I just had the best mee rebus tulang gearbox at Restoran ZZ Sup Tulang in JB. This is one of those local foodie treasures that you need a local to bring you to.
The place is a rather chaotic assembly of huts and trees. The huts with the thatched roofs is meant to keep the sun and rain off your head and I found that dining in nature whets the appetite like nothing else.
What is mee rebus tulang gearbox? Well, it’s basically Malay style noodles with an interesting component – the tulang gearbox part. Tulang gearbox is basically the large bones from a cow, usually from the shank. There is still quite a lot of meat, cartilage and tendon on the bones but when you request for it “gearbox style” it comes with a straw.
The straw is for you to suck the marrow out of the huge bones.
The portion of the noodles in mee rebus tulang gearbox is a bit small for me but the gravy is sinfully rich and delicious. It leaves you hankering for more. It’s about RM 8.50 and comes with 4 good sized bones.
You’ll find at least one HUGE bone in there and you’re supposed to insert the straw deep inside it and suck in all the marrow and juices. It’s a visceral experience like no other. The bone marrow is sweet, warm and hearty. It’s simply the best mee rebus tulang gearbox I’ve had!
You know, I’m not a particularly photogenic person. The concept of angles and poses is like an arcane art which I never quite mastered. People tell me I look better in real life than in photos.
I was browsing through my photos from JB (the most recent one that I just came back from) and saw this photo of me and Jayne drinking in the hotel room at night. We were both in our PJs and Jayne had this priceless expression on her face which I found hilarious.
She’s one of those people who’s really photogenic – the camera just adores her. It’s a great skill to have, but I guess it’ll forever elude me…it’s like how I can never style my hair properly unless it’s done by a hairstylist. 😡
There is a Chinese style curry fish head place in JB that seems to be VERY popular among the locals. Kam Long Restaurant serves curry fish head and curry fish head only. It’s their flagship, signature dish and…the only item on the menu. 😉 I have heard about the prodigious queues forming just to get a taste of this very dish and I was very keen to check it out.
The funniest thing I heard (which I didn’t get the first time) was from Lainey bff who told me – DON’T WRITE ABOUT IT. Geddit? I didn’t the first (or second time) either.
Anyway, it just so happens that I was reading The Dead Cockroach’s review of the place the day before we were heading down. We drove along Jalan Wong Ah Fook twice and still couldn’t find the place so we stopped and asked for directions several times.
Okay, the problem with this place is that you can’t exactly see the Kam Leong Restaurant signboard while you’re driving. It’s obscured by some pull down canvas shutters to keep the sun out. It’s actually not hard to find – you just have to drive down from the BEGINNING of Jalan Wong Ah Fook and stop at the first traffic light.
You’ll be able to see the queue of people outside the humble restaurant – just cross the road to join in.
It should be noted that the queue is not strictly first-come-first-serve. The small size of the restaurant and the limited seating arrangements allowed us (a group of two) to share a table with other people while if you’re in a larger posse, you might have to wait longer until a table clears.
Well, since there’s only one thing to order, we went for the famous curry fish head for two people. It’s RM 18 inclusive of rice and you best be able to read Chinese coz there are no other languages on the menu. In fact, there is no menu, save for a small signboard beside the industrious kitchen.
I have to admit, the Chinese style curry fish head is very good. Lainey finished her rice, which is quite uncommon and I loved the curry sauce. They put in a lot of vegetables too – okra, long beans, tofu and so on but the fish head is the centerpiece and it does not disappoint.
The flesh of the fish is tender and juicy and the curry sauce complements the fresh fish head very well. My only complaint is that there isn’t enough fish meat to go around so if you’re feeling particularly hungry, order +1 people more than your group. 🙂
Anyway, I’m heading to JB again in a couple of hours despite just coming back early this week. Heh! We were in JB for Freedom. There’s another one this Saturday right in KL so don’t miss it! I’ll be going to the Freedom in Penang at the end of the month too!
Okay, this is one of the most interesting and unique things I’ve heard in a long time. There’s an 8 flavor xiao long bao course at Paradise Dynasty which includes premium fillings like black truffle and foie gras.
I couldn’t wait to try it when I first heard about the concept. I headed down to ION Orchard in Singapore yesterday with Lainey to meet up with Michelle and Ben just for this.
Paradise Dynasty claims to have the world’s first 8 flavored xiao long bao and you have to eat it in order. The restaurant is famous for it – the open kitchen is filled with cooks preparing it and a lot of patrons order this specialty.
The 8 different fillings are:
1. Original
2. Garlic
3. Ginseng
4. Foie Gras
5. Black Truffle
6. Cheesy
7. Crab Roe
8. Szechuan
…and you have to eat it in order to have the optimal experience. 😀
The set costs SGD 13.90 and it’s well worth the price. I found the Garlic and Ginsengxiao long pao very flavorful, with the juices bursting from the skin as you bite into it. The Foie Gras and Black Truffle ones are suitably decadent and I loved the Crab Roe filling too.
However, I felt that the Cheesy xiao long pao should have been #7 as the overpowering taste of cheese can be a bit…well, overwhelming. The Szechuan deserves its final spot as the filling is extremely spicy (even for my desensitized taste buds).
It certainly is an epicurean adventure that you MUST try if you’re ever in Singapore. Thanks for brunch Ben and Michelle! 🙂
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Feeling hungry but don’t want to go all the way to Singapore for some awesome food? Check out this MilkADeal offer:
It’s a great deal at RM 15 – there’s even soup, drinks and side dishes in addition to the authentic claypot chicken rice and it feeds 2! It’s an unlimited purchase and redemption offer that just debuted today and heaps of people have already gotten their hands on it. Where else can you get prices like this for good food in the Klang Valley? 🙂
Spotted at a JB toilet. It basically says “Beware – Thief. Don’t hang your pants here. Thanks.”.
Surreal. In other news we’re staying at Zon Regency Hotel by the sea and Gods be good it’s a duty free haven.
I can’t say much about the quality of food (it’s alright but nothing to write home about – wait till my next post for an awesome JB specialty). However, it IS exactly like the photo in the menu so no one can say that it’s false advertising.
The best thing however is the ambience – it’s al fresco dining beside the sea…and yes, you can see Singapore yonder.
I travel around quite a bit. I tend to season my vacations with a healthy sprinkling of adventure since I’m a huge adrenaline junkie. I’ve gone bungee jumping, skydiving, snowboarding, and cliff jumping in various parts of the world and I pronounce it GOOD. 🙂
However, it’s not just the things that raises your heart rate that appeals to me – I love immersing myself in culture and experiencing new things. That is adventure to me as well – novelty seeking and wanderlust.
I often find myself planning for the next trip as soon as I come back. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be off somewhere when you’re reading this.
Hell, I’m going on a road trip tomorrow and another one this weekend so chances are I’ll not be at home. The wanderlust is never sated in me. 😀
I update a lot while I’m away as well (much to the chagrin of my wallet) – anything from the usual social media suspects to sending an MMS of Stonehenge to my bff. Yes, I actually did that.
You know how data roaming can be a bit tricky at times?
I’ve got a question for you:
1. You’re in Australia using your postpaid line to stay connected on Twitter, Facebook and your blog
2. There is a 3 hour time difference and you’re flying off early tomorrow
3. When do you deactivate it?
I’ve always wondered – do you get charged for another day when the clock strikes 12 midnight in Malaysia or Australia local time?
It’s a Cinderella conundrum and something I plan to find out once and for all with Hotlink’s Prepaid Data Roaming. They’re the first in Malaysia to offer international data roaming while you’re on work or vacation somewhere else in the world. They’ve got 150 countries covered and counting!
I reckon it’ll be very useful while traveling. You know how much I love doing that.
Hotlink is running a contest called Bloggers without Borders where bloggers are divided into three categories – Food, Adventure and Fashion and we’ll get the chance to go to Manila, Bali and Bangkok respectively.
However, we have to earn that privilege and here’s where you come in. 🙂
Vote for me and suggest an activity you would like me to do. I’ll be heading down to Bali so there’s a lot of water sports going on there.
Here’s my video. I had a lot of fun doing it – enlisted the help of a random stranger who wanted to borrow my phone coz he forgot to bring his, behind-the-scenes stuff, driving with no hands (don’t try this at home) and other shenanigans.
I even got a haircut before making that video. 😉
I’ll be constantly updating and will be in touch if I get chosen to go to Bali so vote for me! I promise you, I’ll be game to do anything. Heh! There isn’t much I wouldn’t do actually.
Want me to jump of a plane without a chute and do a tandem harness in midair? Just ask me to. (Really, please, I would love to do this)
Want me to jump off a cliff? Yes, sir! (or ma’am)
Trust me, if you vote for me, you’ll get the chance to ask me to do stuff and see me tweet, Facebook and blog using Hotlink’s Prepaid Data Roaming JUST FOR YOU. No one else will be as fun and adventurous as me so you might as well get your friends to vote for me as well. 😉
I just came back from a road trip to Bukit Tinggi (also called Berjaya Hills) with Christy, Hollie, Nic and Patricia. We headed up Monday morning and spent the night at the French medieval themed resort.
It seems that Colmar Tropicale has been around for quite a while and the last time I came here was during my birthday.
This time around it was supposed to be a very chill and relaxing trip and I think we spent the most time fishing for ducks (and eating). Heh.
Christy booked one of the regular rooms and I was bunking with her while the other 3 squeezed into another room.
Some of them went to sleep as soon as we got there but me and Christy started watching TV and talking instead.
Lunch at Ryo Zantei @ Japanese Gardens. Most of us had the Ten Zaru Soba (RM 29) coz the weather was rather hot. It’s cold soba with tempura and soy dressing topped with…
…a raw quail egg.
Lovely.
Walking around the Japanese Gardens. A lot of people come up here to rent kimonos and have the Japanese tea ceremony that it’s become a bit of a cliché.
Tea time pastries at La Boulangerie.
There was this duck pond full of yellow ducks with hooks which you “fish” with a pole. We spent the better part of an hour and about RM 50 trying to get a duck with a winning number on it.
The fruits of our labor. One tiny stuffed toy.
It was a lot of fun though and it’s surprisingly hypnotizing to watch the fake ducks swirl around the plastic inflatable pond.
Dinner at La Flamme.
Drinks at Le Vin. Notice all the French names? We ordered a bottle of wine to share before finally retiring to the room.
I think me and Christy was the last ones to sleep – we spent the night in bed talking about all sorts of stuff…like long distance relationships back in your grandparent’s days where they had no technology. Heh.
Singapore Food Trail is located below the Singapore Flyer and aims to bring all the best hawker food in Singapore to one place. It’s kinda like the Lot 10 food court in KL – the crème de la crème of hawker food all represented in a single place.
The setup in Singapore Food Trail has a lot of paraphernalia from the good ol’ days to better set the ambiance. There’s also an al fresco area for those who prefers to eat their food in a more authentic setting.
I was pretty parched when I got there so I ordered a Bird’s Nest Drink for SGD 2.50. You can have it hot or cold and the large one comes in that huge tin mug your grandma drinks tea out of (or at least my grandma did) so it’s a pretty generous serving.
There’s a lot of tempting food around but I settled on High Street Tai Wah Pork Noodle. It has the longest queue of all the stalls and I reckon that if it’s so popular, I might as well try it. The people in front of me all ordered the pork noodle with broth (SGD 5) which is their flagship dish.
I’m not a big fan of soup dishes though so I went with the dry option. I also upsized it to medium for SGD 7. The dry pork noodle is exactly the same as the one with broth, except they seperate the soup into another bowl so it doesn’t saturate the noodles.
The Tai Wah pork noodle broth is really something to behold. You can see the quality of the soup with your naked eye – it takes a lot of boiling to get the marrow and nice bits out of pork bones and it makes the soup really good. I wished I had ordered the regular version, I wanted more of the soup.
The pork noodles is awesome too – it has most parts of the pig inside it and the noodles are nicely flavored with a slightly spicy sauce. There’s pork wantons, pork belly, pork meat balls, pork liver and even a sprinkling of dried cuttlefish. The dried cuttlefish is ingenious – it adds texture and flavor as well as a break from all the porcine goodness in the noodles.
It’s goes very well with a cold Tiger on a hot Singaporean afternoon. Gotta drink the local suds when you’re there. 🙂
Well, there’s something to be said about starting your day by leaping off a plane 14,000 feet in the air.
Skydiving first thing in the morning followed by some sea kayaking action. I have to admit, I was probably the first one up and went knocking to wake some others that day. We were certainly the first boots on ground at the meeting point at the hotel lobby. Heh!
I was still half asleep when I signed the indemnity form.
The Tourism NSW and AirAsia X people were kind enough to see if they can get me into a custom solo AFF since I’ve been through the course before but unfortunately, it was too late. They only have tandem packages on the regular menu, so we all got into the tandem skydive at 14,000 feet (highest you can go in Australia) courtesy of Skydive Byron Bay.
I didn’t film myself coz I had gone through all these before but Alycia did so look at her video to see what it’s like! She also wrote about her experience here.
It was a lot of fun for me since I haven’t skydived in Byron Bay before (and certainly not in autumn) but it gave me this idea about jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
Have you seen the video?
There’s actually two people who has done it before and contrary to popular belief, you don’t just need to have balls of (forged) steel to do it. You’ll need some training as well, so you can maneuver and not slam into the other person in midair.
That would probably involve a lot of dying since most people pass out when they crash into each other in midair at terminal velocity and thus would be unable to deploy their chute, much less do a tandem harness in the sky.
This is the second person to do it, I thought it was technically more difficult than Travis’ first attempt.
Terminal velocity is around 195 km/hour (it changes depending on how you shape your body and other variables – you can go faster, that’s how a person who exits the plane after you can catch up) and we got to experience that for about 60 seconds but I was talking to our driver and she happens to be getting her license so I told her I wouldn’t mind jumping out of a plane without a chute when she’s gotten her license.
I was being totally serious btw.
Won’t it be the ultimate rush? You’re just depending on someone else’s chute and there’s so many things that can go wrong before you hook up and do the harness. It’s mind-blowing.
The mere fact that it’s mind-blowing means I have to try it. 🙂
Anyway, we headed out for lunch after that in a bright and sunny cafe (with one opt out from being sick from skydiving) – there’s nothing like having buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries and bananas doused with honey with a side of smoked salmon that’s equivalent to an entire family packet to get some energy for sea kayaking…
…which is exactly what we did that same afternoon, to spot dolphins and whales in the sea. I was supposed to pair up with Ringo but she can’t swim and I’m not a good kayaker so I teamed up with Alycia (who could swim) instead. I reckon it’s a great thing coz me and Alycia never overturned our sea kayak (everyone else did).
#winning
Sea kayaking requires you to power over the surf (this is the most difficult part) as you head out to sea – aligning your sea kayak in a directional wedge against the incoming tide so you can go over the waves and into the calmer seas after the break.
It was a lot of fun, just rowing in tandem with Alycia and getting past the rather large incoming waves and then paddling out to sea. I never did quite figure out how to make an emergency turn in the strong tides and I nearly had a hernia pulling the sea kayak back to shore after all that but it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys and Alycia turned out to be an excellent partner. 🙂
…so if you’re wondering just how fun a barrel of monkeys is, AirAsia X is having their Byron Bay & Beyond promotion for just RM 599 all in to Gold Coast now.
Heh! I’ve always wanted to title a blog post like that. In this case, there is at least some semblance of logical justification for it. I was in Singapore a few weeks ago and one of the things that we did was have breakfast with orang utans. There were also pythons for you to hold, it was a great start to the morning, truth to be told.
However, the highlights of my trip there were mostly towards the arts and theater scene that Singapore has to offer. I bugged Kristine to organize my itinerary around this show by Yukichi Matsumoto which I have been itching to catch. It showed at the Singapore Arts Festival 2011 and this is the first time the Ishinha theater group has done a performance outside of Japan.
Ishinha has very high standards for their stages and choreography. They build the set and props themselves and they’re quite partial about how it turns out. It was one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen. It’s held outdoors and I love the passion they put into their work – “This is a rain or shine event”.
I expected this to be a niche show but I was surprised to see the packed. There were two Japanese men seated to my right and a bunch of Caucasians on holiday on my left. The seats are stadium type wooden boards – no frills but we managed to sit very comfortably by NOT sitting on the seats itself but on the one below you and using your seat as a backrest.
I can’t credit myself for that though – the bunch of Caucasian ladies started sliding down and I thought that looked like a mighty fine position to be sitting in. You’re not disturbing anyone and your chiropractor would thank you for it. It’s all about the back support. Thus, I slid down as well and the woman grinned at me and said “It’s much more comfortable this way, eh?”
Yes, it is ma’am. Yes indeed. 🙂
When A Grey Taiwanese Cow Stretched is a 120 minute performance with no intervals. You have to come in before it starts or the doors close. That’s the way to go about it. No disturbances from late arrivals.
I was actually very surprised by the performance. I expected it to be good but it just went and blew my mind.
The stage structure is built in front of a city landscape which is integral to the story as a juxtaposition. When A Grey Taiwanese Cow Stretched explores a lot of themes from migrants, to the war and occupation of Japanese troops and how it affects their people. It’s all in Japanese and there’s subtitles to the side but what I really enjoyed was they way it was performed.
In lieu of dialogue, they use a form of rap to communicate. Known as Jan Jan Opera language, it’s a kind of Osakan street rap – it goes from a rapid staccato to a slow, ponderous chant. It’s quite unique and a very effective way to get the narrative across.
It’s a very intense performance, especially if you have good seats (Thanks Kristine!). Don’t be surprised to see a troop of performers staring you down and intensely shouting about the pain they feel. One particular bit of dialogue that I found very well executed and poignant is:
You had affairs!
South American women.
With big bottoms!
Did you notice their breasts?
Shangri-la.
Paradise, isn’t it? *sarcastic
I just wish I had enough money leftover to buy the soundtrack, it’s definitely worth it.
I also visited the ArtScience Museum for Salvador Dali’s work. The museum is shaped like a lotus (though some say it looks like a baseball mitt, including myself) and it’s actually quite vast inside.
I don’t think captions would do the great man’s work justice so I’m just going to post up the photos:
The other thing that I really enjoyed was The Lion King at Marina Bay Sands Singapore.
I’ve seen the West End production but the Singapore one was even better. The acoustics and the seating arrangements beats the one in Lyceum Theater near Convent Garden.
It’s just progress – the Marina Bay Sands theater is just more modern.
I also loved how they localized The Lion King Musical with a sprinkling of Mandarin and references to the Merlion. Don’t expect them to break into a refrain of “The (Mer)lion sleeps tonight” but there’s enough little touches that differentiates it and it’s an awesome performance by a new cast assembled from around the world.
Now, why don’t we get all this stuff in Malaysia? Oh well, at least I can visit Singapore instead of flying all the way to London next time I want to see a good theater performance.
Oh, by the way these are some of the upcoming performances in Singapore:
Cirque Éloize iD – Now until 26 June 2011
Kylie Minogue – Aphrodite Live -29 June 2011
The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber – 7 to 17 July 2011
Korean Music Wave 2011 – 15 July 2011
Paramore Live in Concert – 21 Aug 2011
If you’re interested in all that Singapore has to offer, hop on over to YourSingapore.com where there’s something for everyone!
