Random Notes 25

1. It's time for Random Notes again! I can't wait for the Chinese New Year holidays to come. I don't really feel the Chinese New Year mood this time, but I don't really care as long as I get to enjoy my holidays! How about you?

2. I finally tasted tarap! During my trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah 3 years ago, I had searched for this elusive fruit without success. Read about it HERE. Thanks to Caroline who brought it back all the way from her hometown in Kota Kinabalu, I finally had the chance to taste it.

This is how the tarap fruit looks like. It was very smelly! And just like durians, you are not allowed to bring the tarap fruit on board the plane!

After opening up the fruit, this is how it looks like inside. Does it remind you of cempedak?

Unfortunately, the fruit was too ripe! The flesh has already turned yellow! It didn't taste good to me. I believe that if the fruit was not that ripe, it would have tasted awesome. But probably not as awesome as durians.

3. I am not a big fan of gardening, but I do like plants and flowers. Recently, I discovered this plant called bunga burung (literally bird flower). Don't you think the flowers look like little birds?



Now, maybe some of you are laughing at me for not knowing about the existence of this plant, but as I said earlier, I am not into gardening and I hardly go around shopping for plants.



Anyway, I now have two of these bunga burung plants in my garden. I hope the real birds that fly into my garden won't get confused with these "fake" birds! LOL!

4. Last November, my friend invited me to Bagel 'n' Coffee Station at Hartamas Shopping Centre for lunch. It was my first time eating a bagel, I kid you not!



If you are like me and have no freaking idea what a bagel is, well, it is actually a type of bread that is shaped like a ring or donut. The texture of a bagel is more chewy and hard compared to a donut, and of course, the ingredients and cooking method are completely different!

I ordered their famous Classic New York Lox Bagel which is really salmon bagel stuffed with cream cheese and vegetables. The combination of the salmon, cream cheese and vegetables were almost heavenly! Yum!!



If you ever drop by Hartamas Shopping Centre, do give this bagel outlet a try!

5. By now, I'm pretty sure you have heard of Chatime, which is synonymous with long queues! That's why I seldom go Chatime since I hate queues! Although I must say, I'll gladly queue up for a bowl of Snowflake! Haha!



Do you know Chatime is pronounced as Cha-Time (as in 'cha' for tea in Chinese) and NOT Chat-Time as some people called it? The owner should have spelt it as 'ChaTime' and not 'Chatime' to avoid the confusion, but then again, it's probably done on purpose since it's good to chat while drinking cha right?

6. Once in a while, I'll go fully vegetarian for just one meal like this lunch I had yesterday. I have to say I quite enjoy eating just vegetables with rice.



But when I say 'vegetarian', I mean real vegetables and NOT vegetables that are made to look like fish, beef or pork! I don't like fake meat - give me real meat anytime!

7. I seldom eat McDonald's but once in a blue moon, I would drop by their Drive Thru as it was very convenient. I did this some time last year and bought myself 20 pieces of Chicken McBites.



I don't know about you, but I did not really like these tiny 'popcorn' chicken. I preferred Chicken McNuggets much more. So yes, that's the last I heard of Chicken McBites!

8. Let me ask you a question. How do you normally put your toilet paper roll? Like this with the toilet paper almost touching the wall?



Or like this, in which the toilet paper is further away from the wall?



I am all for the latter. Have been doing that all my life. Don't ask me why. How about you? Please leave a comment below so that I can find out if the majority prefer the former or the latter - thank you!

9. Have you tried the chee cheong fun at Otak Otak Place? I thought it was quite good, smooth and tasty!



Now I am feeling hungry and craving for the chee cheong fun! Drool....

10. I was at Sunway Pyramid last December when I got lost and bumped into a dessert place called Justberrys. I was lucky as I have heard of this place before but never knew where it was exactly. I ordered one of their most popular dessert, the Durian Snow.



It was so delicious with real durian flesh, bits of pomelo and durian ice cream! I love it! However, I am wondering why the shop is called Justberrys when they are not really selling berries dessert!

11. Hmmm, it's funny that 7 out of the 10 random notes above are about food! What does that really say about me? LOL!

12. This is the year of the Water Dragon! Last year was the Metal Rabbit Year and I displayed rabbits in my home. See my rabbits HERE. Should I display dragons this year like the one below?



I spotted this dragon at the KL Convention Centre last Sunday. I thought it actually looked more like a dog to me. What do you think?

13. One of my new year resolutions for 2012 is to sleep early that is, latest by 1am. It is already nearing the end of January and I have yet to achieve it. Oh well, there are still more than 300 days to go. Haha!!

FIRST COMMENTER

Celebrating Birthdays and Chinese New Year At Tao

Last December, I celebrated my birthday at Tao Japanese Buffet at Sunway Giza, Kota Damansara. It so happened that I have three other friends who were also born in December, so we celebrated our birthdays together!

And then during this recent Chinese New Year, I went to Tao again with my family for a Chinese New Year dinner buffet. We decided to go Tao because it was way cheaper than a lot of the 'cut throat' Chinese restaurants out there!


The entrance to Tao

I had almost similar food for the two occasions so I shall just combine the pictures of the food on one post! Sure save time and effort! Haha!

Of course, for my birthday lunch, my friends got me and the other three birthday boys and girls a birthday cake! Happy birthday to me!



Ooh! I love this ice cream cake! Thanks to Tao for allowing us to keep the cake in their fridge! By the way, we could not finish the cake, so we gave away almost half the cake to the friendly Tao staff! Well, they deserved it for their excellent service!

The sashimi at Tao was fresh and yummy!



The oysters were fresh too, but a strange thing happened to me and a few of my friends two days later.



I came down with fever and was feeling nauseous the whole day. Out of my seven friends who were with me at Tao, four of them also suffered the same symptoms, some more serious than others. However, with the exception of one friend, we did not suffer from diarrhea or vomiting.

We could only conclude that it's the oysters that were the cause as all of us who were sick ate the oysters whereas those who did not touch the oysters were spared!

In any case, I do not dare eat raw oysters anymore, as I had been hospitalized twice before for food poisoning due to tainted oysters! As such, I did not eat any oysters during my Chinese New Year visit but I enjoyed the rest of the food there.

The motoyaki scallop was delicious with the generous mixture of Japanese mayonnaise and spicy sauce! Probably a bit too generous, I would say.



I love the takoyaki (grilled octopus balls) too! Yummy!



The Taiwanese Prawn Mantis was also one of my favourites. You simply must try this if you ever go to Tao. Highly recommended!



Ooh! Look at what my friend had on her plate!



The crab meat with cheese were delicious too with cheese oozing out when you bite into them! Yummy!



I liked the lamb teriyaki although when I ate the same dish during Chinese New Year, I noticed that the meat was not properly cooked! I don't like half cooked lamb!



I did not fancy these abalone slices though some of my friends liked them.



Barbequed prawns and chicken wings were aplenty! You can order these from the menu and they would be brought to you. No need to leave the table if you don't want to!

In fact, most of the food can be ordered directly from the menu without leaving your table!



Or you can do some exercise and walk to the grill section and drop your table's clip there so that the staff can deliver your orders to you later.

Our table was labelled as VIP1 - not bad yes?



They also have barbequed squids, but they are not for me! I don't like to eat squids!!



Having said that, I think the barbequed chicken wings were a tad below my standard. I have certainly eaten better chicken wings elsewhere! Perhaps they need to marinate the chicken longer? I wouldn't know since I am not much of a cook! Haha!

The salmon hiroyaki was a better bet for me. It is actually cheese baked salmon and I love it!



During the Chinese New Year, my family and I ordered these steamed gyoza to try. Not too bad, though I found the skin a little too thick.



I could not remember what dish this is, but it sure looks delicious to me! Anyone of you have been to Tao and ordered this?



By the way, all the food I ate here were recommended to us by the waiter assigned to us. The service here was excellent as the waiter would come back frequently to check on us. He would make sure that our plates are cleared and replenished us when we ran out of food.

I can safely say that there is no other buffet restaurants that comes close to the kind of excellent service provided by Tao.



They also have soups and tong sui. Not sure what tong sui you call the above but it was delicious!

Actually, I do not know why this restaurant is known as a Japanese buffet restaurant when it serves dishes from other Asian countries too. But of course, they do have abundance of Japanese food!

Like the tempura...



Japanese seaweed



Edamame beans



I think I can eat those edamame beans non stop!!

And I love their California Temaki!! I honestly could not recall how many of these California rolls I have eaten at Tao - too many to count!



The Fukahire Chawan Mushi was also nice and somewhat different from the normal chawan mushi I ate from other places. If not mistaken, fukahire means fin of the fish. Not sure if they are using sharksfin here but it sure tasted different!



Of course, no buffet restaurants worth their salt would be caught dead without offering desserts. At Tao, the desserts were simple and were actually quite limited!

The ice creams here were the average type maybe it was King's ice cream? Definitely not Haagen Dasz. Still, I enjoyed it!



I love the mochi here! They have three different flavours and all were nice! I just ate and ate those mochi until I felt sick of them! LOL!


Mochi (left) , mini cheese tart (bottom), puffs (centre), cakes (top)

The mini cheese tarts were also nice if you like cheese! The puffs and cakes were however, quite forgettable.

Although I have been to Tao Restaurant twice, there are still many more dishes I have not tried! So yes, I am planning to go there again to try all those other dishes!



Priced at RM42++ for lunch (weekdays) and RM58++ for lunch (weekends) and dinner, I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who like pretty good food with great service. I would however stay away from the oysters if I were you. Haha!

For more details, visit Tao-Cuisine.

Random Notes 18

1. After our reunion dinner on Chinese New Year Eve, my family and I took a leisure walk around Pavilion Shopping Mall in KL. A lot of shops were already closed so we were surprised to see this Fossil outlet left opened with lights turned off and no one inside!



Wow! I should have just gone and in and helped myself! How careless of them! Or maybe they have invisible laser beams that will fry anyone who enters the doorway! Better not take any risk - I still want to celebrate Chinese New Year the next day! : )

2. I have finally figured out my way around Sunway Pyramid after all these years, believe it or not! I have always lost my way in Sunway Pyramid as I seldom go there, but last Monday, while everyone resumed work after the Chinese New Year holidays, I took the day off to visit this shopping mall.



After walking around and looking at the floor plan, I soon realized it was not as complicated as it seemed. Shall I celebrate my first achievement in this Year of the Rabbit? haha!

By the way, I have never tried skating at this ice rink. And now I am simply too shy to even attempt it!

3. Do you like Starbucks or Coffee Bean? I normally prefer Starbucks but since I had a RM25 Coffee Bean voucher with me, I visited the latter the other day in Mid Valley Megamall.



I ordered their most expensive drink, which was the Ultimate Mocha (RM15.30) and also tried their Red Velvet Cake (RM8.90). Not bad!

4. I spent part of my Chinese New Year holidays watching Glee Season 1 and Lady Gaga live concert.



I bought these good quality DVDs during my trip in Bangkok last year and it was worth it! Only about RM40 for Glee (6 DVDs) and RM7 for Lady Gaga!

5. I also watched this cute cartoon called Panda Kopanda simply because I like anything to do with pandas! Haha!!



While others watch Doraemon, Pikachu or Ultraman, I prefer to watch Panda Kopanda instead! Haha!

6. Talking about pandas, I would like to thank Eric Lee for giving me this panda head for my Christmas gift last year! How nice! Now I can always hide behind this panda face when someone takes my photo! LOL!



7. I would also like to thank dear blogger friend, Merryn for making me this beautiful angpow fish for Chinese New Year! Did you notice the hole in the middle is shaped like the ancient Chinese coin? Don't you think it's lovely?



8. After eating all the Chinese New Year food for so many days, I was getting quite sick of them! So imagine how refreshing it was for me when I went to Papparich at The Gardens Mall and ordered these!


Fried rice - simple and tasty!


Toasts with butter and kaya - heavenly!


Hot honey lemon tea - soothing!

9. OK, here's a poem I composed for the Chinese New Year and which I sent to some of my friends on the first day of the new year. I have made some little changes to the poem and decided to share it with you all today. Enjoy!!

So here we are the New Year of the Metal Rabbit,
So how's your New Year - is it great or you just don't care?
It's the time of the year when your work can take a backseat,
Now let's read this poem specially written by your friendly Panda bear!

How I wish the Chinese New Year holidays will last forever,
Or at least lasts all the way from now till December!
Imagine no working for one whole year,
And go traveling the world all over!

Alas not working means no income,
Unless you are as rich as Bill Gates or Donald Trump!
Or having Oprah Winfrey as your mom,
Then no worries even during the economic slump!

OK let's stop dreaming and just enjoy the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit,
Stuffing myself silly with pineapple tarts, arrowheads and kuih kapit,
Getting fat this holidays is no impossible feat,
Ladies, I just hope you won't end up buying clothes at Ms Read!

Chinese New Year is the time when I refuse to look at the music sheet,
Or play the piano for my guests like a perverted self-exhibit!
All I wanna do is just relax and eat, eat, eat!
Here's wishing you all a Happy Chinese New Year of the Metal Rabbit!

FIRST COMMENTER