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

My 9-Hour Karaoke Marathon At Redbox

I love to sing although I am not a good singer. And I am pretty sure I am not alone. Luckily for all of us who like to sing but can't sing well, there are karaoke outlets to satisfy our cravings for belting out hit songs unabashedly.

I have not been going to karaoke for quite some time, so imagine my excitement when I heard that Redbox Karaoke offers a Dinner Buffet package that starts at 6pm and allows you to sing till 3am in the morning! That's a whopping 9 hours of singing!! The price was only RM48++ per person* so it was a good bargain.

So early this week, my two friends and I ended up at Redbox Gardens. We were there right on the dot at 6pm. After registering ourselves at the counter, we were led to our private room.



I like that the room was spacious and clean.

There were some pretty new songs for us to choose from, but I was disappointed that some songs that I wanted to sing were not available.



Songs like Paradise (Coldplay), Count On Me (Bruno Mars), Arms (Christina Perri), Someone Like You (Adele), I Wanna Go (Britney Spears), Summer Rain (Matthew Morrison) and Louder (Charice) were not available.

I was actually quite irritated when I found that they had the song My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson but without the lyrics!! How was I supposed to sing?

I was however quite happy they had songs like Fall For You (Secondhand Serenade), Wish You Were Here (Avril Lavigne), Pumped Up Kicks (Foster The People), Cheers Drink To That (Rihanna) and Right There (Nicole Scherzinger).



As expected from a karaoke outlet, the buffet food were nothing to shout about. Here are some of the food I ate.

Sushi, oyster, sausages, chicken meat ...



Butter prawn, vegetables and garlic rice...



I had to spit out the butter prawn after biting halfway as I found that it was not fresh at all!

Scallop, beef, vegetables ...



The scallop was actually not too bad.

Beef, fish, crab, prawns ....



The fish was OK but I'm afraid the rest were below average.

Vegetable salad with various dressings ....



There were also ice creams, fruits and freshly made temaki but I did not take any photos of them.

Oh well, I was there to sing first and to eat second, so I was not too particular about the food. Besides, I did not have any high expectation of the quality of the food there so it was OK.

Since it was my birthday month, I made full use of my birthday vouchers. I redeemed one voucher for a free bottle of sparkling juice.



Thank goodness for this sparkling juice! It helped soothe our throats singing non-stop for 9 hours! Well, not exactly 9 hours as we spent the first hour eating actually. Haha!

I also used another birthday voucher which is a Buy 1 Free 1 voucher. Since there were three of us, we only needed to pay for two people. That's a good deal especially when we could sing all the way until 3am, don't you agree?

*The price RM48++ is only for dinner buffet from 6pm - 10pm (Mon - Thurs only). You can stay on to sing till 3am but this offer together with the price is subject to change from 19th Dec 2011 onwards.

FIRST COMMENTER

A Surprise Birthday Dinner At Mezze

When Witch invited me to dinner on a Monday evening, I had suspected something was amiss. My suspicion was confirmed that evening - it was a birthday dinner for both me and Caroline.

Both Caroline and I share the same birth day and month, which is December 1st. But while it had been a complete surprise for Caroline, I was not that easily fooled! Which is quite a pity, cos surprises are always good, especially if it's a pleasant surprise.

We had dinner at this restaurant, bistro and bar called Mezze located in Medan Damansara, KL. It was our first time there, so I did not know what to expect.

These were the dishes we ordered. (Sorry for the low quality photos as I did not bring my camera along - I had to depend on my iPhone 3Gs).

Spaghetti Carbonara



This dish looked rather unique with the raw egg yolk served in a shell. The taste was not bad, but after mixing the egg yolk with the pasta, it was a bit too creamy for my liking.

Olio Bacon



This pasta with bits and pieces of bacon was delicious! I would definitely recommend this dish!

Funghi au Truffle Pizza



This pizza with thin and light crust was yummy. With mushrooms, tomatoes, oregano, rocket leaves, truffle oil and layers of cheese on top, it was really quite delicious!

Salmon Pizza



I love salmon so this pizza is a favourite of mine! Thin and crispy crust with slices of smoked salmon on top, it was love at first bite! I thought the rocket leaves somehow matched the salmon very well!

Chargrilled Spatchcock Chicken



I have only one complaint about this dish - the chicken was way too small! It was hardly enough for one person, what more for all of us! (there were six of us there). Other than the size, everything else about this spring chicken was delightful! The meat was tender and juicy - it must have been very well marinated. I wish I could have the whole chicken to myself!

I was craving for some desserts, but both Caroline and I knew that there would be a birthday cake for us. And true enough, we were presented with a Cherry Cheesecake bought from Caffe Cino, PJ Hilton.



I guess Witch was a bit disappointed that both Caroline and I did not at least pretend to be surprised haha! So after the birthday song was sung and we both blew the candles, the cake was cut and I got to taste a slice of my birthday cake! Thank you for the delicious cake!



Here's a group photo of us which I have taken from Caroline's blog, with my face blanked out as usual and the birthday girl sitting next to me.



Mezze was a good place to dine and we had a great time. The only issue we had with the place was the smoky environment. Obviously they did not have non-smokers in mind! That's a real pity because the food were really quite good!

A French Dinner At Van's Restaurant

On our second evening in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, our good friend and host brought us to a high class French restaurant called Van's Restaurant.



As we entered the premises, I realized the restaurant was located in a historical French colonial style building. In fact, the building was originally an Indochina Bank building dating as far back as 1898. It became the property of the Cambodian Van family in 1960 and served as the family residence for many years.



When the civil war broke out in 1970, the whole family fled the country leaving the youngest, 2 year old Porleng Van the last to escape with her sister Porlim. When the economy opened up in 2003, the Van family returned and Porleng restored the building and decided to open it to the public as a French restaurant.



We went up the stairs and came upon this gramophone.



I thought the gramophone blended perfectly with the French colonial architecture of the interiors.



The entrance into the Dining Room looked especially warm and welcoming.



As we stepped inside, I marveled at the interiors and the furniture.



I decided to take a few snapshots of the Dining Room.



There were not many customers at that time so I felt comfortable snapping away.



Soon we were all seated and the waiter took our orders.



We were given the complimentary bread.



My bread and butter. Yummy!



Our entrée was the French Onion Soup.



It was delicious!



We also ordered a bottle of red wine. Here's my glass of red wine which I enjoyed.



I had actually forgotten what I ate for my Main Course - it was more than a year ago! - but if not mistaken, it was Baked Lamb Sirloin. I only remember I kind of enjoyed it.



For dessert, I had the Soft Chocolate Apple Brownie with Cream Sauce.



It was sinfully delicious!



As with our hotel stay and our lunch, this dinner was again taken care of by our generous host. I have never ever dreamed of having a free French dinner in Cambodia, but that was what happened and I am really thankful.



The dinner sure helped me lift my depression after visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum hours earlier, but I guess we did not expect what was to come next!

FIRST COMMENTER