Eve's Belated @ Ole Ole Bali

Eve celebrates her 25th in Singapore la actually (here I can reveal her age cos it's still, erm, below 30 hehehhe). Mei Ying texted me to say that it's going to be at Ole Ole Bali at Sunway, and to meet her at the Bangsar station where she will pick me up around 6:30pm after work on Wednesday.

Knowing these friends of mine, even though I came out late from the gym, Mei Ying couldn't get off work early, same goes to Grace. So I called Eve-Lyn up and she said she'll pick me up from Kelana Jaya, although she's in Puchong! So she had to go through like a big round to pick me up and then go back Sunway, which is close to Puchong.

Halfway through the train ride, Grace called me up to tell me that she can pick me up from Taman Jaya, somewhere near Amcorp Mall. I immediately called up Eve to stop her from driving over but she said she's already entering the 'jam' area... lol -___- So I lamely asked her whether she still wants to pick me up. Eve replied it's ok Grace can pick me up while she finds a way out of the highway.

Super -___-.

Anyways, both Grace and I finally reach Ole2 Bali close to 8pm (the plan was to have dinner at 7, so no surprises there). Eve even more geng, she's been walking all around Sunway Pyramid since 7pm.

Anyways.


The girls took this photo with the intention that when Mei Ying arrives then it's like magic suddenly she's not there and suddenly she is -___-.


Ordered my favorite Lemongrass Mojito!


Those two had barley lime.

Love it so much that I had to put another picture up :D

We proceed to order without waiting for MY as all of us were starving. I could eat a whole horse.

Starting with an appetizer.

Balinese Grilled Salad
With Grilled Chicken, With Grilled Squid, served with Rempeyek, and Spicy Lemongrass and Shallot Dressing. Soooooo sedap! We poured the dressing whole and mixed everything up. Sigh...

Siap Megoreng
Deep-Fried Lemongrass Marinated Half Chicken with Sambel Tera. That lower right dish is sort of a mix of yambean, french bean and some sort of unidentified stuff.

Surprisingly, the place does not offer Babi Guling since it's supposed to be highly popular in Bali. Pooh u halal eaters.

Ole Ole Trio
It's a Combination of BBQ-ed wings, Sate Lilit and Cumi-Cumi Goreng, served with Sambel Matah, Sambel Terasi, and Tartar Sauce. I especially love the deep fried squid, dipped with tartar sauce and it is yumz!

But I wonder, how come most of the stuff has to be deep fried? The first main also had deep fried chicken and the ole trio had the same thing. Although it said BBQ-ed, I still feel like it had a bit of a fried taste to it. Everything is oily, for sure.

Belated Bday gal poses.

Mei Ying finally arrives when we were almost three-quarter done with the Grilled Salad lol.

Anyway we were discussing future trips, possibly to Malacca to try out the food there when Mei Ying mentioned Elephant Farm or something like that. All of us turned to her and she was like, what? I commented that I thought she's bit too bimbotic to go on trips like that lol. And she said mana ada. Grace even worse, said that she's scared of them cos they're furry.

Anyways, later on Mei Ying told us about this personality test thingy that makes you close your eyes and imagine stuff and describe what you see. The quiz came to a scenario where the question was, you come across a stream which is deep enough to swim over and also very special that you can walk on the water across. What do you do. On my part, I thought I heard walk/wade through, being a swimmer of course I'd rather swim and not hurt my feet (lol) so I chose to swim. Eve chose the same and when asked about it later, she said that it's not possible. Mei Ying shot at her that it's suppose to be a scenario where you can do anything so just imagine!

It was so funny and MY commented, look who's the bimbo hahahhaha. I told Mei Ying that sorry, looks like she's being dethroned and Eve's the new Queen. Eve so happy and made the peace sign and yay-ed.

-___________-

Now she's here...

Group photo!

Happy Belated Birthday, Eve!

Long Weekend Back Home

Four day weekend, Thaipussam + Federal Territory Day = Happy me.

Plan to head back, swim to my heart's content back in USM pool, eat truckload of home-cooked food, get my facial done (it's been too long!), spend some time with Ah Ma, Mom and Dad, and of course Pickles!

Some random shots I took and edited for fun:

Taken somewhere in Bangsar while waiting for Mei Ying to pick me up for dinner at a steamboat place in Sunway.
The place is called Tasty Pot hehehe. For roughly RM30 per pax, you are entitled to an all-you-can-eat steamboat buffet. There are loads of raw stuff to be picked from, vegetables, fungal of all sorts, fish and meatballs, tofu-based dry stuff and the highlight would be: endless supply of grilled crabs! And they are really huge too.... but too salty IMO.

Random shot of Evan in Starbucks for his coffee fix. Digressing, it seems like every other person is getting dependent on coffee! Oh btw, did I mention that I've been coffee-free for close to a month now? yay! I mean I won't completely isolate myself from coffee la, but it feels darn good that I don't need caffeine to function properly now.

Did went for a swim, though not exactly to my heart's content, more like to my legs' discomfort :p Later on had dinner at Chiu Cang Kha (literally Foot of the Tree). We had a feast... I think there was at least 7 types of dishes. Had my favorite salted egg soft shell crab, fried fish (3 plates of these babies) , stir fry mixed vegetables and spinach, tofu, bai kut ong, and so much more! Best of all the price only came to about close to Rm100 for 8 people I think.

After dinner (and multiple attempts to shake off the leech - this pesty kid that sticks on the group uninvited lol) we decided to pump alcohol into our bodies at Bed.

Played cards and fooled with more pictures.

Liquid gold.

Oh!
I am collecting these!

Su Jen, if you're reading these hor, can start collecting them Budlights and Budweisers yah. In fact I would love to collect only those that I drink from, at countries aboard so it's just too bad that I didn't keep any when I was in US last year. This interest is in fact very much new found.


Most of the time back home, I just sleep, eat and watch tv on the spanking new 42". On Saturday, Mom cooked lunch! Guess what she cooked... she used to love making them but stopped for a long time ;)

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Lol, okla not these. This is just something to whet ze appetit ;)
Mushroom and chicken soup btw.

Chicken chop!

...with mixed peas, broccoli and carrots on the sides. The gravy is yumz! Mom mixed some baked beans to the tomato puree. It's not bad lar but I think I would prefer them without the baked beans. Mom said that normally she won't put baked beans but would have green peas instead.
Finally, let's take a peek at the laziest resident of the house. The one who never offered to help, eats and sleeps without a care in the world.

Some more can laze around while Papa is hard at work... Papa is cleaning the house bigass carpet btw.

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*Poke
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2nd laziest person would be CTY... wakes up after all the cows also gone back home d.

No Place Like Home

I got back SP on a 4-day break, a day in lieu of Thaipussam and another for Federal Territory Day. Spend the first day in Penang catching up with friends back in uni. I definitely miss Penang. The extremely 'tua tay + pan gi' food and most of all, the easy accessibility to practically any location in Penang becos my the personal driver ;)

Oh, food! I haven't had time to upload pictures just yet. But plan to do so once I get back KL. And I seriously need to get a new laptop/desktop. But I suppose laptops are much more convenient especially for work. The reason that I am actually blogging during my days back in SP also because I need to get some work done and monitor production. It sucks because executing any piece of workload remotely gets really slow but thank god for TY's laptop which is able to access some applications.

Mom just sent Pickles to get a short and neat whole body fur-cut. If I am Pickles I think I would be extremely happy for that, given the excruciating heat these few days. Even if I live in a cave I could easily tell that CNY is near.

Speaking of CNY, accompanied Grandma and Tua Yi for some CNY preps shopping. Geez, I am starting to hate to get out of the house in SP. People here shove and push and cut the line like the grandfather owns the whole of SP. Hmm... but then again there's probably still hope. This morning, I was in Econsave (hypermarket) to get some ingredients for Mom's chicken chop (pic soon! :p). So first I got some broccoli, tomatoes, cilantro and carrots and went to queue at the weighing counter. There were two lines to the two counters there and this lady was trying to shove her way and drop her stuff on the counter when it's not her turn. The staff then snapped at her to queue up and said "Dengan saya, baik beratur" whoa.... hahahha

Okla will update soon with more photos and updates. Grandma fell off her bicycle :( and she looks like she's getting thinner. But she's still the best cook in the whole world.

Pickles

Testing!





Fun Taipei Teahouse

Stanley the master foodie invites Jocelyn and I out for dinner at Fun Taipei Teahouse after work on Friday. The restaurant is around Pudu area. I've not heard of the place but it's supposed to have been featured in a food tv series, some magazines I suppose and multiple blogs.

We reached the area a little after 8 but finding a place to park the car is a bitch. Everywhere is full and we had to cruise around the place 3 times before finding a place, and even that is also an illegal parking lol.

Decor is simple with loads of paintings and calligraphy works around the restaurant. Didn't like the chairs there, though. I thought they look a bit cheap and out of place.

The menu is quite extensive! There are a few specialties but as I was a bit tight in the pocket so I ordered the cheapest specialty lol. Minced meat set.

Rice served in a bowl with minced meat, vegetables, herbal egg, tofu and salted vegetable soup. The dish looks so simply for RM10 but I love the minced meat and the sauce to bits! I gobbled my meal as I was really hungry after yoga session (which later resulted in my tummy feeling queasy, like wind got in liddat.)

Another Taiwan specialty: bubble tea. This belongs to Jocelyn - yam bubble tea or somewhat. I like the colour though :p

Jocelyn's oyster noodle. I took a taste of it, the gravy is very thick but it doesn't taste like my kind... Anyways there are a lot of food in Taiwan that didn't suit my tastebuds :(

Stanley's mega meal! He ordered the pork chop set or somewhat... another specialty of Fun Taipei. The pork tasted soooo good and it's all oily and greasy yumz.

All our drinks lined up. Stanley and I both ordered the same black milk tea; but I had mine with QQ jelly. It's like this slightly more compact form of flavored jelly and the drink tasted very rich but the more you drink the sweeter it seems to get -_-

Finally we also had pork dumplings:

Stuffed with minced pork, chives and a number of mysterious ingredients that I did not detect. At the first bite it tasted like it's gone bad, but the next chew onwards as you accept the taste only does it taste a bit better. I felt like the dumpling skin is a bit too thick so I didn't enjoy it much...

Took the same picture without flash... looks very unappetizing right? Hmm... I've been considering a DSLR for a while now... Should I? But I will hate it's bulkiness especially when you travel.

42 "

Got back to Penang for a Lifeguard 30th Anniversary dinner but I didn't take any photos! I'll blog on the night once I get my hands on some of the pictures :) Also managed a short overnight stay back home and lookie the new member of the house!

42" LCD TV Panasonic Viera which Su En and I got for Papa & Mommie :) Nice, eh? Nicer is that Mom got it for only RM2.5k but if you were to go elsewhere, it would cost you between RM3-4k. Certainly pays to know the right people.

I asked Mom how's the new TV and stuff but she only answered that both her and Papa don't really spend a lot of time in front of the TV and then she started on a long-winded lesson on this Tibetan Qi Gong class that both of them have been going. Zzzness.

All the pouffes, and lazy chair very near to our old and sad 24" tv are now nowhere to be seen lol. I think you will get a bit dizzy if you sit too close to that huge screen.

More shots on Pokkidoodles :p Please admire her pictures ok! I woke up early on that day to shower, and then blow-dry her.

Fluffy

I so need a dog in KL :(

Auld Lang Syne

... to 2009. Welcome 2010 with wide open arms!

2009 has been a pretty great year... Can't complain much and I definitely feel really blessed. Though not everything has been squeaky perfect clean and I must say that there are some things I have done that I'm definitely not proud of.

But! Must not start the year on a bitter note.

So I'll start with a list of things that I am really pleased for:

1. I started off 2010 with a couple of weeks in Singapore I think.... right after quitting my job in Penang. Kicked off work in KL around mid -January. I think it's very important to note that I am very lucky to still be able to secure a job in the middle of an economy crisis. Better thing is, the pay is better than my previous company. Not so good point to note: Cost of living in KL is high.

2. Had the rarest opportunity to visit the Land of Opportunity, an all sponsored training programme by the company. I spent 3-and-half months in the States. First week in Houston, then 3 weeks frozen to the core in North Dakota, and the rest of the stay was in Houston. All this without getting bonded!

3. Visited Su Jen's little hole in LA! It has been a couple of years since I last saw her, even then it was only during a short trip to Taiwan... Nothing beats going to your sister's place and she was the greatest host. She went all out to prepare food for me and a couple of colleagues, and also to make sure we were very comfortable. It was also the very first time I got to explore and enjoyed myself tremendously in Disneyland Anaheim.

4. Those on the top 3 of the list were the most memorable ones. But the following ones weren't any least more pleasing than the above. I am very glad to have a handful of friends in KL who weren't only nice, but who rise to the occasion and offer their kind help.

5. I have learnt to appreciate my family, most of all my parents. I try to find time to call them every week or so just to hear their voices and learn what's new, or what's troubling them.

It gives me a great sense of satisfaction that to be able to fulfill their hopes for a call from their youngest daughter, and to do so unfailingly. Oh! Also got my parents a spanking new 42" LCD tv hehehe... Su En, if you're reading this, you owe me about RM800 ok hehehe.

Family... Irreplaceable.

6. Joined a gym at the concourse of KLCC. Met some great people and also able to keep up with a healthy lifestyle. Nothing beats the exhilaration after an intensive workout. And to wake up the day after with your whole body muscle group feeling sore.

7. During the whole period of my stay in KL, my cousin has graciously taken me in, while I settle down here. In fact, I have gotten so comfortable that I cannot be bothered to find a new place... though I am inclined to get my own place... somehow... hopefully even purchase my very first property, but I think that is a bit too soon to comply based on the mediocre salary I bring home each month.

Hmm... does 7 sounds like a good number? It's magical enough though, according to JK Rowling hehehhe.

Now, I've never really gotten into all that resolution hype. Never had any, and never fulfilled any. However, on New Year's Eve, as I was having dinner with Mei Ying, she started filling me in on all these resolutions that she's making and I thought to myself, why not? In fact, making a couple of resolutions might even motivate me to keep them.

So!

(erm... I know these resolutions are not very life-changing nor glam, but I'm taking baby steps, ok? These are the ones that come to my mind just as I am typing...)

1. Posture. I realize that I am always subconsciously sinking into a slumping sitting position and then when my mind realizes the mistake of the bad spine, I straighten myself guiltily.

2. Control Expenses. This is not really new to me as I always remind myself to save up and I always ask myself whenever I am about to purchase something: do I really need this? Do I frequently use this? But of course... most of the time I just give in without as much as a second thought because the top looks so good and it's on sale.... But I think food is the main culprit in leeching my hard-earned money T_T

I suppose that''s the whole list of my New Year resolution ^^

An old photo I browsed through earlier:

Aiyoh cannot believe that is actually me hahahha... Those were the uni days... When I was so skinny/flat-ish boobs and had gold highlights thinking I was the epitome of cool hahahhahahahh.


Anyways, New Year's Eve!

As I said earlier, I spent my NYE with Mei Ying. We were supposed to meet up with Grace later on too but then Grace was invited for drinks by the manager so she couldn't cabut...

After much debate (both of us were very chinchai and couldn't make up our minds, we normally let the more hard-to-please people to decide) we ended up having Italian @ Cipolla in Bangsar! By the time we walked into the restaurant, it was already close to 10.

Mei Ying said that the restaurant is one of the best in KL! Hmm... good food definitely do not come in cheap.... in KL la at least.

Su En said that Mei Ying looks like Mona Lisa here hehehhe.

The menu is anything but limited. We were spoilt for choice. In the end, we settled for a New Year's special 4-course dinner.

My ultimate favourite of the lot! Smoked duck breast salad with grapes. It is just so awesome! The appetiser really got me going but it was more like accelerating to 200 miles an hour then coming to a half afterwards, okla to be fair, not completely braking... more like cruising at a comfortable 50. You'll see why.

Course #2: Champagne risotto with dory fish. Sticky rice made us feel a bit heik halfway through. Didn't quite like the fish.... has a chau cho bi :p

I seriously enjoyed eating at places like Cipolla... each plate is served on a 30-45 minute interval. Both of us are real slow eaters hahahha I like to take my time with my food :)

Course #3: Tiger prawns served in unknown sauce with mushrooms and Italian pork sausages with potato wedges. The prawns are damn freaking huge and some more the veins are not removed!!! So gross I had to remove them and initially I thought it's like some juicy part of the prawn (I cut through close to the head first) then only to realize that whole thick greyish stuff is the vein T_T By the way the I am not a big prawn person but we had to choose this one because the other option is beef cooked in red wine (T_T) but that is out of the picture cos Mei Ying cannot have beef. humph.

Finally our dessert. This one arrived 10 minutes to 1st Jan 2010. Bread & Butter pudding. It is way too sweet and several times I bit into coarse sugar. Urgh... But overall service is quite good lol. It was a great dinner... we gossiped and crapped like nobody's business and we definitely overstayed our welcome hahahha... We were also the last ones left there slowly spooning the pudding, oblivious to the poor staff waiting to go home.

One last update.: Guess how I spent the first day of 2010? Lol.... Becoming Cinderella... Cleaned my room, tossed out stuff that I no longer need, organized receipts, pay slips, and refolded and arranged clothes in my little cupboard :p I seriously need to make more trips to Ikea and get those nifty storage boxes!

Happy New Year y'all!