Home cooked crayfishes@Courtesy of Mr Frizzo, thank you!

 My friend Frizzo was such a sweet soul. He had some extra crayfishes and so happens, his wife had a business trip overseas (no cook at home!). Rather than letting these fresh prawns go to waste, he offered to give 'em to me .............. for freeeeeeeeeeeee! (Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories style)

Boy oh boy, they were gigantic alright!

 The crayfishes were grilled and sauteed with onions and mustard. Cholesterol conscious fellas, stay away!

 The meat was quite dense, and a little chewy. I could taste a hint of the muddiness from the meat, most likely these crayfishes were farmed. 3 pieces of them were enough to fill you up full. But nonetheless, I was happy eating 'em.

Maybe because we all have this generic perception that seafood or prawns are considered a luxury item on the menu. The bigger they are, they pricier they get.

And mine is for freeeeeeee! So yes, I was smiling from ear to ear. The size of the crayfish was almost like the size of my fist. Kapow.

The crayfishes.. GUILLOTINED. You all have served me well. Burps!

Thank you Frizzo!

Serene lunch@The Haven, Jalan Ampang Hilir

I am glad to have discovered this interesting dining place, quietly hidden in the midst of the hustle and bustle of KL city. Haven is a white coloured bunglo converted restaurant, with a wide open space of greeneries surrounding the house. The trademark signature of Haven, is its organic food servings, both dine and purchase. Above is a picture of the organic coffee station, each cup freshly brewed.

The mini grocery store selling organic products. Surprisingly, there were quite a number of people buying these items when I was there. It seems locals/expacts who are living nearby frequently come over to buy the organic meats and vegs. Wow.

A calming view of the compound to ease the tension off, before your meal. I was just imagining how great it would be if my dogs could run and roam around while I chill out by the porch.

Haven's credo for their food servings!

The big breakfast set, RM 19. Bread slice, with 2 choice of breakfast servings. The list contains the usual stuffs served at breakfast meals: eggs (cooked in the style you like), mushrooms, tomatoes, ham, bacon, pancakes, fruits etc. The selection of only 2 types, reminded me of an episode from "River Cottage" of AFC, whereby the chef says sometimes piling all sorts of fried food of every kind in one plate on one serving may dilute the whole feeling of a great breakfast meal and narrowed down to only 2 choices. This rendition, was not bad. Quite good I must say, the eggs were too creamy for my liking though.

The chicken pie was surprisingly delicious! It seemed normal looking when it arrived, but hidden underneath the pastry sheets, were steam hot creamy, tender juicy chicken chunks, with chopped mushrooms. Yums! I think it cost about RM 18 -23. Can't remember the exact price.

Fried fish fingers dish. This dish was average, however marination was not bad. Just nicely salted, coated with herbs and spices. The good thing is that, at least the fish fingers were coated with batter, like many places where you end up digging em' batters out exposing superbly thin slices of dory fish fillets. What you see in the picture, is what you get of the fish fillets.

Lamb ribs, Yums! Is it the organic lamb? Or is it the nicely grilled skills? I don't know. What I do know is that the lamb was tender and juicy. Worthy try! I think this was RM 35-40.

Molten chocolate cake, nicely baked. Not too sweet, and the molten lava chocolate goodie inside was really... finger licking good! I was actually more impressed by the presentation skills of the chef. The chef's sincerity in decorating a beautiful dessert dish can be seen from the well sliced fruits. RM 10.

The cheesecake, was also quite good too. It was not sickly cheezy creamy, just nice, and not sweet too. What made a big different was the drizzled over sour strawberry sauce that blended well with the creamy cheese cake. RM 10. Haven definitely has caught my foodie attention based on this first good impression I had. I sometimes feel that the overpriced organic food concept is a real rip off, because many a times they do not taste good, but this restaurant priced its food items similar to normal restaurants and they actually taste good! A great place for a long Saturday brunch over a cuppa coffee, newspaper and IPAD!

Good morning Lords Day!@Yakun Kaya, Holland Village

Its been such a long time since i last came here, probably a year since.

This place used to be the breakfast place i come on weekends, with newspaper and a book.

Sometimes i do miss my time in Singapore.

The branch over in holland village is run by several retiree ladies, happily working. I really enjoyed seeing them throwing in all their passion into bancuh-ing the best kopi, toasting the crunchiest bread, making sure their eggs are truly 50% boiled. Sweating through all that with smiles on their faces.

Anyway, their toast bread's really yums! Overly sincere with the chunks of butter in between the slices.

sgd 4.50 a set.

Roasted half chicken with 2 sidelines@BEN's Grocer, Publika

This dish is recently gaining popularity in the dinner list, especially Monday nights before bible class.

The chicken's really quite tasty, and u do feel heathy-'ier' eating, especially accompanied by two generous servings of vegs.

The vegs choice is up to you, any two on the display. I usually pick the sidelines that have some meat in them. Better dollar value haha.

Rm 29.90 for this. A whole chicken would be about rm45.

Yums!

Birthday cake from Patisserie Rui

Cakes from Patisserie Rui were the theme for my best friend's 29th birthday. My initial plan was to order her famous red velvet cake, but unfortunately her business is so good now that I need to pre-order 5 days in advance for her red velvet cake. PHEW. I settled for a simple fruit cake instead.

Above is a green tea macha chocolate swiss roll slice that I bought when I collected her cake. Boompacked with green tea flavour and not sweet at all. I must say, her signature deliciousness lies in her light, slightly sweetened whipped cream. This was quite good! RM 6 a slice.

The dinner was held at Plan B, Publika. The food here is quite good, but they've got to seriously buck up on their service.

This birthday meal proved to be rather special this year. Best friends who are working out of KL made an effort to make a trip down to get together. Ann, from Singapore, Ling, who is based in KL, but the nature of her job (banker) just makes it impossible to meet her, Joy from Temerloh.

Birthday girl cutting her cake!

The fruit cake was, delicioussssss... light, creamy, fluffy, fruity chunky bits. You really feel like a little kid again eating this cake. Small alright (only 6 inches wide) but the size was just nice for nibbling a bite or two after a heavy meal. Anyway, the cake is quite tastefully decorated, so it is still presentable as a decent looking birthday cake despite its tiny size. RM 35, I think. Can't remember exactly.

I bought for myself a fruit cake swiss roll slice. This was by far my second most favourite cake from Patisserie Rui, after her red velvet. Initially, I thought that this swiss roll slice would not differ much from the cake but it sure did. The lightness, yet creamy and slightly sweetened whipped cream, coating the fruit chunks and holding the vanilla sponge cake layer together proved time and time again that it deserves to be number 1! Best swiss roll I've ever eaten. RM 5/slice. An entire roll costs RM 45, you can cut into 6 - 7 pieces, depending how thick you like your swiss roll slice to be.

Writing about this made me want to take another bite of this deliciousness!

p/s: Nowadays, any cakes from here needs pre-ordering few days in advance. Business is really thriving for her! Downside is, sometimes when I crave for her cake, I won't be able to just drive over to buy but to call and check on availability instead. Kills off the craving mood sometimes, especially when I am extremely desperate to eat it and they tell you, "Sorry, sold out already!"

Sin Nam Huat Chicken Rice@opposite Loh Guan Lye Hospital

Gorgeous view of Gurney beach. An early morning jog when the sun was just rising up.

Serenity. beautiful.

The few times I came to Loh Guan Lye hospital, always missed the chance of trying this crowded chicken rice shop opposite its main door. Today, I must try!

Char siew and roast chicken. The size of this serving was for 3 persons. We stared among ourselves and shook our heads. This ain't enough for 3 pax man. I went to the chef's meat chopper desk to order another plate. Both items, roast chicken and char siew were so so only. Average I'd say. Quite oily.

This was the extra plate that we ordered. The total bill with drinks came up to around RM18. For the price we paid, I'd say it was quite a good deal. It would have cost RM 25-30 in KL. A good quick lunch meal for me, but definitely not the best chicken rice or char siew that I ate. Thumbs up for the steal deal pricing, considering that it is Penangite food!

Ibu Oka, Babi Guling, Bali

Had this at the main branch of Ibu Oka near the King Palace at Ubud.
In my opinion, it taste better than the branch further up the road.

Probably it is because the shop has less porky smell due to better ventilation.

I find that in Bali, tourist should explore more of the boutique restaurants there, which offers fantatstic value.

I also had a big mangosteen at the stall.
Huge juicy ones which we seldom find now in KL.

Hee Lai Ton Restaurant@Shaw Parade, Jalan Imbi

Apparently, Hee Lai Ton's branch in Shaw Parade is famous for its value-for-money dimsums. I am a BIG dimsum fan and was eager to see what this place had to offer. Our lunch coincided with the CNY luncheon for Air FM (...?) Never heard of the existence of this radio station before. The DJs were the MCs for the event. I had my lunch served with some lame jokes, performances and never heard of chinese songs.

Okay, back to dimsum. Gigantic siew mais, alright. Taste was average, but steal deal RM 7 just for their size.

They are famous for their char siew yoke. We were late, so this was the final kopek that we could get. It was, quite fatty for me. Urks. Those who enjoy fatty charsiews would love 'em I suppose. Overall rating, 6.5/10.

Oversized har kaus. 2 prawns inside woey! Steal deal. I salute its value-for-money deal. The only downside was, the prawns for this batch of harkaus might have been soaked a bit too long in the bicarbonate water. Chewy, tangy alright, but the prawns lost their flavour.

The CSPs, a let down. I love CSP alot and am quite particular about how they taste. Good ones, I will not add any sauce. Bad ones, I always resort to adding chilli flakes / chilli sauce.

The fried carrot cake dish was the worst. The chefs were probably overworked due to the radio station luncheon group, because they spent too little time frying my carrot cake. They were quite hard, and I believe they were a bit undercooked. We found this, quite hard to finish up.

Verdict: The aunty lady waitresses were honestly, quite fierce and most of the time, they may come across as rude, but I guess they were just being loud to be heard and not rude, else their voices would drown in the midst of the noisy packed crowd of patrons. You will definitely get your pennies worth paying for your meal here (tummy definitely full) and the taste for some dishes are not bad.

Yalumba Signature 2003

A shiraz cab blend from Yalumba. This was normally retailing at RM175.
On a lazy saturday stroll at Carrefour last week, I chanced upon this during a buy 1 free 1 wine clearance sale.

Somehow the wine manager offered me 2 bottles of these at RM75. This much have been the deal of the century.

I pop one the second night, and it was pretty much alive.
Dense dark blackberry nose, some spice from the Shiraz. Weighty body, thou the alcohol heat was quite overpowering initially, as typical Aussie does.

Great value @ RM37 per bottle.
Thanks you Father!

Isaribi Tei Restaurant@Burmah Road, Penang

 Quietly tucked in an alley, a tiny road branched from the busy Burmah Road, is a very interesting Japanese restaurant, called Isaribi Tei. From outside, it really seemed like a small rundown single storey house. When I stepped inside, the scene changed altogether.

 Apparently, the owner is a Japanese expat residing in Penang for years already. You could embrace his enthusiasm and love for his country from the decors. There were many articles which featured his restaurant.

 This is what I call a patriotic citizen with the spirit of helping his nation. Even from afar! How many of us Malaysians will do this for our country if we are residing abroad and a tragedy happens to our homeland.

 I ordered my favourite sashimi set, RM 35. I found the set served in a rather interesting manner, slightly different from the usuals. My soup had no coverings and the the chopped tofus were fried. The salad too, was added with some sourish spicy dressing, instead of Jap mayo. Sashimis were very fresh too. All in all, I was truly surprised and very much enjoyed my meal.

 Fried calamaris for RM 17. Golden ring goodies, nicely fried so that the squiddy rings did not turn out shriveled and chewy.

Chicken teriyaki. Nicely grilled sliced chicken, and not too oily either. A kick twist to its flavour was the addition of sesame seeds and oil. Thumbs up. RM 25.

 These guys make their own ice cream. I loved the green tea ice cream. Not sweet at all, which complemented well with the sweetened red bean paste served next to the green scoop. The paste was a little rough, with small chunks of red beans in between, I believe it was intentionally made that way to give its edge being home made.

Normally, I am not a huge fan of black sesame ice cream (sometimes the taste can be too heavy for me) but surprisingly again, this one was light, yet at the end palate, the sesame taste kicked in with a pow!

The only slight down side of this restaurant, personally, was its staff. The waiters were mainly youths, most likely high school student part timers/ college kids earning some cash during study breaks. The service was a bit of a let down and they weren't very friendly.

I would come back here again, if I am ever in Penang... keen to try out their other dishes!

Pierre Morey Bourgogne Blanc 2002

The winemaker of Pierre Morey makes wine for Leflaive as well.
Precise nose of citrus, butter and white floral..clean weighty palate..
It is gorgeous for such entry level wine, and definitely a steal considering Leflaive is retailing at a couple hundred ringgit per bottle.

Grab some if you can.
I still have some 99/02/08 and its Meursalt sitting in my cellar..