Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous Year of the Ox!

(I can hear a chorus going "Moo" in my head)

Busy time of the year visiting relatives and pigging out like crazy. So that means yummylicious pictures to come.

Back from India....

....and the workload piles on in the office.

Just stopped by for a quick update.

India was a fun adventure:
Ate alot and tried many new dishes.
Met a whole bunch of people - mainly Rommel's relatives.
Bought loads of saris and salwars.
Pictures to come when I have time.
Didn't do much knitting though since I didn't have much time.
Read a book (something I have not done in a long long time).
Bought books for 100rupees or Rm7.65 (real bargain).

Anyway, I'm off now, despite the traffic outside looking like it wont be letting up anytime soon. Gonna brave it and see what time I get home. Sigh...

Piggin' out: Bavarian Bierhaus, The Curve

Restaurant: Bavarian Bierhaus, The Curve
Address: Lot G66, Ground Floor, The Curve, Mutiara Damansara
Tel: 03 7728 8269
Other reviews: Food4Thot, bernsy, Lim Mei Yen, benghan

We were at The Curve/Ikano 2 weekends ago hunting for stuff to buy at Ikea (because we never really NEED to buy anything but are always on the lookout for anything interesting).

The parents couldn't decide what to have for dinner and Italiannies was full so I thought they could try the Bavarian Bierhaus.

We were greeted by this fella next to our table. Shen/Fatteh, doesn't he remind you of a certain godbrother of ours???


Of course we ordered beer. A nice refreshing Paulaner.

And some Emmental sausages to share. Loved them and the brussel sprouts! (although I do have a slight fear of brussel sprouts from my boarding school days in England.)

And the highlight: the Pork knuckle served with sauerkraut and crispy bacon.

Sadly, the meal really isn't Ma's type of food so she barely ate (except for some salad which we also ordered). We only got through 1 of the knuckles and had to pack the other. Don't think the parents really enjoyed the meal because after that, we headed to the local food court near our house and had wantan mee and char kuey teow instead.

Would I go back? Yes, but only if with a bunch of guys who love a lot of meat and beer. No taking parents there again.

Piggin' out: Boon Boon Cafe, Taman Desa

Restaurant: Boon Boon Cafe
Address: 29A & 30A, Jalan Desa Jaya, Taman Desa 58100 KL (Next to Faber Towers)
Tel: 03 7987 5272
Cuisine: Casual local and western food
Highlight: The drinks and simple home-cooked food
Other reviews: Two superheroes, Decorateur

It's odd how I spend my time scouring the streets of KL and PJ hunting down "new places to eat" but yet do not bother with places just 2 minutes down the road from my house.

Just like this place, for instance. Boon Boon Cafe.

Boon Boon offers simple home-cooked favourites like the claypot loh shu fun I had.

Or the seafood and veg claypot combo served with white rice that Rommel had.

My other favourites here are the cornflakes fried chicken wings, the chicken chop and the sizzling chicken.

But what I enjoy here are the drinks. Think Kim Gary-type beverages - Iced Honey Lemon is my favourite. And at affordable prices too. And there's free wifi so you'll find people chilling with their laptops and a large glass of iced lemon tea/iced milk tea/iced almond tea or whatever... In fact, on days when I used to curse my streamyx connection (I've since moved on to Maxis broadband for less headaches), I'd head out to Boon Boon with my laptop and work from there.

* Apologies for the bad photos - dim lighting + crappy camera.

Piggin' Out: Yuzu, The Gardens

Restaurant: Yuzu, The Gardens
Address: T236, Third floor, The Gardens @ Midvalley City
Tel: 03 2284 7663
Other reviews: Masak-masak, Two Moo's & A Foo, Lim Mei Yen

We had our New Year's Day dinner at Yuzu - brought our godbrothers Sunny and David to try it out. Since all of us pretty much eat everything and anything (excluding my mom), we left most of the decision up to Raymond, the restaurant manager to decide.

We started of with the sashimi platter. Key highlight was the uni.

Sorry I've forgotten what fish this was but it tasted good with some spring onions and ponzu dressing.


Semi-cooked octopus tentacles.


Crispy deep fried salmon skin salad.

Kobe beef tataki.

A simple soba with egg to end the meal.

We paired the dinner with these wines:


And we brought our own kuih (bought from Bangsawan in The Pavilion) which the chef dressed up and served with matcha icecream.

Piggin' out: Downtown KLIA wantan mee

What do you usually eat when you're catching a flight from KLIA in the morning? McDonald's? The nasi lemak stall in the airport? The food court perhaps?

Well, those "in the know" (i.e. the taxi drivers) come to Downtown KLIA, located just across the road from the Concorde Inn KLIA. There's a Caltex station at the entrance into this commercial area. Not many shops are open and there's only 1 Chinese shop at the end selling wantan mee so it shouldn't be difficult to find.

My dad took us there for a New Year's Day breakfast when we sent the two brats back to London.

The nondescript, local setting....

The steamed white chicken (bak zham kai).

The siew yoke and char siu platter.

And of course the wantan mee...

And the perfect accompaniment: Milo.

Piggin' Out: U Restaurant, Bangsar

Restaurant: U Restaurant
Address: 69-1, Jalan Bangkung, Bukit Bandaraya, Bangsar
Tel: 03 2093 1268
Opening times: 12-2.30pm and 6-11pm
Cuisine: Japanese
Other reviews: TheEdge article, Jules Eating Guide

Last weekend, Rommel and I visited our chiropractor after a 4-month disappearance (we've been busy and been procrastinating since our last appointment in August). She's moved to Jalan Bangkung from Jalan Telawi so that means new restaurants to check out!

Now, Jalan Bangkung isn't exactly a new place to me as my aunt and family have been living there for the past 15 years (maybe more?). I love the quiet and discreet surroundings of this part of Bangsar, it's full of memories since I spent most of my childhood weekends at my aunt's house.

We tried U Restaurant - a sister restaurant to Uzen in Concorde Hotel, KL.

Rommel had the sashimi set - RM35 for 8 pcs of sashimi, a bowl of rice, soup and chawan mushi. Portions here are pretty small and and really, it looked rather depressing. The butterfish tataki was overdone and tasted funny. The rest were just mediocre. A far cry from what we usually get at Uzen (it's on my dad's list of decent Japanese restaurants in KL).

I had the pomfret zosui - also RM35. Pricey but at least the pomfret was fresh. A clean, simple meal.

For dessert, we shared the banana fritters with ice cream. (RM12).

The bananas were deep fried in tempura batter. Didn't taste as good as your usual roadside pisang goreng but that's because the bananas were not ripe enough. Solved by dunking it in the ice cream.

Overall: Nothing special. And there was no one else in the restaurant that Saturday which is rather unsettling but then again, we got there at 2pm.

Will we go back? Probably not in the near future.

An afternoon with kitties and scones

Shen, as promised, here are the pictures of the kittens playing yesterday...





And of the scones I made for tea... (okay I cheated and it's from a premix but it tasted pretty good so I dont care). The clotted cream and lovely while the strawberry jam was irresistable.




Shen, I haven't taken pics of the bags I bought for you yet but willdo it soon. Hopefully before I leave for India.

Turning point in my life

In the past 3 days, I've gone through 3 major hurdles in my career:

1) I passed 1 part of my licensing exam. 1 more to go. It's a major event because I dont ever have to sit for it again.

2) I've finally initiated on my first stock and am on my way to becoming a full-fledged analyst.

3) I spoke on the morning meeting for the first time today.


Perhaps these do not seem significant to some since they've done it before or they do it all the time. But to me, it's the fact that theball's starting rolling. It's the start of more to come. That's what counts.

And now, back to the hard work bit of things...

Piggin' Out: La Lot, Pavilion

Restaurant: La Lot,
Address: Lot 6.36, Level 6, Pavilion KL
Tel: 03 2148 4231
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Other reviews: thestar article, andreacsp, epicuriousgirl, lifeofcontinues

Finally tried La Lot after months of saying, "We should try this place out." My dad is always game for Vietnamese food (unlike Thai food where we practically have to force him through the entrance of any Thai restaurant. He's just not a fan of Thai food outside of Thailand - that's another story altogether.)

The most interesting dish was the durian chicken wings. Looks like simple grilled wings but you get a faint hint of the durian smell when it's served. When you bite through it, again the durian taste is very subtle but surprisingly it tastes really good.


We also had the mixed platter appetisers. Deep fried prawn rolls, beef skewers and sorry I cant remember what else.

This is my favourite dish to order in Sao Nam - the grilled lemongrass chicken noodle salad. So naturally, I had to order to be able to compare that and the one here in La Lot.

I'll say that the vegetables were perhaps rather tired looking, unlike in Sao Nam where the veg are nice and crunchy. Taste-wise, I prefer the one in Sao Nam.

Shen ordered the beef stew with rice. The sauce was a bit too salty.

Fatteh ordered the ubiquitous pho bo (beef noodle soup). Pretty good stock and the quality of beef was not too bad too. Pretty much how we'd expect pho to be.

Overall, nothing really impressive. The only dish we'd really come back for is the durian chicken wings.

I have a sudden craving for good pho bo at Pho 2000 in Ho Chi Minh City. Sigh...

Piggin' Out: House of Sundanese Food, Suria KLCC

Restaurant: House of Sundanese Food
Address: 4.12, Level 4, Suria KLCC
Tel: 03 2166 2272
Website: *click here*
Other reviews: Tummy Thoughts

This is one of the few restaurants my mom and I like to dine in when we're in KLCC. It has been around for quite a number of years now and the food has consistently been good.

What we like here are:

Cumi-cumi Bakar - grilled squid that's marinated with a sweet dark sauce.

Ikan Nila Goreng - deep fried fish with chillies and onion in dark soy sauce. My mom's favourite dish, so crispy that I eat the bones too.

And we tried a new dish they recommended this time: Deep fried aubergines with eggs and ikan bilis. A surprising delight for us that it was really good but then I like aubergines, eggs and ikan bilis so in my books, you can't really go very wrong by combining them!

To fill up our meat requirement, we ordered the chicken rendang. This wasn't very good compared to the rest though. Nothing much to shout about.

All of this served with your choice of white rice or briyani rice or both.