TOP 10 + 1 WAYS TO KNOW THAT YOU’RE IN PENANG…

If you happen to be kidnapped and place in this strange island, here are 10 ways for you identify that you are in Penang:

1.          You wake up at 3am with a heart burn from overeating the whole day.

2.          When ordering food, the average dishes per person is 2 and one of the dish is always Char Kuey Teow.

3.          It’s 12am and you still have food that you have “ta pau” and not eaten in your hotel room.

4.          The lines between breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper is blurred. It’s just eating 24/7.

5.          You walk pass the mirror in your hotel room in your underwear and you could have sworn that your side view width has increased substantially.

6.          When you sit down in the toilet, there’s a huge chunk of meat (your stomach) that protrudes out more than usual.

7.          Whenever someone asks you about your next medical check-up, you change the topic immediately.

8.          You are driving and at an intersection (without a traffic light), you shiver, sweat profusely, convulse, shake uncontrollably and then decide to get down from your car, place cons to stop incoming traffic and drive out of your intersection. All in all, it took you 30 minutes to cross the intersection.

9.          You are bathing and when you look down, you realize some appendages are not as visible anymore. Your middle kingdom seemed to be blocking your view……… ….. ….. …... of your toes.

10.     You walk down Batu Feringhi and there’s a firesale for DVD… 50% off the price you pay for in KL

11.     Pig’s blood is a main ingredient in your Curry Mee, Yam Rice, etc.

STRIPPIN DOWN, COOKING UP: PAN-FRIED LEMON CHICKEN

Ingredients:

i.            Chicken breast

ii.          Lemon

iii.         Garlic

iv.        Dried thyme leaves

v.          Soya Sauce

vi.        Oil

First of course clean the chicken, cut the lemon, squeeze the lemon, cut some of the lemon skin into thin strips, chop the garlic and go buy some thyme leaves.

Mix the garlic, lemon juice, lemon pieces and thyme leaves into a soya sauce + oil concoction. Marinate the chicken breast in the mixture. Best if chicken is marinated overnight.

When ready to cook, bring out the wok, pour some oil and place the chicken to fry. Duration of frying depends on the wellness you’ll like the chicken to be (rare, medium-rare, medium or well-done). I personally prefer well-done. To check for done-ness, take a fork and pork it through the thickest part of the chicken. If the fork goes through easily, the meat is well-done.

Nothing more to do but to enjoy your well-deserved chicken.

CUPID STRIKES 3 (years)

Today, 13 December 2011, is the day 3 years ago when Ju Li and me walked down the aisle and took a vow to be together for better or for worse. It was a beautiful day.

REWIND

I met Ju Li while we were studying in HELP together. It was definitely not love at first sight because I did not remember that we were working together in the same group for our 2^nd semester project and had to be reminded by her a year later (when we got closer). And till today, I still have difficulty recalling that :P For her, I was the guy that her parents would have warned her to stay away from (not that I am some badass punk who smokes, drinks, parties, curses or visits Bangkok frequently). I was just the guy who was never serious in lectures, made full use of the 30% absentee allowance (you had to attend 70% of your lectures in order not to be barred from the course), slept in most of his classes (especially those held in the auditorium – cinema type of chairs), got her to mark my attendance for 8:00am classes and attended church very consistently – once every quarter.

But as fate had it, in our 2^nd and 3^rd year, we started getting closer and closer and I believe that it was the Cantonese dramas that we watched together at my rented house that really brought us together (if we/she had classes that ended at 6:00pm, she’ll come over to my rented place and watch Cantonese drama’s in the hall together with me to wait for the traffic to clear).

But then, Ju Li being Ju Li, she wanted to be sure that I was the right person… the right man… the only man… the awesome man… the wonderful man… the great man… THE MAN...! So we had like a waiting period of a couple of months before kicking it all off.

Years passed, outings, dates, movies, of course the time I left for the States for 1 year, back and getting married.

PLAY

Today of course I am happily married to the college sweetheart and we now own a little baby girl. Through the 7 years of being together, there were definitely ups and downs… “Focus on the ups and there are more ups… Focus on the downs and there are more downs” (Mahaguru Mua, 2011). But with every passing day, it’s the appreciation of the things that we have gone thru that keeps us moving forward. More significantly of course are the bad times, when it’s all done & said, sitting back (of course not immediately) and reminiscing on the things that were said, the actions that was done, we just appreciate each other even more day by day.

Of course it takes a heck load of humility too to change your so thought “grandeur” or “the right” way of life… to break down all schemas and to build up new ones together to fit into our own needs and wants. To say sorry, to forgive, to move on, to laugh again and to hold each other once again genuinely.

FAST FORWARD

Many times people have asked, how do you know you’ll be with her forever? How are you so sure? The answer is really as simple as this… “You’ll know”. It’s not cliché, it’s not out of a text book but really each and everyone would go through different experiences, and when you’ve found the one, “you’ll know”.

With Ju Li, it was simply 2 things:

1. Being a normal boy, I obviously had many a couple of “past relationships” (such a nice word for gf’s).

How many “past relationships”?                               

(Take Ju Li’s “past relationship” x 5) – (my 2 brother’s total relationships/2) + (my age/5)

The equation just goes all wrong when you reach “my 2 brother’s total relationships” cause 1 of my brother totally lost count :P So let’s forget about counting…

As I was saying, when it got to Ju Li, it never crossed my mind of thinking of a breakup through our 4 years of dating (now of course no need to breakup.. can forget about it already). Simple but that was one big difference when it got to dating Ju Li, for some strange reasons, it really never crossed my mind to call it quits even through the downiest point of our relationship.

2. I don’t cry in front of people (it’s not an MCP statement but just how my emotions are crippled by the fact that there's an unclear passage between my heart-brains-eye that would require further medical intervention). There are only 4 times in my entire life that I have cried in open (apart from when I was a kid and when I got a bus load of spanking) – and all of it happened in church (when I was prayed for, when we prayed for a close friend who had cancer and when a close friend had a miscarriage and was reflecting on God’s grace) except for the 4^th… which was when I was about to leave for the States and with Ju Li in my room, I just cried. Public outflow of emotion is something that is very difficult for me to let out, but when it does happen, it is something that I am just overwhelmed with and at that moment, I was just overwhelmed by the fact that I loved Ju Li so much and could not bear the thought of leaving her behind for a whole year.

These things might seem really simple but these are the things that are significantly different from everything in my past coupled with the inner peace within that I know that Ju Li is THE ONE.

Of course it’s not going to be a peaceful cruise ship through calm oceans and it could be the titanic sinking experience everyday but deep down I know that God has been very faithful and gracious through the years and would definitely guide us through the storms to calmer waters everyday. It’s really not about watching the sunrise everyday but watching the sunset everyday that matters - to sit back, reflect on the day that has gone by (good/bad) and to know that no matter what, we still have each other for the next day come what may.

Ju Li... I definitely love you very much and appreciate all the sacrifices that you have made. I look forward to the years that will come, fights, quarrels, misunderstandings, comfort, company, kindness and most of all, LOVE. Muah!

Piggin Out @ Shabu-Shabu, Kuchai Lama

Shabu-Shabu @ Kuchai Lama is one of our favorite hang out spot for 3 very simple reasons:

-          Cheap

-          A lot

-          Delicious

For only RM31.80 per person, you get to enjoy a nice personal hot pot of soup to yourself (no need to share-share with everybody else who dips their saliva coated chopsticks into the same steamboat pot) and an endless stream of food served through the “sushi” belt all while you’re seated.

It’s of course buffet style served through the belt but for the unlimited supply of meat (pork, lamb, beef) you’ll need to order through the waitress/waiter.

Apart from the 3 simple reasons why we absolutely enjoy this place, there are another couple of reasons why we eat here whenever our pockets allow us to:

-     We don’t end up going back with diarrhea. Unlike some other shabu-shabu/steamboat restaurants where the food is somehow contaminated by god knows what.

-     We don’t have to line up just to have 1 staff slicing the meats for the entire restaurant. Here, everytime we order the meat, it’s promptly delivered to us within minutes.

-     The food on the belt is promptly replenished. They literally have 2 staff standing in the kitchen (where the belt enters) who replenishes whatever food that has been taken instantly.

-     Wide variety of food ranging from seafood (mussels, prawns, fish, squid), meat (chicken, pork, lamb, beef), vege (light green, dark green, yellow type) and balls (fish one, pig one, cow one).

-     It’s air-conditioned and although you smell funky when you come out, it does not feel stuffy when you’re in.

-     Plates on the table are cleared superbly fast reducing the chance of you having a heart attack seeing the amount of plates you’ve eaten.

The Place

The Belt

The Sauce

The Meat

The Binging

One thing that really stand out about this place is it’s honesty in running a buffet themed restaurant. A lot of buffet places out there (be it expensive hotels/cheap places) would try their best to make you full as soon as possible (by loading the food with high calorie stuff i.e cheese - evident in Shogun/Saisaki where they cheese up their oysters, escargots, prawns, scallops and serve you huge chunks of meat), limit the amount of the more expensive food out (by not replenishing fast enough – evident in Temptations, Renaissance with their oysters), or the quality of food drops with time (also evident in Temptations, Renaissance where the size of their chilled prawns grew smaller and smaller with time). Their honesty in serving you the best with the price you paid is reflected in their entire operations. Awesome place.



Location:
11 & 13 Dinasti Sentral,
Jalan Kuchai Maju 18,
Off Jalan Kuchai Lama,
58200 Kuala Lumpur

Piggin Out @ Le Midi, BSC

Last weekend, my wife and I celebrated our 3^rd year wedding anniversary. As usual, we were looking for a nice romantic dinner and we found this place, Le Midi, touted as the most romantic place in KL for fine dining.

The restaurant was not really big and was ok-ok on the design. Did not really give us the feel that we were in a high end fine-dining restaurant even though the price definitely did and it was definitely not the most romantic dining place in KL.

We decided to go for their degustation (pronounced: di-gus-aztrjajfanfna) menu (Thanks to my wife’s colleague who does a lot of fine dining and introduced her to the idea of “di-gus-aztrjajfanfna”).

My wife took the Classic Menu (RM148++) for being a lamb lover and I took the Supreme Menu (RM168++) for being a cow lover. It both came with 4 courses.

Not forgetting the bread and butter (pai-seh but i seriously love loads of butter and bread).



Supreme “di-gus-aztrjajfanfna” Menu

Beef Carpaccio – this was the best dish of the night. Cold thinly sliced beef dressed with truffle lemon and parmesan shaving.

Basil Pesto Lasagna – swap this dish with my wife’s Greek Salad cause she loves lasagna. Had a piece though and it wasn’t too bad. Nice warm feeling with just enough spices.

Tuscany Prime Rib – was a BIG letdown. I love my beef rare and I can totally understand when I go to a Japanese restaurant and ask for rare and they serve me medium done… but definitely not excusable for a place like this. It came served as medium-rare and the meat tasted on the outside like chunky burned bbq meat. Nothing really wow about it. Still love my Jake’s Charbroil Steakhouse. Read the “Exceptional Experience” below for more about this.

Lemon Ricotta Cheese Cake – Apart from the poppy seed, it was just a regular sponge cake with lemon sauce topping.

Classic “di-gus-aztrjajfanfna” Menu

I did not taste much of the food so can’t comment much. But I believe the happy, satisfied look on my wife’s face was because she was having dinner with the most amazingly good looking guy (and vice versa for me)

Spanich Ceviche – looks as though it was oysters  on her plate but it was actually seaweed. Interesting.

Classic Greek Salad – I had this course as my wife loved lasagna. Salad is salad especially if it was all green in color.

Braised Lamb Shank – had a piece of this. Sauce did nothing to bring out the taste of the lamb. Wasn’t really bad but for the price we paid, we expected something that would blow us away.

Panna Cotta , Passion Fruit Coulis – this was a good dessert. Blueberry on the side, passion fruit sauce all around and sugar on top of a pudding.

And my wife definitely needs to end her dinner with coffee… :)

Exceptional Experience

It’s really disappointing when you have to make such a hoo-haa when a restaurant makes a mistake before you get refunded for what you deserve.

When it came to Le Midi, I decided not too since it was our anniversary dinner and I did not want to spoil the mood of the night. Furthermore, I was in a really good mood that night.

While taking the last bite on my beef, I found a piece of PLASTIC in my meat (while chewing it). Since I was already done, I waited for the waiter to clear my plate before pointing out to him. He took my plate, put it on the bar counter and waited for the captain to finish talking to another table before pointing out the plastic piece to him… ….. ….. ….. ….. …. …. Nothing happened…. …. …. …. …. …. …. … …. … … …. Still nothing happened. No apology! No offer to refund! I let this slide this once…

All I expected from the captain was a sincere apology for the huge mistake they made. I mean, plastic in my food means the beef was cooked with the plastic and that means the poison from the melted plastic would have been consumed by me!!! And for all of that… not even an apology! And because of that, my readers are force to bear with my cheong-hei-ness.

I totally understand that mistakes happen in the kitchen. Totally understandable. And I understand from my side too that you are trying to run a business and it wouldn’t be fair if I create an uproar for a mistake made. But the least that you should have done was to offer an apology. Don’t have to wait until your customers start screaming, banging their tables, throwing the cutleries at you, running around berserk screaming “I’m gonna DIE!”, calling an ambulance to pick them up from your restaurant or just pretend dropping dead in the middle of the restaurant before you do anything. Where’s the courtesy? Sad truth is this, the person who bangs the loudest gets the fullest refund.

Location:

Le Midi

Lot T3, 3rd Floor,

Bangsar Shopping Centre,

Jalan Maarof,

Bukit Bandaraya, 59000 Kuala Lumpur.

http://www.lemidi.com.my/

Unity… Where Art Thou? What are Thou?

HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! MALAY RULE!!! HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! DEFEND MALAY POLITICAL POWER!!! HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! CELAKA OLANG KRISTIAN!!! HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! OLANG CINA BALIK CINA!!! HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! OLANG INDIA BALIK INDIA!!! HIDUP 1 MALAYSIA!!! OLANG MELAYU BALIK INDON!!!

Now the last sentence really sucks right…? UMNO goons would probably be throwing a fit, squirming on the ground, banging tables, raising the keris, threatening me with silat (when we’re in the age of guns and bombs) just because I said that. My intention of course is to enable to you feel the shitty feeling I feel everytime you make racist remarks. I am as much of a Malaysian as any other races. What gives you the right to insult me as a Malaysian? I am born & bred with Malaysian blood flowing thru my veins.

BN tells me “1 Malaysia!” and I really want to believe in it… but the very next moment, they endorse a racist remark made or don’t do anything about it. It pretty much feels like this everytime I believe them (hope of a better Malaysia, and then I get screwed)…

Was in the car the other day listening to FlyFM and they were talking about our childhood days that the things we did. It brought back fond memories for me. The Malay friend I had who would come over to my place to teach me to play gasing and marbles, the Indian family who baby-sitted me and my brother, the Chinese friend I walked to school everyday, the Malay girl I had a crush on when I was in primary school, my Indian best friend who is still my best friend today, my Chinese friend who I played lastic with, my Malay buddies who got me into football, my Indian friend who let me play cricket and hockey and of course sucky times too when a Malay friend slandered me in front of my Dad while we were fishing, a Chinese friend was snobbish to me, an Indian friend whom I got into a fight with. The point is this, good and bad… is NEVER determined by the race we are in. There are great Malay people, there are sucky ones. There are great Indian people, there are sucky ones. There are great Chinese people, there are sucky ones.

When did we come to a point where member of the other race is looked down at just for being in the color of their skin? When did we stop looking at someone’s heart and their true intention and capabilities? When did we started grouping in our races and cared less for the person of another race?

In the political world, Chinese wants to take over Malaysia. In the corporate world, Malays are lazy. In the social world, Indian are drunkards. I totally am disgusted whenever someone makes racist remarks and would definitely not condone such remarks.

How did we allow BN primarily to turn us hostile against each other? I am not blaming BN blindly but everytime a racist remark is uttered from their devilish mouth (especially during their UMNO General Assembly), no action is taken or very very minimal action is done… and the best part, the MCA and MIC counterpart are pretty much deaf to the racial slurs uttered (unlike Pakatan, when they utter anything racist, it’s followed by an apology and racist remarks by them are exceptionally rare… and I too am disgusted equally when such racist remarks is uttered). Conspiracy theorist would tell you that, all this is done so that we continue to be knitted closely as a race and not as Malaysian which would ultimately give them an upper hand in the election. People are so afraid to have their race lose power that they just succumb to voting BN everytime.

But lets leave conspiracy theories aside and start with ourselves. Lets leave BN and Pakatan out of the picture. For the record, I’m not anti-government or anti-BN… I’m just anti-injustice, anti-corruption, anti-cronyism, anti-wastage, anti-racism (all of which BN so happen to be at the moment). Heck I don’t even care if Malaysia is ruled by PAS or Razaleigh with 100% of his cabinet members being Malays… just as long justice is upheld, accountability is upheld and my right as a Malaysian is upheld. I am not interested in fighting for Chinese representation in the parliament at all. Race don’t matter. Accountability and the willingness to uphold what is right does.

But as always, change begins with ourselves. How often have we ourselves fallen into the trap of classifying how people are by their race? I have continuously heard from friends & colleagues that “Malay people are always like that want…”, “Mindset like that cannot do anything”, “Lazy”… are we so righteous ourselves??? Put a Chinese in a casino and he comes back destroying his entire life he once had through gambling. Put a Chinese in renovation line and for the same amount of effort, he can quote you twice the price with a darn straight honest face. Put a Chinese in a corporate line and he forgets about his family at home. Put a Chinese in a singing competition and you’re rather watch the losers in American Idol.

So the next time we want to curse BN/UMNO for being racist, let’s start with ourselves, cause if we ourselves classify people’s ability by their race, then we are no different from them and have no right complaining. We pretty much just fall into their trap to create continuous hostility amongst races. I truly love my Malay bros and sis and would die standing up for their right. So, let’s seriously start with ourselves, be it Cina, Melayu, India, Bidayuh, Kadazan, Sikh dan lain-lain… check the racist remarks we make on our daily basis and then maybe hopefully, we are able to see true unity amongst Malaysians… back to the days of Tunku Abdul Rahman… and then… we can stand up truly as Malaysians and we don’t need half-baked slogans tainted with racist remarks… and then… the picture would be different…

Movie Day: Tower Heist

My wife and I have this arranged date every week to catch a movie a week mostly on a Wednesday at GSC (cause it’s only RM7 per tix and if we end up watching a crappy movie, we don’t feel the pinch). We’ve kept this practice for the past 7 years ever since we were dating in college to working to married life and to having a baby. Of course we were lucky enough that my in-laws stays really near so we can drop the baby off for the night and have some alone time by ourselves (with 100+ ppl in the cinema).

Last week, we managed to catch “Tower Heist” featuring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. Was a little apprehensive at first to watch the movie cause Ben Stiller was the featured actor. I really hate movies where toilet jokes are made and Ben Stiller is notoriously known to me to have made the most disgusting toilet jokes in his other movie “Along Came Polly (2004)”. So even though it’s been 6 years and he’s acted in some really good movies (without disgusting toilet jokes) – Starsky & Hutch, Meet the Fockers, Dodgeball & Night at the Museum, the thought of him and his disgusting-ness still lingers. Eddie Murphy on the other hand… I totally love his movies!

Tower Heist is generally about a tower (premium class condominium) and how the employees were conned out of their money to invest with the owner (Arthur Shaw) of the tower (ala Madoff style). Ben Stiller acts as the manager of the building (Josh Kovacs) who entrusted the employee’s retirement fund to Shaw who ended up being investigated by the FBI for fraud. In a bid to regain back the fund, he devices a plan to break into the Shaw’s penthouse to break open a safe presumably containing enough millions to return to the employees. Eddie Murphy (Slide) is recruited to train and assist them for the heist.

Shitty:

The movie starts off with some vagina jokes which really put me off. It seemed like the joke was intentionally made just to try to make the movie more sellable to some shallow minded pig who gets high on low level jokes.

Good:

The movie as a whole was a really good movie to watch. It was not only funny but it also connected well with the reality of being an employee, especially a blue collar one (doorman, concierge, liftman etc). A lot of focus was concentrated on how much the savings meant for the employees (even though it didn’t seem like a lot), the various difficulty they faced and the condition of their day to day at work (ie employee-employer relationship, employee-residence relationship).

Great:

Originality of comedy. It’s very rare these days to watch a movie where the jokes, actions and script is original and not something like you’ve seen or heard before repeated over and over again (especially true in romantic comedies). The only other movie that had so much originality would have been “Johnny English: Reborn”.

It was really great to be surprise at the funni-ness of the things that they did and the unexpected ending. We had a good laugh throughout the movie and came out feeling really good and satisfied that we’ve watched a great movie.