Boring~
Indiana Jones bored me out of my skull (pun intended).

It's essentially George Lucas's and Steven Spielberg's childhood fantasies all mashed into one. Indiana Jones was just the filler in between.

That's just my take la, don't take my word for it.

Blek! :P

Read More

Nero Vivo
A couple of friends and I headed downtown a couple of days ago for dinner. Nero Vivo was our destination. I've heard of this place a couple of times from friends, and many had good stuff to say about it. Situated at Jalan Ceylon, KL, my friends told me it serves very good Italian food.


One of my friends ordered a couple of appetisers to start (sorry, no photos of the appetisers cos I was too busy sampling them, hehe!). He ordered a pan fried duck foie gras (RM 48), beef carpaccio (RM 32), salmon carpaccio (RM 28) and rocket salad (RM 32). Click here to view their menu. I never said this place was cheap :P

Among the 4 appetisers, I liked the salmon best. The rocket salad was quite alright, I actually thought it's over priced for salad. The beef carpaccio was ok too, although I couldn't really taste the beef that much. This was also my first time tasting foie gras. It's essentially fatty lover, either duck of goose. Seared lightly on the outside, but the inside is still kinda raw and soft. If you're a liver person, you should be able to swallow this. I'm a liver person, I take pig and chicken liver, normally cooked. But foie gras is not 100% cooked liver, hehe. My first bite was kinda odd, as I was trying to savour the texture as well as the sauce that came with it. I think I would've preferred the dish if it was more cooked :P

My main was the pan-fried sea bass with deep fried zucchini. The fish was nicely done, not too dry for the taste buds.

A couple of my friends ordered the veal stew. The veal was tender and succulent, yummy!

Another friend had the lamb rack with risotto. The dish was massive, I think I felt full just looking at it, haha! The sauce that came with the risotto had a unique flavour to it. The lamb was quite well done too. There was actually one more main which another friend had ordered, which was some sort of clam pasta and cream sauce. I had one piece of clam, and I could tell, just from the first bite, the clam wasn't fresh. In fact, I had to down it with water... (bad move, cos the following day I was purging. I should've spit that damn thing out).

Come dessert time, we ordered 3 different desserts to share among ourselves. The desserts all tasted great.

I liked this dessert... strawberries and whipped cream... sexy~ :P

I think this is tiramisu... I think so lah...

This was the best! Warm chocolate oozing from the centre... oh la la~~~

Overall, Nero Vivo was an ok place for dinner. It's pricey, yes. Food wise, some of the dishes had merits. Preparations to each and every dish is probably a form of art here. I'm a simple girl, so places like Nero Vivo are out of my league. However, it never hurts to give a new place a try before commenting on it, right? And yea, after diner that night, I suffered diarrhea, which resulted in my taking half day medical leave LOL. Darn clam...! Go have expensive dinner and ended up lausai wei! Blek!

Read More

Teej & Janz
I know... I know... this post is one week overdue. Sorry la, forget I took some photos during the wedding last week XP. Last Saturday, hubby and I attended a beach wedding @ Mines Palace and Beach Spa. You can see from the 1st photo, the dinner was set on a man-made beach (you see the boat there?). Lotsa sand, and yes it was HOT and HUMID, thanks to the dry weather we're having these days. Thank goodness we were told not to wear heels. However, some guests did turn up completely decked in their best, kekekekekekeke! Pity them in ties and stilettos~

Overall, the wedding event turned out quite fun, despite the heat. Both bride and groom were pretty funky people and had some surprises up their sleeves a lot. Food was so-so (the lamb failed wei), service provided by the resort needs a whole lot of tuning. Some of my colleagues stayed till the very end, and I was told they went home very very drunk :P Congratulations once again to Teej & Janz!

Read More

Religious Commercialism
Monday was Wesak day, and we both woke up earlier than usual to go to a nearby Buddhist lodge. We're not really religious people, once a while we'll just go there and do some silent prayers, that's all. Being located smack in the middle of the housing estate, there was already a good crowd there. Cars were parked along the main road leading to the lodge, as well as within the housing estates around it. There were several stalls set up, selling food and drinks. Even WWF has a booth there.

As we walked into the lodge, we could see joss sticks and smoke all over the place. People young and old, either offering their prayers and waiting in line to be blessed by some of the monks there. We queued up at a line, waiting for our turn to "bathe" Buddha. Volunteers of the lodge were everywhere, asking the public for donations. There were also donation boxes set up to help the recent cyclon and earthquake victims.

I had, on my mind, buy a small lotus lamp and light it up. I would usually opt for the lamp, rather than joss sticks. Less smoky, hehe. I saw the many lamps on display, and was utterly disgusted. 2 month ago, I had bought one of those mini lamps. They cost RM 5 then. On Wesak day, the price had doubled. We didn't get the lamp eventually, but instead chose to donate a small sum into one of the many donation boxes. One of the volunteers asked if we wanted to buy some goldish bookmark to stick onto the statue. Hubby said no, as we're donating because we want to, not because we want to stick things onto statues and gain merits.

Honestly, I was not pleased with how the organisers of the lodge had treated the celebration. Blantant commercialism. Just because it's Wesak, they put a price on everything. I felt there was no need to increase the price of the lamp at all. RM 5 was already quite reasonable. Yet during Wesak, they raised it. Tsk~ Getting devotees to spend money is not going to gain them merits. Religion is all about the heart and sincerity. It doesn't mean the more ka-ching you spend, the more merits you'll gain.

Hubby knew I was rather upset by the way the celebrations were conducted. He too agreed, it's commercialism. In fact, he said it's probably happening in other places of worship too. No doubt, such palces of worship depend on public donations to survive, but this was just unacceptable. Perhaps that's why I'm not so religious. Because everything has become so commercialise, the actual purpose of religion has been lost.

Read More

Condolences
My sincere condolences to Hiroshi and family. May you find the strength within you to weather through this sudden passing.

There will be no further blog posting today.

Read More

Temperamental Cat

My father's cat. Actually it's my youngest sister's cat. His name is Cookie. Don't ask me why. When Cookie first came into the family, he was a scrawny looking kitten. Born to a litter of 5 I think, he was the only one with strips. My sister brought him home and he was living in the washroom for a good 24 hours before my dad found out :P

When he was a kitten, Cookie was very very friendly. Being a curious cat, he would climb all over you, sniffing and checking you out. I would be reading the papers, and he would just suddenly jump up and climb onto my torso, and start sniffing my face and hair. Or he would nonchalantly sit next to me, and start tossing and turning to get my attention. That was when he was a small kitten. Cookie is now close to 2 years old, and boy, talk about a temperamental cat!

On his good days, maybe he'll let you pet him. Or even hug him for a while. On his not-so-good days, don't even attempt to pet him. He'll strike you with his front paws, claws included. He's definitely not a friendly cat anymore. Heck, he still hisses at my other sister for no apparent reason.

There's a few rules when coming in contact with Cookie:

1) You cannot rub his belly.
2) You cannot rub his hind legs or behind.
3) You cannot touch his tail.
4) You cannot hug/carry him.

Yesserie, we're dealing with a fat, temperamental cat. Cookie tips the scale at 6.5 kilos now, and he's not even 2 years old! He's only eating normal cat biscuits at home, nothing else. Fat house cat. I was probably on his good side when I took these photos. He actually allowed me to carry him around a few times and take pictures :D But I still got nipped and scratched a bit later LOL.

Yes, I know I'm very lengchai~~~

See the flabs on this kitty...???!!!???

Lazy lazy cat... Look at my flabs~~~!

I know I have lovely eyes... You jeles I know...~~~

Read More

Pissed
Farking pissed today.

I bloody detest internal jobs the most.

Had to deal with these internal crap forever during my stint with my previous company.

And you don't ever get appreciation for anything.

All you get is shelling and more shelling.

Now I have to deal with the same bloody shit again.

Go fucking find someone else to pick up your crap.

I don't fucking care about it.

Plus I HATE FLASH. I DON'T DO FLASH. KAPISH.

Read More

Bubba Gump @ The Curve

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know whatcha gonna get~

The infamous lines from the movie Forrest Gump. Who could forget the geeky looking Forrest Gump, and his shrimp pal, Bubba. Do you remember in the movie, the part where Forrest and Bubba planned to open their own shrimp restaurant? Well, look no further, it's in Malaysia now, located in The Curve @ Mutiara Damansara to be precise.

The Bubba Gump Shrip & Co, a themed restaurant. Everything about it is shrimp. Shrimp shrimp shrimp (oh, they do have fish and meat as well, limited variety). My colleagues and I decided to check the place out, and give it our own verdict. Like a bunch of food critics, hehe! No, I'm not turning into a food blogger! Blek!

Before going, I actually did a little bit of research as to the type of food served as well as their pricing. Pricing wise, think TGIF and Chillies. It's not cheap, but it's not fine dining either. Occupying 2 floors, it's quite a big place. They even have a souvenir shop next door (so typical Hollywood). And because it's still fairly new (baru buka to the public in April 2008), there's a very good crowd. But the weird thing was the top floor remained closed. Hmm...~

Bucket of trash?

The deco was very themed. Forrest Gump merchandise all over. The reno was to look like you're dining just beside the pier. The aluminum bucket you see above, actually has a paper roll and some sauces inside it. It's like one of those buckets which the fishermen would use when they're out at see. No, you can't take the bucket home with you (we would've taken it if we could!). It's chained up to a ping pong bat (see below).

Run Forrest run!!! No wait... Stop Forrest stop!!!

On each table, there's also a very interested metal signboard and ping pong bat. Yes, Forrest and his ping pong bat. The metal signboard works like this:- If you don't want to be disturbed by the waiters/waitresses, you flip the blue sign. If you want to order something, flip the red sign and one of the waiters/waitresses will approach you. Simple, right? I don't know how long this idea will last, cos I reckon there would be jokers out there who would just love to irritate the life out of the waiters/waitresses :P

The ping pong bat is actually a beverage & dessert menu. The bat is actually chained to the bucket (see above), so you can't remove any of them. The damn chain kept slipping into the gaps of the table, HAHA! The table is aluminum too, talk about being authentic. Chee...~

Oh, if you really like the bucket or metal signs, you can find them in the souvenir shop just next door. I don't know how much they cost, but I don't think it's gonna be cheap. Here are some snapshots of the food we had...

Bucket of boat trash (RM 42.90++). It's essentially shrimp, fish and lobster chunks, deep fried, and served on top of a bucket (not in it as we had expected). The bucket is being covered by the paper, the bucket is empty inside. The food is placed on top of the bucket. Pretty expensive dish, and it's clear that the oil used to deep fry has gotten dark.

Cobb salad with shrimp (RM 28.90++). This salad was pretty ok, the vinegar dressing complimented it well. The prawns weren't so fresh though, and at RM 28.90++, it's pretty expensive for a salad.

The Run Across America Sampler (RM 42.90++) was a disappointment. It comes with shrimps, some fish balls, steamed shrimp and tortilla chips. The dipping for the chips was nice though, that's just about it. At RM 42.90++, you would expect a larger portion, with better variety of food. Alas, it didn't come out the way we had expected it to be.

One of my directors ordered Scampi (RM 31.90++). It's essentially linguine with lotsa prawns and capers, served with a large piece of toasted bread. Quite a large helping, but too much capers made it salty.

Shrimp Po'Boy (RM 24.90++) is several deep fried prawns, served on a loaf (is it french loaf?) with fries and coleslaw. The bread was kinda tough to chew, and I think, again the oil used to fry the prawns has gotten dark, hence the prawns look kinda dark to me. My colleague saved the prawns for last, hehe!

Bourbon Street Baramundi (RM 29.90++), probably the only thing which I would recommend. 2 pieces of baramundi fillet grilled nicely, served with 2 generous helpings of mash potatoes (carbs baby, carbs!) and drizzled with sauce (a little salty though). Those lalang looking deco there, that's tortilla chips.

Oh yes, some of my colleagues also shared a dessert: the American Mud Pie (RM 19.90++). It's officially known as "HOLY CRAP!" among my colleagues as well, due to its sheer size :P I think it's about 6 inches in diameter...? It's essentially ice-cream, topped with whipped cream. The base of it is some crushed Oreo or something. And inside the ice-cream, there's some bits of Snickers. They couldn't finish the dessert in the end, it was just too massive for 2 girls to share.


That's our total bill, for 9 pax. A few of us had shared the mains. Our verdict? Well, some of us agreed we have no reason to go back there as the food ain't so great after all. At least we satisfied our curiosity, hehe. As for me, I think their other meat dishes (their burgers and steaks) would be more worthy than their shrimp dishes. Sure seafood is expensive, but the shrimp dishes are only using normal medium-sized prawns, which I feel makes the dish even more expensive that it should be. Plus they should really check their oil used for deep fry dishes. Desserts should be worth the money, pretty generous portions.

Would Oli go back there? She doubts it :)

Read More

Happy Mother's Day
Seeing Mother's Day is a Sunday, I figured hubby and I could take my mum out for a nice treat. My dad was away this weekend to one of his many fishing getaways, hence we thought of bringing my mum out for an early Mother's Day celebration at a cosy Japanese restaurant. My dad is not keen on Japanese food at all, haha!

Shun is one of our favourite Japanese restaurants. Located in Subang Jaya (along the same row as Domino's Pizza, SS 12, SJMC area), it's owned by a Japanese woman. You know what they say about good Japanese restaurants. If you see Japanese people in there, it's good :D

We were in luck. They were having a 50% promotion for some of their sashimi & tempura dishes! Yippee! My mum loves sashimi, she just doesn't get much of a chance to eat them cos my dad doesn't favour Japanese food. So 3 of us ordered a plate of salmon sashimi and a plate of tempura. My mum also ordered a Spider roll, I had a wagyu steak set and hubby had a saba set.

Everything was so tasty. The tuna carparchio was so-so only, it's a new item the restaurant was promoting. Everything was fabulous as always. but I'm not going to delve into Shun so much, as this post is not about Shun, hehe! Overall, it was a happy and tummy filling Mother's Day dinner :D

To all mothers out there, have a great Mother's Day celebration with your family :D

Read More

Lorong Seratus Tahun @ SS 2, PJ
A group of my colleagues had lunch there today. Just for your benefit, Lorong Seratus Tahun restaurant is a branch from Penang. Supposedly famous for its curry noodles, as it comes with pig's blood. Unlike most curry noodles in KL/PJ, pig's blood is a rarity in this dish.

Seeing that this restaurant was recently featured in the 8tv food programme, "Ho Chak", a colleague of mine suggested we go try it out, and give our own verdicts. You know la, sometimes tv programmes can be exaggerating when it comes to the real facts.

And this is our verdict of the food: FAIL.

The curry soup was so watered down. It wasn't tasty enough. Seriously, curry noodles (RM 5.50) with watered down curry soup. That's preposterous! You would think that a branch can do better. Well, this is proof that they can't. Now I haven't tried the original curry noodles from the original branch in Penang before (curry noodles isn't exactly something you'd think of when you think of Penang), so I won't comment about the Penang branch. But if this is what it is, it sucks.

We also ordered some side dishes, namely, the "siew yuk", some "lobak" and rojak. The "siew yuk" was disappointing. It was deep fried again to achieve the crispiness. The "lobak" didn't have much taste to it. I didn't eat the rojak so I won't comment on it.

Tsk. Bad bad recommendation indeed. Then again, you can't always rely on such food programmes for good food because sometimes, even they get the facts wrong. No pictures of Lorong Seratus Tahun, my camera wasn't with me. The food's not worth taking pictures of anyway.

Read More

You Can't Hide The Truth
No matter how hard you try to hide it, truth will always find its way out. You can't cover fire with paper.

A new Malaysia is behind you, RPK.

Read More

Power of Web 2.0

A group of us had attended this forum, held at the Securities Commission recently. Although we came out feeling that the content was of relevance, the tile of the forum was a little misleading :P That aside, the forum was indeed quite an eye-opener, as topics such as the influence of blogs in today's society and the power of online media (the recent General Election outcome was brought up as well, hehe!).

What is Web 2.0? Well, to summarise it, Web 2.0 is simply a concept of information sharing and networking. Long ago, when the internet was first introduced, everything was pretty much one-way. You search for the information you want, and the website feeds you with it. That's about it. That was the Web 1.0 way. The Web 2.0 way breaks down those barriers. Web 2.0 is all about sharing, social networking and encourages participation from its users.

Some good examples of Web 2.0 websites are Wikipedia, Facebook and Flickr. Even blogs are Web 2.0, because it allows its owner to interact with his/her readers via the commenting system.

The forum features some rather prominent figures in society today, namely Malaysiakini CEO (Premesh Chandran), seasoned columnist Onn Yeoh, MD of Media 2.0 Rene Menezes and Jeff Ooi (MP of Jelutong, 1st blogger in Parliment) who was, unfortunately unable to attend the forum due to last minute commitments (MP already ma, gotta jaga the state of Penang now). Instead, Jeff Ooi had pre-recorded a video for the forum :) Another guest at the forum was Rockybru, the blogger. You can read more about the forum here.

The forum was insightful, as it revealed just how powerful online media really is (if used properly). I think it was particularly important for media planners & buyers to take note, that online media is here to stay, and it's only going to grow even stronger. Mainstream media will never be replaced, because it's a proven method of success. However, one should not look down on online media as a form of marketing tool as well, as the media has proven itself. It would be terrific if Malaysian companies actually look at online media from a different perspective, rather than judge it with hesitation.

Online media used to be a form of support for mainstream media. Things are different now. Online media is on par, if not, better than mainstream media is many aspects. It's faster, more cost effective and probably reaches a wider audience. But of course it's not right to say online media is the ONLY method to go with, because it all boils down to the product and your target audience as well. Even though most of the young are dependent on the internet, that's not to say mainstream media isn't effective either. I think it's important to find the balance here.

Both mainstream media and online media are available to be exploited, correctly. What say you?

Read More

Zanmai-ing Along
Many of you may have heard or even tried Pasta Zanmai (under the Supersushi group), the latest in Japanese restaurants to hit town. This is not your regular authentic Japanese restaurant. Instead, Pasta Zanmai offers kinda like a fusion of Japanese and pasta. Already drooling? Hehehehehe!

This is actually my third visit to Pasta Zanmai. The first 2 times I was there, my camera wasn't with me. Thursday being Labour Day, hubby said let's go to Pasta Zanmai :D There was already a good crowd in the restaurant, located just next to Carl's Jr. The ambiance is quite comfortable, with simple wood deco and huge posters of close-up shots of some of the dishes offered by Pasta Zanmai.

Pasta Zanmai chopstick covers.

Here in Pasta Zanmai, you can either choose to have your meal in a set (which comes with a bowl of rice, salad and miso soup) or ala carte. Today, hubby decided to try another pasta set, the Chicken Katsu with sesame sauce. The waitress came with a small bowl of black sesame and said we should grind the sesame seed and then sprinkle it on top of the pasta.

The pasta tasted really nice, something different from the usual cream sauce or even the tomato based sauces. It wasn't too overwhelming, it was just nice :) And the chicken was done pretty well too, fried in a light batter, full of flavour. Most importantly, the spaghetti wasn't under or over cooked :P


I ordered the sirloin steak set, and requested for the steak to be medium well (it sort of came medium instead, but I still whack :P). I suspect the marination was very simple, as you could savour the taste of the sirloin. No overwhelming herbs and spices were used. The meat was juicy too, it didn't have the "sou" (how to say in English ah? LOL) taste/smell which red meat is known for. This set also came with salad (and a small scope of mash potatoes) and miso soup. The combination of sirloin and teriyaki sauce was just nice :)

Serving size in Pasta Zanmai is pretty generous, not too large, not too small either. Presentation is pretty decent as well, and I particularly like the big clay bowls the pastas are served in :P You don't have to wait long for your food too, which is a good sign of good coordination between the personnels working there and the chefs. The chefs are housed in the semi-transparent kitchen, so you can see them working their magic in the there. Hey, if the food and price ain't good, Oli wouldn't go back there, right? *winks*

I've yet to try their desserts yet, as I'm always too full to try them after finishing my main dish! But so far, my colleagues have given their desserts good ratings, so the next time I go to Pasta Zanmai, I'll try to make room for dessert XP

Oh, you should also try their hamburg set, yumyumyum! It's 2 beef patties (wonderful flavour, really) with demi-glazed sauce, very very worthy to try. They also have ommu rice there. Aiya, too much food to mention la! Go there and discover for yourself, you won't regret it XP Sets start from RM18++, quite reasonable pricing.

Read More

Futsal Mania!
Some of the brave men from the previous paintball outing decided that it's time to experience yet another adrenalin pumping sport: Futsal. If you're not familiar with futsal, it's basically indoor football in short. Click here to read more about it.

Now some of these men are ardent fans of football. But most of them have never played futsal in their life! So yes, it was indeed a very new experience to these people (even for my hubby!). The arena was picked and the game time was fixed for 1 hour (anymore and the game will kill them! HAHA!). Footy Futsal at Tmn Megah was the nearest to our home, and the organiser had booked a slot during off-peak hours (the match was played last Saturday, after our rim outing), so as to avoid any possible embarrassment from the more professional crowd (basically, they didn't want the younger crowd to laugh at a bunch of uncles playing futsal, they said) ROTFL!

Warm up session

And the game begins! Prrreeeeettttt!!!!

*dribble dribble the ball~~~ big man with ball, give way*

You see that line there?!? Off-side!!! Off-side!!! HAHAHAHA!!!

Think the goalie sudah mau tumbang... LOL :P

The men took a quick break during half-time, and they all came out panting and wheezing :P Give chance a bit ma, most of them are first time players. Even during warm-up session, some of them were already wheezing, hehe.

OMG... another half hour to goooooooo!!!!!!!

Overall, all the men had a good time playing futsal, eventhough they were sweating like cows XP No one obtained any injuries as well. But the men did complain about the state of the court, it being kinda hard on the surface, which were bad for the knees. And the tiny black pebbles from the mat that kept getting into their shoes. After the match everyone adjourned to the nearby food court for a quick dinner.

What's next? Water polo? Ekekekekekekeke!!!!

Read More