When Spetember ends...

Wow. Its already September the 30th. Time passed by so fast (so is my money in the bank T_T). There's a lot of things happening for the past few days hence the delay in posting up something new.

First is my friend's birthday. Or should I say best friend? Certainly, yes. His birthday falls on September 29th, which is yesterday and basically, he planned for a gathering with his fellow secondary school friends. It was fun, although his schedule is quite cramped. Dinner with his family at 6.30pm, dinner again with friends at AMpang Point at 8 and the third round at Taman Ikan Emas with some arcade friends. I'm so bloated yesterday. X_X

Today I went out with Weng Kit to the school (Victoria Institution) for a visit as Weng Kit has to collect his MUET files from Ms.Vasantha for dunno what purpose. Our hopes to spend some time to have a little chat with Ms.Vasantha was dashed because she has to relief another class as the school is facing a shortage of teachers. When I am back to the school, I'm still glad to see some old familiar cars around, such as Cik Rozina's Iswara, the counselor's Waja and of course the Civic I recommended Ms.Vasantha to purchase. XD

We left for Segi college shortly after because I have to hand in some documents to the administration to process. Since both of us went out of the house with an empty stomach, we decided to have something large for lunch. At first, we planned to go to Pudu for Hakka noodles but I grew impatient in the lunch hour congestion at Jalan Sultan Ismail and decided to have lunch at Pavillion instead. Since we have a very empty stomach, I suggested Carl's Jr.


Ice Cold and Refreshing and the best part is, it is free flow.

After going to here and there and wasting money in the process for this whole month, tomorrow marks my first day of returning to work at Sony. Damn. Somehow I feels lazy but due to the fact that my bank account is running low on turquoise, guess I have no other choice. I'll try to spend some time to update my blog, so stay tuned for October for more tasty food reviews/food critics and a chunk of of my life!

Money (Part II)

A continuation of Money Part I

My first job was a rather simple job as a waiter at a small little cafe named Vin'z Corner. The cafe was run by a couple as their "small business". My initial pay was only RM3/hour but back then, it is quite a lot for a 15 year old employee. I am very happy when I received my first pay- RM 101.40 a figure I will never forget. A year later, when I am in Form 4, I switched to Hong Kong's Food Culture at Low Yat Plaza. Over here, I earned more(RM4/hour) and gained much more experience since my customers is not limited to students only. The owner was a Hongkie couple and they treated me very well. Unfortunately, my days weren't long enough over there because they have employed a few full timers and me, being a part timer was forced to resign. During those days, I used to spend lavishly on arcade games and my lunch on every Saturday was McDonald's.

I wasn't employed in any single jobs from october 2005 till December 2006. After SPM, I worked for half a month at a boutique at Lot 10 and I earned my first RM500 (RM700 to be exact). Then college starts and I am occupied with studies right until this year May where my studies has ended. On May 4th 2009, I was employed by Sony Malaysia in one of their direct stores around Kuala Lumpur. I earned my first RM1,000. On July, disaster struck. My old rig failed me and you can read the rest of the story here.

A few weeks back, my cousin seek my help in assembling a new rig for him. I asked about his budget and he replied to me RM3,000. WOW! I was astonished and his mother who was standing beside me was shocked. My aunt is a housewife depending fully on his taxi driver husband for living expenses. My taxi driver uncle is a very stingy person and the fact that my aunt is his second wife just made her condition worst.

A few days ago, we went over to Low Yat to buy parts for the new rig. I am simply shocked by the way my cousin treating his own mother (my auntie). Making faces, throwing "adult tantrum" and sometimes even replied her in a rather inhuman way. My auntie must be really sad, because after forking out nearly RM 1,800 of her own savings (my uncle didn't contribute any single cent for it) for a brand new computer for him, he's simply ungrateful and yet still demand for this and that. His demands was as if my auntie is growing a money tree back home. Somehow he NEVER though of his own capability, his mother's capability and their family condition.

It is just sad that how money has made humans much meaner. I mean, that's his ONLY son and yet he didn't do his job when the time arisen.

The All Time Favourite

Almost every Saturday, when I am out for a meeting with Cypher, Dope and Max, most of the time we will just go Uncle Duck for lunch. All of us comes to an agreement that Uncle Duck is by far one of the most value for money restaurants in Times Square. Today, we had out usual lunch at Uncle Duck and this time, I'll decide to do a little bit review on this outlet.



Cheese Baked Rice is synonym with Hong Kong Restaurants. In malaysia, cheese baked rice was made famous by hong kong style restaurants such as Kim Gary (the pioneer in the industry), Wong Kok Char Chan Theng, Tsim Tung and many more. Those who frequented these restaurants mentioned knows little about the existence of Uncle Duck, particulary its first outlet with a different name- Hong Kong Food Culture.

Today I'll focus more on the Cheese Baked Rice. It costs RM 14.80 per plate, a little tad higher than its competitors but it is worthy. First of all, the rice is fried with some egg, to give it some distinctive aroma before it was loaded into an aluminium foil together with other ingredients such as your choice of meat (chicken, fish, beef, pork etc), ham bits, peas, white sauce and cheese before it was brought into the oven for baking.


Chicken Chop Baked Rice with Cheese and White Sauce

Cypher's all time favourite. Maybe it satisfies his big appetite since he's kinda err.... =X


Seafood Baked Rice with Cheese and White Sauce

My choice of Baked Rice. However, compared to 3 years ago, the seafood variant inside has dropped significantly because of rising costs. 3 years ago, this particular baked rice comes with oysters, a piece of scallop, a generous amount of lala, squids, cuttlefish, prawns, a slice of Grouper fish and a few slice of other fish (two types of fish given). Now, oysters, scallop, lala and grouper fish has gone. What's left now is just a few slices of fish meat, some fish cakes, prawns, cuttlefish and a generous amount of squid. But hey, the price has only risen RM1 comapred to 3 years ago and the baked cheese rice at Kim Gary is practically empty. Just some cheese on top of your meat of choice and some corn and that's it. The rice is not even fried.

A good meal have to be accompanied by good drinks. Another specialty of Uncle Duck/HK Food Culture is its Lemon Tea. Brewed to perfection and one can savour the unique taste of lemon and tea infused perfectly together. Whenever I drink Lemon Tea at any restaurant, I'll pit them against this lemon tea as benchmark (and usually they would fail badly XD)


Iced Lemon Tea at front and Ribena Special at the back.

There's some rules to follow when drinking this marvelous beverage. One need to poke the sliced lemons at the bottom to bring out the lemon juice which will flavour the tea with zesty lemon taste. A small hassle but definitely worth it.

There were more good things in this restaurant but unfortunately there's always circumstances. First, I don't have a huge wallet and secondly I don't have a huge tummy like... =X

Uncle Duck (HK) Steamboat
得哥火锅餐厅
Lot 03-107, 3rd FLoor,
Berjaya Times Square
No.1, Jalan Imbi
55100, Kuala Lumpur

Bad Brunch

Secret Recipe was well known for its cakes. Other well known food from their menu is the Irish Lamb Stew, Singapore laksa, Chicken Cordon Bleu and a lot more. Today, Weng Kit, Kim Bee, Andy and I meet up at Times Square for a mini reunion after each of us was busy with each others stuffs after high school. We decided to have a rather scrumptious lunch at Secret Recipe.

My expectation towards Secret Recipe has always being high since I usually goes for their cakes and Cornish only when I am there. Today I decided to call something from their menu since I haven't even had breakfast yet.



I ordered the Roasted chicken with Tumeric Sauce. Costs me RM 14.50. The chicken is hard. Very hard. It's either they over roasted the chicken or the chicken used isn't fresh at all (second one is highly possible). The fries and vegetable portion isn't that generous either. For RM 14.50, I'm sure I can get a better deal at Vivo. The turmeric sauce is very very yellow, but the taste is no where to be found. Worst, I shat brixx right after having this.



Iced Lemon Tea was rather tasteless. If I could turn back time, I rather have the iced water at the back instead.



Andy ordered the Meatball spaghetti. Portion is quite small. I don't dare to curi sikit. XD


Kim Bee and Weng Kit go for the set. Both of them choose Black pepper chicken chop with black pepper sauce and rice. They are very kiam siap with the rice it seems.

The overall experience I had in Secret Recipe isn't that good. I think I'll just stick to cakes, brownies and Cornish when I'm at any Secret Recipe outlets next time. A great reunion ruined by a bad brunch.

Money (Part I)

Money is the new modern tool to judge the person around us. Long time ago, people worship the sultans, maharajas and kings because these figures, as a symbol of leadership is always the one with the most wealth. In the modern days now, we rarely heard anyone talked about our Yang Di-Pertuan Agong nor any of the sultans of the states. Tan Sri lim Goh Thong, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Ananda Krishnan and Robert Kuok are among renowned figures among Malaysians. What makes them famous? One simple answer, MONEY.

In this modern world, money is indeed everything. One only needs to experience it in their life. Some are born in poverty, and some are born in a luxurious family. Some are born in a poor family, but personally witnessed their family's rags-to-riches story whereas there's some who are born in a corrupted rich family which in the end saw their family members all either being sent to jail or has ranned away to other part of the world living a solitary lifestyle.

I would say I was born in a poor family. My mother's side is a family of 6 members and they used to live in the unit above Dynamic bookstore at Pudu. I remembered my mother used to tell me her stories about how poor they are, especially after the Japanese occupation and the May 1969 incident. In order to feed my mother and her brothers and sisters, my grandmother was forced to pawn off her jeweleries to the pawn shop at Pudu. She always reminds me to be grateful for what we have and never envy other people for what they have.

My father's side is at least a little brighter. The price of sky rocketing rubber during those days brought some fortune to my father's side. However, my grandfather was a stingy person and this influenced my father's side grandmother as well. However, when synthetic rubber was invented and mass produced, the price of rubber plummeted and this forced my father to come to the mighty Kuala Lumpur to earn a living. The rest are family history.

On October 14th, 1989, I was brought out to this world after I'm inside mother's womb for 9 months. Being the first son, my father's side grandmother fought for my guardianship. However, my mother disagrees and I was then raised in Kuala Lumpur by a babysitter at Petaling Jaya till the age of 4. I only have vague memory of my child hood life. I remembered my home isn't this complicated back then. It was simple with only the basic necessities such as a tele with no video tape player. Life was simple back then and when shopping, I will be denied almost everything I wanted because of financial constrain. I still remembered I used to cry like there's no tomorrow when my mother denies me a candy bar or cookie.

When it is the time I step in primary school, I was only given 70 cents per day as pocket money. Those days, a bowl of noodles costs 50cents and the gardenia "EVERYDAY" bread is 30 cents. I got my allowance increased to RM 1 when I am in primary 3 and when I'm stepping into Secondary 1, my daily allowance was increased to RM20/week, RM 30/week when I'm in Form 2, RM40/week when I'm in Form 3 till Form 5. It was when I started working, my perception about money begins to form.

to be continued... =]

Raya

Well, its second day of Raya. Some of my friends have came back to malaysia and some even went oversea to travel around. Initially, I planned to work at Sony just for the sake of 3x pay. However, I backed out the last minute because I wished to spend more time with my family. This is extremely important, because once I'm officially start working back next month, I'll have lesser time for my family and also, friends.

This year, I spend my two Hari Raya at home painting. The walls in my living room was given a new fresh coat of paint in preperation for Chinese New Year. Yes, I do know that CNy is 5 months more, but hey, its freaking 5 months!!! Time passes by rapidly. Today is second day of Raya, next two weeks is Mid Autumn festival, then followed by Deepavali, Christmas and then Chinese New Year. Painting the living room was the first thing to do in the list. Next is the doors and windows. Then as CNY comes near, I'll have to shop and make cookies (due to the fact that I'm able to make certain types only).

After two days of painting, I'm all worn out. However, those efforts pays off because my living room is such a comfortable place to live in now. Coupled with Warm White lighting, the ambiance is simply fantastic.Now I only know why some people love to spend their holidays for home improvements.

Vivo

Allow me first to apologize, because this post, by now, should be the post with the most food pictures. My apologies again for making you hungry. I've been to Times Square on the Raya eve with Cypher, Dope and Max and to be joined by Wei Zhen sometime later. We had lunch at Vivo, which is situated at LG floor, opposite to the crappy Room 18 restaurant. Vivo is an American style Italian restaurant.

We had mushroom soup as starter. Soup was creamy, and there's some mushroom chunks as well. Definitely not those served straight out of a can of Cambell's.



A mushroom soup isn't complete without garlic bread.



At almost RM 1/piece, I'll say its quite small. But hey, it certainly smells good and makes a good dip for the mushroom soup.

Dope's main course came first, which is the Chicken & Mushroom Baked Rice.



From the looks and smell, it is great. Taste? I don't know because I didn't "curi makan".



Cypher's Meatballs Spaghetti came right after and followed by Max's Baked Meatballs Spaghetti



These two might look similar, but the baked one carries more cheese and has a slightly better aroma due to the fact that it has gone through the "oven torture".



An empty table on my side, watching them enjoying their own respective meal. =[

5 minutes later, my Tropical BBQ Chicken Chop was served right in front of me.



It comes with well fried crinkle cut fries, a huge portion of salad and two grilled pineapple slice. The grilling of pineapple slice further brings out the sweetness of it but it is too sweet because the pineapple slice is from a can, not freshly cut.

I even have a bowl of mashed potato thrown in as well.



The mashed potato was done perfectly. With the right amount of cheese and seasoning. However, the chicken was a let down because some part of the chicken is overly seasoned with too much pepper. The pepper just overpowered the sweetness of BBQ sauce. The same chicken chop I had last few months tasted so much better with the right amount of pepper and the sweetness of BBQ sauce seeps right into every flesh of the chicken.

The beverage which accompanies my meal is the Sparkling Lemon Kiwi juice. Tasted funny and extremely sour. Avoid at all cost.





Damage done was RM 110.65. However, this is definitely more worthy than Room 18 situated opposite. By the way, Cypher's friend encountered a cockroach in his Kai Lan when dining in at Room 18 a few days ago. Another reason why the outlet should be shunned away.