Cool Blogs and Cotton Candies!

On our day-visit to Batu Pahat last week.. OMG panasnya!! Bukan lah nak merungut sangat, tapi memangggg! After lunch, bahang kat luar da mula masuk rumah and by 3pm it was getting worst and while the entire house hold (Al.. mom-in-law..nieces..nephew..cousin..maid) were happily having siesta, the four of us yang x berapa biasa tido petang ni were very much in hyper mode.. so what to do???? Nak tengok TV cuma ada citer kartun jer... errmmm nasib baik jugak rumah parents-in-law ni in the middle of town and just 3 mins away from Summit Parade Shopping Mall. At least its cooler and biasa ler.. shopping! Manalah tau, kalau nampak DVD ke.. t-shirt ker.. and o yeah, the boys needed to get their sneakers..

Mmmm.. dari jauh macam R2D-2.. rupa2nya cotton candy machine.. oopss.. macam jaks sket, and boys beriya2 nak cuba.. kena beli token RM3, pilih paket2 berisi gula bermacam2 flavor~strawberry, manggo, peppermint.. we chose peppermint :P Macam best jer ka..

The lady from the store gave us our token.. and a piece of stick.. put in the token and the machine starts.. so easy. But the whisking required skill and Zafree broke the stick halfway..nyeh! ;P~

Sorry boys! not the best looking cotton candy.. and it was harder than u think, really!

Bubble tea! Bubble tea! Kenapa lar susah sangat nak dapat bubble tea nih kat Shah Alam??!! I think it was just about 6 months ago since I visited Summit Parade, and the place now have a few bubble tea..blogs..whatever u wanna call it booths! They're so much fun to drink and chew, I think rather than have those yucky coffees at BP's many so called 'trendy' kopitiams, I'd rather have these chewy and superlicious blogs-bubbles anytime!

This time my very brief trip to BP was highlighted with these chewy-bubbly goodness.. and I'll probably won't dread following hubby to his hometown anymore ;P~ BTW, that's the Yoghurt Passion Fruit Blog and the kids had Oreo Blog :D

Swensen Ice-Cream

NO! NO! NO!

Ok, I actually wanted to make a journey back into time when I used to take the boys here when they were really little.. i think back then, the big bowl of assorted flavors was called Volcano.. wonder why bother changing it.. Anyways, when we set foot in the restaurant, a whiff of a very bad smell hit our nostrils and straight to our heads. Being polite, we took a table and ordered.. we thought the smell (rotting animal flesh from the air-conditioned vents) was temporarily, but after 3 mins.. we shifted to the tables outside. That was bad! No wonder nobody was there, cept the staffs. Why didn't they do something! It was really a let down, and thankfully it was late afternoon and after a downpour.. so it was kinda chilly outside. Pfbt! I should've treated my kids BRobbins instead! Well, I'll make it up for them on a nice Labor's Day treat at Lumut then ;) 

Instead of a birthday cake, Zafree had an Earthquake!

Birthday boy, Zafree turned 11 on 10th April :)

Still a baby to me!

Yellow Cab Pizza Co.

It was Zafree's 11th birthday, and he wanted pizza! Not that I have anything against Pizza Hut or Domino's, but I thought it would be nice to take him to somewhere more 'refined' than the usual chain restaurants. Those gourmet Italian pizzarias were way too fancy, so who could argue with the one and only Yellow Cab! we have never been here, passed it many times and after strong recommendations from Iqa's friends, we decided to give it a go :P

delightful transportation !

There were not many seats and tables, in fact its kinda underwhelming when we entered the restaurant. I had hoped that the place would be much merrier and at least, with more tables and people inside.. but alls forgiven, when the food arrived..

Spaghetti and Meatballs RM16.80~ gigantic meatballs and delicious. The serving was quite big, enough to feed 2 person or a single very hungry person ;P

Twice-Baked Potato Halves RM12.80 ~ topped with cheese and beef bacon.

10" New York's Finest Pizza RM26.90 ~ with Italian beef sausage, chicken ham, beef pepperoni, beef bacon, ground beef, black olives, mushrooms, onions, red &green bell peppers. This is the real mcoy! Loves it!

10" Four Seasons RM28.60 ~ gourmet sampler; NY Clasic + #4 Cheese + Anchovy Lovers + Roasted garlic & Shrimp. Since we were a first-timer, the waitress suggested this pizza :)

Ham and Cheese Calzone RM20.60 ~ special pizza dough filled with beef, pepperoni, onions, bell peppers and cheese.

Overall, it was a great meal but I kinda disagree with the eating on paper plates philosophy.. well, after all its just a pizza delivery joint and it reminded me of the good old fashioned Pakistani kebab-pizza takeaways at Stoke..

Eza @ Cafe

This is one of our dinner stops during weekdays, when we just wanna eat and go.. Just opened 3 months ago, and thought to give it a try... see what they specializes in.. Its very easy to find, on the same stretch of shop lot of DEMC at section 9, only that its at the other end of the block, much nearer to RHB Bank. Not much I guess, hardly memorable, but might be excellent for diners who just wants to relax, have a nice chat or perhaps have a small private party.

One thing i dislike about going to chow places I've never been before, of course, to foolishly orders the wrong things and I always forget to ask the waiter about the house specialties. I wasn't feeling particularly adventurous with the food, but ordered their special beverages instead. 

Its absolutely cute, a MUST order for the kiddies :) and quite yummy too. Price was between RM5-RM6.

My order was fruity, Peach n Cucumber Smoothie. It was refreshing, fresh and creamy too :) Loves it! 

And while waiting for the food, they serves a couple of small bowls of spicy peanuts :P 

Cantonese Yee Mee, so-so but serving was huge, and I absolutely loved the mushrooms. I don't dig the egg yolk though.. I think this was a Malay version of the dish, quite tasteless actually, I had to request for soy sauce and the thing about Cantonese noodle or any dish, they are best served on a warm plate whilst steaming hot.

Open Face Tuna Sandwich. Quite good and big serving, but tasted too home-made.

The Beef Bolognaise Spaghetti was surprisingly good. I've never tried the ones at those expensive gourmet Italian restaurants, and my fav was the ones served at Kenny Rogers (the Subang outlet of course) and I think Pizza Hut's bolognaise is a disaster.

A hall upstairs for private functions.

Looked more like Secret Recipe, at a glance.. 

Al Rawsha again!

Daaaa penaaattt! After the long day at Lubuk Manggis, even after we have stuffed ourselves on BBQued chicken, lamb and sausages.. we were still hungry! So where to eat in KL? So many places to choose from, but during the gathering with old friends on Jan, I didn't have the opportunity to really enjoy the food. In fact, I didn't even ordered a single dish, cept rasa cipot2 from other people's plates! So, ke Jalan Damai ler, and after going round in circles a couple of times to park the car, we succeeded in getting a small private room.  We were tired and the thought of melepak and baring while eating were really inviting..

Zafree teruja dengan pengalaman makan dalam private room, tapi keluarga pak arab kat sebelah bising marahkan anak2 yang tak leh duduk diam, and at the other end pulak sekeluarga melayu sibuk bergossip.. camna ye, tengah mengadap rezeki boleh mengutuk2 pulak sampai orang sebelah boleh dengar...

My fav! Hummus ke apa ntah namanya.. But I really love this, and so does the kids..

Our main dish for the evening, gosh I forgot what it was called! But it was definitely not beryani.  The lamb tasted quite bland, but the chicken set was quite good. We ordered 4 set for the 5 of us, but we couldn't finish it, had to tapao home.. the fun part was having our dinner with Barbican malt drinks. Non alcoholic but kinda made your senses tingled a bit and we couldn't help laughing after dinner.. oh yes, Al broke the sundae glass while paying mock russian roulette with the boys!

Zachwan after dinner.. too kenyang! 

NLK @ Nasi Lemak Kapar

What a wonderful way to spend a lazy Sunday! Brunch at Nasi Lemak Kapar of course! The kids never says no to this weekend treat cos they know, its always a short drop-by at Pantai remis afterwards! I'm no expert in Malay cuisine, eventhough I'm 100% malay by blood.. what do I know the differences between authentic Selangor dish and Melaka? One thing for sure, both my parents were Selangorian and I was raised eating real kampung dishes prepared by my nenek of both sides. So what's that got to do with NLK? They serves almost exactly the kind of dishes I used to have prepared by my mom and grandmas, that is! 

plain rice with 'pucuk paku masak lemak dengan perut', 'ayam pandan' and 'sambal belacan'

the nasi lemak is always fresh, and i'd recommend eat it with the spicy fried chicken

Of course, Zachwan's no1 choice is the Nasi Lemak :)  The creamy nasi is prepared through the kukus process and always served hot. The sambal is just nice, chili hot and sweet.

The atmosphere is friendly and have the 'at home' feel to it. Besides the 'lauk pauk', there are also plenty of other dishes such as nasi ayam, rojak, mee kari, laksa asam, soto and many types of kueh. Price range is somewhat you could expect from a small town restaurant, reasonable.

pandan chicken (deep fried chicken wrapped in aromatic screwpine leaves)

There are many dishes to choose from, from bergedel daging/ikan, tempe, fried fish, lovely kerabu, masak lemak, dendeng tempe, dendeng hati/pedal ayam, ayam pandan, lotsa ikan masin, etc...

ikan keli (local catfish), bathed in thick creamy and hot gravy (percik)

But THIS is the reason why we comes here all the time, Keli Percik! Grandma used to grill cencaru with this hot and creamy sauce. Sometimes, they serves Talapia Percik and its really good!

Fiske Steakhouse

After the long drive from Taman Negara, we were hungry and desperately in the mood for a good hearty western chow.. coz we've been eating nasi putih, telor dadar and daging goreng kunyit almost the entire trip!  Coming down from the Karak highway, we took the route through Keramat and quite spontaneously, decided to have our meal at Fiske Steakhouse.

Opens at 6.30pm sharp

 

Passed this restaurant a few times, and only then had the chance to sample its glorious food! Everything served to us were delicious, fast service and VERY value for money!  Might come again to this place, definitely!

mushroom soup - less RM4

watermelon juice, pineapple assam frappe & chocolate oreo frappe

normal lamb chop with black pepper sauce

beef steak with black peppersauce

normal chicken chop with mushroom sauce

talented chef

The food itself was great, a bit overdone but maybe next time must tell the cook how much we wanted it done.  Very cozy atmosphere, friendly staff and the food served was equally pretty.  Our main meals costs between RM12 - RM15 each and the drinks was less than RM5 each.

Al-Rawsha to Andalus

I have been so lucky lately, bumping into long lost friends since the year started.. in fact, I had a small reunion with Luffy and Rozie on 1st Jan. 

So the four of us, including Al thought we should take it to the next level and invite the rest of the gang, and whomever we could get our handphones on for a bigger reunion.  At first we thought of the Ampang Lookout Point, but since most of us were never been there and the place being far off KL, Rozie suggested Al-Rawsha. I've never eaten there, but I heard the lamb was ferosh! But I'm sure, most of us would be too busy talking and making fun of each other to bother with the food!

Gathering started at around 5pm and Zasmani, Mastura, Faiz, his wife Mumtaz and daughter Batrisya were already there.  The place was not packed, but we expect so later in the evening since it was Saturday night..

Rozie, me and Saodah

Later, the rest turned up.  Almost everybody we called made it to the reunion - Md Noor, his wife Saodah and his 4 boys, Rozie, Luffy and hubby (sayang!), Koma, Fazli and girlfriend Nat, Zulfiquer with his wife Jannah and 2 kids.  Some of us have not seen each other for almost 16 years!!  We really had a good time reminiscing and keeping up with each others' news..

The food- too bad I was too excited berborak with them that I had no opportunity to sample the food, only managed to snap a few photos.. but later Zachwan said he saw that nasi baryani served on a dulang topped off with sekor unta!! maybe cos his small size, what he saw was actually a half portion of a lamb.. hee hee..  The baryani however did taste good, abit dry and lack of aroma.. maybe i'm being too cerewet cos I had a nicer one at Tarbush..  but I do WANT TO EAT a proper baryani meal at Rawsha pretty soon..

Mints - The mint tea was served non-stop, warm and exotic but I couldn't help feeling like somebody must've put a pinch of toothpaste in my tea.. errmmm... mints and i really dont get along well, cept for mouthfreshners and oh yes!! I do in fact, can make an exception.. thick mint sauce to compliment Tandoori Chicken at d'Tandoor! cicah dengan pappadom pon best!

This fish Koma ordered was actually quite good, it was Sea Bass with light marinade, eaten with some youghurty sauce and squeezed lemon.  I would have never thought that seafood dish prepared middle eastern way would taste nice, but it actually was.. fresh, aromatic but not overwhelmingly aromatic.

I think the waiters pun dah tak sabar nak tengok kitaorang balik cos we were there from 5pm - almost 10pm!  So lepas sesi bergambor and cuit mencuit lagi.. ada yang nak balik, and ada pulak yang nak continue lagi! Si Luffy la and Fazli, nak sambung borak kat Andalus pulak. Kesian jugak tengok my boys da penat, earlier tengahari tadi da pi rumah Auntie Kina for Farish's birthday, now nak stretch ke Andalus pulak.. but them being sporting boys, bagi approval kat kami nak minum sikit kat few blocks away..

from left; Zulfiquer, Fazli, Mastura, Luffy, Nat, me, Zachwan, Zafran, Zafree and Rozie.

from left; Md Noor's sons, Zulfiquer, Md Noor, zafran, Koma, Al, Zachwan, Fazli and Faiz.

Luffy, me, Zachwan and Rozie :)) forever maintaining our cute figures :P

si Man Giant dengan seluar harimaunya.. camna la nak ada awek, tengok seluar pon da takut..! 

It's quieter and the decos were much better than Rawsha. But I don't think the food was the main reason why people would come here.. most of the guests I noticed, would watch the big screen, smoke shisha or just sits there trying to look cool.. We on the other hand, needn't bother cos we were cool and comfortable to be with each other's company..