By Comparison: The Big Breakfast at Magnificent Fish&Chips bar is really greasy and more expensive, at The Bee its the same price but a lot smaller & less filling and only came with filtered coffee or tea bag.

To be honest, this place will now become my default 'wanting to go to for breakfast' place, instead of The Bee (which I'd rather try for dinner). If only Wes can be bothered bringing me all the way to Bangsar. It was much better value, at The Bee we only got filtered coffee and tea-bag tea, here we got two cappuccinos, ice coffee and orange juice, as well as a much larger portioned big breakfast, for the same total price!

THANK YOU Plan B, you're exactly what I've been searching for!

Website:http://www.thebiggroup.co/planb/

Plan B (outside entrance near Starbucks)

G5, Ground Floor
Bangsar Village 1
No. 1, Jalan Telawi Satu
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur
+6 03 2287 2630

Awesome Anniversary Weekend!

2011-07-19T00:03:00.000+08:00

Wooo! I had a goooooooooooooooood weekend. How about you?

I've been internet free all weekend. That's right, havn't used my laptop at all, and it felt GREAT. To just focus on enjoying the things going on NOW and not hibernating within the virtual world.

This past weekend was extra special to be because I'd be celebrating an very important date... me and Wes's anniversary!! Awwwwwww

At Genting

You wouldn't even believe me if I told you how many year's we've been together. I met him when we both dumb little high school kids back in Melbourne. It was completely random that we even met, he was older than me and went to school on the other side of the city, and our personalities are completely the opposite. I was a little nerd and he was the cool kid. Somehow it clicked. We really have grown up together; through high school, uni, moving houses, illness, moving countries!

We have so many crazy and great memories. One year we lived the poor student life in an unfurnished house with no fridge or microwave, surviving on indo mie. After that we spent a year staying in Ben & Alvin's living room, sleeping on the sofa, how's that for a girl! At one time there was 7 of us staying in that tiny two bedroom apartment! But those were the funnest times, stuff I wouldn't change for the world.

Now I live in a different hemisphere, have a new family and home. But despite all the lifestyle changes, to me he hasn't changed, I still see the same person I fell in love with all those years ago. And that's what it's all about.

It did end up a fun-filled packed busy weekend. Starting with Yen Sun's birthday party, which was SO much fun! Finally got to see a few of the guys I haven't seen since last time I was in Malaysia, as well as the usual gang.

I'd spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to have our Anniversary dinner on Saturday night. It turned out to be a great choice trying Ben's @ Pavilion. Great food and atmosphere, exactly the kinda place I like, but as usual I really overestimated my stomachs capacity and ate way too much. Smoothie, entree, main course, dessert. Straight after we rushed up to Genting to catch the Glitz performance. In the car my tummy hurt so bad coz I overfilled it, and I got sooooooo sleepy I was sure they put sleeping pills in my food (obviously they didn't though). WTF so much food and sugar shouldn't I feel full of energy, not passing-out sleepy!

It's really fun watching performances like Glitz, something different, memorable and captivating. Glitz was an hour long show combining a few acts from around the world; Illusionist and escape artist Charles Bach was the main act, the show also featured Chinese acrobatics as well as dance performances.I wanna go to Vegas and watch the REAL performances (...not those kind of performance...).

Typically, a trip to Genting wouldn't be complete without me forcing Wes to reluctantly take sticker photos. Even though he hates it us girls always get our way! I won't embarrass him by showing you though! haha

The next morning I wanted to treat him to a special Melbourne style brekkie; headed for the first time ever to Bangsar Village to try Plan B, a cafe based on Melbourne style...cafes. Which by now you guys know I'm obsessed with, and me and Wes used to love chilling at those kinda places back in the day.

It was one exhausting weekend, but was more fun than all the ~~crappy boring~~ weekends I've had since I came back to Malaysia. WOO!

Be Afraid: Bird Eye Stabbing Rampage

2011-07-15T08:06:00.000+08:00

OMG. See, it does happen! You all told me I was crazy! Now who's the crazy one!! (probably still me...)

UK tourist's eye pecked out by bird (ninemsn news)

Ok, so I have this (ir)rational fear of birds. I'm not always scared of birds, or all birds, only those ones that swoop around your head crazily when your walking past. You see, I have this fear that the bird will fly at me and its beak stab into my eye. That's totally understandable right? I mean, they're equipped with what's essentially a sword at the front of their face, flying at high speeds, PERFECT STABBING MOTION.

And birds are territorial, so when you're walking by 'their trees' containing 'their babies', they have been known to attack people! And we all know some birds are just crazy, flying all over the place AT EYE LEVEL , an eye stab could be imminent at any time!

We all saw in high school when birds would fly BAM into the windows of the classrooms. That was one loud noise, those aerodynamic bastards are sure flying with force. Who says that can't be your eye next time!

I imagine there would be a squishing noise, followed by (my) screams, as the bird's pointy long beak is embedded centimetres into my eyeball. And I'm not aware that bird's can fly in reverse, so that motha------ is just gunna keep flapping around digging its beak around in your eye. Until you PULL IT OUT. That poor guy from the news, his whole eyeball came out!!! (yea, like on Hostel!) It's bad enough when bugs fly into your eye, now times that by 1000! (yeh, i've had a lot of bug-eye attacks...).

People thought I was mad, but no, now that I've seen this report we know it can happen. BLINDED BY BIRDS! Now I'm extra worried. Need to start wearing sunglasses when walking around outside more! Malaysia doesn't seem to have that many birds, but around my house in Melbourne there sure is!

Mystery Mansion Party & MORE Delicious Snacks!

2011-07-13T15:06:00.000+08:00

Last night had a very ~~scary~~ interesting drive to the other side of the city, lost in Cheras for an hour searching for an unknown (to us) location. Note to self: Get a GPS! We were on the way to Elizabeth's birthday party! Happy Birthday Girl! Thx for inviting us! It was in a cool mystery-mansion. Also well decorated with party snacks & beverages, including the famous Kajang Satay (which I dream to one day actually go to Kajang to try it myself, but probably never will coz its miles away from me), and durian (LOL random!).

The house was awesome, decorated really modernly and colourfully, apparently it's often used for photoshooting, looks like it would be a good porno set as well. erm... anyway. We couldn't stay too late past 12, being a weekday we were tired, had a long drive home and work the next morning, but it was good to see those guys who I haven't seen since last time I was in Malaysia. As well as babez Ally and Amanda.

And special thanks to whoever brought the birthday cup-cakes! They were so so pretty (from Bisou Bake Shop). I was really interested in trying them, as often times pretty cupcakes look nice, but taste plain and boring (I've found in Melbourne, anyway). I'm into cooking and baking, and have made some 'gourmet cupcakes' of my own (with the help of my pro-patisserie sister), so was excited to see they stood the quality-taste-test as well!

Chocolate ganache makes me happy!

I really do like chocolate ganache (pure cream-chocolate icing). Don't laugh at me, I'll tell you another of my sneaky midnight snacks (for people with ultra-sweet-tooth-cravings). Any random cake (or biscuit if you're desperate), microwave with some blobs of chocolate ganache so it melts, then pour cream over. Yeh... I really do eat this at 2am. Weirdly, up until a year or two ago I didn't like cake or chocolate much at all, but nowadays I do, but only when I'm in the mood for it (apparently that's at 2am, when I'm not otherwise eating nachos...wtf is wrong with me!). Honestly, thinking about it right now, I feel kinda gross lol.

Right before going to the party I got to try a new food I've been craving (yes another one). KFC's Ole Toasted Pocketful!

I saw a picture of it on an add the other day and WH-WH-WHAT! Nachos in a chicken wrap, now that's my dream KFC food. Let me say, it was as satisfying as I'd anticipated, inside wrap bread was a hot&spicy chicken fillet, cheese, corn chips, a little bit of tomato and pineapple, and salsa-mayonnaise. YUM. I recommend it (but duhh... I love everything).