Friday, April 23, 2010

Rosemary...Reaaaally Bites.

Went to have lunch at this little cafe called Rosemary Bites yesterday. Located in Aman Suria, it was surprisingly easy to find as it was one of the shops facing the main road. I'd been wanting to try this place out for a few days, ever since I visited their website. The website certainly looked good enough to eat. But I was about to find out that looks aren't everything...

This was taken during midday, but I was too lazy to figure out the proper setting to use, so it looks like twilight in this photo. :P

The place looked decent enough, and I was looking forward to a delicious lunch. We went inside and it looked like your typical cafe/bistro (unfortunately no smoking area, though I know some people would find that to be a good thing).

The waiter then provided us with the regular and set lunch menus. The regular menu looked good, clean and concise, but we were there to try the lunch set, which consisted of pasta, chicken and fish, each with 3 different types of sauces, and a free ice lemon tea. We both ordered the fish and chips. I chose the one with dijon mustard & honey sauce, and Nic opted for the pineapple salsa.

Unique way of doing a set lunch menu...

Then the drinks arrived. Just your regular ice lemon tea. So far, everything was going well.
It was nice ice lemon tea.

However, that was as good as it got that day. Everything that came after that seemed disastrous. The next thing that came was the mushroom soup. The texture wasn't too bad, but it was TOO SALTY! And we weren't the only table to think so. Diners at another table even asked for some hot water to add into it.

The soup of the day - Salt-room soup.

After that, the bruschetta arrived. It was the oddest bruschetta I'd ever seen. The bread was twice as thick as any other bruschetta I'd ever had before. That would've still been alright, except for the fact that it also smelled weird. Like, a really stale sort of smell.

We kept sniffing different parts of the bruschetta, trying to figure out where the smell came from. At first we thought it was the bread, then we thought it was the cheese. Finally we gave up and drenched it in the soup because it neutralized the salty taste of the soup, and killed the unappetizing smell of the bruschetta.

Smelly bruschetta...

Shortly after the bruschetta fiasco, we were looking forward for our main courses. Then the waiter and the chef (presumably the boss) comes up to our table and informs us that Nic's pineapple salsa sauce wasn't available, and suggested she choose the dijon mustard & honey. As she wasn't interested in the other sauces, I asked if we could change her order to the Sirloin Lasagna instead.

When the waiter looked at the chef to check, the chef said that only the set lunches were available during lunch time, and the à la carte main course items were only available during dinner time. Now, if that was the case, why were we not informed earlier? What if I had wanted to choose something from the main course instead? Wouldn't that have been a waste of time?

So Nic reluctantly chose the lemon butter sauce, and the chef said he'd give her both the dijon sauce as well as the lemon butter sauce to try. Not 5 minutes later, we were astonished when our main courses arrived. It was impossible that they had been cooked in such a short time, which meant that the fish had already been prepared/cooked before they discovered that the pineapple salsa sauce was unavailable.

As a result, it seemed to me that because the fish had already been prepared, they didn't want us to order anything else. In any case, that incident left a bad taste in my mouth even before I started eating my main course...which was another salty horror. Was there a clearance sale being held in a salt factory or something?

This was my plate...Nic's had 2 sauces on it, but basically looked the same.

The only things that tasted good from the main course were the sauces and the side dishes. The vinaigrette topping on the salad was just nice and not too sour (but soooooo little of it! They only gave a few drops!), the chips weren't too salty (thank goodness!) and the  lemon butter and dijon mustard & honey sauces were pretty good. The only thing that was almost inedible...was the fish itself. Oh it certainly looked good enough to eat. The breading was crispy and just the right thickness, the fish was fluffy...but it was as salty as fuck. It was so salty that not only could I not finish my food, but had to order another drink because I was guzzling water like a camel after a long trip through the desert.

So Nic ordered the pink lemonade, and I ordered the rosemary lime drink. Nic's drink was pretty good, with just the right combination of tartness and sweetness.

As for mine, if you absolutely love the taste of herbs, and prefer that it overpowers the taste of...well, everything else, then you might like it. On the other hand, if you just like a hint of herbs to accent the taste of your food (or in this case, drink), like yours truly here, then I would strongly recommend not ordering this drink. Please trust me on that one piece of advice. Pick something else. Please.

Pink lemonade (left) and rosemary juice...err I mean the rosemary lime drink (right). But I wonder why there's a lemon slice in it when it's supposed to be lime? I couldn't taste any lime anyway. Just the overpowering taste of ROSEMARY!

To summarize, this restaurant has absolutely no problems with food presentation. Everything looks wonderful, especially the little sprig of rosemary floating in my drink. Unfortunately, I don't taste with my eyes.


 I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm never going back.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bleeding Fingers

I just saw an ad by Digi that said RM1 for 100 sms. Bloody hell. Maxis only offers RM8 for 500 sms! How the heck do u send 500 sms a month anyway? Your fingers would bleed. Stupid Maxis. Try harder!

I feel guilty coz..

 I haven't blogged about my trip to Penang yet. Besides, its not like anyone's  holding their breath eagerly awaiting for my update....right? Anyways, there were lots of clouds,  lots of trees, the food was so-so, the hotel room sucked and by the time I got back I was so tired my eyes were bloodshot.

There you go. I've blogged about my trip to Penang.

Wahahahahaha I'm free! I'm free! I'm-

Okay, okay I'll do a proper write up about my trip. Just...gimme more time.....

Oh, and I wanna go Melaka early next month for another short trip. Anyone wanna join? =D

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Widgeting.

Was working on adding more widgets to my blog last night. Was trying to add Blogumus, the Blogger version of the aesthetically pleasing WP-Cumulus by Roy Tanck, which has now been officially 'adopted' by Wordpress. It's a gorgeous flash and javascript label cloud which allows your blog labels to literally float and rotate in a cloud, according to your mouse movements. Click here to view a sample. Unfortunately, for some damned reason, the supposedly hassle free install didn't work for me, and nothing appeared. Hopefully the coding gets fixed sometime soon though.

After giving up on that, I came across the Grooveshark Widget website. For those of you who don't know (I didn't know what it was either), Grooveshark is a free online music database, and the widget page allows you to create and customize your own widget by choosing what colors you want it to be, and what songs you want to have in it.

So I added 930 songs to mine in 2 minutes, just by adding playlists made up by other people. Cheating? Yes, I know. But this just demonstrates the ease of use of the website. My playlist is made up of only 3 artists, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk and ATB. Mmmmm...my favourites.  XD

After clicking on 'Finish', then came the most time consuming part...uploading it as a widget to my blog. The website might be called Grooveshark Widget, but it doesn't actually give you a widget. It just gives you the flash code to add to your site. This might be fine if I had an actually website to add it to, but I don't. I was trying to add it to my sidebar as a widget.

What I eventually ended up doing was using Widgetbox to convert the code into a proper widget to be added into my sidebar. Though that worked fairly well, and was pretty easy to do, I now have to put up with the occasional advert located in the widget itself. However, I consider that a small price to pay for the many hours of wonderful music I now have at my fingertips. In addition, with the discovery of Widgetbox, I now do not have to limit myself to the (usually) crappy widgets that Blogger provides, but am able to make a widget out of virtually anything at all. Très cool, is it not?

Do check out my new widget if you have the time. Like certain other widgets I've added and deleted in the past, this one will only stay up for as long as it continues to amuse me. :P

Now if I could only get Blogumus to work...

Update: Managed to find something within the existing Blogger widgets that's a lame, sub par substitute of Blogumus/WP-Cumulus. Decided to install it anyway in my sidebar, though it's nowhere near as pretty as the original. I've already spent too much time trying to install Blogumus here. 

Saturday, April 17, 2010

De-steaming.

Been busy like hell at work over the last couple of days what with the volcano eruption in Iceland causing tens of thousands of travelers to be stranded and have their travel plans disrupted in every conceivable city and country in the world (not just in the UK or Europe).

Everything has been so insane that my tongue is tripping over itself saying the same things and re-reading the same policy wordings for the 50th time. I've had hardly enough time to follow up on my existing caseload, much less blog or surf the web or any of the other crap I do when I've got loads of free time on night shift. 

I've had weird calls all night ranging from frantic tour leaders struggling to pay for accommodation for their entire tour group to stupid people calling to ask if they can claim for stuff like going to Disneyland and museums and various shit like that. 

I mean like, fuckin' hell, dude, you're on a fuckin' extended vacation in a fuckin' foreign country. Your fuckin' accommodation is reimbursable, your fuckin' meals are reimbursable, and now you even want us to reimburse you for your fuckin' trip to Disneyland too? Why not just ask us to reimburse you for your fuckin' firstborn child as well, you bloody fuckin' idiot!

I think I've been watching too much Gordon Ramsey.

Anyways this is just a short post to release some of the stress I've been building up over the past 2 nights before I fuck off to bed to collapse. Night nights peepz.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Meeting up with an old friend...

Met up with Jan, an old friend of mine from high school the night before I left for Penang. I guess you can say that she falls into my category of favorite type of friend. Reason being is because I tend to have 'disappearing' tendencies. I'd pop up for awhile, play the catching up game, then they won't see hide nor hair of me for months on end, unless they contact me online. As a result, I don't have that many close old friends. I've probably known Jan the longest of all my friends.

In any case, I brought Nic along with me to introduce her to Jan. So while they were talking, I was fiddling with the camera on my phone. Despite her protests, I made her camwhore for me. Of course, she specifically told me not to put up all of the photos....then again, since when do I listen to other people anyway? XD

Uh huh...yea I'm da wo-man....

Oh no, my hair's too flat for photo-taking...*fluff fluff*

(While acting nonchalent) Okay, take that photo again now that my hair looks better. And you'd have better deleted that earlier one that you took!

Now, say 'I'm Single....and looking!'

The other photos appeared washed out, so I tried a different setting on the camera. The colors all look so much richer. 

Surprise Jan! By the way, I don't have Nifty linked to my blog anymore, so you can stop looking for it now. =P


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Absolute Thai - Ikano

This was the first time my baby and I had gone to sample some Thai food. We're usually so focused on eating Western and Japanese that we keep overlooking all other cuisines. So one night, we went to Ikano to have a peek at the so-called 'Mattress Sale'. 

What they really meant by 'Mattress Sale' is that you would have to sell your ass to buy one of their mattresses. The cheapest one cost over 1K! There were several that even cost over 10K each!!! What a total rip off. 

Anyways, on to happier things...the food. XD

The first item we ordered was the Mango Salad with Crispy Catfish appetizer which was totally awesome! It was hands down my favourite dish of the night. Unfortunately though, we were so ravenous that night that we lunged at the waiter before he even put the dish down on our table and scared the fuck out of him. Due to that, we were banned from ever going back to the restaurant ever again. 

Nah, just kidding. 

However, we really were so hungry that we started eating before I remembered to take any photos. Heh. I know, that's something that I do all the time, but I am improving. Nowadays, only half my dishes are half eaten when I photograph them. :P

It doesn't look like much, but it tastes GREAT!

Next on the menu was the soup. I mean c'mon, how can it be a Thai food dinner without some tom yam soup? So we ordered the Tom Yam Seafood Fire Pot. By the way, I'm only able to remember all the names of the dishes because I saved the receipt and managed not to lose it before writing this. Heee.

It was hot, it was sour, it had lots of seafood and it was visually appealing. Fabulous!

Since we had decided to be carnivores that day, we chose not to order any veggies, but instead ordered a Pandan Leaf Chicken and Green Curry Beef. The former was soft and tender and the latter was rich, smooth and chock filled with veggies and meat. However, though my tongue and tummy were happily satisfied, I'd have to say that these 2 dishes didn't have the WOW factor. Plus, the green peas in the green curry were quite raw and hard.

One thing's for sure, these guys have no problem with their food presentation.

A value for money dish. I'd suggest avoiding the peas though.

We only ordered 1 drink and dessert that night. Nic had the drink and I had the dessert. She had something called the Cranpina. It was surprisingly good! Very berri-licious and refreshing. When she asked me to sample it, my initial sip turned into several gulps instead. Heheh.

Mmmm...I think I'll order this the next time. Even though it cost 8 bucks.

And as always, whenever I I go to any Thai restaurant, I'll order their Thab Tim Grob, also known in Absolute Thai as the Water Chestnuts in Coconut Milk. I love the stuff! The only complaint I have about the one I had that night is that the jackfruit garnishing wasn't as fragrant as some I've had before (in other restaurants). Regardless, everything else was lovely.

The jackfruit lacked that extra 'Oomph'.

All in all, it was a good dining experience. The service was excellent, the prices weren't too steep (subtotal was RM78.50), plus, I got a 15% discount off the total bill (amounting to RM11.78) by paying with my CIMB credit card. I would definitely go back!
This is what our table looked like once all the food had arrived, minus the dessert, of course.

I swear, this is turning more and more into a food blog every day. I'm not sure if that's a good thing though. Hmmm...

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

My Momma's Birthday...

...was on the 3rd of April (yes Ma, I finally managed to remember that your birthday is on the 3rd, and not 4th of April...and yes Ma, I'm an ungrateful child. But you still love me, riiiiiiiiiiiiiight?) 

Anyways, we had a pleasant Japanese dinner at Sushi Zanmai in 1 Utama.

Cutest looking sushi of the night. Don't ask me what it's called, though.

After dinner, we walked around aimlessly for like...a grand total of 5 minutes, before deciding tht we were bored sick and wanted to go for dessert. In that 5 minutes, I decided to camwhore.

Me.

Then we decided to take a group photo. 
Cute right? 

*Spiderpiiiiiiiiiiiiigggg...spiderpiggggggggggggggggggg....*
 (Sorry, just felt like doing that.) :P

Finally my mom decided to go SS2 for dessert...and have McDonalds ice cream. And I was thinking...Swensens...or A&W at least!

Halfway to SS2, I called my sis..and guess what? The new orders were to go home and eat cake. I no want cake! I want Ice Cream! T.T

But the cake...was ok la. 

Some cheesecake thing. From Isetan or something. 

 Happy birthday to youuuuu, you were born in the zooooooo.... (no wonder Ima piggy!)

My momma....who didn't expect this photo to be on the internet. :P

Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday, Ma. This is my b'day pressie to you. 

And yes, I know I'm cheap too.



Friday, April 2, 2010

Things have been...

...hectic and tiring recently. Over the last 2 weeks my schedule has been absolutely fucked because some of my managers haven't the faintest care in the world about their staffs well being (except when they take MCs, and even then it's only because they're sooooooooooo concerned about how often the staffmember takes a sick day).

On top of that, Nic and I have been working on our relationship issues, which involve lots of screaming, shouting, hurt feelings and bewilderment (on my part, anyway). On the bright side though, things are getting better (I think), and we're preparing to take our first trip together to Penang next week.

After such a hectic period, I want nothing more than to kick back and chill for the 3 days and 2 nights that we'll be there...however I have been otherwise informed that she wants to do stuff like...'tar siu yan' (Hitting little people? That sounds politically incorrect) and visit the Kek Lok Si (stairs! Stairs! STAIRS! *gurgle*). I'm not too opposed to either, because I've never done the former before and it should be entertaining to watch, and I haven't done the latter for several years already. It'll be fun to see the turtles sunning themselves and clambering on top of one another with their s-l-ooooooo-w motion movements, as well as to see what new crap the vendors along the way will be selling. That'll at least make the stairs a little more bearable. However, I have no idea what other tortu-*cough cough*-I mean adventures, Nic will have in store for me.

I do know we'll be going around eating though. I plan on checking out a few interesting looking restaurants I've found on the web. I'm also looking forward to driving in the crazy traffic again.

As part of the preparations for my upcoming trip, I serviced my car yesterday. RM200+! *silently screaming*. Despite the horror of yet more money leaking out of my pocket, it really is much more powerful and more responsive now. I got to utilize some of the power last night, when we went for a family dinner in Corus Hotel, KL. Btw, no photos because I really couldn't be bothered.

My mum had asked me to pass something to an aunt of mine who was visiting from Adelaide, AU. Being me, I was late for dinner and as a consequence, we rushed out of the house, got stuck in insane traffic along Federal Road (re: Highway - my dad likes to call it a road because highways aren't supposed to be jammed!), made a detour to Taman Jaya LRT, hopped on and LRT'ed all the way to town.

(And yes baby, I admit you are correct. It really does take only 2 minutes per station. 4 years of riding trains in my youth and I never figured it out. Whoopee.) :P

So we got to the hotel right as the food was being served (I am the master of perfect timing), and were happily gobbling down dinner when suddenly...

"Oh fuck, where's the package we're supposed to bring to pass to Aunty???"

*Flashback to memory of package happily sitting on dining table at home*

@#$%@#$%@#$%@

So after dinner, we LRT'ed back to Taman Jaya (and my motion sickness increasing exponentially as a result), zoomed back home, picked up the package, zoomed back down to Legend Hotel, where my aunt was booked into for the duration of her stay, dropped off the package, then zoomed back home again.

By the time I got to bed it was 1am. Though my alarm rang at 4.45am, I couldn't even drag my butt outta bed until almost an hour later. Thank god my manager didn't say anything when I walked in a half hour late. (As usual) :P