Hiatus! No more?

Hello blog. Yes. It's been quite some time I didn't do any new posting on this blog of mine. I have been lazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

If you miss the food post I wrote, well I do update #foodporn pic frequently on my Instagram. So, click and follow my Instagram. Click!

I'll try to update this blog maybe once a month? :P

Here's some photos from my trip to St. Petersburg, Russia last year.

Lunch is nice in my company's factory canteen. The carb here is actually buckwheat, which is in season last year March. Thankfully it's not too cold. Just around -1 - 1 degree Celsius. I was warned by my Russian colleague that in 2012 it went as cold as -15 degree Celsius.

I went to a restaurant specialize in pelmeni (Russian dumpling) the last night I was there. I ordered fillings with beef, chicken liver and salmon. I guessed every culture has their own kind of dumpling dish.

I've never experienced snow before and I thought I could experienced it during my two weeks stay in St. Petersburg but it turned out to be one for warmest March in decade. Lucky for me on the day for me to fly back to KL, it snowed!

Neva river viewed from my hotel room.

Alright. That's all for now. I want to continue playing Magic Duels. Yes, I've taken up the game of Magic the Gathering again where I played briefly when I was in form 5. I promised to post more photos of my St. Petersburg trip in my next post. See ya!

Grasso Coffee

On the way to my sister's place, we took the MRT from Changi to Simei. We need to take a bus from Simei in order to reach my sister place. While my sister went to fetch my niece and nephew from their kindergarten, she bought me a latte from Grasso Coffee and asked me to wait there.

Grasso Coffee is your local coffee shop with a twist. They serve your local Nanyang kopi and gourmet coffee. I asked one of the co-owner are they using Italian coffee bean for my latte (because Grasso is an Italian name), he told me that their coffee bean is from Australia which is milder than Italian to cater for the local taste bud.


True enough, once I took sip of my latte it's not as bitter as the coffee I made in my office, which uses Segafredo coffee bean. Grasso is mostly cater for on-the-go customers, there's only one table there or you can choose to sit at the counter. Pricing wise is quite affordable. My latte cost SGD$3.30 (about Starbucks' tall size).

Grasso is your friendly neighborhood cafe, student gets 10% discount and they are very friendly and know most of their customers.

There's light snack available too, very good for those that needs a quick lunch or light tea time. My niece seems to like their Ham and Cheese Crossaint very much.

Old school on one side.

Modern coffee machine on the other.

According to the co-owner, Anthony, what's the meaning of Grasso. He told me that it means fat man in Italian and the logo is based on one of his partner that is a quite stout.

To help lessen the stress on the environment, customer is encouraged to reuse the paper sleeve by giving rebate on the next coffee if the same sleeve is reused.

If you happened to be at Eastpoint Mall, then you can come a try out the coffee from Grasso which is just in the row of  shops next to the mall. I will say that it taste as good as Starbucks if not better.



Address:

Grasso Coffee
Blk 248 Simei Street 3
#01-132 S(520248)
Email: GrassoCoffee[at]gmail[dot]com
Facebook Page: Grasso Coffee FB

Itacho Sushi (板長壽司), Terminal 3, Changi Airport, Singapore

Hello everyone. I've arrived safely in Singapore although the flight is not exactly a smooth ride due to minor turbulence because of bad weather. Once I've reached Terminal 1 and switch on my mobile phone, I got a SMS from my sister telling me to take the shuttle train to Terminal 3 to meet her for lunch at Itacho Sushi (板長壽司).

For those of you that watches programs from Hong Kong TVB would be very familiar with Itacho Sushi because they are the sponsor for some of the TVB's popular game show such as the Super series (将门人). Itacho Sushi is owned by Taste of Japan Group from Hong Kong. It seems that recently they've expanded to Singapore. I didn't get to try it when I was in Hong Kong but hey, I can do it now in Singapore.

I started off with Avocado Crab Salad SGD$6.30++, I'm a fan of avocado and salmon roe. If I see the item in the menu has any of these two ingredients, chances is high that I will order. Very refreshing salad, the avocado is nicely ripe. The only downside is that the crab meat is not real crab meat -_-

Cod Fish Liver SGD$9++, yums. Although it's not as creamy and flavourful as the Ankimo (Monk Fish Liver) that I had in Tomton but still this not too bad.

Currently there's a promotion on Yellow Tail (Hamachi). One piece of Yellow Tail nigiri sushi only cost SGD$1.90 instead of SGD$2.40. I tried the one with Black Truffle Sauce. Hamachi itself is already a nice fish, with the black truffle sauce, it's just added a new dimension to it.

Uni (sea urchin) SGD$8.20++ and Ikura (salmon roe) SGD$3++ gunkan sushi are my favourites. I will say that the uni and ikura here are fresh. 一乐也.

Last but not least, Wagyu Beef Roll SGD$13.60 (I forgot which prefecture the beef is from, most definitely not Kobe). It's not easy to find beef sushi in Malaysia, cooked one yes but not raw beef. Never thought beef sushi can be this nice even my mom and sister give a thumb up. Tender and fresh.

Overall, the quality of the food here it good albeit the so call crab meat. Price is quite reasonable for the quality ingredients it's serving. Go for their promotional items and one can saved up quite some money.



Address:
Itacho Sushi
Outlet 1 : ION Orchard #B2-18, 2 Orchard Turn
Outlet 2: Plaza Singapura, #02-35, 68 Orchard Road
Outlet 3 : Bugis Junction, 200 Victoria Street, B1-05
Outlet 4 : Changi Airport T3, 03-30/31
Outlet 5 : JCube 02-35
Singapore, Singapore

Today 11:00 am - 10:00 pm

Utter Dissapointments in Sepang Golden Palm Tree Iconic Resort & Spa During Company Team Building

This is the final straw. My department did a cross-department team building trip and we the committe chose to held it in Sepang Golden Palm Tree at Sepang Gold Coast. It was all nice, the facilities are good and room is very nice. I especially like their very comfortable bed. The tea break pastries were excellent.

Things started to go downhill when evening come.

1. Luggages were sent to our rooms quite late. We reached here at around 2pm but our rooms were not ready yet. So, we decided to start our team building session because we've hired two coaches to facilitate our team building activites. The hotel promised to send our luggages to our room but after our team building session, which is about 6 pm, we found that our luggages were not in our room as promised.

2. The buffet dinner is meh. Not only that the food tasted mediorce, the seafood is not very fresh at all. Services is quite poor too. Plates were not clear, the waiters will not attend to you and only after a few calls only then they will attend to you. The choice of dishes is repeated night over night for the cold dishes and salad.

3. In the evening, we were told to turn down our speaker volume because there's some Kementarian heads doing budget in the ballroom next door. Come on, if they want to do budget do in their meeting room, why book a resort's ballroom? Who's paying for that? Not our money? We didn't entertain their request of course but the next day, we found that our speaker volume was tune down to utterly low volume.

4. Some of my colleagues' rooms have no water supply. This drag on for whole day only someone was sent to look into it, and it turned out that the water supply switch was turn off. WTF.

5. Tonight, I thought the BBQ dinner that we've paid extra for will be the saving grace. At first, we were promised BBQ dinner near the beach. Then we were told that the beach was booked for private function and moved us back to the buffet restaurant. So, when we got there, we found out that we will be eating the same kind of buffet that we had yesterday that cost way less than what we'd paid for. Call to complain didn't help. It's too late for them to serve us BBQ because we still have team building session to attend.

In short, Sepang Golden Palm Tree Iconic Resort & Spa, Sepang Goldcoast has over promised and under delivered. I don't think we will ever come here again for any or our teambuilding trip. Also, the beach here is not very suitable to conduct seaside activities.

Roasted Pigeon (烧乳鸽) at Shui Wah Restaurant 萃華酒家, Shatin, Hong Kong

The night after my cousin sister's wedding lunch buffet, my uncle decided to treat us (my cousins and another uncle and aunt) for dinner in Shatin (沙田). Shatin is famous for roasted pigeon (烧乳鸽) and chicken porridge. This is my first time coming to Shatin.

I was going on a shopping trip with two of my cousin sisters and my aunt in Tsim Sha Tsui. Elaine, my Hong Kong cousin decided that since there were 5 of us (we later joined up with my uncle), it's more worth it to take a taxi to Shatin instead of taking the MTR . True enough, taking the taxi we saved up a lot of walking time and it only cost us about HKD$100.

There are a lot of restaurants in Shatin that also sells roasted pigeon. My uncle chose to eat in Shui Wah Restaurant. One need to trust the local for their choice, also I am not familiar with Shatin.

Each of us get one roasted pigeon. The skin is very crispy and the meat is tender. Albeit there is not much meat and that's why the marination was absorbed thoroughly making the meat very tasty.

Lotus pancake is one dish that we don't normally order in Malaysia. I think not many restaurants in Malaysia has this dish too. Lotus root cut into slices and then dip into egg white batter and fried. Crispy at the outer and soft inside.

Next dish is prawn cooked two ways. One is stir-fried with mixed vegetable and another way is deep fried. The stir-fried uses prawns that are big and succulent and very fresh too. Timing is just right and not over cooked. The restaurant provided prawn paste sauce for us to dip the prawn. It taste a bit like our belacan.

The tofu is smooth and nice to balance off the heavy tasting dishes that we had.

Of course, need to have some greens to balance the meal.

8 prosperity duck (八宝鸭), the version here is a bit different from the one I ate in Sek Yuen. For one the version here uses more expensive ingredients for the stuffing like fish maw and abalone slices.

Claypot glass noodle.

Steamed pork with prawn paste.

My aunt order a single portion of chicken porridge for us to have a taste. Smooth, sweet (from the chicken meat and bones) and tender.

Last but not least, complementary dessert of taofufa (豆腐花). Which I was informed is house made by the restaurant chef.

If you don't want to take the taxi you can opt to take the MTR Tai Wai station. Shui Wah Restaurant is just opposite the station.


Address:

Shui Wah Restaurant 萃華酒家
51 Tsuen Nam Road, Tai Wai
大圍村南道51號

Tel: +852 2606 7117

Margaret's Cafe e Nata, Macau

After 5 days in Hong Kong, I went to Macau for a 2 days trip before going back to Kuala Lumpur. The recent I visit Macau is mainly because my friend is working in Galaxy Macau and he has a place for me to stay so I can save on accommodation.

I was brought to Margaret's Cafe e Nata to eat their popular Portuguese egg tart. Actually I've eaten the egg tart here before when I was here for a day trip in March. This time I chose to eat in the cafe itself.

As usual the cafe is packed. Long queue of people packing away their Portuguese tart.

To really appreciate the true taste of their egg tarts, I suggest to eat it in the cafe instead of taking away. First, it will still be warm. Second, the skin will be crispier than take away and lastly the butter taste in the skin will still be strong. That is what makes the different, it's the butter taste in the Portuguese egg tart. Of course the soft creamy egg custard is also the reason. I found the egg tart taste way better than I last ate it (I packed the egg tarts last time).

I also ordered a cup of hot latte to go with the egg tarts. Ah, this is how one should enjoy their Portuguese egg tarts. I still haven't had the chance to try Lord Stow's Portuguese egg tarts though. Some say the latter is better but for me Margaret's Cafe e Nata's egg tarts is really very good. So if you visit Macau, trip both of the version and see which one you prefer ;)





Address:

Margaret's Cafe e Nata
Edificio Kam Loi, Macau, China Rue Do Rd. Pedro Jose Lobo
+853 2871 0032

金華冰廳 Kam Wah Cafe, Hong Kong

I've been to Hong Kong quite often, I was there two years ago, this year March and more recently last month. Yet, there are still a lot of eateries that I haven't try yet like Tim Hau Wan Dim Sum, Mido Cafe, and Kam Wah Cafe. I've read some rave review about the polo bun in Kam Wah Cafe from KampungBoyCityGal and James. So, I decided that I must at least go to one of the eateries that I haven't try yet even though I have quite a busy schedule during my trip to Hong Kong last month.

I took the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui to Mongkok station and exit through B3. Reading the direction from the Word document that I saved in my Nokia E7 is quite confusing because I don't have a compass to go Northbound. So what I do is cross over Mongkok Road using the pedestrian bridge. You'll be able to see Nathan Road just continue to walk along Nathan Road until you get to the first junction, turn right. You are now in Bute Street. Just walk straight and you'll see Kam Wah Cafe across the street. It's not hard to spot because their will be a lot of people queuing outside the eatery to buy freshly baked polo bun.

Obviously it will be packed but luckily I managed to get one seat sharing table with other customers. It's the norm in Hong Kong to share table in a "cha chan teng". Since I haven't have breakfast yet, so I ordered a daily set meal (HKD$30). Minced beef with raw egg rice which comes with pork ribs soup.

Set meal comes with a choice of hot drinks. So I ordered milk tea. The milk tea here is not too bad, their tea taste is stronger than I had in Lai Fong Yuen.

Of course I also ordered their famous 菠蘿油 (polo bun with butter) HKD$7. Coming to Kam Wah Cafe and not eating their polo bun is like visiting The Tavern in GAB Brewery and not drinking their Guinness Draught.

I know why their polo bun is so popular. It's crunchy on the top and so fluffy inside. On its own the bun has a bit of sweetness already. Eating it with butter in the middle lifted up the taste even more. Oh, they also have bun there which is also quite popular. I saw in an ATV's show that one of the secret ingredient in making this polo bun is that they use pork lard imported from Holland instead of using local pork lard. Food does taste better with pork lard eh?

Even though it's usually pack here but the turnaround is quite fast, so you don't have to wait too long for a seat.

If you are looking to explore Hong Kong food culture, then polo bun is one of the snack that you must try and Kam Wah Cafe makes one of the best polo bun in Hong Kong.





Address:

Kam Wah Cafe
G/F, 47 Bute Street, Prince Edward
Tel: +852 2392 6830

Other Ppl's View:

KampungBoyCityGal
Motormouth from Ipoh

Hong Kong Ocean Park Halloween Bash 2011!

A few days after I went to Hong Kong Disneyland for their Halloween, it's time to explore Ocean Park's Halloween Bash 2011, which has been running for 11 years. So, their experience in making Halloween attractions should be better than Hong Kong Disneyland.

I was lucky that their Halloween Bash starts on the week that I was in Hong Kong. The first 3 days of the month long will have discounted price ($HKD224, after that depending on the date the price will be HKD$280 or HKD$325) of the entry pass. I bought the Night Ticket in Admiralty before I boarded the bus to Ocean Park. When I reached there, I saw that all the Privilege Ticket (HKD$460) and Privilege Dinner Combo (HKD$680) were all sold out! Details of the ticket pricing here.

My advise is if you are going on Friday, Saturday or Sunday or a public holiday, buy your Privilege Ticket or Privilege Dinner Combo online if you can spend the extra cash because with the normal ticket I have to queue up for 30-45 minutes per haunted house. There are eight haunted houses there, so with a normal ticket you'll have to plan really well to make sure you'll be able to visit all the haunted houses.

Ocean Park Hell Money to use as discount coupon on selected services and products. The face on the money is Allan Zeman, Chairman of Ocean Park.

If you can't get the Privilege Ticket then go early! Reach there before 6 p.m. and you might get yourself one Early Bird coupon. I reached there early and got the coupon. To activate the Early Bird coupon, I have to go to any of the four haunted houses up on the Summit (take the cable car or Ocean Express to go up) before 6.30pm and get a stamp on the coupon. Once the coupon has been activated, I can use it as a privilege pass for one of the 3 haunted houses in The Waterfront (except for the HTC presents Nightmare in 3D)

Since I wanted to activate my early bird coupon so I took the cable car up to the Summit and queue up for The Last Bus, which took me about 30 minutes to queue up.

Actor playing Dead Policeman suddenly appear in the queue.

Each of the haunted house will have live performance actors/actresses in there. The Last Bus is a haunted houses that will recreate those haunted roads or accidents in Hong Kong. It's actually not very long and I finished it in about 2 minutes.

Scary Rating: 2/5

After getting out from the Last Bus, the ghosts and zombies already started the flag rising ceremony for the Republic of Halloween.

Not a fan of haunted houses? No problem, you can stay at the Dark Side Show stage to watch different shows for the whole night.

Not wanting to waste time, I quickly move to another (I've already got the stamp for my Early Bird coupon from The Last Bus) haunted house, which is The Bloody Workshop.

This haunted houses display different human body parts in each area. Not for the weak hearted if you can't stand blood and gore. Of course there are live performeers inside to scare you.

Scary Rating: 3/5


Next up is the Paper Doll Paradise. As the name suggested, there will be performers dressed as Paper Doll, which is the offering to the dead in Chinese customs. In here, you are as if you are in hell, you'll see the Chinese black and white death god. The scary part about this house is that from the beginning you'll have to separate with your friends because the guard there will split you up to go into one of the two tunnels, you can't go to the same one with your friend.

Scary Rating: 3/5


The last of the haunted house that I went to in The Summit is Zombie Mayhem. It's not very scary but it's very fun because we get to have laser guns to shoot the "zombies" inside the haunted house. The zombies will also shoot at you and your gun will stalled for a few seconds and points will be deducted. Shoot as many targets to get points and in the exit you can check out your ranking.

Queuing up to get the laser gun from the cabinet.

Scary Rating: 2/5
Fun Rating: 4/5

After conquering the four haunted houses on The Summit, I took the cable car to go down to The Waterfront. (I didn't know Ocean Park Express is in operation, damn scary riding on the cable car with strong wind blowing)

The nearest haunted house at the Waterfront after I get off from the cable car is Macabre Studio. The theme here comes from most of the popular Hong Kong haunted movies. So, if you are a haunted movie fan, you will be able to have a sense of familiarity in this haunted house.

Scary Rating: 3/5

Next up, HTC presents Nightmare in 3D. In the 3D show itself there won't be life actor/actress scaring you but while you are inside waiting to enter each 3D room there will be performers acting as asylum patients interacting with you.

As for the 3D show, it's really very 3D that it's like you can touch the items or people in the screen. Think hologram projection. This is one attraction that you can't miss.

Scary Rating: 2/5
Fun Rating: 5/5

6 haunted houses down and 2 more to go. Time to take a short rest and recharge. I used one of the Ocean Park Hell Money to get a 20% discount on the Blue Girl hotdog combo, which gets you a can of Blue Girl beer and a plain hotdog with buns for HKD$40 (Normal price HKD$50).

The queue to Fear Factory is so freaking long that it took me 45 minutes to complete the queue. Here, you are the visitor to a coffin making factory. There will be staffs inside there explaining to you. So, it's kind of interactive. At the last part you have to take the slide down so you can't go together with your friend.

Rating: 3/5
Fun Rating: 3/5


Luckily after I've done Fear Factory it was already after 10pm. This mean I can use my Early Coupon as a privilege pass for the last haunted house, Yahoo HK! presents Torture Chamber of the Dragon Empress. So, queuing time for me here is 2 minutes. The theme here is based on the torturing methods from the Qing Dynasty.

Scary Rating: 3/5

P.S. I am basically quite immune to the haunted houses, so the scary rating I put here is for those brave people, add 1 or 2 more points to the rating if you are a timid person :p

It's already 10.30 p.m. when I was done with the last haunted house. Since, there's still time, so I went up to The Summit again using Ocean Express. During the ride you'll be able to watch some scary animation on the ceiling of the tram.

By the way, it was raining the whole night that night. Lucky I bought the Ocean Park umbrella for HKD$99 -_-

It was a great experience to be able to enjoy Ocean Park Halloween Bash that happens once in a year. If you happen to be in Hong Kong in October, then this is one of the attraction you must visit. Opens from 5.30 p.m. till 12.00 a.m. Please note that the day pass and night pass is sold separately.