The Melaka Roadtrip

Hello world. When was the last time I blogged? I can’t remember. Blogging really isn’t that satisfying anymore. My new gratification is writing mini-essays as my facebook status, mini-updates of my life, kind of like Twitter I guess. It’s more gratifying in the sense that there are actually comments from people, sometimes extending into a spam/comment-marathon, fun.

What to blog about today, Melaka trip or the “best of Midvalley in one day with my family” trip? Hmm, Melaka trip first then.

This Melaka trip started off with just two confirmed members, Grace and me. Just a few days before, then the roadtrip increased by two members, and then finally we got a willing driver. Well one fell sick in the end and didn’t go. But wow, so much for me researching about buses to get there, wasn’t needed after all. I knew Melaka wasn’t far from campus, but I didn’t know it was that near, only about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get there. Not bad.

We got up quite early in the morning and by the time we got to Melaka, it was time for breakfast. Oh yeaa…

Chicken rice balls it was, not a very conventional breakfast but the good thing about getting to this place early was that there was minimal waiting time. When we walked by this place later around lunch time, there was a queue of people waiting to get into the place. Wow.

The wonderfully flavoured chicken rice balls which are cooked in chicken stock, was a hint of ginger and duno what else. The balls are are made of glutinous rice, you dip them into the chili sauce provided and when you sink your teeth into it, mmm… It’s really aromatic and savoury, not very good with explaining the taste but you get what I mean. Don’t look down on these balls, I had 9 and I was so full. The chicken that comes with it is quite lean and not so tender, which seems to go well with the rice.

This is the place, Chop Chung Wah. Last time I went to Melaka, I went to one a few minutes walk from this place on Jonker Street that has a life size cardboard model of some TV food show host. But there’s something about eating in an old-school place with marble topped tables and wooden chairs that’s kind of comforting.

Then after breakfast, the weather was still nice and not too hot. And so started the touristy part of the roadtrip. Just a short walk away from where we had breakfast, was the St Peter’s Church, A Famosa and all those touristy places.

My friend took this shot, me like.

And I took this shot of my two friends, I have something about taking shots of people’s backs.. I don’t know why…

Oh and a bit later, we met up with a friend from uni who lives in Muar, walked back to Jonker Street and walked into any curious little shop that caught our eye. Quite a few of those.

Fast forward an hour or two later, it started raining. A sign that it was time to take refuge in another eating place for a late lunch.

This is where we went to, some place on Jonker Street. Which coincidentally I’ve been to more than two years ago when I went to Melaka with my family…

One thing good here is the cendol, oh my the gula melaka was so thick, the ice was finely shaved. The whole thing is just great to have after walking around Melaka on a hot day.

And this is some kind of lemak laksa or curry laksa? Whatever it is, it was nice. The gravy/broth had a very delicate, exquisite taste, not overpowering.. Just there. It had hints of spices and tuna, somehow a very complimentary mix, not too spicy either. When the tofu pok soaks up the gravy and you bite into it, heavenly…

After lunch, again there was a few hours of not really knowing what to do till the next meal. And since it was raining, and there were 3 girls on this trip as opposed to 2 guys, we ended up at a shopping mall, Dataran Pahlawan. Surprisingly, shopping at Melaka is quite good. Me who normally buys nothing when going shopping actually got something, maybe I was just in a good mood.

When we got to Dataran Pahlawan, the first shop we set our eyes upon was Daiso. Boy were we surprised they had a Daiso, this wonderful Japanese/Korean shop where everything is sold at RM5. So wonderful, no need for price tags. Everything from household products, cosmetics, hardware, stationary… all at the same price. We spent a fair bit of time in that shop, walking up and down the aisles looking at the amazing things RM5 can buy you. In the end I only got two things though, a sketch book and a lan cable since mine got spoilt, so practical. Haha.

Then we spent some time looking at the other shops, not bad. I ended up getting a skirt from Brands outlet, I think it was RM39 for a blue checked skirt with dark blue lace trimming and a matching dark blue checked sash to tie into a ribbon around the waist.

Finally, dinner time! We already knew what we wanted to it, Satay Celup, it was just a matter of finding the right place. Don’t know why but there’s this place called Capitol that seems famous but our friend was against going. We ended up at this place instead, of which I have forgotten the name *Bad blogger*.

Yummy food on sticks dipped into a spicy satay sauce, mmm. And white bread dipped into the sauce was really nice. And the meal wasn’t as expensive as I imagined, not bad.

And there ended a very satistfying road trip to Melaka. My last visit to this place, in probably years… Sigh, my last semester here at this campus and still so many places to go, things to do, things to eat.

Marching away from March

Yes, I have been missing in action from this blog for some time. Sickness has recently overwhelmed me, have not been this sick in years. There’s actually been quite  a bit to blog about but I just don’t have the will or heart to do it all just yet.

Summary of “recent”  bloggable items:

• Roadtrip to Melaka
• Family came to KL, food indulgence to the max
• Experience renewing passport in Malaysia’s most technologically advanced city *snigger*
• Easter Play at UM
• Random smaller incidents

The Melaka trip would probably take one long post. Oh my, one whole day of eating indulging food, breakfast of chicken rice balls, lunch of curry laksa and cendol, dinner of satay celup.

The family came to KL trip itself was a lot of eating as well. One day at Midvalley involving morning tea at Pastis, lunch at Pasta Zanmai, tea at some herbal drink store, dinner at Din Tai Fung. Whew.

Maybe being sick now and not being able to eat much is a blessing in disguise. Heh. Though I do miss swimming…

On a random note, I have been recently the victim of being on the other side of the camera, the “unaware snap victim” side. My friend who has exceptional talent in snapping the worst shots of people has found an ally who has a dSLR. Great.

You thought this is bad? Hmm…

Yo! Sushi Buffet Lunch Promotion

Ok I really have to blog about this place right now because after tomorrow, this offer wouldn’t be valid. Yo! Sushi is having a buffet lunch promotion in which for RM32++ (RM36.80 after tax), you can eat all you want off their variety of dishes off the belt! The bad thing is, tomorrow’s the last day and thank goodness I found out about this yesterday over some random blog, because it really is GOOD. When I saw the ad, I knew I had to go.

Many places which do buffets do it like some kind of “clear the food before it expires” thing or put leftovers OR skimp on quality and variety (hate!). But not here. You get good stuff on the belt, actually it’s more variety and quantity than I’ve ever seen on the belt there on a normal day.

They have a big banner version of this in front of the shop at The Gardens, but it actually is better than they describe, which we found out when got there.

Time: 11am-6pm

Price: RM36.80 after tax

Good point: Eat all you want off the belt! Free flow of green tea and miso soup.

Great and best point: Every hour the staff comes around and you get to order anything you want from the menu except the gray coloured dishes and the non-salmon sashimi!

My friend ate more than the amount she paid for, she had two plates of this gorgeous salmon sashimi. I’m describing by its looks because I don’t eat sashimi. Pink plate costs RM14 normally.

I liked this Salmon, Avocado, Crabstick ISO (Inside-Out) Roll, minus the salmon, which I removed and gave to my salmon loving friend. Orange plate costs RM10 normally.

Eel Nigiri, for me. Just nice. A bit smaller than I expected but still nice. Purple plate costs RM8 normally.

This isn’t on the belt, shitake and enoki mushroom teppanyaki. Bigger serving than I expected, the sauce a bit overpowering and too salty, I drenched it in miso soup and later green tea to tone it down.

I accidentally ordered two dishes of this. My friend could only stomach one tempura, I had 5. By the time I got to the 4th, I had to take off the batter to eat it. This was towards the last thing before dessert, I was stuffed.

This is the best, the green tea ice cream with azuki beans! The green tea ice cream was the best I’ve ever had, beats those fancy ice-cream shops. It was not too sweet, the tea taste not too overpowering, just very subtle. The azuki beans was just a bit sweet, perfect with the ice cream which was light and not creamy. A great palate cleanser!

Total damage.

2 Edamame. (Light blue plate costs RM5 normally) 2 Salmon Sashimi. 2 Yo! Rolls. 1 Salmon, Avocado, Crabstick roll. 1 Marinated Salmon with Dill Salad. 1 Soft Shell Crab roll. 1 crabmeat roll. 2 Prawn Tempura. 2 Mushroom teppanyaki. 1 Seared Beef Nigiri. 1 Eel Nigiri. 1 Dorayaki (It came with Raspberry sauce, interesting) 1 Green Tea ice cream. (We forgot to try the mochi! Was probably too full by then) We ate about RM173 worth of food in total. I ate almost RM80 worth myself…

Conclusion: Excellent value for great food, you know with Yo! Sushi, they don’t skimp on quality. And the rolls are huge, I could barely fit them into my mouth in one go. Wish the promotion will be on again sometime soon, before I go to UK. But then again, YO! Sushi’s from there, but maybe not as affordable as here.. Hmmm…

After all that eating, needless to say a workout was in order. I went swimming in the afternoon, it felt good.

Sunday Night, One Quarter through the Semester

I’ve been sitting in this position for some time now, quite an odd position. Laptop placed at arm’s length away from me on the desk, in front of it, my notes, barely touched. The page has been opened to Neurotransmitter Pathways for the longest time ever, my brain not cooperating with me to get down to business with CNS (Central Nervous System). Tomorrows the start of Week 4, according to the calendar. 3 hours of the brainy CNS stuff, 1 hour of biopharmaceutics before and after, 1 hour lunch in between. Weirdly, I think I’m starting to like the Natural Products and Medicines module best out of all the modules this semester, finding a weird gratification from working out mechanisms. Then again, by the time exams come I’ll probably be complaining about it.

Ah, just got distracted by YouTube and videos on piano violin duet covers, back again. My nose feels stuffed. Am I catching something? Uh oh.

Anyway, yesterday was the graduation ceremony, mostly for Masters students who finished their course earlier on this year. I had no idea about the ceremony until Friday night when walking to the student association’s building and realising that it was all done up with flowers and plants selectively placed in an attempt to beautify the place. Going up the stairs, more surprises were in store. The whole upstairs had been transformed into what look like those Chinese New Year dinners you had at some  family clan association place.

From what looked like this….

It became this…

Wow would you look at those bright pink tablecloth. Apparently it was for the high tea after the ceremony.

Sucking on a Hacks sweet now, throat feels better. It’s 12.24am, the CNS notes have been abandoned on the left side of my laptop, to bring the laptop closer to me in a more comfortable position. Don’t really know what the week ahead will bring, and at this moment, I can’t really be bothered. Just living in the moment, hearing sounds of insects outside the window, cool night breeze after the storm this evening, muffled feminine sounds of my neighbour on the phone, that familiar sound of MSN everytime there’s a message, my pillow providing nice chin support as it rests on my cross-legged legs. Sleep early? Hmm…

Delicious, Pastis & Dragon-I in 5 hours

Good-food post time, again. Hehe. Last Sunday after the chilled out Saturday that I had that I’ve blogged about, we decided to immerse ourselves in civilisation before the week started and we’d be trapped at uni most of the time.

A 5 hour outing to Midvalley turned out to be an almost non-stop eating expedition. We arrived at 11ish, famished from the 1.5 hour journey from uni to KL by public transport, and the suggestion of an early lunch was quickly agreed to. Some how ended up at Delicious, our first time there for a proper meal.

Well, the food there was good. But, and that’s a big but, the service really needs improving on, staff training. Otherwise, it would have been a great eating experience, it had everything else going for it: good food, good ambience, acceptable price considering the place.

We ordered wedges with sour cream, it sounded like a nice combination. But what we got was wedges with very eggy mayonnaise instead. Ok, we thought, maybe just a slip up, let’s ask for sour cream. *Wave wave, try to catch attention of waitress*

Hence ensued quite a frustrating conversation with a waitress who didn’t seem to understand that what we got wasn’t sour cream and we wanted sour cream instead, and kept repeating yes to every question. Even appearing with a menu and flipping frantically to find out what the problem was. Hmm. Then disappearing off to seemingly get sour cream but never appeared again.

Then, a slightly more senior staff came over after we tried to catch their attention. At least we had better luck conveying what the problem was. The response however was more confusing. “Ahh-neu-ray? You want Ahh-neu-ray?” “What, onion rings? *No I don’t want onion rings*” Later she came back with what looked like sour cream but disappointingly tasted like just thickened cream.

This coming from the place where they previously lost our bill when we came for dessert. We had to wait quite some time before the supervisor came and he himself seemed flustered. Not surprising, if he has to deal with the problems inadvertently caused by other staff.

Anyway… on to the food, which was good. No complaints about the food itself.

This is the Mushroom Pine Nuts Spaghetti which has lots of mushrooms in it as the name suggests. And the chopped pine nuts provided a nice bit of crunch. Creamy sauce, meaty flavourful mushrooms, mmm…

The salad looks normal but contains hidden treasures of cranberries, crispy deep fried bacon, grilled chicken and avocado. Not a very healthy salad but it was yummy.

Aforementioned basket of wedges with mayonnaise. Wedges was good, condiment not so. One pasta, one salad and one side among the 3 of us girls, because we love our variety.

Oh that was not the end of the eating. After much window shopping, we ended up at Pastis at the Gardens, just in time for tea time.

Pastis was doing their half priced cake promotion thing again, which I was pleasantly surprised to see continued this year. This month’s special was Bread and Butter Pudding with ice-cream on the side, originally at RM11.90, half priced for this month. Gee, how many times have I blogged about this place? Haha.

Heavenly, it was just heavenly. I loved the crusty bits on the bread and butter pudding which I thought had a tinge of cinnamon but I may be wrong. The buttery, mildly sweet, warm pudding along with the cold vanilla ice cream, mmm…

You thought that’s it? No… Just before we went back to catch the KTM that afternon, we had our Xiao Loong Bao fix. Yea, I think the last time at Din Tai Fung caused a Xiao Loong Bao craving. I suggested going to try out Dragon-I’s one. Dragon-I was tucked away at Cititel lobby, and I only knew because I searched for it online. Unfortunately, what I did not know was that Dragon-I’s Xiao Loong Baos were 4 per tray at RM9, pricier than Din Tai Fung’s 6 per tray for about RM10. To my untrained eye and palate, there seemed not much difference compared to Din Tai Fung’s. Maybe that Dragon-I’s one seemed to sag precariously when I picked it up with my chopsticks, but yea that was it. The thrift in my is probably not going to go back there again. Din Tai Fung even has a get 2 tray of Xiao Loong Bao for a special price combo, wins hands down.

Ok, that was it for the outing. My stomach was satisfied, I got to see civilisation, my purse was lighter, but I was ready to face another week of class in the jungle.

My Feb 14 Weekend

My index and middle fingertips on my right hand tingle when pressure is applied, a dull ache. And they feel numb, like the pins and needles feeling in your legs after you’ve slept funny.

Strangely, I feel more intrigued by this pain than annoyed, this pain caused by learning the guitar. Yes, I’m starting to teach myself guitar. After such a long time of seeing it from afar, hearing people play it, trying it out a few times, only being able to strum E minor and then lay it aside disappointedly at not being able to do what I want with it, I got more accquainted with the guitar over the weekend.

It’s great, doing something new that I never thought I would have liked, string instruments never seemed to get along with me. I remember trying to perform the “Look Ma, no hands!” method of holding my sister’s violin with nothing holding the violin except the pressure between my chin and shoulder. I felt a sudden pain below my chin, and before I knew it, the violin broke free from position and was heading for the floor. The violin survived the fall, the fragile E string however did not.

Anyway, it all started sometime this week, one random night when Cynthia, Grace and I were in Cynthia’s room and started strumming Viva La Vida while singing. One thing led to another and the guitar was in my hands and I was frustratingly trying to make sounds that sounded remotely like chords, with Cynthia helping me. Finger here, finger there, this fret, that fret. Contort your left hand, hold that position, change, hold, change. Concepts so foreign to a pianist.

Fast forward to Saturday, the day everyone else knows as Valentine’s Day but to me was just another day. Morning was Tesco shopping on the new bus route to the new Tesco Semenyih, then bathroom cleaning frenzy with new cleaning products when we got back, then corridor cleaning frenzy. After that, on that hot and sunny afternoon, with no will to study, I found the guitars in my hands again. This time, with the laptop in front of me, searching to try to make sense of what I was playing.  I went from only knowing 4 chords and not knowing what I was playing, to actually knowing the chords I’m playing and later even self-improvising a simple intro version of Canon in D in that afternoon.

Admist this new found joy, I didn’t even realise the strain placed on my left hand fingers. Not until later that night when the tingly sensation and achy feeling started making its presence known. Even the next day, it still kind of hurt. Guess it takes time to get used to it, and my technique probably isn’t correct. Hence, the pain.

But no hurry and no pressure, just happy to know that I can still learn something new like this if I want to. But of course, my first love still remains to be the piano.=)

Sneak peek of what next post would be about….

See, I can’t even write a non-food related post without putting in something about food. Hopeless. Haha.

Chap Goh Mei

Today at dinner, one of my friends referred to my blog as a food blog. With almost every other post being about food, it may seem so but really, this is just a personal blog with blog posts about food when I do have something nice and decide to blog about it. Which reminds me, I have yet to blog about Michaelangelo which I went to last week, and William’s which I revisited last month.

Anyway, dinner today was because of Chap Goh Mei, the 15th day of the Chinese New Year. Just a more Chinese dinner with friends from uni who share the same predicament of not being able to dine with their family during this special day because we’re all not local.  Dinner was at Din Tai Fung at The Gardens, a place that I did some Googling on before going and seemed like the Xiao Loong Baos are pretty famous. Besides that, the place also does all sorts of noodles, fried rice, appetizers, meat and vegetable dishes, lots of paos, and desserts. Din Tai Fung apparently originated from Taiwan and has branches in many countries, including USA and Australia. The Gardens branch is the only one in Malaysia. Hmm, how curious.

The dishes there seemed a bit on the small side for sharing among 6 people, so we ended up ordering about 5 dishes: a tofu dish, a french beans one, a deep fried smoked fish one, black pepper beef, prawn with mayonnaise and then had two trays of Xiao Loong Baos.

The original style Xiao Loong Bao came first, and disappeared fast. The broth inside was really nice, but the skin wasn’t as nicely textured as I imagined it to be. Then, we also had one with crab in it, which added a seafoody note to the meaty dumplings, quite nice.

The prawns with mayonnaise almost disappeared rather quickly, nicely deshelled prawns of good size engulfed in a sweet and sticky mayonnaise sauce. The tofu dish was rather peculiar looking, but very nice with the accompanying mushroomy sauce.

Fried french beans with dried shrimpy and mince meat, good stuff, it was one of the Chef’s Recommendations according to the menu.

Everybody happy at the sight of Xiao Loong Baos…

Overall, the place seemed a bit on the pricey side, but it was a nice treat. The Xiao Loong Baos may or may not be as good as Dragon-I, I’ve forgotten how those taste since I had it 1.5 years ago, but just the thought of them makes me hungry now. Whew. And I just had this dinner 4 hours ago….

Sigh, I seem like such a glutton. And because someone pointed out that it only seems like I eat at “high-class” places, let me try to clear things up. I live in a uni in quite a remote area. I have no car, therefore no easy access to good food. When I do get out and get back into civilisation, I make it a point to eat something decent, and if it’s really nice (or sometimes really bad) and worth blogging about, it ends up here. It’s true, whenever I go out, I don’t shop or buy much, I just eat. Sigh, how am I not obese, I don’t know.

And I do eat at non “high-class” places too. I love the small shed at Broga that serves the best ice kacang around here. I love the pan mee at Semenyih which is in a shed so shabby I don’t think my parents would bring me there if it were up to them. I love my Garlic Butter Double Cheese Naan? Haha. Oh and I love the nasi lemak at Semenyih which looks so old and unnoticeable unless you know to find it. Hey in fact I think I’ve blogged about these places in the past. There see, I eat all kinds of food.

Er but I still don’t like strong smelling fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna), oysters, overly spicy food etc… Apart from that, I’m up for good food anytime. =)

The 4th Night

Tonight, has been the single most eventful night in the history of my driving experience, which actually isn’t that long but anyway… It started when a few friends came to my house for Chinese New Year visiting. They left to go do some more visiting, we met up again later and somebody suggested going to watch a movie so we left. Just a few minutes into driving, we reached a traffic light which turned green just before we reached it. Normally I take turns a little bit faster than would be comfortable. However, I felt like I had to slow down at that moment, and good thing I did. Because when I was turning right, a silver Mercedes from the opposite direction suddenly went straight though he wasn’t supposed to! My friend who was driving the car behind me honked him but I was just too O.O to do much but stop a while and go when I made sure he had seen my car.

So that started the series of unfortunate events. After that, we finally reached the car park and after going up I-don’t-know how-many floors and found a space, we arrived at the cinema only to find a long queue and the shows sold out. So we left, and me half-annoyed that I had gone through the trouble of finding parking and being disappointed only to have to pay RM1 parking for nothing. Noob moment No.1 was at the car park paying station I wind down the wrong window to pay the parking fee. Haha. Noob is me.

But the incidents didn’t stop there. After paying a short visit to a friend’s house, we went to McD at the airport nearby because some people didn’t have dinner. My friend drove in before me, he being the faster driver got there before me, and he got the last parking ticket the machine had. I however did not know that, and the machine has no function that shows that it has run out of tickets. So I got there, wind down the correct window, pressed the green button like the instructions sad to. No ticket. Press again. No ticket. Press press press. Okay… Second try, reverse go back, just in case the sensor was spoilt or something, press, again nothing. Sigh. My friend had to go down and get the parking attendant to get a ticket and open the “bar” to let us in.

No I’ve no idea why these things happened. But this afternoon my friend asked me if I wanted to meet up for chinese new year visiting and I turned them down because I was feeling anti-social and the rainy day just seemed like the perfect weather to stay in and be emo, stare at raindrops falling, play emo piano songs or something like that. Then out of nowhere, another friend called saying they were coming over. And one thing led to another and I ended up following their plans. Maybe it was a sign, the anti-social feeling earlier on meant that I should have just stayed home, be safe. Heh. I guess I should be really thankful that me and the car are still ok after all that, thank God for that.

Okay, one picture for this post… Enough drama.

My sole two purchases from KL before Chinese New Year. As is tradition, Chinese New Year is the time of the year when Chinese wear new clothes as a tradition. I managed to only buy a dress and a top at Bangsar, not too bad considering my usual shopping style. I travelled super light in terms of clothes when I came back this time, the bulk of my luggage being my laptop and a heavy Biology book my sister asked me to buy. Unbelievably, I just brought back a pair of jeans, two skirts, a couple of tees, and my two new clothes. And it’s been constantly raining here, not exactly good for laundry. And most of my clothes are back in uni because of my crazy packing so that translated into too few decent looking outfits for the many days of Chinese New Year. Today, people who are observant enough to notice would thus notice that I’m recycling looks.

3 more days till I go back to uni….. New semester. New modules. The nerd in me should be silently rejoicing or something. In the mean time, I’m just living my “eat and be merry” life.

Pasta Zanmai Midvalley

We shall break with a food post, because I’ve been eating too much good food recently after exams and I guess the food posts need spacing out. So here’s something from quite some time ago last year, when we went to Pasta Zanmai at Midvalley, when it was still then newly opened.

Midvalley’s Pasta Zanmai is on the same floor and part of the building as Toys R Us, where I think there was previously an Italalian restaurant that didn’t do too well. We went at lunch time and it was just right, not too crowded that staff is overwhelmed, not too empty that the waiters hover nearby as you eat.

We sat down at a roundish booth that gave some sort of privacy on three sides, and here was the table set up:

Eating pasta with chopsticks? Yes, that’s what you do at Pasta Zanmai. Not exactly Italian, not exactly Japanese. The plates are there if you want to share food I guess. And they served water after we sat down.

The menu is quite interesting, with choices of appetizers, salads, pastas, main dishes, desserts in its own style.

My friend wasn’t feeling too hungry and loves salmon sashimi so she ordered this salad with greens and strips of salmon sashimi on top. The sauce that comes with it is unusual, you have the option of a miso based sauce and a sesame one. My friend couldn’t make up her mind and had both. The sesame sauce is quite salty and kind of overpowering, however the miso sauce seemed a bit off with salad. The salad itself had no complaints though.

Then, another friend’s dish arrived, a Chicken Pasta dish that had a half cooked egg on top that you are supposed to mix in, like some kind of Carbonara pasta. Don’t be deceived by the photos, the pasta servings are quite generous, I had a hard time finishing mine.

Another friend ordered a Hamburger Bolognaise-like pasta dish set. Set meaning that it comes with a side salad and miso soup, seems very filling. The pasta looks like a very meaty dish, with the only green being a piece of basil on top.

Finally, mine came last after much waiting. My sort of like Alfredo style pasta with Chicken and mushrooms. The Chicken looks the same as my friend’s dish, the mushrooms are the enoki and Chinese mushroom kind. The sauce however was.. Wow. Then again, I may be biased because I like cream-based sauces. This was really creamy and cheesy, so rich yet so nice. Until I was about half way through it and it got a bit cloying. Then again, probably just because the serving is big, no complaints.

Well, Pasta Zanmai is quite an interesting place to go if you want to try something new yet not too new. Pricewise, it’s like any ordinary restaurant, around RM20 for salads, RM20+ to RM30+ for pastas. I can’t say much for the other kinds of food I have not tried, but the ones we ordered that day are pretty good. Not some place that I personally would frequent, I like my food pure personally. But worth a try I’d say.

The December I turned 21

I have such a backlog of things to post about I’m just going to write about the earlier part of December before I went back for the Christmas holidays. And I must blog about this because my friends at uni did such a good birthday surprise, thanks so much =)! It all started on the night before the 5th, we were in our own rooms, with doors ajar, as usual. Just online, exam stress still far far away from thought, and me wondering what was going to go on that night. I noticed Grace’s door was ajar and her light on but she wasn’t it at around 10, but just thought she may be with Stephanie preparing “something” and didn’t think much of it, still had no idea what kind of surprise they were planning. Then, about 15 minutes before midnight, Cynthia came to my room and handed me a orange paper with a riddle to solve. Apparently, they weren’t going to make this easy for me this year, I was going to have to set out to find them.

The first clue led me to a water machine near some halls of residence on the way to the lecture buildings, and on the machine there was stuck, “Do not touch if you’re not WQ”. Awesome. If these were on electronical devices I would have felt like I was in Eagle Eyes. And the third clue led me to the red-coloured building where labs were, on the opposite end of uni from my room. All this while, Cynthia was following me on my quest, during which I certainly did a fair amount of walking. Hehe. On the way, we passed by the Student Association building where I saw a bright green car, then stopped to see and there were the cars of the people going to be at my surprise, all parked in a row. Wonderful. Haha. I was thinking that, okay, 3 clues, and the place seemed like quite nice for a surprise, facing the fountain and amphitheatre, this should be the last stop. But no, there were MORE clues. This time leading me to the computer lab. And get this, on the first computer in the main computer room, there was a message for me against a bright yellow background on powerpoint with, yes, another clue.

At this point, it was already midnight, and I still had not found my friends. But interestingly, there seemed to be another birthday going on and we passed by a group of people on the bridge over the lake singing happy birthday, but not for me… Last clue from the computer lab led me to an ambigious point. The clue obviously hinted towards going to the Student Association building, and behind it, it seemed. And at that time, the back of the building was just newly renovated and not fully open for use yet. So I walked to the back, it was very dark, very quiet, if Cynthia were not there I’d be having second thoughts about this.

Then, quite a sight greeted me. Two rows of people, about 19 in all, all standing very still very quietly, in total darkness, and there was some glowing object in the middle. Not a single movement for a few seconds as I took it all in and at the same time it really looked quite scary! As I inched closer to see if this surprise was for me, they broke the silence and sang Happy Birthday. Whew. And wow! I think I was grinning like a silly, dumbfounded girl in amazement that this was all really taking place. Was really surprised to see that many people there, considering that it was a Friday night and most people go home on weekends. Due to the Christmas event preparations, quite a few Christian Fellowship people were still around and came. And my friends even made me an Oreo cheese cake, so nice. And a friend even played the guitar, we lucky people who have birthdays at uni get guitarists at birthdays. Hehe. And then out of nowhere, I even got a call from Jasmine, on Stephanie’s phone, who tried to surprise me with a surprise birthday wisher. After all that had happened, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had managed to get her to come all the way from KL and she was hiding somewhere as part of the surprise. ehe.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, I had presents. A really nice Fossil leather purse from all of them. Couldn’t thank anyone enough.. Was just so overwhelmed that night.

The 4 clues on paper, one was on the computer screen. 5 clues to find my surprise! And my beautiful new purse, from Fossil. In the lovely, patterned box. And with a nice calendar that came in a metal box.

Close-up of the purse with so many compartments I don’t know quite what to put in them.

Actually, earlier on that night, we had our pharmacy christmas dinner at a residential clubhouse near the uni. A surprisingly good event where the food was good, the crowd was good, the fun was good. And we even got to see our lecturers all dressed up as Santa for a “competition” which involved a catwalk as well.

I see a “Mummy” Santa, Zombie Santa?, Santa with boobs, and Huge Belly Santas. Eventually, it was the Santa pregnant with triplets that won the crowd’s favourite. The dinner was all out to please, with door gifts of these cute teddy keychains with our birthdays on it given to everybody, even to those who didn’t come. Then there were so many chances to win goodies such as lucky draws, being Best Dressed, Talent of the Class, Nerd of the Year, Future Dean… And did I mention that the food was surprisingly good, it was from a western place in Kajang. The only small flaw being that they gave plastic cutlery and expected us to eat slabs of lamb with it. And at the end of the night, they rounded up the December babies and out came a tall cake for us to blow out candles of. I don’t know why I was so edgy then, thinking that my friends would cream my face, throw me into the pool or something.

And so that began a long weekend as Monday was a public holiday in Selangor. But not in KL, and so we took the chance to try to avoid the crowds and went to KLCC. As always, it was nice to get away from uni after being there so long, and not eating cafeteria food, no matter how nice it is now compared to last time.

A&W, it’s been so many years since I’ve been to one, their branches have really decreased in number. Used to be two in Kuching at some point but now none. What I really like are their floats, and their burgers are quite good as well. It had bacon in it, which was a nice crispy touch.

Midweek, on Wednesday, we made reservations to go to Jogoya at Starhill while the Ladies eat at Half Price offer was still valid and the place wasn’t fully booked. Yes, that Japanese buffet place that every other person who’s been there raves about, but which we were to find to be quite unfortunately disappointing.

Being a Japanese place buffet, I would have expected more variety in terms of the Japanese food. But no, they had a lot of other types of food as well, Western, Chinese, local. Which some dishes were quite nice, some really not so. Interestingly enough, the so called VIP dishes of which you had to have a VIP card to try were less nice than the normal fare. Considering the fact that people had to eat about RM1000 worth at Jogoya to qualify for this special card, I’m not too sure they are getting what they pay for. Dinner’s buffet price, which is normally about RM100 if there were no special offer, didn’t seem to really make sense considering the food on offer. I do hope that it was just a bad day that we went and they are not normally like this, can’t see anyone paying this much for food like that, I’d rather go to some normal Japanese place and order what I like, or have a nice meal at Italiannies or Tony Roma’s for much less than that price.

Quite a pity, since this place was supposedly really good when it first started out, with so many bloggers raving about it. Their tempura counter, where I had heard that the prawn tempura is so good that people stand there to wait while they prepare each fresh batch as it clears out so fast, wasn’t that great. Sure the prawn itself was good, but the batter was a bit thick. Saisaki had a better selection in terms of tempura, and the teppanyaki was way better.

Despite the variety of cakes and mochis they had, they tasted nowhere as nice as they looked. Their saving grace in terms of dessert was Haagen Daz, and even that one couldn’t eat too much or you would get queasy.

After the dinner, I felt so queasy I could hardly walk straight without clutching around my tummy. It really wasn’t easy parting with my money for that as a student, and I was sadly disappointed. Never again, I swore to myself. Should have already seen big red alarms ringing in my head when there is an offer this good.

Okay, we shall end with the unpleasantness for this post, which started out on a very pleasant note. Insert photo of pretty Christmas decorations:

I think me, Grace and Cynthia were taking turns having a go on my camera, and I don’t think I took this particular photo but it’s the nicest of the lot. The Louis Voutton shopfront is already so glimmery and with the lit up Christmas trees in front, and cosmopolitan people dressed in black in the foreground, this photo is just pleasant to the eyes, or my eyes at least.

It’s been so long that I don’t think I want to blog any further about Christmas. Not that much happened, just time with the family, at Kuching and Miri. And then it was exams, crazy exams. So next post should probably be about post exams, something happy =).