Month: August 2016

Check out my new smile!

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Fixed Teeth

This is the latest version of my teeth. It’s not 100% perfect yet but I’m really happy with it! People have commented that one of my fillings is very visible – it’s on my front teeth and you can see the yellow discoloration it made from the back. I never paid much attention to it until my better half told me she noticed it the first time she met me. I felt rather self conscious after that and made it a point to fix it.

Drill

I just went to Imperial Dental in Bangsar to re-do the filings. My orthodontist Dr Salima was concerned that I would need a root canal coz of the rot but in the end it just needed another filling. It’s one of the gnarlier procedures to go through coz of the sensitivity of the teeth (drill goes into the root) but I’m glad it’s all done. I never thought the yellow bit would be so visible but it actually shows each time I smile and affects my overall look.

Filling

I did 2 fillings for RM 270. This is not covered by Invisalign as it’s a cosmetic procedure that I’m doing on my own and thus paying out of my own pocket. It’s RM 150 for one and RM 120 for the other. I think it’s money well spent as my front teeth are all the same white color now. Teeth is one of the things that I never paid much attention to coz honestly I look pretty decent (above average anyway) but it’s one of the things you can easily fix to make yourself look A LOT better. I’m glad I did it and my Invisalign is going well too!

McDonald’s Burger Syok and McFlurry Mangga

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McDonalds Burger Syok

No, this is not a sponsored post. I’m not here to tell you about Lat or ask you to go eat Burger Syok. I’m not even going to mention the promotional period. I’ve always felt that paid or invited food reviews are inherently dishonest so all the cafes and restaurants I’ve reviewed are done at my own expense with no invitations. I don’t even eat McDonald’s that much nowadays although I used to enjoy writing about their new products (mostly due to a lack of content ideas haha).

McDonalds Syok

This entire thing came about when my better half told me to get her the new Hello Kitty toy from McDonald’s. It comes with their Happy Meal and I dropped by after work to get her one. Since I was already there, I thought I’ll order a meal to eat and I saw the multitude promotional materials for I Love Burger Syok Ayam. The front of McDonald’s was covered with Lat cartoons.

Burger Syok Ayam

I’m one of those unpatriotic Malaysians who has no interest whatsoever with Lat cartoons. I never related to them. I went to New Zealand to do high school at 15 but even before then, in Chinese majority Sibu, no one read or even knew about Lat. I always thought it was a low quality local wannabe cartoonist when I was younger. I’ve not read anything to suggest otherwise or bothered to change my opinion since.

Burger Syok

Burger Syok is RM 11.95 on its own. Since I had a drink, fries and another burger from the Happy Meal, I didn’t bother getting the set. It tastes surprisingly good! I was fully prepared to dislike it since I’m into healthy eating lately. However, the spicy Thousand Island sauce combined with the fatty chicken thigh (with skin) drew me in. It’s not worth a special trip to get but if you’re in the area, you could do a lot worse for dinner.

McFlurry Mangga

There was also another related promotion going on called Mangga Mangga. Mangga is the local Malay word for mango and it features two different executions – Sundae Mangga (RM 3.95) and McFlurry Mangga (RM 4.95). I went for the latter and it came in a horrible radioactive orange sludge. It tastes like bad artificial mango. I don’t know why someone would go through the trouble of making this when we have perfectly good fresh mangos, and worse, we know what fresh mango tastes like. Avoid like the plague.

McDonalds Me

I like the sound of the Burger Syok though. It’s a burger exclusive to Malaysia and made for local tastes. That sounds pretty awesome. Furthermore, it’s made with a skin-on piece of chicken thigh! Skin on! Shit like that would never fly in another civilised country. Only heathens eat chicken skin, especially soggy ones like this. The fact that this burger is rocking a slimy chicken skin kinda appeals to me. It tastes decent too and I would eat it again, just not anytime soon. I was mostly here for the Hello Kitty toy though.

Tudia! Crabby Fatty Char Kueh Teow @ The Food Bank, Kota Damansara

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Tudia Crab Char Kueh Teow

The Food Bank is a collection of Malay hawker stalls in The Strand, Kota Damansara. I eat here quite often since it’s just opposite my condo and the halal options here are limited. Tudia! Char Kueh Tiaw is one of the stalls I frequent. It’s from Penang but it’s not Chinese style CKT – this is Malay style CKT with gravy. They also have a premium option with crab!

Tudia CKT

I like eating Malay style char kueh teow. The first time I came across it was when I started working in KL and frequented the Malay stall behind my office. I thought the gravy was simply mouth-watering! I have had kueh teow ketam in a lot of places since I also love eating crab. Tudia charges RM 6 for their kueh teow but the crab version goes for RM 15 – RM 25!

Deep Fried Crab

Tudia! crab char kueh teow is made by deep frying the flower crab. That’s quite unusual since most places just steam it. I thought it’ll come out greasy or overcooked due to the way it’s prepared but it’s actually quite good. The flower crab is huge too – the claws overflowed from the plate and they gave me a separate one to eat from. Haha.

Crabby Fatty (RM 23)

Crabby Fatty

The price fluctuate according to season, it was RM 23 yesterday. The kueh teow here is awesome! I love the sweet gravy that floods everything. I think it’s made with a combination of peanut sauce, sweet soy sauce and sambal. It’s very savory and sweet and makes you want more. There’s also an egg in addition to the deep fried crab. It’s yummy but not very filling. I had to order a ikan keli penyet (also called nasi lalapan in Sarawak) to fill up.

Tudia HB

There’s quite a lot of meat in the flower crab and I had fun picking at the shell. There was a Chinese couple who just got off work beside me who ordered the dish after seeing me eat it. The bomb ass sauce goes very well with the crab too. This is a problem in other crab kueh teow places since you don’t have gravy to eat with the crab. It’s a little expensive and you should probably go when you’re not wearing a white shirt but it’s delicious!

Chin Hua Vegetarian Food, Melaka

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Chin Hua Vegetarian Food

I was in Melaka for a durian trip with Lindsay over the weekend. She’s a vegan (no dairy, no eggs, no animal byproducts) so we went to Chin Hua Vegetarian Food for dinner. I think this is only the second or third time in my entire life that I’ve gone into a vegetarian restaurant. It’s not high on my list of preferences since I eat just about anything, including exotic animals like dog, snake and rat. I have no religious or social taboos against any type of meat. I just don’t discriminate like that. smirk

Vegetarian Food Melaka

The woman manning the place looks Thai but she speaks fluent Mandarin. They have a rather popular chap fan service. I saw quite a few people eating here, including a large family. Lindsay chose six items for RM 6 from the warmers and I tried some of them. I thought the fungus was quite decent. It doesn’t taste bad at all but I feel like they use a lot of seasoning, oil and salt to boost the taste profiles.

Vegetarian Water Chestnut Ball

This is the Vegetarian Water Chestnut Ball (RM 5). It’s made to order and you can either choose to have it fried or boiled. This is the latter – it’s actually meant to be an analog of the ubiquitous fishball soup. The water chestnut balls have a springy and yielding texture like a fish ball and the soup is flavored the same way. I would never have guessed that this was made with water chestnuts. It’s remarkable! It really eats like fishballs.

Sizzling Mee

I had the Sizzling Mee (RM 5) which came with generous portions of vegetables. The meat is replaced with mock meat (either gluten/seitan or soy) in a variety of textures. It was alright. The noodles are perfectly edible, just not downright delicious. I feel like this is one of the problems with vegetarian food, together with over-seasoning to replicate meat or enhance neutral flavor profiles.

Lindsay HB Melaka

It was a great experience though. The meal just cost RM 16 for two and I wouldn’t have stepped foot into a vegetarian or vegan place otherwise. My parents don’t do the vegetarian cuisine during CNY thing coz they’re Christians so I have limited exposure to such food. I would eat it again but not by myself. I’ll be perfectly happy to go with a vegetarian or vegan though. That’s about the best thing I can say about vegetarian food. Haha.

Cafe Koel, Kota Damansara

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Melon Bingsu

Cafe Koel is a Korean owned and operated restaurant in Kota Damansara. It just opened a few weeks ago and I’ve eaten there twice already. My better half wanted to eat bingsu last weekend and we came here for the icy treat. She noticed that they serve Korean food too and we brought her parents with us for lunch Sunday afternoon.

Cafe Koel

The owner of Cafe Koel is a friendly South Korean lady. She’s always cheerful and bubbly and that really makes her service stand out in the F&B industry. There are no reviews or buzz yet for this place (except for the one my dear wrote) coz it’s just so new so I thought I’ll write one coz we really enjoyed the food. Her parents did too!

Kimbap (RM 7.90)

Kimbap

My better half ordered a stuffed rice roll coz she wanted to save space for bingsu. We had something similar a few weeks ago from the Korean grocery near Chicken House in Solaris Mont Kiara and we liked it very much. This is a similar product – the rice is rolled in seaweed and stuffed with pickles, vegetables, egg etc. I love the takuan (pickled radish which the Koreans call danmuji) and the ends are the best part of the kimbap coz it has extra long pickle sticking out! smirk

Japchae (RM 18.90)

Japchae

My dear’s mom had this. It’s stir fried sweet potato noodle mixed with vegetables and sliced chicken. I’ve seen mung beans noodles before but never sweet potato noodles. It seems quite common in Korea though. The slippery texture of the sweet potato noodle is very pleasing and I like the savoriness of the dish. I ate so much from her plate that I felt a little guilty. Haha.

Bulgogi Deopbap (RM 16.90)

Bulgogi Deopbap

Her dad and I ordered the beef bulgogi with rice. I have eaten bulgogi in Korea before (and even had bulgogi burgers in both Lotteria and McDonald’s Korea in Busan) and I like the slightly sweet nature of the dish. This is the pan cooked version instead of the grilled version which I’ve seen in mukbang videos. The sweetness of the meat is perfectly balanced by the salty freshness of the kimchi served as a side.

Melon Milk Snow Flake Bingsu (RM 49.90)

Bingsu

This is made from a whole honeydew melon. I saw the melons in the fridge and the flesh was scooped out to use as the topping/side. The cavity is filled with their delicious milk bingsu and served with red bean paste and more melon milk on the side. It was really good but a bit too large for 2 pax. It was a bit of a challenge to finish it coz the kind owner also gave us her new coffee bingsu to try that day.

Milk Snow Flake Patbingsu (RM 17.90)

Patbingsu

I ordered this yesterday as part of my meal. It’s RM 24.90 together with the bulgogi rice bowl or RM 17.90 separately. We were craving for the bingsu since our trip the week before and we had planned to order more once we finished our meal. However, the owner surprised us with 4 servings! She added on 3 more on the house so we could each have our own bingsu. That’s a really nice gesture. I loved the kinako (toasted soy bean flour) that goes on top of this.

Bingsu Us

I have been craving for their bingsu ever since Sunday and wanted to drop in this afternoon but they were closed. Cafe Koel is just opposite my condo. It’s an undiscovered gem located at Dataran Sunway beside Sunway Giza Mall. We got a small gift each time from the Korean owner and her friendly touch makes us always feel welcome. There are a lot of Korean owned restaurants in the Klang Valley nowadays and this is one of the better ones. We’ll definitely be back for more!

Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant

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Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant

Macha & Co is the new place that just opened up in Kota Damansara a few weeks ago. I live across the street watched the renovations with interest. I was just talking about it with my better half last weekend. The restaurant serves banana leaf rice, which adds another halal option in addition to Sari Ratu Prima. I decided to pop in and see what they’re all about.

Macha and Co

I actually spilled all the fork, spoons and serviettes when I was eating here. The tables were a little close to each other and I was slightly clumsy and bumped into the next one, bringing the utensils crashing to the floor. The waiter had to clean everything and replace the tissues but he did it with good humor.

Banana Leaf Rice

This is the Banana Leaf Set Meal (RM 9.50). It’s the main dining option here and includes white or brown rice with 3 vegetables, 2 papadams, fried salted dried chilli, acar, rasam and curry/dhal. Banana leaf rice is usually a completely vegetarian meal by default. I like the peratal pumpkin and the deep fried bitter gourd.

Varuval Chicken

You can also order from a wide menu of tavams. I assume tavam means sides. They are various vegetable tavams, dry spiced tavams, curry tavams, seafood tavams. I went with the Varuval Chicken (RM 6.50) coz I like eating my rice with meat. It’s quite good. They also have more premium sides like Fresh Red Snapper Head (RM 68) and Black Pepper Peratal Crab (RM 22.50).

Receipt

The wait staff here is very friendly. I ordered a Diet Coke and they added a line which said “Terbaik bro” (The best, bro) to the bill. I thought it was funny but a little dangerous to have this system. I read about servers calling customers fat, racist names or other misc slurs in the United States appearing on the news. I used to work as a waiter in Melbourne so I know the kind of humor the restaurant industry has and I don’t think it’s a good idea to make custom order lines (that’s what its actually for) visible on the receipt.

Macha

Macha & Co Banana Leaf Restaurant also serves other items like roti canai goreng but their signature menu is banana leaf rice. The lunch cost RM 20.90 inclusive of drinks. There’s not a lot of people here yet, probably due to a combination of factors – parking is a problem and this area is predominantly Chinese. It’s located in Dataran Sunway so there’s a lot of competition and the F&B turnover is quite insane…for instance, both Flaming Melt and Sabah Kampung Beef Noodles has closed since we went. It’s pretty good though, I’ll be back to try the other items!

Kai’s Plato, Kota Damansara

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Kai Plato

My better half’s parents wanted to have dinner together last night so I thought of Kai’s Plato. Kai’s Plato is a restaurant specializing in seafood that subscribes to a no utensils and plates policy. The lobster, prawns, crabs etc comes in a platter and you use the table and your fingers to eat everything. It’s a pretty cool experience.

Kais Plato

I had wanted to come when it first opened but the queues were prohibitive. It’s still quite packed but you’ll be able to get in with a reservation. I booked a table for 4 pax at Kai’s Plato for 6:30 pm.

Kais

There is only 1 menu item here. The meal is standardized and goes according to the number of people. 2 diners will be served with a 3-tier platter while 4 pax has a 4-tier platter.

Writing Shell

You get shells to draw with from the server. These will be mounted on the walls with your customized message – the walls of Kai’s Plato is filled with these.

Watermelon Lychee

I ordered a Virgin Mojito (RM 8.90) while my dear had the Watermelon Lychee (RM 8.90). These two drinks are the house specials. I liked the Watermelon Lychee, it’s very refreshing. The mojito was decent too, they don’t skip on the mint leaves here. It takes up a full half of the glass!

Scallop Oyster

Our 4-layer platter came and was mounted on the jelly flame source. This is the first tier in the platter. There are 11 types of seafood in total here. I particularly liked the sea snails. It’s musky and sandy. Yum! The scallops are served with chopped ginger and spring onions. The oysters are topped with cheese and it’s pretty awesome.

Prawn Octopus

The second tier is filled with prawns, clams, mussels, bamboo clams and octopus. There is another type of clam called arc shell so there’s actually 3 types of clams in this layer. The bottom is lined with cabbage and the vegetables are edible. I preferred the broccoli from the first layer though.

Crab Lobster

The third tier is the best one! It contains the most premium ingredients – slipper lobsters, crabs, huge big head prawns, and grouper fish slices. I love the monster big head prawns. The brains are bigger than the size of my thumb when extracted! The mud crabs are super delicious too. I enjoyed eating the grouper and the small serving of vermicelli is infused with the flavors of the shellfish and seafood. It’s so bomb!

Seafood Soup

The fourth tier contains the seafood soup. You’ll notice that each layer has holes at the bottom to allow stray juices to drip downwards though each tier. This means the scallops, snails, oysters from the first layer drips down to the clams, octupus, mussels in the second layer which in turn goes into the huge prawns, crabs and lobster in the third layer and everything finally drains into this sweet, sweet broth.

Pasta

Kai’s Plato will give you a serving of pasta to eat with the soup. This is meant to fill you up but we were all very full from the seafood already. The soup was really nice though.

Seafood Pasta

I kept a little bit of the crab meat to put into my pasta and seafood soup. The soup is soooo delicious from the 11 types of seafood juices dripping down. It’s such a treat to finish the meal with piping hot soup. I like how the flame is kept going so the soup is boiling. The soup also serves as as steam source to keep the rest of the platter warm.

Kais Us

Kai’s Plato works out to around RM 86 per pax. I ordered the Captain’s Platter for RM 270++, which is what they call the set for 4 people. It’s RM 138++ for 2 pax or RM 390++ for a group of 6. We all enjoyed eating with our hands and using the table as a plate. I also learned that my dear’s dad is a collector of snail shells last night. The meal came up to RM 343.60 for the 4 of us which is reasonable for a meal with lobster, crabs, prawns and grouper. I’ll be back again but not for a long while since you can get sick of eating so much seafood. Haha!

Huawei P9 smartphone

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Huawei P9

I got a chance to play around with the new Huawei P9. It’s co-engineered with Leica and meant to reinvent smartphone photography. The thing that jumps out the most is the dual-lens at the back of the phone. That’s right, this smartphone has TWO lenses instead of the usual one at the rear. It also has 2 sensors so you can capture more light. I took it out to snap photos during the weekend.

Huawei

Nowadays, smartphones are primarily used to take photos of weekends, food and miscellaneous daily happenings to post to Instagram, Facebook, blogs. That’s what I use mine for anyway, and the image quality so good that I don’t feel the need to carry a regular digicam or dSLR anymore. It’s still not as good as a dSLR, of course, but the Huawei P9 is really close, close enough that I’ll choose the portable smartphone any day.

Professional Mode

The Huawei P9 has dual 12 MP cameras with a professional mode! This allows you to control all the aperture, shutter and ISO settings and save photos in RAW so it feels like a dSLR.

Tokyo Secret

The technologies packed into the smartphone camera is quite impressive too – there are now built-in dual-core ISP (image signal processors), professional DSP, and depth-measurement ISP for improved image focusing, speeds and processing. This allows you to take action shots of fast moving objects in low light conditions.

HDR

There are several presets you can use to take good photos well, like the HDR mode.

Document

The P9 has a feature which automatically takes documents too! I found that quite useful.

Chateraise

The lens are co-developed with Leica so the image quality is really good.

Honey Wings

I love how bright and vibrant the colors are.

Pocky Brazilian Orange

I got this new Pocky Brazilian Orange just to show off the intense color production of the camera. I can’t go back to using faded looking smartphone cameras after this beautiful shot. Oh, and the Pocky is pretty good too, it’s a Japan import to celebrate the Rio Olympics and it tastes intensely orange-y.

Panoramic

This is the Panoramic mode.

Photos

The camera will also auto-detect faces and focus on them.

Flash

There’s also a 8 MP front facing camera for selfies too! This was taken in pure darkness and the built-in flash went off, illuminating my face well enough to temporarily blind me. It also colored my face pretty decently, when you keep in mind that this was taken with zero other lighting, it’s really impressive. I remember when 8 MP was a lot for a rear facing camera in a smartphone and now even the front-facing ones are 8 MP. Amazing!

Beauty Mode

The Huawei P9 also has a dial for “Beauty” which can go from 0-10. You remember those third-party apps that some teenagers use to artificially enlarge and add shine to their eyes and add a BB cream smooth sheen to their skin? It’s all built-in now – no need for 3rd party apps.

Beauty

I took one as a demonstration. This is ultra boosted up to a 10 so it looks mildly ridiculous. I personally don’t approve of apps like this coz I don’t like how it looks. I don’t use them myself but that may be due to the fact that I already have nice eyes genetically (thanks mom). I can see that a lot of people like them though, so to each his/her own.

P9 Home

The smartphone also does everything well. I like the automatic step counter and the vivid 5.2” FHD display. The 3,000 mAh battery is pretty useful too. I don’t need to recharge every few hours and it works for up to 24 hours at full capacity in my daily tasks. There’s a fingerprint sensor and a virtual triple antenna with WiFi+ 2.0 which switches automatically between HSDPA+ and WiFi networks. I love the feel of the aerospace-class unibody aluminum and 2.5D glass. The Huawei has all the functions of a modern smartphone you’ll expect and more.

HuaweiP9

I actually saw the Huawei P9 advertisement in the cinema and thought it looked like a brilliant smartphone. As the smartphone market matures, non-camera technical specifications have increased so much that it makes little difference even in the most graphics intensive games. As such, it falls to other things to differentiate one smartphone from another and I like the direction the Huawei P9 is taking with the camera. It’s the most useful thing on a smartphone for most people and I appreciate how the superior camera and lenses allows me to capture high quality photos in such a small and sleek handset.

CaliBurger, Sunway Pyramid

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CaliBurger

CaliBurger is Southern California burger chain that just recently opened in Sunway Pyramid. I say “just recently” but I honestly don’t know when they started. I’ve been to a weird US-based chain called Miami Grill at the same mall with my better half and told her it was co-owned by Pitbull (the singer). It wasn’t really good and I fully expect CaliBurger to be mediocre too but I thought I’ll check out the burgers.

CaliBurger Malaysia

I thought CaliBurger fits in nicely as a “higher end fast food” chain. The pricing is slightly lower than Wendy’s. I like Wendy’s (their chilli is awesome) but the price for a burger set is about 2-3 times what McDonalds or Burger King offers. CaliBurger seems to be positioned below Wendy’s and above Maccas and BK. It filters out the huge families and students, who will naturally gravitate more towards the cheaper options which can make it a better dining option.

Chipotle BBQ Chicken Sandwich (RM 14.90)

Chipotle BBQ Chicken Sandwich

I actually wanted a beef burger but CaliBurger ran out of beef. I went with the chicken option instead, fully prepared to dislike it. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the chicken is actually real chicken breast. It’s not reconstituted and reformulated chicken like other fast food places but a real slice of chicken breast. That’s pretty awesome.

Cali Milkshake (RM 9.96)

Cali Milkshake

CaliBurger has a lot of milkshake options and I went with the Bubblegum. No, they don’t have spiked milkshakes with alcohol in Malaysia. The flavoring came out of a bottle which was disappointing. I don’t know why I even tried to hope that a flavor called “Bubblegum” would be natural. It was still pretty bomb ass though. The milkshake is creamier than most, reminded me of the dairy (small shop) opposite my homestay in Christchurch, NZ.

CaliBurger Sunway

I’m actually moving to the Subang area so I might pop over more often in the future. I was on my way back from meeting my lawyer and wanted to grab something to eat so I came to CaliBurger. I really like the fries from Wendy’s since they’re natural (not reformed) and comes with skin on but Wendy’s pricing is a little iffy – I could (nearly) eat fast casual like TGIF or Chilli’s instead. CaliBurger seems to have a more reasonable price point with decent enough food.

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