Mai Ramen 1st Birthday!

I was invited to Mai Ramen 1st year birthday buffet session two weeks ago. I was invited because the owner wanted to show a token of appreciation of the food post that I wrote when I first ate at Mai Ramen last year. They are so generous that I can invite 3 guests to come dine with me.

So, I invited Emily, and brought two of my cousin sisters Joyce and Jas along with me. The night customer will pay a fee for the birthday buffet, and since it is a birthday celebration, Mai Ramen decided to throw in a deal for the paying customers. The customer that can finished a bowl of ramen within 2 and a half minutes will have his/her fee waived. Quite a few customers managed to win the challenge.

There is a buffet spread on the table. I can have as many as I want. You see that the buffet spread is kind of few in variety right?

House salad

Chicken karaage, tamago sushi and tofu skin sushi

Favourite Japanese snack of most people, Takoyaki balls

Of course the gyoza in Mai Ramen is a must have

Don't worry, there's another part of the buffet that you can order the ala carte dishes. Those dishes is not nice to eat if put on the buffet spread for too long.

I love the salmon sushi roll.

The owner is so generous that we get a plate of salmon sashimi that is not in the buffet menu.

Soft shell crab temaki is yummy.

Crispy prawn tempura. That's why have to be made to order.

Of course, coming to Mai Ramen without eating their Tonkotsu Ramen is like haven't been to Mai Ramen before. I see that the quality is still maintained. Best of all, I get to put in the toppings myself from the buffet spread.

Chashu, pork belly and Ajitsuke tamago (seasoned half-boiled eggs) are a must in my ramen.

We were so full after so many food. As we thought that we will end it after finishing the last of the food, the staff then brought out a peanut snow mountain to us as dessert. Oh well, there's always room for dessert.

We were all so happy that night. Thank you Mai Ramen. Happy Birthay and hope there will be many more birthday to come ;)

I was holding the almond biscuit Emily got for me in Macau

Jas & Joyce

Address:
Mai Ramen Cafe
13-6, Block D, Jaya One


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The Last Polka Ice-cream at The Bee Cafe, Jaya One

Bored with the normal ice-cream flavours? Vanilla is so yesterday, fed up with strawberry and just not in the mood for chocolate. Well, I found just the right place or I meant ice-cream to look for a new excitement in the taste of this cooling dessert. The Last Polka.

Last year joining a food crawl with Nuffnang Glitterati Plus members at Jaya One, our last stop is The Bee Cafe. We come not for food but for The Last Polka ice-cream which is sold here on a consignment basis. Online order is still available at the current moment but I read on The Star Sunday Metro that the ice-cream makers might stop online ordering and focus to partner with cafes and restaurants.

Made with 100% natural ingredients, The Last Polka is a French style ice-cream that is quite different from Italian ice-cream that we called gelato. Lee Ee Vee and Tee May Yee added a few twist in making the ice-cream by introducing some unique and local flavours.

One of the favourite is the Teh Tarik ice-cream. Yes, you read that right. Teh tarik. If you feel like having teh tarik in solid form, this one is a must try. Rich in tea and milk. It's even better than drinking teh tarik in a mamak stall.

Teh Tarik ice-cream

My favourite is of course their Guinness ice-cream. Yes, made from Guinness stout. I tasted two cups that day if I remember correctly. Don't worry, I think you won't get drunk by eating too much Guinness ice-cream :p

Guinness ice-cream.

If you think Guinness ice-cream is weird, then wait till you taste Chocolate Five Spice ice-cream. Made with Chinese cinnamon, cloves, and star anise are just some of the spices we use, along with a generous handful of roasted almonds for a balanced finish. Basically it's what we called 五香粉 in Chinese.

Chocolate Five Spice

If you are a fan of Nutella, then you'll be happy to know that there's a Nutella ice-cream.

Nutella ice-cream.

Horlicks seems to be a popular flavour used to make ice-cream. I tried Horlicks gelato before in Singapore. The Last Polka's version has more milk in it.

Horlicks ice-cream.

For the list of flavours available, you can check out The Last Polka website.

By the way, a few days ago while I was surfing YouTube I bumped into this video about sighting of mysterious item on a hill top at Ulu Yam. I watched the video and I saw something symbol like a star. Also, when the camera zoom out, I thought I saw something moved in that direction. Try watching it to see if you can see anything out of the ordinary.

Doing a bit of googling, I found a picture about this mysterious item that is near the hill top but the mysterious thing is that this star like symbol is now on the ground. Is it real?

Okay. Mystery aside, you can by The Bee Cafe in Jaya One to try out a scoop or two of this wonderful tasting ice-cream. You can also find The Last Polka ice-cream at Marmalade, Bangsar Village II.

Address:

The Bee
K-2A-G, Block K. Jaya One
No. 72A, Jalan Universiti
46200 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
Tel: (+603) 7960 2160

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舞ラーメン Mai Ramen, Jaya One, Petaling Jaya

Last Thursday, I went to watch MACC Internal Affairs in PJ Live Arts in Jaya One. It was really hilarious. I want to thank Patrick for running the contest in his blog which I was able to win the tickets, if not, I won't be able to get any because the tickets were sold out weeks before the show starts.

That's Jessica with the 3 MACC comedians

I invited Celine along to watch the stand up comedy by Douglas Lim, Phoon Chi Ho and Kuah Jenhan. If you missed it, then too bad, you'll have to wait for the next installment of MACC. Before the show, we went to have dinner in this cozy Japanese restaurant named Mai Ramen (literally means Dance Ramen) same row as Royal Oak.

I didn't bring my digital camera with me, so I used my phone camera to shoot the pictures. Bear with the low quality :p

Once we've put down our orders, the waiter serve a plate of Takoyaki balls to us. This is a complementary from Mai Ramen. I'm not sure will this be continued or not, maybe it's a promotion because I think this restaurant is still quite new. The takoyaki ball is not bad at all but be careful not to pop it in your mouth so soon because it's still very hot.

Takoyaki balls, each of us get one ball wtf

We ordered the ramen set, since the name of the restaurant has ramen in it, so we think that ramen must be their specialty. They also have other Japanese dish like Japanese Curry Rice, Don, and etc.

The ramen set comes with a salad, 3 pieces of gyoza (Japanese dumpling) and a glass of green tea. There's three soup base you can choose for your ramen, original (pork bone soup), miso soup (fermented soya bean paste soup) and shoyu soup(soya sauce soup). From what I know, Japanse rarely use miso soup for ramen, the basic 3 ramen soup is pork bone, sho (salt) and shoyu (soya sauce).

Salad

Gyoza

We both opted for the original soup. The salad and gyoza tasted very nice. We were given a sauce plate that contain preserved spicy vegetable (a bit like the preserved lettuce found in teochew porridge) at one side and sauce for the gyoza at the other.

Buta Kakuni Ramen Set (RM 22.90 ++)

Ton Ramen Set (RM 21.90 ++)

I had Buta Kakuni Ramen set (RM 22.90 ++), which has braised pork belly and Japanese chashu in it. The soup is cooked with pork bones and a bit whitish in colour (I suspects fish was added to get the whitish colour). I like the soup here which is not too salty as what you find normally in a bowl of Japanese ramen. Yes, authentic Japanese ramen soup is heavy on the saltiness.

I think the chef tune the taste to suite our Malaysian taste bud. Not really a bad thing actually but I think 菜澜 (Choi Lan) won't agreed with me lol. I love the pork belly, it is so tender and well marinated. Another think I like is the Ajitsuke tamago (seasoned half-boiled eggs), which the egg white is cooked while the egg yolk is still half cooked. Very yummy egg.

This is one place I that I find one of the better tasting ramen in Klang Valley. I won't mind coming back for more of the yummy braised pork belly and the smoked egg.




Address:
Mai Ramen Cafe
13-6, Block D, Jaya One


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MAS Saya Nak Cuti

Alas, my virgin visit to Jaya One. Thanks to Malaysia Airlines, I finally has a reason to come to Jaya One lol. This time the dinner gathering is at Brisik. We were all asked to dress to the theme of ASEAN destination that we wanted to visit. The best dress can win a pair of air ticket to any ASEAN destination of his/her choice. Most of us choose the beach theme, one of the easiest to do mah.

Some are not interested for the best dress.

Wingz, where is Barley?

I like MAS dinner gathering, not too crowded and can meet up some blogger friends. Food is always good too.

With Nigel & Kel Li. We all want beaches. Thanks Nigel for the pic.

Jason came all the way from Malacca and then go all the way back after the dinner. Gung ho.

With Jason Mumbles and Joshua "The Innit King" Ong

My foodies gang was there too.

KampungBoy and Chris

2 couples and 2 singles. Such a match lol.

CityGal, Christine and Ai Wei

Some dressed in Eastern Asian style.

Alicia in her Yukata

Okay. Move on the the presentation. MAS and Astro collaborated to make a reality traveling show. How is it going to be reality? No, it's not Amazing Race kind of reality. This one is to have normal folks like you and me to be their own vacation show host. You've watched a lot of show and see how the host get to have fun eating, traveling, and shopping in a foreign country with all expenses paid. Now you can be at that position too with MAS Saya Nak Cuti contest.


Follow the three simple steps below and you can get a chance to become your own traveling show host.

1. Tell about your dream vacation at www.mastraveller.com.

2. If your story is shortlisted, then make sure you get people to vote for you so that you can be one of the 12 finalists.

3. If you're one of the 12 finalists, you'll be going to host your own traveling show.

Faster, submission closed at 11.59 p.m. 31st January 2010. Click here to participate now.



The bloggers that night also get a chance to win trips to ASEAN country. Besides the Best Dress contest, there's another contest Battle of the Dream Destinations, one need to sell your dream destination in a creative way like one is hosting a traveling show on video. I participated in the latter because I knew I won't win the best dress once I saw RedMummy.

I introduced Bali ala Peter Chou minus the vulgarity lol.

While Thomas Yap introduced Maldives like a tour guide.

Shaz has got the most cast in his hosting.

Shaz getting his sensitive nerve point poked by Jessica.

The judges from MAS and Fleishman took 15 minutes to discuss who are the winner for both contest.

The winner of the Best Dress goes to....

Obviously goes to RedMummy. Look at the traditional Thai dancer costume.

Winner of the hosting contest goes to...

Peter Chao Simon Seow. Yes, that's me. My prize a bit different from RedMummy. Mine is a single all expense paid trip to an ASEAN country chose by MAS. I will be following one of the 12 finalist to the shooting of the traveling show. So, I get to see behind the scene of the production of a traveling show.

Jamie was there too. Aaron came quite late and of course David and Hsu Jen were there.

Oh, and the food from Brisik is not too bad. I like the Sate Serai (lemongrass satay). The food is ASEAN themed too.

Saya Nak Cuti!