Daily Grind

lunch date at Delicious, Dua Residency

rainy December

Rainy KL

took this pic last friday after work. a storm was brewing in the sky... a little eerie as that, I dramatized it with rain effect. turns out to be pretty gothic eh!

we seriously need some sunshine in KL.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Josephine

Nice cozy restaurant in Ipoh. A btl of house red rm70 onwards, coffee starting from rm11. Not sure about the food there though, I have heard mixed reviews according to my hometown friends. This cafe is conveniently located along the main road towards Ipoh Garden East.

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Element Gym

My workouts have always been in the evening but since today is a jolly good Friday, I decided to switch routine and woke up as early as 545am headed to the gym. The biggest battle was dragging myself out of bed. Felt awesome after great workout.

I think I should do this more often!

 

 

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Sunrise in Gurney

Caught a beautiful sunrise from my hotel room at 34th floor. I was in Penang for a work trip. #things to be grateful for

Laduree

*among gazillion of phone calls today, this one made up my particular shitty day*

T: hi how are you?
S: could be better. You back from Europe already?
T: yeah just got back last night. Listen I'm just 5 mins away from your office. Can come down for a sec?

It's a souvenir from my favorite Laduree shop in Paris. These colorful macaroons instantly cheered me up, like a rainbow! I know how painful it must have been to queue up that perpetual line at Champ Elysees. Thankful I have some sweetest friend ever.

Ramen Love

Nothing beats a bowl of good Hokkaido Ramen and seeing those happy and heart warming faces. Great evening catching up with my girlfriends Shirlyn and Fanny after work at Hokkaido Restaurant, Gardens. S is expecting a baby girl! Love happy news like that.

Warrior

I haven’t done a movie review in a while now. That’s also probably because I haven’t seen one which was so so gripping since “my sister’s keeper”, and I have to say Warrior is probably the most emotional movie I’ve watched this year. Despite its ridiculously clichéd script, I find this movie superbly engaging, impressive fight sequences (not like I know MMA that well anyway) and terrific performances from the 3 actors. 

Personally not an avid fan for fighter movies. Oscar award winning movie Million Dollar Baby left me with a heavy heart for days. Warrior however turned out to be a lot deeper than I’ve expected it to be. The emotions were so raw and powerful depicting the enduring love of a family but i don’t want to spill any beans so say no further…

Redang

  

Finally had time to post this up. Went to Redang Island in July… beach quality there was superb. Redang is a popular tourist/ diving spot among locals and foreigners and shame on me,  it was my very first visit despite being a Malaysian. Seriously, Malaysia is a country that has one of (or many) the most beautiful tropical beaches in the world, not to mention they are affordable too.

 

It was a relaxing leisure dive trip with my fellow diver friends from Ipoh.

Sleep… Dive… Eat…

for 4 days and 3 nights.

 

We stayed at the quieter area of Redang… it’s a diver hangout joint

Chalets at Pelangi Redang Resort

 

Divers chilling in between surface intervals

  

Logged some very interesting dives this time around. First checkout dive was nothing but strong currents and jellyfishes. Second and third dive our group attracted a huge barracuda! Check out the video below! Oh I also did a night dive too… but it gave me bad migraine :( 

The more fanciful and touristic area of Redang is called the Laguna Beach

 

 

While reminiscing the good times I had in Redang… I’m missing compressed air already. Can’t wait for the next dive trip in 2 weeks!

Osteria Mozza

In a recent trip to SIngapore during Raya holiday break, we checked out this famous celebrity chef Mario Batali’s restaurant in Marina Bay Sands. 

 The restaurant is divided into 2 sections: a casual pizzeria on the right and a bistro style restaurant on the left

 

Our reservation was made at 9pm but it was still quite packed by the time we reached Osteria Mozza. The restaurant offers a warm yet exquisite ambience, equipped with friendly waiting staffs and we were spoilt for choices on the menu.

Let’s see what we have picked for the evening.

Complimentary Ricotta Cheese

Mozzarella Tasting as one of the starter : bufala mozzarella, burrata & ricotta. It's a mozzarella bar so we couldn't have missed this right, however it' didn’t turn out that memorable… I like their accompanying garlic bread though :)

Grilled Octopus with potatoes, celery & lemon

nutty and zesty in flavor while the spring onion celery blended in really well. loved this dish

linguine with clams, pancetta & spicy chiles

I wouldn’t have thought of pancetta and clams as a combination but this was awesome

Pappardelle Verde with lamb ragú, olive Taggiasche & mint

This was probably the best dish among all, even for a non lamb eater like me it was so good that for a moment I thought it was tuna meat!

Diners were still coming in past 10pm… here comes our main courses

duck confit – tender and juicy but i didn’t quite enjoy it

Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta with sage & honey - totally tastebud assault...but in a good way

 

Grilled Leg of Lamb with fregola sarda, mint & yogurt – this dish was a a little disappointing

 

Their wine list is at cut-throat prices so we picked one of the cheapest in the range. Not too bad. We were stuffed to the brim and had to skip dessert or else, the waiter might have to roll us out of the establishment LOL. Overall a very good experience, I would rate it 7 out of 10.

Address: The Shoppes @ Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Tel: +65 6688 8522

http://www.osteriamozza.com/singapore/dining.cfm

September

everytime when I've lost the mojo to update my blog here's what I'd normally do: a facelift! do you know where this place is? yes, Santorini it is. if you've already been there... lucky you! I'd give myself any excuse to be there and i believe someday i will! it's in my top bucket list to see how spectacular the world's most famous sunset at Oia would look like.

life has been treating me pretty well. in fact it's been so well that I'm beginning to prosper sideways... sigh!!! no thanks to rainy season i haven’t done any running in a while. and i supposed it’s probably also the side effect of happiness?! whatever it is, fat slob has made its presence longer than it deserves, now it's time to buck up again, hook or by crook missy must must must get herself back in shape by Christmas. wish me luck, hope I can persevere! 

speaking of christmas, can you believe it’s only 3 months away???!

 

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Kuala Sepetang, Tepi Sungai Seafood Restaurant

In a recent trip back to my hometown of Ipoh which I sometimes also call it a dead town, as the number of hangout and exploratory places are always so limited. Boy was I wrong. A trip to Kuala Sepetang was somewhat an eye-opener as I never knew there was such a great place existed in Perak!  Traditionally this a river port for local fishermen to offload their catch, well I think it still is today. Eating at this place guarantees the freshest seafood you can find, not to mention its tranquil and beautiful river mangrove scene which I find almost therapeutic.

nice view while enjoying our lunch

Kuala Sepetang is about 45 mins to an hour drive from Ipoh town. I say it makes a great day out on a lazy Sunday, where you get to enjoy the river view and fresh seafood. I will definitely revisit this place again.

Sungai (RT Weld Restaurant)
No 150 Tepi Sungai, Kuala Sepetang, 34650 Taiping
Tel : 05 8581169
Business Hour : 11am - 9.30pm
GPS Coordinates : N04 50.150 E100 37.620

Back from Hiatus…

Of late, I’ve been looking up on vacation deals for the upcoming Hari Raya and National Day public holiday break in Aug - Sept. I’m sure everyone else in the city must be doing the same leveraging on the precious long break of the year to get away from the hustle and bustle of KL. Then I realized, oversea tickets are now already rocketed at a ripped off rate while local touristic spots would be jam packed with citizens. How? I can’t seem to find a win win situation either way… guess best bet would be to stay put and enjoy the emptiness of the city when everyone else is busy flocking out to somewhere. Travel demand is probably outweighing supply now, sigh…

Anyway, feels good to be back to the blogging scene again after a short break. In weeks to come I’ll be updating more posts of food events and trips happened in the past month or so. Stay tuned!

Cordon Bleu, Jalan Kuala Kangsar

One of the best Hainanese Chicken Chop I’ve ever had actually, besides the ones that my mum makes of course. Chicken was pan-fried to perfection, served with fried egg and coselaw.   

This place is definitely a Ipoh hidden gem, it takes more than a local to know about the restaurant. Here’s a more detailed review with directions to get there:

http://ipohchai.com/chicken-chop-rice.php

Citrus, Ipoh

Most people (non-locals) who visit Ipoh will not think of going for steaks when the city is famous for local delicacies. I remember Piffs asked me a while back about fine dining restaurants in Ipoh, I was scratching my head hard. There’s one big boy in town starts with D but that’s pretty much it.  Now I found another good one, it’s called CITRUS.

We had their sampling menu for RM80/ per pax

Trio appetizer – Salad, Prawn and Scallop

 

Choice of either tenderloin beef or 2-way Cod. I opted for the latter and it was so good I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it

 

Warm chocolate pudding with oozing hot sauce served with ice-cream and Rasberry sauce

Overall, food was good, price wise was slightly on the steep side and service was a tad slow. 
CITRUS WINE & DINE
No 38-46, Laluan Ipoh Perdana,
31400 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia.
Telephone : 605-5451010
Business hours : 11.30am – 3.00pm, 6.30pm – 11.00pm.
Closed on Mondays.

Bobbi Pole

Pole Dancing for Fitness is a hot trend in Australia and in the US but it’s still a very new sport for women in Asia. I love to watch pole dancing competitions cos it always amazes me how strong the core of these superwomen are and yet, they possess such a feminine and curvy body. Honestly I was quite shy to admit my interests in this so I’ve always kept it under the carpet.

Until recently.

Dragged Vonsie along for our very first pole trial class last weekend simply for the fun of it… boy we had tons of fun trying to pole but most of the time wriggling our butts to the music while laughing away. I had bruises around my knees but the instructor said blue blacks are actually sign of strength. I went for a second lesson earlier this week and my interest for pole dancing grows...      

Check this vid out. Maple Loo is the instructor and owner of Bobbi Pole Studio in Malaysia. I have to say she’s really hot and has a great body to die for. She’s also the judge for Showdown2011 on 8TV. Not only that, she also owns the Samadhi Group which consists of a few fine dining restaurants like Tamarind Spring, Neo, Hill, Mandi Mandi and etc, she also owns the exclusive boutique resort JalaPama in Tioman. A very inspirational and iconic figure. You can check out her blog here: http://mapleloo.blogspot.com/

Mobile Blog Test

This is a testing post from my blackberry.

FaceTime with Nate, my adorable nephew in Shanghai via IPad2

Hen Night in Ipoh

My good friend is getting hitched next month. As part of the wedding ritual, me and some girlfriends threw her a hen night party in Ipoh last weekend.

 

L got her the frenchmaid costume from Bangkok; I got her the beautiful veil from Lovely Lace (RM60); Tiara for the girls (RM2.50 each); some generic games like Truth or Dare, I’ve Never and viola! With 15 sporting hens and a drunken bridezilla in tow, the party turned out to be a blast.

  

I won’t elaborate how to organize a hen night this time since I’ve written two entries on the same topic 2.5 years ago. Feel free to check it out here and here.

 

Just to give a little perspective how long we’ve been friends since :)

This was my first night out since daddy has passed on. It was also my first weekend back to Ipoh since the funeral. It has been a weird emotional roller coaster going loops and now slowing down to a halt. It’s never the same again and no amount of comforting thoughts will change the fact or bring him back alive; but we are coping with the difference/ absence/ loss for the lack of a better word. It’s not easy but somehow, we gradually learn to live with it.