Distinct

"Ayam Percik. Hingga terpercik air liur anda. "

That's one of LYN's member signature tag line. I was on my way home this evening from Times Square. Upon reaching Steven's Corner, the urge to devour into ayam percik suddenly just struck me. So off I go towards the Ramadhan Bazaar at Padang Perbandaran Ampang Jaya.

The crowd there is quite heavy, but not as heavy as the weekend crowd. The hunt for ayam percik instantly starts when I am there. I feel so distinct when I reached there. Everyone walking, buying and selling there are all Malay. Some even looked at me awkwardly and in their heart must be like "Ini Cina buat apa kat sini? Wah! Beli murtabak lagi!". The murtabak girl even stunned a while when I told her "Ayam dua".

It doesn't take long enough for me to find the best ayam percik stall among all over there since there's only three stalls offering ayam percik (If it is Kampung Baru it will reach a staggering 15 stalls!!!). First stall I saw is offering ayam percik at a reasonable price, but the chicken is so badly burnt and the color isn't that nice. So, off I go to the second stall. Colour wise it is nice but the size is quite small. The third stall I went offers the best of all- moderately sized, colour is beautiful and the best of all is, IT IS FRESH FROM THE BARBEQUE PIT!!!!

Then, dillema struck. Apparently the best ayam percik stall is only next to the ayam golek stall. So, I just stood in between the two stalls thinking to get 4 ayam percik or just a whole bird of ayam golek. Both stall operators was staring at me and in their heart must be like "Ini Cina buat apa?" lol. In the end I decided to buy ayam percik and save the ayam golek for other days. Bought 4 pieces at RM10.




Ayam Percik



Murtabak ayam


Tepung Pelita as dessert

Definitely the best dinner ever.

mooncakes =D

The Chinese Mid-Autumn festival is here again. It was also known affectionately as mooncake festival due to the fact that mooncakes only make their special appearance for this particular season. Mooncakes has evolved greatly in modern times with more distinctive flavours apart from the traditional lotus or red bean paste and mixed nuts with ham. Now mooncakes often comes with different flavours such as pandan lotus (pioneered by Oversea), yam, walnut, jingsa, green tea, coconut, mint, chocolate and even DURIAN!

For this year celebration, I am lucky enough to have mooncakes from Ipoh. Baked in a more traditional kitchen, one can’t complain about the amount of oil used in it. I bought four pieces of mooncakes from Ching Han Guan (钟汉元) while I am on my way back from my Penang-Kulim trip two weeks ago.

-Picture taken from wikistreetfood.com-

I bought four pieces from the uncle and 2 of them was the owner’s recommendation, which is the Mixed Nuts with Ham Bits mooncake (apparently Ching Han Guan is very proud of their Mixed Nuts mooncakes) and Meat Floss (Rou Xi) mooncake. The uncle’s recommendation is indeed a good one, the mixed nuts with ham bits definitely lives up to his fame. When you bite in the soft nut feeling (yes, it is soft because the various nuts are compressed by hand using molasses as bond instead of machines), there’s a sudden burst of “golden” taste lingers around the mouth. Fantastic. I had never enjoyed mixed nuts mooncakes but this one certainly makes me craves for MORE!

Mixed Nuts with ham bits

The lotus paste single yolk was opened to serve my aunties that came over for a visit. Both cant stop praising the and a bite instantly reminds them of the mooncakes they used to have during the 70’s and 80’s- laden with lard, oily but has a very nice fragrant and tasted smooth.

Lotus paste single yolk

My personal favourite, the pandan lotus or also known as “Golden Emerald” because of its semi translucent green coloured filling which resembles the emerald gemstone.

Golden Emerald

This certainly sounds weird. Till now, it is still in its packaging so I couldn’t comment much on this weird mooncake yet. However, my expectation to this is almost as high as the mixed nuts with ham mooncake.

Meat Floss (Rou Xi)

So how is your mooncakes? I’ll be glad to hear about your mooncake story too.

Dissapointment

Saturday was really a great day. However, the great day was hampered by the lunch at Room 18 at Berjaya Times Square. Room 18 was an oriental restaurant under the giant umbrella of Tai Thong Resources. The quality of cuisine carved out from the kitchen of Tai Thong has always been marvelous. However, this particular outlet failed to impress me although the ambiance is modern and doesn't shout out the typical oriental restaurant set up (round table that seats twelve persons, pink or red table cloth).


-Picture taken from KLUE-

Last Saturday was my second visit to Room 18 to further clarify my doubt when I visited Room 18 on the second day of its official opening. I went over there for lunch with Cypher, Dope and Max. We decided to order dishes and accompany them with plain steamed white rice. Cypher ordered the Braised Beancurd with Roasted Pork Belly, Dope goes for the Prawn Wantan Soup and I opt for BBQ Three Combinations (Rosated Pork Belly + Char Siew + Roasted Chicken) and Stir Fried Kai Lan with Garlic.

Then all things starts to turn upside down. Apparently, those working there has their common sense robbed off. Beverages aside, the first food that arrives to our table isn't any one of the four dishes we have ordered. It was the 4 bowls of steamed rice!



We were forced to stare at the steamed white rice for a little over 10 minutes and by the time our dishes arrives, the rice has lost its warmth and the texture is hard. The BBQ three combination was good, except for the char siew which tasted "slightly plasticky". Other dishes tasted only so-so and the portion is actually ridiculously small considering we are paying over RM12.80 for a plate of Kai Lan, RM 10.80 for a bowl of prawn wantan soup (6 pieces), RM 16.80 for the beancurd and RM 26.80 for the BBQ three combination.

The damage done? Well, for four persons dining in, it costs us RM 92.15. This price was after the 18% ala carte discount. Without the discount, the price is RM 106.05, which is ridiculous for a four person lunch. This restaurant is definitely not worth it despite it is under the TT Resources umbrella. I wouldn't recommend anyone to go to Room 18 since I could get similar food but with better quality and bigger portion with much lower price at various restaurants around KL.

However, if you insist on trying, just heed to my advice- just turn away the pickles they served you when you landed your bottom on their comfy leather chairs. The bowl of pickles isn't complimentary at all. It costs RM3 per bowl. As a side note, the wet towels (those yellow packaging you see in the pictures above) are charged at RM1/piece and even if you didn't use it you will still be billed for the towel(s).

Haircut =D

Today is just so yesterday. Once again, another delay for my T-Rex to back online. Couldn't resist the temptation to sleep till 12.30pm. Since I have noting better to do, I hoped over to Low Yat to meet my usual hair stylist to have my hair trimmed.

As usual, the sudden laziness just drives me to the Rapid KL bus depot instead of the LRT station. Waited a friggin 30 minutes for a bus to start its journey (I'm at the first stop). Those folks at Rapid KL keep on gathering to discuss about this particular bus that blocks their path.



Due to the fact that I'm inside the depot, I missed two Metrobus when I'm waiting for a U31 to commence its journey. Then it takes another 1 hour and 15 minutes to arrive Times Square because of the usual city congestion. (If you think I'll grumble because of this, then you are wrong. My worst record from the depot to Times Square is 3 hours.)

I went straight to Low Yat Plaza after aboard the bus. Went over to APT to find my stylist but he's not in because he's off today. So I settled for a Junior hair stylist to have my hair trimmed. I had a few conversation with her and from her action, I could see that she's quite a new girl and I am indeed right when I inquire her about her working period- this month is only her third month. Wow, I've just hand over my hair to a freshie! *shivers*

An hour later, my hair cut is finished. Not bad for a new graduate.



Me is handsome now. XD
I requested for my hair to be trimmed and cut short. The fringe I used to have was also trimmed during the process because as it grows longer it is getting more annoying especially when I'm outdoor.

Tomorrow will be a very interesting day. Sunway Pyramid, here I come. =D

Death

Death is inevitable. Shobaan's death is the second death related news I've received for this year. The first one is the death of the person that gives me the support and encouragement during my conflict with my family when I was sweet 16- my "kai goh" William Goh.

Last two weeks, I received a call from an old friend. She informed me about my kai-goh met with an accident while working. He is in the air conditioning servicing industry. One fine day, he went over to his regular customer's house to service his aircon. While tending the outdoor unit, he slipped and fell 7 stories down. He died of massive bleeding and head trauma. I was only being told about his death 2 months later. At first, I was shocked and couldn't believe what I heard but soon, I accepted it.

Then comes another landslide. Just a few moments ago, I was informed through MSN that the friend I knew since I was in Secondary school has passed away. Although he used to be a bully, but he was a smart person and I am impressed with his chess skills. It was him that gives me the encouragement to play chess. I never defeated him before in chess. Now that he's gone, I will never have the chance to beat him anymore.

Why so fast? Life is indeed short.

Rest In Peace Shobaan Pillai 04/04/89 - 10/09/09
May God bless you and forgive all your sins.

Late

Overslept today. I woke up at 12.30pm today. Damn. I've missed my ride to Rawang. My father should be at Rawang for two hours already now. Looks like another day delayed for my T-Rex to back online.

At first I wanted to go to Times Square for some games, but then I feel lazy to walk to the LRT station. So I just relax in my room sitting face to face to my monitor all day long. Then I remember that I'm only a few chapters towards the end for Call of Juares.



It is quite fun to play although old style guns can be quite annoying especially rifles. If only the upcoming Call Of Duty 6- Modern Warfare 2 incorporates its more in depth and flexible playstyle, it'll definitely be one of the greatest First Person Shooter game.

Oh, I've checked my Public Bank account. Apparently I got a very fat paycheck for the month of August. Time to go pamper my taste buds at Room Eighteen in Times Square with that suckling pig.

Rig

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying very hard to revive my T-Rex. The progress is 99% now. The remaining 1% is just putting in an Operating System. T-Rex aside, I'll introduce my real pride and joy.



My T-Rex died on my very second month of employment. That time, I only have RM 1,000 in bank. For two weeks during June, I'm living like a zombie. No computer, no internet, no computer games. Even my mom said I'm acting strangely ever since my T-Rex died. The sudden loss of T-Rex benefited me though- I'm motivated to work Over-Time everyday in order to fund for a new (and better spec) rig.

However, 60% of my June's paycheck is already reserved for other purposes. Thus, I'm only left with RM 500 for my rig. Hell no I am taking a Celeron. So, I have to borrow money- not from ah longs though. My dear sister agreed to bank in a thousand bucks and I shall repay her in the form of installment for 3 months.

So I went over to Viewnet at LowYat Plaza (cheapest in whole Low Yat, srsly) to have my dream come true. Stuffs I've taken are:

Intel C2D E7400 2.8GHz @ RM 394
Asus P5kPL/1600 mainboard @ RM 237
Kingston DDRII PC800 RAM 2GB @ RM 89 (x1)
Asus EN9400GT Silent @ RM 184
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB @ RM 189
Powerlogic Quatro 200 ATX casing @ RM 65
Coolermaster Extreme Power 460w @ RM 150



Total spend on 4/7/2009 is Rm 1,308.

So I went back home to put in Windows XP from my old hard disk but it showed blue screen. Then I decided to put in Windows 7 since my spec can support it and just for the fun of it. XD



However, the graphic card only performs moderately and I'm suffering from choppy graphics from the 9400GT when playing Call Of Duty 4. So a month later, I visit the same guy again and bought a XFX 9800GT for RM 355 and another Kingston ram for RM90 (Price increased... T_T) and at the same time, sold off my 9400GT for RM 120. 3 days later I even upgraded from a 17" to a 21.5" BenQ LCD panel for RM 467.



My almost complete (its almost because I didn't change the speaker, mouse and keyboard. XD) desktop overhaul costs me exactly RM 2,220. MY RM2,220. My own money, earned from working my ass out at Sony. However, all these money are well spend because I'm now pampered with exciting games with vivid graphics from the 9800GT and I no longer has to stare at the monitor when I'm watching movie since the video is so much bigger now.



Now I know why my friends told me that dumping money in arcade games is idiotic.