I have been neglecting my comments as of late due to the impending move to KL and was delighted to see a comment from a very, very old friend. We’ve known each other for more than 10 years and he’s one of my best friends. I have been searching for him ever since I got out of rehabilitation – he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
Heck, even my dad loves him, he invited the both of us to his wedding reception and was the only one who came regularly (every single day!) while I was hospitalized in SGH for a week. He comes from the old skool heng tai (brotherhood) school of thought and has always been around when I needed his help.
He heard I was hauled into rehab from a mutual friend and only knew I came out when another friend told him my blog is back online. I haven’t seen him since 2006, but old friends are like comfortable clothes, it just feels good when you get back together again, and it’s just like old times.
I had dinner with him and his wife last night and he hasn’t changed much. I admire him for his jovial attitude towards everything. Despite being embroiled in legislative issues and non-revenue generating operations, he’s always one to laugh generously and that’s something I can learn from.
Lung, if you’re reading this, you the man. Cheers buddy!
My sister just had her second wedding reception last night at the Grand Jasmine Ballroom in RH Hotel, Sibu. The KL wedding reception was held exactly one week ago and last night’s festivities were for the bride’s family and friends.
The Grand Jasmine Ballroom was used since we had 40 tables seating 10 people each. Both Jasmine 1 and Jasmine 2 were used to accommodate for the wedding. I just found out that each table costs over RM 450 so that’s about RM 18,000 for the wedding reception alone.
Gifts were respectfully declined and my parents did not accept any ang pows at all. My parents wanted this to be a casual get-together for friends and family without the traditional trappings of Chinese wedding banquets. It’s giving back magnanimously to the Sibu community to commemorate the wedding of their daughter.
The sales personnel of the local newspapers were politely kept away from the ballroom area to prevent their hard sell advertisements from bothering the guests and we roped in relatives to do the seating arrangements and ushering duties.
It was a huge task since there were 400 guests from various groups (church, organizations, corporations, family, schools and friends) to be seated at their designated tables.
I was slated to be the MC of the night and there were two main events that I had to coordinate – the entrance of the bride and groom from the flower arch down the red carpet lined with flowers and all the way through the second wedding arch before being seated.
The night’s festivities began with the bride and groom walking in before being seated at the main table.
There are ten seats on the main table: 1. Alvin Ng (groom) 2. Poh Yih Jia (bride – my sister) 3, 4: Mr & Mrs Poh (parents of the bride) 5, 6: Mr & Mrs Ng (parents of the groom) 7: Paternal grandmother (of bride) 8: Maternal grandmother (of bride) 9, 10: Poh Huai Bin & Doris (brother of the bride and girlfriend)
I started off with a short welcome speech before showing a presentation of my sister’s progress throughout the years. The bride and groom came on stage to acknowledge the efforts that went into the events management aspects. My sister did a great speech thanking my parents for her upbringing, waxing nostalgic and generally trying to be a tearjerker. It’s a good thing some sand got into my eyes. 😉
The good Reverent said grace before dinner and the first dish was served.
The interesting bit and the flagship feature of weddings at The Grand Jasmine Ballroom is the presentation of the first dish. The lights went dark and music started playing as a parade of waiters and waitresses choreographed a candlelit performance while carrying the first dish before serving the dishes. It’s quite unique and novel.
There was the time-honored cake cutting ceremony by the bride and the groom after that, followed by the champagne pouring ceremony, some kissing action from the newly weds and a toast led by me where everyone raised their glasses to bless the holy matrimony of the bride and groom.
This is a group photo of the immediate family at the main table. You’ll notice that there are only eight of us – my paternal grandmother went to the washroom and there was an empty seat meant for my maternal grandmother. Unfortunately, she had a bad Alzheimer’s attack before the wedding and couldn’t join us. Both my grandfathers are deceased, both coincidentally from lung cancer.
The food on the main table is served individually for some reason, instead of being a communal dish.
I have yet to figure out the reasoning behind this.
I went up and sang The Wedding a.k.a the “Ave Maria” song with my mom before the end of the night.
I actually sang it twice, the first one was dedicated to my girlfriend and I did a solo on that. My apologies for subjecting everyone to the auditory assault – I don’t sing well, but I sing with my heart. :p
The wedding reception ended at 9:30 pm and our relatives stayed back and helped clean up the place. Doris is seen here feeding me fake champagne – it’s a actually a prop that expels confetti when pulled.
There was just one major blunder at the wedding – the three-tiered wedding cake was not sliced and distributed by the RH Hotel staff after the cake cutting ceremony, which they were supposed to do. We all forgot about that since we were busy with other stuff and only realized it when it was still on stage when I thanked the guests for coming. Oh well, at least it was all packed up and given to relatives so it’s not that bad.
Congratulations to Alvin Ng and Yih Jia on their wedding. I guess I’ll have to start to call my sister Mrs. Ng now.
The Queen Lounge & Café was officially launched on Friday night with an invite-only guest list comprising mostly of friends and regulars of Café Café (who is owned by the same people).
The interior design of The Queen Lounge & Café can be summed up in a single word – absolutely fabulous. Oh wait, that’s two words. You know what I mean though. The ambiance is great, and I can imagine this being the next new hot spot to hang out in town – the place to see and be seen and all that.
The Queen Lounge and Café is co-owned by Peter, who is an old schoolmate of mine. He just has this magic touch for setting up nice cafes with the warm ambiance that draws in the crowds. I remember hanging out as teenagers during weekends at Country Café (the place to be about 10 years ago) and his dreams about opening up a similar place in the future.
Well, he did, and kudos to him for that. The success of Café Café is a testament to his will and resolve, and I respect him for that. Oh, and I’m not just saying that coz I got complimentary martinis the entire night. 😉 No, seriously.
The proprietors of Queen’s Lounge and Café also own Café Café, a hugely popular café in town – the current place to be. They also have an interior design place called Mari Mari. I’m not sure about the obsession with double affirmatives but at least Queen’s is a departure from tradition – I’m just glad they didn’t name it Queen’s Queen’s. 😉
The Queen Lounge & Café was serving complimentary Lychee Martinis to the guests the entire night as well as snacks on the house.
It’s made from Kwai Fei lychee, Absolut Raspberry, Cranberry and Pineapple juice with a menu price of RM 22. Queen’s has an impressive cocktail menu with a long list of martinis, shooters and wines.
It’s quite nice, but I’m a bit of a monster when it comes to drinking so I was asking Peter for a special, customized Rendezvous Lychee Martini – just Absolut Raspberry neat, with a lychee inside. 😉
Snacks were also served to the guests from the Queen’s Lounge and Café menu. There were Madurerse Chicken Satay (menu price RM 8)…
I bumped into a lot of people at The Queen’s – this is Ita Ting, an old friend of mine from way back in high school.
Peter and Ah Tung, the two co-owners of the place.
Grace Chan. OMG, I look fat in the photo.
The beautiful people I’ve been bumping into in clubs around Sibu.
Jimbo and some other buddies I hang out with on weekends.
Datina Ting! I haven’t seen her since Chinese New Year and she’s getting married later this year. Congrats! 🙂
The proprietors spared no expense in the launch of The Queen Lounge & Café – there were two troupes of dancers with two different sets of routines.
The first dance is a very Chinese traditional dance, transporting you back to the glory of Shanghai, post-Japanese occupation.
I liked the way they dominated the floor with grace and elegance, garbed in traditional Chinese costumes and armed with fans.
The second set features svelte female figures draped in white and performing a martial arts inspired dance.
It’s a very lively performance, extremely full on and unique.
It was a great premiere for The Queen Lounge & Café and I have exhausted my repertoire of superlatives to describe the opening of the establishment. It’s going to be a great place to hang out at – the next big thing.
Congrats to Peter, Michelle and Ah Tung and all the best in the new lounge! 🙂
Enjoy Cafe & Restaurant is a relatively new eating establishment that has been doing an advertising blitz at my workplace, with flyers on the windscreen wipers of all the cars parked around here. I’ve been there once but never got around to reviewing it. I went again last night to check out the place, since the first impression wasn’t strong enough to warrant a review.
Enjoy Cafe & Restaurant has a nice ambiance with mood lighting (which makes it a nightmare for photography). The place has a fixation with blue diffused down lights, which I kinda like. It somehow makes the place more calming.
There are also silk screens to act as a privacy buffer in between the booth type seating arrangements. The place is pretty empty due to hefty competition from Sushi Tie, Mitsu Tea House and other popular eating establishments within the same commercial complex. There were only two other tables of diners besides us.
I like the classic juicer and fruits on display at the bar counter. Enjoy Café & Restaurant serves a wide variety of fruit juices. I went with a group of friends the first time and we ordered:
Enjoy Cocktail, Egg Drop Noodles, Beef Noodle Soup, Hot & Spicy Beef
Hot Lemon, Stir-fried Mixed Vegetable, Mince Meat Rice, Hot & Spicy Squid
It didn’t particularly make a good impression on all of us, but I went again last night with Mary to do a second review. The service was great this time, perhaps due to the aesthetically pleasing waitress designated to our table…
…which inevitably led to an XX Chromosome post. I passed her my blogger name card to boot. I can’t resist! 😉
I asked the waitress for their flagship dish and she recommended Tie Ban Shuang Long (Steel Plate Double Dragon). It’s calamari and pork ribs mixed in a delicious sauce with an egg cracked into the hot plate. It’s priced at RM 20 and comes with a bowl of steamed rice. It’s delicious!
Mary recommended the Tien Chang Di Jiu (Forever and Ever – though it’s translated as Forever Happiness in the menu) dessert, which is priced at a very reasonable RM 4. It’s a sticky mass of extremely hot yam and sweet potato in starch. The dessert is served with a bowl of iced water filled with ice cubes and it’s supposed to be eaten like this:
You’re supposed to spear a piece of the sticky and piping hot pieces and then dip it into the bowl of ice water. This immediately cools down the dessert and “solidifies” it and it’s ready for consumption. I found it to be an interesting ritual, and quite a lot of fun too.
Enjoy Café & Restaurant is actually a pretty nice place to be chilling out at with a relaxing atmosphere and a laid back ambiance. The food is great too – it has improved by leaps and bounds since my first foray there. The place is lacking in the clientèle department though, due to the stiff competition from the other major eating establishments in that area, but it’s definitely worth a visit. Cheers!
Coffee Garden is the anchor restaurant of Garden Hotel and is a successful F&B establishment in it’s own right. Although Coffee Garden doesn’t draw the local crowd to the extent of the wildly successful Peppers Cafe (Tanahmas Hotel), it does have its regulars and it’s a nice and (relatively) private place for lunch and dinner.
The interior of Coffee Garden has been given a major overhaul, with glass facades and mood lighting, creating a very pleasing ambiance. The post-modern architecture (actually, I don’t even know what post-modern architecture means, I just wrote it to make myself look more intelligent ;)) with reflective wall length mirrors looks amazing.
There are LCD screens placed strategically around the restaurant and an al fresco seating area outside for the nicotine brigade. Coffee Garden serves surprisingly good food, perhaps even better than Peppers Cafe. The measure of a successful hotel F&B outlet is the amount of locals patronizing the restaurant, and Coffee Garden has a loyal following.
The dinner menu at Garden Cafe is very comprehensive and covers Chinese and Western cuisine. There is complimentary garlic bread with every meal and the prices for most dishes are very reasonable.
This is the Seafood Gala (RM 16 ++) which is similar to the Manhattan Seafood Platter at Manhattan Fish Market. It consists of baked mussels, pan fried fish fillet, deep fried calamari rings and grilled shrimp served with garlic butter rice (Mmm…) and lemon butter sauce. The only thing missing is an MFM waitress going all Firebat on the platter (StarCraft reference here). 😉
The Garden Mixed Grill (RM 17 ++) has grilled lamb chop, grilled beef (otherwise known as steak), grilled chicken, sausages and beef bacon. There is a great portfolio of edible mammals represented in this dish and it’s perfect as a sample of everything they offer.
Coffee Garden also serves a wide variety of beer and alcopops at hotel prices. Their Guinness Stout goes for RM 10 ++ per mug and RM 40 ++ for a jug but regular beers goes for RM 30 ++ per jug, which is pretty much the price you’ll expect to pay at other watering holes.
I have been going there regularly for lunch with Autumn to eat through their entire set lunch menu. The lunch menu is limited and priced at RM 8++ inclusive of a drink and soup.
Fried Chicken With Peanut Soup
Autumn had this during our first lunch date there. I’ve had it as well, it’s pretty good but a little on the bland side. It should be noted that some of the waiters and waitresses are not very good photographers so you may have to get them to take several shots. 😉
Fried Fish Fillet with BBQ Sauce
This was also on our first attempt to eat through the set lunch menu. This is the best dish in the set lunch menu in our opinion. It’s the BBQ sauce…it tastes great. Notice the similar office wear but please do not comment on the lovebite. 😉
Fried Squid in Celery
I shared this dish with Autumn coz we were not both not really hungry that day. I think this was a couple of days after the first visit since I was wearing a tie to cover up the still visible hickey. The squid is probably the other dish I would eat, the others are pretty bland.
Fried Beef with Garlic
I had this during the third trip to Coffee Garden. It’s nothing to write home about. Astute readers will notice a new hickey on my neck. I swear, it’s not due to Autumn. I don’t know how it got there. 😉
Fried Duck with Black Pepper
Autumn had the duck during the third trip. It’s alright, but again, Coffee Garden’s lunch menu isn’t really as good as the dinner menu.
It took us about two weeks to get through the five (5) set lunch menu coz you don’t want to eat the same food everyday. It’s still one of our regular hangouts though due to the privacy of the place.
Coffee Garden is a great place for lunch and dinner. The set lunch menu is cheap considering the air-conditioned comfort and privacy of the establishment and it manages to attract quite a few of the lucrative 9-5 crowd during lunchtime. Their dinner menu is excellent – it’s much better than their set lunch menu, which is mass produced. I give Coffee Garden two thumbs up.
Jumbrella Cafe is an interesting al fresco concept cafe that has a great theme. Jumbrella is a concatenation of the words Jumbo and Umbrella and that’s exactly what the cafe is – a giant outdoor eating establishment under a huge canopy.
The place is only open at night since the area (with the exception of the brick and mortar kitchen) is used as a park during daylight hours. Thus, the canopy (umbrella) is modular and constructed at night with the seating arrangements all taken out and set when the place opens at around 7 pm.
I didn’t really notice this place until I sent a friend there to meet up with her coworkers for supper one night. Jumbrella Cafe is tagged as a bakery, cafe, dessert and grill house. I thought the sign said dumbrella Cafe at first glance. Unfortunate choice of font there for the signage. 😉
Jumbrella Cafe has a huge projection screen which attracts football fans during the game. The place serves beer as well, which goes well with a football match, I’m told. It can get a bit crowded during the major events like the Olympics but there are fan and mist units so it’s not warm unless the ambient temperature is.
The service at Jumbrella Cafe is inconsistent. The waiter/waitress of undetermined gender above gives excellent service while some of the others felt like taking orders was a huge chore and probably just wanted to curl up in a ball at home.
Anyway, this is one of the very rare occasions where I have to write a bad review about the food. It has dropped below the “nothing to write home about” standard to downright bland. I wouldn’t call it bad per se, but it’s very unimaginative and plain – not exactly adjectives you would want your food to be addressed by. 😉
This is Jumbrella Spaghetti (RM 9.50). Bland and tasteless.
This is Lamb Chop with Black Pepper Sauce (RM 20). Bones and fatty meat.
This is Orange Juice (RM 7). Watered down and diluted.
This is Fried Lok-Lok (RM 4). Over fried and tasteless.
This is Autumn (RM Priceless). Delicious!
It’s the only dish I had that was absolutely fabulous. 😉
Haz Cafe and Restaurant is an eating establishment with a lot of weird angled aquariums inside. I initially thought it was a seafood restaurant but upon further investigation it turned out to be a shabu-shabu restaurant. These places have been popping up like mushrooms over here ever since the success of Mitsu Shabu Shabu.
The interior of Haz Cafe is dominated by 90 degree angled aquariums which I found rather odd. It does work well as a demarcation fitting though – the seating arrangements are clearly delineated by the design. I went there with Clare and Cheryl for dinner since Cheryl was in town.
Haz Cafe has the standard fittings you’ll expect at a shabu shabu joint – there are receptacles for the pot of boiling broth and individual heating elements. The departure from orthodox shabu-shabu comes from the community BBQ grill in the middle. The place serves food that can either be dipped in broth or grilled with butter.
There is a platter full of the standard trimmings for adding gustatory perception (a pretentious word meaning taste and texture) to the broth – vegetables, rice vermicelli, nori (seaweed), tofu, mushrooms and an egg.
This is the mixed beef platter – it contains various cuts of beef from tenderloin to sirloin. The variety just makes me tingle in my loins. =D
We also had another side order of a more marbled slice of beef. I can’t remember which part of the cow this came from.
Oink Oink. This is the pork platter. Mmm…pork. 😉
The meat can also be grilled on the central BBQ grill but the place is meant for shabu-shabu style eating.
It seems that the art of eating shabu-shabu is lost on most people so I have taken the liberty of showing how it’s supposed to done:
Step 1: Take piece of the sliver of meat/fish/crustacean.
Step 2: Dip it with your chopsticks into the pot of boiling broth and start swishing it around.
Step 3: Take it out again and consume. I know mine looks raw, but I like raw! 🙂
Step 4: Dump the remainder of your rice into the broth after the meal and consume the broth + rice mixture.
You can also pour the broth into the rice if there’s not a lot left, but this is a departure from Tradition (TM).
This is Cheryl Lim – an auditor who gets to travel around to places like Langkawi but works till late in the night, which takes much of the fun out of business travel.
Thanks for getting me the duty free cigarettes, Cheryl! 🙂
I was browsing through my old photo albums just now in search of photos of my sister when she was younger for her wedding video when I came across this photo. This is (from left) my sister, me, Sing Ling and Wei Ling when I was 7 years old. I still remember the event – it was just after a 2.4 km jogathon that was held at Methodist High School when I was in Primary 1. My dad was the principal at that school then and we had this family sports day event where we ended up on this huge tandem walker thing with my mom taking a candid photo.
Anyway, I had this HUGE crush on Sing Ling, who’s my classmate in Primary 1 at that time. It was my first love (at 7 years of age). I wrote her my very first love letter on a torn out piece of exercise book, and it went something like:
I love you Sing Ling Please love me I’ll give you a eraser or a ruler if you love me
I had a really crappy red broken ruler at that time and I have to admit that my budding Casanova skillz was very much at a n00bie stage at that point. 😉
It was funny recalling that incident though, and it made me laugh. Nostalgia, eh?
I went to Full House Cafe for lunch with one of my colleagues and her younger sister and brother in tow. I have seen this cafe before but it always looks to be anything but what the cafe’s name suggests. It has always come across as cold and empty.
However, little did I know, the interior is actually rather nice, with silk privacy screens between the booths and a decor that exudes warmth. It’s private and conducive to conversation and my coworker told me the spaghetti here is rather good.
The best thing about Full House Cafe is the dirt cheap cocktail prices. They serve alcohol (beer and cocktails) with the latter starting from RM 7.90 (!). At least that’s what I thought at first. I asked them for a stronger version of the cocktails and was told it would cost “RM 1 or RM 2 more” which I happily agreed to.
I had the Margarita (RM 7.90) which came in a tiny cup with a slice of lemon. I wouldn’t call it strong by my standards, and the cafe charged just RM 1 more for the souped up version of the drink. However, the meager liquid volume makes you think you’re getting more value for your money than you actually are. 😉
I had another Long Island Iced Tea (RM 13.90) which came in a much more acceptable receptacle that holds a more reasonable amount of liquid. It still wasn’t strong enough for my tastes but Full House Cafe is not known for it’s cocktails so I shall not judge it based on that alone.
The non-ethanol based drinks are very reasonably priced – Diana (my coworker’s younger sister) had the Red Elf (RM 3.50) which is a mixture of Ribena and Sprite while her younger brother had a Coke (RM 3.50).
The younger brother had the interestingly named Lazy People’s Set (RM 4.50). I can’t read much of the menu since most of it is in Chinese but it consists of two slices of toasted (fried?) bread, a sausage, coleslaw, sweet corn, baked beans and a fried egg.
Amy had the Chicken Chop with Thai Sauce (RM 8.90). It came with the standard trimmings of coleslaw, baked beans and sweet corn. She claimed that it tasted a little on the bland side though. The chicken chop is fried, not grilled which could be where the problem lies.
Diana had the Japanese Style Pork Chop (RM 7.90), The pork chop is served teriyaki style (dipped in batter before being deep fried) with mayonnaise and tomato sauce on top. The pork is tough though, probably due to overenthusiastic deep frying. 😉
I went for the pasta dish that Amy recommended – this is the Prawn Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce (RM 8.90). It came with two fully deshelled and large prawns which is rather generous for the price. It tasted good but I had eaten a late breakfast before this so I didn’t manage to finish the dish.
Full House Cafe has great service and reasonably priced food in a private air conditioned alcove. It’s like a little gem waiting to be discovered. The cocktails are cheap (albeit underpowered and volumetrically challenged) and the ambiance is relaxing, with soothing piped music and a laid back atmosphere that allows you to stay as long as you like. It’s good for hanging out with friends or your partner for a long, lazy lunch.
This is Diana Lau (Amy, your finger is on the lens), who is currently doing her Form Five in my alma mater (and in the same class I used to be in to boot!). I have noticed that I have problems attracting the under 18 demographic to my blog, probably due to its content, so I have taken the liberty of passing Diana a stack of my blogger name cards to be distributed to her classmates when school starts again. 😉 Word of the Day: Volumetrically challenged (Adjective) A politically correct term for a small amount of liquid that is better described as a drop, droplet, or moisture. 😉
RedCarrot is designed as a “higher end” dining experience by SugarBun (the fast food franchise). Naturally, the concept of fine dining for a fast food establishment is rather different from boutique restaurants and such, and I wouldn’t use that adjective to describe RedCarrot at all (despite owning stock in SugarBun). 😉
The ambiance is really quite warm and inviting and the place is air-conditioned. It tends to attract a different set of clientèle despite being located just above the SugarBun in Pedada. There’s no screaming hyperactive children running about with minimal parental control on the upper tier. 😉
The place is quite conducive to conversation but the food isn’t anything to write home about, so I hardly ever go there despite it being just a two minute drive from my place. Autumn lives near me too, and the only reason we went there tonight was coz we’ve both already eaten dinner and wanted to get out of the oppressive heat without ADHD inflicted rug rats stressing us out.
We get more than our RSA (Recommended Stress Allowance) from our office already, so that’s enough stress vitamins and nutrients for healthy daily intake without adding to it at night. 🙂 RedCarrot serves a lot of carrot based drinks – this is Autumn peering at the Red Carrot + Beetroot (RM 5.80) and Red Carrot + Lemon (RM 5.80) that we ordered, trying to figure out which is which.
We shared one of their flagship dishes – the Fish Fillet “RedCarrot” Style (RM 13.90). “RedCarrot style” apparently means dousing the fish fillet with Thai chilli sauce and having a lot of red carrots (what else) on the side. It’s served with French Fries which tastes suspiciously like SugarBun French Fries (and in all probability is SugarBun French Fries since it’s under the same banner). It’s pretty good though.
This is the Fruit Platter (RM 5) which comes with sliced green apples, starfruit, and honeydew. Autumn eats a lot of fruit, but I don’t. I have been getting excessive RSA intake lately and that, combined with the less than optimal fiber intake in the guidelines of the US RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) has resulted in a prolonged bout of constipation. You don’t even want to know about my hemorrhoids. 😉
RedCarrot is a pretty nice place to chill out and relax. The crowd it draws tends to be couples so it’s a more subdued and quiet place to have supper at. The food is nothing to write home about but the ambiance more than makes up for it.
…and I noticed that Autumn has a very interesting skill (?) of being able to eat fruits with seeds and then inconspicuously spitting it out onto a fork (!) of all places.
