Friday, June 26, 2009

Uber Award!

Yippee! I got awarded! Uber thanks to the Witch. Of course, cash prizes would be very much appreciated... but then again, let's face it, my blog will never even get into top 1000 blogs in West Malaysia. I know this because (I'm venting again!) some big company which handle ads pointed out that my grammar is terrible! And I have been posting on average only one post per week... and it's mostly movie reviews... but then again, what to do? My life is boring and while my mentality is still stuck in the teens (watching movies and playing console games), my friends have all matured and left me high and dry!

Despite my negative review of my own blog, I will receive this award with my head held high... because I'm proud that I write my posts based on my own interest and not due to the demands of the society (read the about me sidebar). I started blogging just vent and also to update my friends on the latest update of my own... so in conclusion, after more than 1 year of blogging, I'm still sticking to my initial principles of blogging! Hurrah for me! :P So, I totally deserve this award :P

Uber Amazing Blog award!

Anyway, I'm supposed to nominate another 5 blogs who is entitled for this award! (This feels more and more like a chain letter :P). Well, as you can see in the sidebar of my blog, I don't really read much on others' blogs... but those who make it to my list are worth your time to read! Quality over quantity... as always :P

In no particular order:
Our Footsteps on This Path - two authors detailing their lives and how it intertwines each other
Meifongpolitan - a doctor squeezing time out to write her thoughts... serious, with a hint of playfulness... perfect grammar
A New Chapter - a blogger with an inner child
I Am Doryfish - a veteran of the blogging world (in my standard lah) albeit a little bit lazy :P
Asylum of Senseless Soul - posts rarely, but his posts are soul searching and will touch you to the very depths of your heart

I would have voted the Witch, but I'm quite sure that we're not allowed to vote back the person who voted you (as with any kind of chain letters)... so there, enjoy... and the prize is... your blog name appearing in my post! There is no greater honour than that! :P

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Witch's Farewell (Meal 3)

Well, by now you must be thinking that my post which is titled 'Witch's Farewell Meal' has nothing to do with the Witch at all. All I have mentioned is what we ate... no dedication, no memories... nothing at all! So, I'm going to dedicate one whole paragraph which will talk about the Witch only!

Well, I got to know the Witch since secondary school... though I don't really remember how the Witch got her nickname... anyway, she has always been one of the symbolic Petronas Twin Towers in class... Hamdan and the Witch who were the tallest in class were always dubbed as the twin towers (after it was build of course). Anyway, we were in the same uniformed group... St. John Ambulance and I think I sort of got to know her through Corinne... another mutual friend of ours. She is one of the few rare people who were fortunate enough to hear my rendition of "My Heart Will Go On" :P. Well, now cannot really sing that anymore... lost my melodious voice to the fried food d :(. She was also my assistant when... assistant class monitor lah... though her duties were pretty much restricted to cleaning up the blackboard :P. But truth to tell, we did not really interact too much in secondary school except for the occasional mindless chatter :P.

Our class will normally be divided into several groups on the occasion the teacher did not come to teach (which now that I think of it, is quite often :P) she would group together with Mei Fong, May Foong and Corinne and I would join the nerd group... there were around 10 guys or so in our class... so it's either the nerd group or the 'samseng' group (no offense intended to those guys... who by the way turned out just fine :P)... we (the nerd group) would get together to talk about the novels we've read and we also made a D&D RPG group too. We would use our eraser to turn it into dice so that we can play the D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game... and one of them was the future head prefect! And Mei Yee's group would most probably chat on teen idols, latest fashions, dramas and 'girl' stuff ler. And I could have been her senior in UTP too! I attended interview for UTP for the first batch using trial exam results... but alas, my trial results were less than average and they offered me an IT course so I turned them down and went to Sunway instead. Anyway, I got to know the Witch well only after I start to work in the same company as her... alas, time was too short and just after one year, she's gone :(.

See? Those are two very long paragraph dedicated only to the Witch... now, back to more serious matters :P.

The third and final farewell meal that I had to with Witch and friends is at Kim Gary Restaurant... which surprisingly is my cheapest meal! I had been to Kim Gary five times and eaten five different things and it is my professional opinion that one should not eat there!

I still remember the time when I ordered a cheese baked rice and I actually did not manage to finish it! I mean, it's cheese, and I absolutely love cheese and if I did not finish it, it means it's really, really terrible... don't believe me, go there and try it yourself... especially the curry cheese... it's just unbelievable (not in a good way). The cheese is actually a separate entity from the rice... by definition, the cheese is supposed to be baked with rice and thus, the cheese is supposed to melt and merge with the rice itself! In the curry cheese, they will give you a plate of plain rice and another plate of diluted, watery curry that has only a small presence of cheese... and the potato was not even fully cooked! I hope i won't get sued by Kim Gary :P but then again, it's not as if my opinion carries any weight at all since Doryfish and the Witch vehemently deny my assessment of Kim Gary's food.

Anyway, on that day... I ordered a newly introduced meal... Satay Sauce Udon... okay even the name sounds bad and normally I would not order such a thing except that the meal I ordered is unavailable and I was in a hurry to choose a replacement meal... afterall, we were eating outside during lunch time in a working day... and we're supposed to have 1 hour to finish our lunch.

And true to its name, the Satay Sauce Udon is bordering on the state of inedible... okay, that was exaggerating :P. It's relatively cheap... around RM6-RM8 but still, I kept on wondering how a restaurant that serves such quality of food managed to become a franchise... and there are always long queues waiting to eat the food... come one people, can't you guys even differentiate between a delicious meal and a terrible one? I love satay but the satay soup they serve is... well, let's just say that there is a whole lot of room for improvement.

Well, that is not to say that all the food is bad... Kim Gary's french toast, thick toast and ham sandwich is quite nice (though the pricing is of another matter :P)

Anyway, I did not have my camera that day, and thus the pics below are from Witch's camera... I know, I know, it's obviously of lower quality than my pictures but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right? :P

One of the few relatively rare picture that does not show my full blown face... seriously, I look so much nicer when my picture is taken at my natural pose :P. The other two are my current most loyal lunch mates...

The Witch and her coven :P

Witch's last lunch with us... Stone Grilled Something :P... all I remembered is that there is a small octopus :P... you really should try the Sakae Sushi's Bibimba... looks and smell much nicer :P

Some card and photo frame with photo that we gave as a farewell gift... which I'm sure is now sitting in a dark corner collecting dust... actually I would be horrified if she show my horrible face to the public... can get sued for revealing horrifying things in front of children you know :P

The lunch gang... only without me... the Witch did not invite me to take this photo... sob... sob... :(

Well, that's all folks... Witch... wish you the best in your future endeavours... OMG that is so cliched! :P

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Witch's Farewell (Meal 2)

The second farewell meal with Witch was a lunch. This time, it's in Dragon-i!!! Actually, I chose it because Dragon-i is one of those restaurants where it's just queer to eat alone in... I usually just "ta bau" and eat at home while watching infinite numbers of tv series :P.

Anyway, here are the food that we ordered that day.

Sze Chuan Noodle

First, up the Witch ordered Sez Chuan Noodle which is what I ordered too... only I ordered a different type of noodle and with additional fried pork.

Sze Chuan Noodle with fried pork

This dish is quite nice and the type of noodle I selected (forgot what name d :P) is nice as well... I think it's something "hand-chopped" type noodle :P. However, you should not order the one with fried pork ler... it's salty and hard... yup, rock hard. :(

Our other companion, whom I shall refer as Hamdan ordered a more conservative type of noodle. Again, forgot the name d... but I shall call it as Teriyaki Noodle since the soup looks like soy sauce base. :P

"Teriyaki" Noodle

His pork on the other hand, looks much better than my fried one... and no, I did not try it... don't dare to take his food... he's somewhat like Joey... *hint... hint* :P

Last but not least, is the famed Dragon Pau... which I always ordered everytime I visit Dragon-i. To be frank, the quality seemed to have gone a downward spiral as of late and the soup in the pau is actually not piping hot... which is not a bad thing, but it gave me the impression that it is not fresh out of the oven... I know... I know, I complain if it's hot anyway... I'm a difficult customer to please. :P

Shanghai Dragon Pau (forgot the official name :)

It was an educational meal... since Hamdan is in the IT line and I caught up on the advances in technologies in recent years in just one meal! Talk about time well spent!

I know I suck at introducing food to people... but hey, it's not like I'm eating something that is available at where I'm staying... it's a franchise mah... I'm sure you have eaten there before... if you haven't, you should try it... though I must say that it is definitely not worth waiting in the long lines that is usually present in the weekends... but then again, I rarely buy something to eat that require to wait more than 10 minutes.

Oh, remember to bring your Direct Access credit card... got 10% discount!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Witch's Farewell (Meal 1)

I know, I know... I haven't updated my blog for like forever... well, I had a really busy month... I do have a job, you know... and I had to do OT frequently, not to mention I think I'm having some chronic sleep deprivation... I can sleep for 9 hours and still feel very sleepy and tired... I think there's one episode in House MD series that tackle this problem... will watch it again at home.

That and also I'm still reeling from the fact the Witch has left the company that I'm working in :P. So, now I'm going to talk about the good food that I managed to savour as a result of the numerous farewell lunches/dinners the Witch had. I had three farewell meals with her! And I had to eat plain bread for the rest of the month since her taste is not exactly in my pay grade range :P.

First meal, it's a dinner at Bella Italia. Never been there before and I do like Italian food... and Japanese food and Mexican food and well, now that I think about it, just about anything :P.

Anyway, first up, it's the garlic bread which is recommended by the Witch and Doryfish.

Basketful of Garlic Bread

Well, it is a quite nice garlic bread (if you don't look at the price). However, I prefer my garlic bread to be crispy in the outside and soft in the inside... this one is sort of crispy all throughout, but it's definitely not as a result of being overdone.

Next, it's the main course... well, you'll have to forgive me if I don't remember the names... afterall, it's was quite some time ago.

Spaghetti Cabonara

Well, this is what Doryfish had... and I was supposed to order this too... well, I planned to order Fettuccine Cabonara but the Witch told me that Fettuccine is the pasta which is shaped like squares with fillings in the middle... which she was obviously wrong! Fettuccine is flat and long like "pan mee"... but since she's the "expert" I decided to follow her advice and ordered Ravioli instead! My oh my... Ravioli IS the pasta with fillings... the exact thing that I did not want!



Ravioli something... forgot what is the name of the sauce :P

I had Ravioli in Sabah in this restaurant called Little Italy... and it's not good... and unfortunately, it's the same here! Make no mistake, the cheese based sauce is very nice... but the Ravioli itself is terrible. I mean, who actually put spinach inside a pasta? Yuck!


Some seafood based spaghetti

And the Witch ordered the Spaghetti Marinara (I think that's the name :P) which she claimed to be the best pasta in the restaurant. Well, I can't comment on that since I don't like tomato based pasta sauce. My personal favourite is still cheese based and cream based sauce.


Spaghetti Marinara


Last, but not least, is the Tiramisu which we ordered one and shared amongst 5 people! And this is Doryfish's favourite. After tasting it, I have to concur to Doryfish's opinion. Of course, I don't feel the sudden rush of true love (I was told that Tiramisu is supposed to do that... most probably due to the alcohol :P), but the texture is smooth and soft but not yucky kind of soft. Not too sweet and the flavour is just nice. Definitely a must try if you ever visit this place.

Tiramisu