Month: January 2012

Proof that eating durians with alcohol won’t kill you

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spinning deck

Okay, now this is an established fact. Anyone who believes otherwise is an:

1. Idiot
2. Superstitious idiot
3. Ignorant idiot

(Sorry grandma)

Anyway, I have eaten large quantities of durian and drank prodigous amounts of alcohol at the same time to no ill effects.

Except a hangover…but that’s to be expected.

durians

I was out during the weekend with my friends and but before that I helped my dad open a couple of durians and ate some.

pan2 eddy

We started drinking and playing pool at a lounge and then moved somewhere where they have a…

…livelier live band. smirk

I started drinking this beer called Zoror Beer (RM 20 per jug, can’t beat that) in earnest and I knew I drank quite a lot because I have stupid photos in my camera.

pan2 jo

Me and Jo. These are not my glasses. They are Eddy’s – he put them on when I asked him about this chick – thing is he doesn’t need them. Thus, I put it on and went out front to see if it would make the girls look hotter or whether its the beer goggles.

mahal kita

Jo giving me a cheat sheet on Tagalog. I keep forgetting and she keeps telling me and finally she just wrote it down.

pan2 pinoy chick

As the night goes on, the memory becomes rather hazy…

BUT

I remember eating three whole durians when I got back, drunkenly stuffing myself full of the King of Fruits before I went to sleep. After all that drinking.

…and I’m still alive.

truestory

Credit card paid in full!

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credit card paid in full

I’ve written about this on my FB and thought it was eventful enough to warrant a re-post. I just paid off my entire credit card bill…in one shot.

Why did I do something like that? *smacks forehead

I need *cash* for CNY not *credit*.

However, for the first time in (recent) memory, I have paid every single red cent of my credit card outstanding balance.

Damn that hurt.

I now owe RM 0.

Damn that feels good.

It’s like S&M, it feels good and hurts and the same time.

Kuta beach in Bali

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kuta

Much has been said about Kuta beach. It’s not exactly the uncharted 3K’s of backpacking these days. Nowadays, you’re more likely to be bugged by people offering massages, hair braiding, Bintang beer and all sorts of random stuff…like a handmade “magic” cigarette dispenser that is really quite nifty, but that was at Legian.

kuta beach bali

We stayed right opposite Kuta beach so it’s literally right in front when we walked out. Come to think of it, we did a lot of walking in Kuta – and let me tell you, these flip flops are *not* made for walking. It’s really hot during the afternoon – mostly Caucasians catching a tan/recovering from hangovers go there at that hour…

kuta bali

…but it’s really nice during sunset.

kuta beach sunset

You see people start streaming in and picking a good spot around 4:30 pm or so – the beachfront vendors are mostly gone by then so you can sit unmolested, without someone asking you if you want something you don’t need and just…

kuta sunset

…chill there, watching the waves roll in, breathing in the sea salt and immersing yourself in the Zen of it all. It feels very serene, especially if you sit right in front. We stayed until 7:30 pm and I think we were the only ones there at that time. Heh.

kuta beach hb

It should be noted that if any eateries offer to add in some mushrooms into your food, they’re not really talking about ye olde regular mushrooms.

Kopi Luwak

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luwak coffee

Kopi Luwak or Luwak Coffee is the infamously extravagant coffee that comes out of a civet. Well, you know what I mean.

civet cat

Civet cats like this one eats the coffee beans, supposedly these felines have a taste so refined that they’ll only go for the good ones. They’ll crap it out and people dig the coffee beans (which isn’t digested by the civet cat) from the dung and roast it.

kopi luwak

It’s surprisingly aromatic and very smooth coffee. I liked it, although we paid quite a bit for that small cup. How much?

luwak coffee price

That’s about RM 20. We went to this place quite far from the touristy areas too, we saw it go for IDR 150,000 (RM 50) in airports. Yes, that’s the price for just one cup.

kopi luwak bali

Very expensive coffee, one sip will set you back a couple of dollars. 🙂

An awesome pork loin dinner at Kim and Gareth’s

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dinner kim

It’s a wonder to see Kim in the kitchen. She’s got everything down pat (even has a system for cleaning up dirty dishes).

kim kitchen

I was there for dinner on Friday, she had a pork loin going in the oven and I puttered around a bit in the kitchen doing nothing particularly useful until she sat me down in front of the awesome 55” TV with a beer in hand.

baked pork loin

Fruit of the loin. The beautiful pork loin with apple sauce. It was marinated for two days!

baked carrot garlic

Baked carrots and garlic. This is awesome! The baked carrots *looks* burnt and dried but it’s actually super juicy and wonderfully sweet. The garlic bursts with flavor too. Very nice.

kim potatos

You say potato I say potatoe.

buttered peas

Peas with slabs of butter.

yorkshire pudding

Yorkshire pudding.

kim dessert

Kim also made this dessert with molasses (?) – it had a bit of a crater in the middle, which I don’t think was supposed to be there but it tasted just fine.

kim dinner

However, the pork loin with apple sauce was the piece de resistance. I really enjoyed hitting that oink. It’s a good cut, nice marbling and tender to boot. The apple sauce does wonders to it.

pork loin

It weighed in at slightly more than 2.3 kg and the six of us (ST, Kim, Lainey, Fresh, Sin Loo and me) finished the entire pork loin. That’s about the equivalent of each of us eating a 400 gram steak…not including the other dishes.

That’s how awesome it was.

Glen Grant 16yo

There was Ben and Jerry’s ice cream brought by Sin Loo and some Hokkaido cakes from Lainey and we spent (well, at least me and ST did) the night drinking Scotch and beer. I got a bottle of Glen Grant 16 year old single malt and thought it would be funny to text Kim while stuck in a jam about bringing a 16 year old but she didn’t get it until several hours after. Picture nicked from ShaolinTiger’s Twitter.

Thanks for having us over Kim and Gareth!

party

It was a fabulous dinner and I totally enjoyed talking about everything from the good ol’ days of rave music to the murder of Canny Ong (I know right, diverse range of topics). We all ended up leaving at 8 am in the morning. This could be a start of a tradition, first time that happened was at Lainey’s birthday – just chilling, drinking and talking till the break of dawn coz that’s how we roll yo. 😉

hb kim

Kim’s a *great* cook. A delicious dinner with awesome company, you just can’t beat that. I had a laughing fit twice that night, can’t remember why but I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Then someone said: You know you’re laughing at *yourself* right. It just made it funnier. Fantastic way to spend a Friday night even though I only woke up at 8 pm on Saturday. Totally worth it. smirk

Siri, how long do I have to wait for an iPhone4S?

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queue

Just look at the queue lining up for the iPhone4S!

steph

I’m just glad I’m on the right side of the barrier. Media pass from Steph. 😉

maxis iphone4s

I was at the launch of the iPhone4S by Maxis on the 15th December 2011. The phone is due to be released at the stroke of midnight.

buffet

There was a press conference followed by dinner at the media lounge. Good thing too, haven’t eaten anything the entire day. #storyofmylife

food

I really liked the rice with sprinkles of raisins, bits of meat, veggies and other assorted stuff on top. Oh and if you’re wondering where the smoked salmon went, I ate most of it.

There you go, your burning questions answered. 😉

entertainment

Anyway, I went back out to check on the line and noticed that Maxis had small enclosures to entertain people at various checkpoints. I thought that was an excellent idea!

popcorn

Popcorn machine. Why?

popcorn distribution

They were handing out water and popcorn to the people queuing up for the iPhone4S. Very nice touch, I really liked that. 🙂

counters

Efficient. Counters for payment and collection all set up for the horde.

aud

Aud was there too!

band

We headed to the VIP lounge where there were drinks and performances. The band that was playing was amazing. Hit after hit of cover songs. I want them to play at my wedding.

countdown

Countdown for the iPhone4S launch. I got it at the 1 second point. #champion There were the first 40 people who will be the first in Malaysia to get it and somehow…

first

…we ended up *behind* them and everyone thought we were the lucky 40. There were people cheering at me, taking photos, and giving me high fives.

me gusta

I played along.

violinist

Anyway, Maxis has some great plans for the iPhone4S – you can check it out here. It starts from RM 100 and during the press conference it was mentioned that they have enough units for everyone. Thus, the answer to the post title is – You don’t have to wait.

shin yee

Maxis also has an awesome new iValue plan with the highest combined mobile and WiFi 11 GB data plan for us power users. 😀

Bebek betutu in Tekor Bali

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bebek betutu tekor bali

Bebek betutu literally means spiced duck. It’s one of the more well known dishes in Balinese cuisine. After listening to a frowning, disapproving local tell us that bakso is not Balinese in origin, and redirecting us to an awesome babi guling place, it was good to add another check mark to a classical Bali dish.

tekor bali legian

However, we had bebek betutu at the rather dubious beachfront restaurant in Legian called Tekor Bali. It was clean, nice and it came recommended from one of the travel websites. I was a bit hesitant since it didn’t “look” authentic but hey, I have since become a convert. A place does not need to be dingy and dirty to serve up great bebek betutu. 🙂

tekor bali bread

…it can even serve delicious, warm bread with garlic spread as an appetizer if it does its bebek betutu well. smirk

bebek betutu

The bebek betutu at Tekor Bali costs IDR 59,500 (about RM 20) and it’s ½ a roast duck stuffed with spices…and I do mean stuffed. There’s delicious spices everywhere you look (and even some places you don’t).

bebek betutu duck

The duck meat is tender, slightly juicy and extremely well flavored by the spices. The oily dark meat of the duck contrasts perfectly with the spicy packed marinade and it’s delicious with rice.

bebek betutu bali

I picked the bones of the bebek betutu clean. That’s half a duck, which is quite a bit more than I usually eat.

bintang beer

Tekor Bali is perfect for a couple of bottles of Bintang Beer too – it sells it at a comparable price to the Circle-K beside and you have an awesome shaded seat with the wind blowing in from Legian beach. 🙂

Babi Guling in Bali

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babi guling bali

This is probably the most famous Balinese cuisine – babi guling.

babi guling denpasar

It’s suckling pig cooked over a fire with herbs and spices and contrary to popular belief, the best and freshest babi guling can only be found in the morning since that’s when it’s prepared.

babi guling stall

I wanted to go somewhere that isn’t commercialized like Ibu Oka so I asked to go where the locals went.

babi guling queue

This turned out to be somewhere in working-class Denpasar, far from the touristy areas and full of people in bikes waiting their turn to take away a packet of pork goodness.

babi guling

A full babi guling meal comes served with several pieces of pork, crispy pork skin, pork crackling, pork sausage, pork satay, deep fried pork liver and a side of bird’s eye chilli. There’s also a bowl of hearty soup that contains huge chunks of pork fat.

bali guling me

I loved it! We had this in the morning and it was so good that I finished everything. It costs IDR 30,000 which works out to about RM 10. It’s the most satisfying meal I had in Bali. Goes very well with a bottle of Bintang beer. 😀

Happy 2012

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’re all recovering from last night and keeping to your new year’s resolutions. I have two and it’s been smooth sailing so far. I hope. 🙂

It’s a new year, time to start everything afresh. Hope you’ll have an awesome 2012 everyone!

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Saw this on the MilkADeal site:

usb air purifier
RM17.50 instead of RM35 for USB Ionic Air Purifier from MLM Vision Enterprise [50% OFF]

I usually have serious reservations about these kind of things. I don’t believe in it. However, if it works as a USB drive, I reckon it’ll be a great novelty item since I collect USB drives. I realized after actually reading it that it’s not a USB drive at all – just a USB air purifier. Oh well, one for the novelty shelf. 😀

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