I know i should have taken a multimedia course instead of a computer science course in Uni!... I like art alot in school unfortunately that time it as not the "career" of choice. Anyway... it was raining this weekend, nothing to photo shoot ( toys have not arrived yet ) and dogs were less than being cooperative.. decided to redo my header. It was a bit plain and i am infatuated with red, black and white, gray themes. I redid my anime blog as well BUT ... it's suffering from some JPEG compression.
Oh... curious who the little chibis are? It's from Azumanga daioh the anime :) ... yeah, yeah, the jumpy cranky one is me.
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Saturday, 26 December 2009
I resurrected my Anime Blog
It is ALL Due to Faldio Landzaat that i am completely not able to forget this anime :) ... ok anyone wants to catch Valkyria Chronicles- get write up here ...
Friday, 25 December 2009
Chef Diary, Medan Damansara
Discovering new places to eat is part of the fun of being a flogger. And every now and then there are places that really gives you the uumph factor without breaking the bank. I must say Chef's diary is one of the places we found that we truly enjoy! Though it was not the first choice of restaurant for the day.
Our usual makan event was postpone once ( and had 2 members thinking it was on the wrong day :P ) before we finally settled for a Monday. However...... lo and behold it turn out to be last minute search for restaurants... Our original choice of Dish was CLOSED on monday ( what? ) and so was our second choice Buonosera ( SS2 ). Out of our minds ( Reunion was our last choice ) i remember JL wanted to try Chef Diary [ unfortunately he didn't join us that day - hahaha - go lah George and the Dragon ] so we decided to try it without him * snicker *. Mashi did the last minute bookings, and we were set. And i am quite glad we picked this instead of Reunion.
Menu is sufficient, though some may be a bit steep but the rest are in my books reasonable. We took to sharing of course- so we can sample more dishes.
Complementary bread was served with a dose of balsmic vinegar and the bread lightly toasted with garlic. Since we were starving, we quickly finished this.
While checking out some of the items on the menu, we were in glee over this comment in the menu! What is out of order in this case? I think it means, not being offered.
We had 2 serving of desserts, one was free as our order was a bit slow but i am thankful because the owner gave us a very delicious order of Flour-less chocolate cake as part of the free dessert. Before that, the one we ordered was Profiteroles... mmm ... it's actually cream puff with vanilla flavored ice cream, drenched in chocolate sauce. No wonder they call it Profiteroles. Shorten the name. The ice cream was really cold, and after all the other flavors, this was quite refreshing.
Our favorite dessert for the night, flourless chocolate cake. Awesome. Made with almond instead of flour, this was absolutely delightful.
Chef's diary has a lot of cute and strange look dishware as well, so when coffee was served for mashi, they brought this cute bowl for brown sugar with the cutest spoon.
We had a wonderful dinner, not explodingly full which is good and we could not get enough of some of the dishes. So much so, we plan to bring JL for his farewell-before-germany dinner next week. Ok lah, excuse for us to eat here again mah. Also hopefully, we can get the order for scallops next ( they ran out of scallops that day )
Those who want to make New Year's eve, Valentine's day a special day, recommended you come here. Food is good here as well as it is quite a nice and quiet place - not a lot of parking issues.
They are also on a blog, in which you can reach here. Click me!
The Locale:
No.26-G, Medan Setia 2,
Plaza Damansara, Bukit Damansara,
KUALA LUMPUR 50490
Tel: 03-2095-0305
Christmas Cheers
Hello folks! Wishing all my readers/ friends / whoever hops by my page a merry christmas! Travel safe everyone.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Ichiban Izakaya
Lordy, my post are getting older and older. I was cleaning up my PC the other day looking for old files to remove and clear up and i found some pictures taken in Sept 2009, during JL's farewell. Well, JL is my ex colleague going to Germany and we gave him a farewell for leaving the company. However, what was supposed to be a pork filled japanese event turned out to be not so porky. We chose the izakaya with NO pork /:). JL is a big fan of babi, so oh well... next time lah. He will be so porkified in Germany, i guess he might not want too much there!
This is my second visit to a malaysian izakaya. The 1st one i had was in Japan, in Nagoya, where i had... Horse meat. Let me rephrased that, someone had horse meat. I just watched others eat it. [ Sorry, but if you were a big fan of black beauty like me, i can't bear eating Beauty ]. Heck, there is a lot of stuff i don't eat anyway. Like Hotate wings. Brrr....
The atmosphere in Japan is a whole lot different as izakayas are supposed to serve drinks and food is just an accompanyment to the drinking. Plus, there is a lot less drinking/drunk salary man in malaysia. (It's too tame)....
Ichiban Izakay is situated in Plaza Damas area. Next to Starbucks ( i think ) and is a small quaint place for drinks + bar food. And the size of food did not come nearly as bar size as expected. I can't imagine a japanese izakaya serving Mentaikoi pasta ( <3 ) but if you want really good Mentaiko pasta - come here, come here.
Now, not suprisingly so, the guest of honor was the earliest ... we strolled in a bit later due to logisitics arrangements, but he already started to help himself with Asashi beer. Lucky for us, we got a room and we were able to talk loudly, eat boisterously and drink merrily here.
The menu in Ichiban is quite extensive, stays true to some parts of the izakaya concept which is serving yakitori stuff. If you don't like beef, you might find it tough here, lots of beefy stuff, with some chicken thrown in but here the beef is good.
And this the first time everyone tried.... Beef tongue. Yes, tongue. No tongue in cheek for you .... but slice tongue, grilled with teriyaki sauce. Since there were six of us, there were 2 plates ordered for us to try. The looks on our face, you could tell we were pensive. I mean, it should not be gross but some how, i sensed the hesitation in everyone... Not sure what got into me that night, but i was the first to pick up a stick and try ( No, it was not the beer ).
My verdict: Taste like Shoe. Enough said. It has a rather tough texture, chewy and what i was not too fond of was the taste and smell of leather shoes. ... Is it just me? No one else tasted the shoe. I remember my mom saying -> " Why do you want to eat a part of an animal that licks the grass"..... Funny. I can't understand why she wants to eat Ngau Lam as well as it is part of the animal that digests the grass. -___________-. Would i eat it again... nah, probably not but i don't fear it now. If it tastes less like a shoe. The enoki was fine though. In case anyone was wondering.
Shoe aside, we did order some normal food as well, like roles, er fish skin .... some dish which i-have--no-idea-what-it-is-called-because-it-is-too-old-for-me-to-remember. However, i find this dish much better than the one at Hanazen, which serves it without any embelishments. I prefer Ichiban's version as it has more flavor and masks the fish smell with having other items inside.
The crunchy and the sauce + the fish roe eggs go well together. Good snacking dish, this one.
I can't remember who ordered this but this is baby octopus. I wondered, why this is always red. I didn't really eat this but it was in front of me to take photos :) Luckily it was only 1 plate but by end of the night, this was finished up. I remember one of my ex staff who does not take kindly to this dish as he felt it was way to cute to be eaten and too pitiful to eat. He thought anything baby should not be eaten. Guess he won't be trying the pregnant fish dish anytime now ... *grin*
I love it when the japanese pair different type of food textures together. And you get this extremely good taste from such food combinations. I guess that it is what umami is. This is actually chopped scallops, with enoki mushrooms, topped with mayonaise and fish roe. All grilled to perfection. The combination of flavors is to hard to describe but this would be a must try, if you are around this area.
Well, the standard order of rolls are required by us - since we need carbs. This is the soft shell crab roll. It's so so. Nothing special.
It's the next roll we thought was pretty awesome. It's called a Hawaiian roll. Looks ordinary ... but then i am not sure what they put in it which you get this slightly fizzy taste with sweet, salty and sour all going in time. The result is an explosion of flavors in your mouth. Kinda like sour pop sushi! But not so sour. I think it is the green stuff on top that gives us the flavor.
Piece de resistance of the day - Mentaiko pasta. Spicy Polluck eggs pasta and i think it is quite easy to make. Found some recipies on the net for this now i need to get my hands on Mentaiko only. Some places mix up the eggs for you already, hence it will be come lightish orange(see the small balls attached to the pasta?) and blended with the sauce already but in the case of Ichiban, they mixed it up and give you an extra dollop which is raw - Toss it about and you get a fabulous pasta dish.
One of my favorite 'people-based-in-japan' bloggers - Blue Lotus - gives a simple version of the recipe above - to read more - click the link here.
One more beef dish we ordered, with asparagus. Not bad, did not taste like tongue :)
I am not sure if the next dish is chicken or fish - due to the fact i cannot remember it after so long! Again, typcially, for beer food, it comes in small plates like this where you can pick off it. I was a bit amused to see chilli here. Probably cooked with Malaysian fusion in mind.
Lastly, we wanted some desserts, ordered this mochi in red bean dish. The mochi is actually grilled before being served in the soup of red bean. Er.. so so only lah the taste. Not so great... maybe because i was stuff to the brim.
This is my second visit to a malaysian izakaya. The 1st one i had was in Japan, in Nagoya, where i had... Horse meat. Let me rephrased that, someone had horse meat. I just watched others eat it. [ Sorry, but if you were a big fan of black beauty like me, i can't bear eating Beauty ]. Heck, there is a lot of stuff i don't eat anyway. Like Hotate wings. Brrr....
The atmosphere in Japan is a whole lot different as izakayas are supposed to serve drinks and food is just an accompanyment to the drinking. Plus, there is a lot less drinking/drunk salary man in malaysia. (It's too tame)....
Ichiban Izakay is situated in Plaza Damas area. Next to Starbucks ( i think ) and is a small quaint place for drinks + bar food. And the size of food did not come nearly as bar size as expected. I can't imagine a japanese izakaya serving Mentaikoi pasta ( <3 ) but if you want really good Mentaiko pasta - come here, come here.
Now, not suprisingly so, the guest of honor was the earliest ... we strolled in a bit later due to logisitics arrangements, but he already started to help himself with Asashi beer. Lucky for us, we got a room and we were able to talk loudly, eat boisterously and drink merrily here.
The menu in Ichiban is quite extensive, stays true to some parts of the izakaya concept which is serving yakitori stuff. If you don't like beef, you might find it tough here, lots of beefy stuff, with some chicken thrown in but here the beef is good.
And this the first time everyone tried.... Beef tongue. Yes, tongue. No tongue in cheek for you .... but slice tongue, grilled with teriyaki sauce. Since there were six of us, there were 2 plates ordered for us to try. The looks on our face, you could tell we were pensive. I mean, it should not be gross but some how, i sensed the hesitation in everyone... Not sure what got into me that night, but i was the first to pick up a stick and try ( No, it was not the beer ).
My verdict: Taste like Shoe. Enough said. It has a rather tough texture, chewy and what i was not too fond of was the taste and smell of leather shoes. ... Is it just me? No one else tasted the shoe. I remember my mom saying -> " Why do you want to eat a part of an animal that licks the grass"..... Funny. I can't understand why she wants to eat Ngau Lam as well as it is part of the animal that digests the grass. -___________-. Would i eat it again... nah, probably not but i don't fear it now. If it tastes less like a shoe. The enoki was fine though. In case anyone was wondering.
Shoe aside, we did order some normal food as well, like roles, er fish skin .... some dish which i-have--no-idea-what-it-is-called-because-it-is-too-old-for-me-to-remember. However, i find this dish much better than the one at Hanazen, which serves it without any embelishments. I prefer Ichiban's version as it has more flavor and masks the fish smell with having other items inside.
The crunchy and the sauce + the fish roe eggs go well together. Good snacking dish, this one.
I can't remember who ordered this but this is baby octopus. I wondered, why this is always red. I didn't really eat this but it was in front of me to take photos :) Luckily it was only 1 plate but by end of the night, this was finished up. I remember one of my ex staff who does not take kindly to this dish as he felt it was way to cute to be eaten and too pitiful to eat. He thought anything baby should not be eaten. Guess he won't be trying the pregnant fish dish anytime now ... *grin*
I love it when the japanese pair different type of food textures together. And you get this extremely good taste from such food combinations. I guess that it is what umami is. This is actually chopped scallops, with enoki mushrooms, topped with mayonaise and fish roe. All grilled to perfection. The combination of flavors is to hard to describe but this would be a must try, if you are around this area.
Well, the standard order of rolls are required by us - since we need carbs. This is the soft shell crab roll. It's so so. Nothing special.
It's the next roll we thought was pretty awesome. It's called a Hawaiian roll. Looks ordinary ... but then i am not sure what they put in it which you get this slightly fizzy taste with sweet, salty and sour all going in time. The result is an explosion of flavors in your mouth. Kinda like sour pop sushi! But not so sour. I think it is the green stuff on top that gives us the flavor.
Piece de resistance of the day - Mentaiko pasta. Spicy Polluck eggs pasta and i think it is quite easy to make. Found some recipies on the net for this now i need to get my hands on Mentaiko only. Some places mix up the eggs for you already, hence it will be come lightish orange(see the small balls attached to the pasta?) and blended with the sauce already but in the case of Ichiban, they mixed it up and give you an extra dollop which is raw - Toss it about and you get a fabulous pasta dish.
One of my favorite 'people-based-in-japan' bloggers - Blue Lotus - gives a simple version of the recipe above - to read more - click the link here.
One more beef dish we ordered, with asparagus. Not bad, did not taste like tongue :)
I am not sure if the next dish is chicken or fish - due to the fact i cannot remember it after so long! Again, typcially, for beer food, it comes in small plates like this where you can pick off it. I was a bit amused to see chilli here. Probably cooked with Malaysian fusion in mind.
Lastly, we wanted some desserts, ordered this mochi in red bean dish. The mochi is actually grilled before being served in the soup of red bean. Er.. so so only lah the taste. Not so great... maybe because i was stuff to the brim.I wouldnt mind coming here again, come to think of it, for cousin gathering next round we could try this place as i want a plate of mentaiko on my own!! :) Yeah for fish eggs!!
The locale: (Their webby which requires some work as well - WWW)
Izakaya Ichiban
Lot P, 3-M Plaza Ground Floor
Hartamas Shopping Centre
60 Jalan Sri Hartamas 1
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 6201 5905
Lot P, 3-M Plaza Ground Floor
Hartamas Shopping Centre
60 Jalan Sri Hartamas 1
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03 6201 5905
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Lunch @ Pompeii, then it's Sorrento
AND THIS IS A SERIOUSLY DELAYED POST! Sorry, been caught up with other stuff.... :)
This bird is some what of a celebrity in Pompeii, after we came out, i saw him sitting up there in his little nest ... and started snapping, everyone else decided to snap him as well. Actually, he's quite a fat sparrow compared to the skinny Malaysian sparrows and check out the swelled chest. Cute isn't he? He is totally oblivious to the attention that is given to him. Couldn't give a peep.
After that long and rather exhausting walk in Pompeii, peppered by intermitten sniffs of coffee while walking around Pompeii ( in the middle of Pompeii.. there are cafes... talk about ... strategy ) we were taken to a restaurant near Pompeii's site for lunch. Its a hotel / restaurant at one go and it is packed with people by 1:30pm. ( We were so late for lunch, i swore there were lions in my tummy - Go Simba!).
Just to show you how chaotic the place looked - see below... people were just coming and going. They are tourists, locals all busy with lunching at this place. However despite the chaos, the waiters were attentive and friendly.
I guess you need a reservation here... One of the reasons why the tour takes us here is because ( besides being a packaged deal ) this place serves up quite yummy marinara pasta! Real traditional style marinara pasta. And no skimping on the seafood here.
All meals start with bread - we got a basket load as usual and each time, my aunts will ask... "where's the butter" ... apparently in Italy bread is either served plain to go with soup or with balsamic vinegar ( like those in Italiannies) but i rarely encountered the latter. Anyway, i suspect the bread has been left out a while, it was a bit hard. Good for soup dipping though.
Pasta was served next not in your own plates, but a big plate of noodles is brought to your table, and you are served by the waiter scooping the amount you want. Big relief for me, can't seem to finish too much noodles so you can ask for as much as you like. See... all the mussels smiling at me ... pity, i only ate all the prawns and squids. Dad got all my mussels but he said it was pretty awesome. And it was. The marinara sauce is made from fresh tomato, unlike the can or bottle variety with lots of herbs. Such a big relief they did not serve me pizza again! By the way, the restaurants lights make it a good place to take pictures, giving them this lovely sheen. No flash used here. ( Could be it is 5000k-6000k in color temperature ).
After that long and rather exhausting walk in Pompeii, peppered by intermitten sniffs of coffee while walking around Pompeii ( in the middle of Pompeii.. there are cafes... talk about ... strategy ) we were taken to a restaurant near Pompeii's site for lunch. Its a hotel / restaurant at one go and it is packed with people by 1:30pm. ( We were so late for lunch, i swore there were lions in my tummy - Go Simba!).
Just to show you how chaotic the place looked - see below... people were just coming and going. They are tourists, locals all busy with lunching at this place. However despite the chaos, the waiters were attentive and friendly.
I guess you need a reservation here... One of the reasons why the tour takes us here is because ( besides being a packaged deal ) this place serves up quite yummy marinara pasta! Real traditional style marinara pasta. And no skimping on the seafood here.
All meals start with bread - we got a basket load as usual and each time, my aunts will ask... "where's the butter" ... apparently in Italy bread is either served plain to go with soup or with balsamic vinegar ( like those in Italiannies) but i rarely encountered the latter. Anyway, i suspect the bread has been left out a while, it was a bit hard. Good for soup dipping though.
Pasta was served next not in your own plates, but a big plate of noodles is brought to your table, and you are served by the waiter scooping the amount you want. Big relief for me, can't seem to finish too much noodles so you can ask for as much as you like. See... all the mussels smiling at me ... pity, i only ate all the prawns and squids. Dad got all my mussels but he said it was pretty awesome. And it was. The marinara sauce is made from fresh tomato, unlike the can or bottle variety with lots of herbs. Such a big relief they did not serve me pizza again! By the way, the restaurants lights make it a good place to take pictures, giving them this lovely sheen. No flash used here. ( Could be it is 5000k-6000k in color temperature ).
Actually i had two helpings of this.. So there. I am greedy pig when it comes to carbs.
Just when i thought, hey dessert's gonna come over, no... the main meal and salad was brought out. I am pretty confused as to how much stuff they are going to serve us. Feel like fatten cows. :) The mains was actually fried.. seafood. Yeah, marinara and then more seafood? Well at least they had prawns here and fish! Not surprising because Napoli is facing the sea and would have an abundance of fresh seafood. I like the prawns and fish though. However with that amount of fried food stuff, my dad and mom had sore throat the next day!
I am finally happy because dessert made its' entrance. It's gelato all the way man. I practically had Gelato like every day even though it is 2 euro sometimes. Heck. Ice Cream is nicer there lah! This one is Hazelnut flavored Gelato. Not to bad but i preffered something more fruity.
Now, that was lunch and after all the grubbing, we took a bus ride to Sorrento. Somewhere near Napoli, about 40 minutes drive actually or .. was it an hour. It's one of the most scenic drives there with high bridges ( sorry no photo moving bus no place to stop ) and when finally he did stop ... ok. My fear of heights sorta took over. Sorrento has high cliffs, and plunging ravines, so deep, that.. for me ... my legs shiver like timber when i looked down the cliff. I guess height photography will not be in the works for a long long time.
It's a beautiful place to live in, imagine waking up every morning to such scenery. And if your house is on the cliff, even more fantastic. Though my mom says she will have permanent vertigo if she stayed here.
We reached Sorrento town close to 4PM ish and it started to get dark :(.... Things got dark in Italy pretty early in October, hence sight seeing was a bit of a rush job. Sorrento is not really big anyway, a bit crowded but popular with celebrities and rich people because of the sea view and cliff houses. Also has a lot of small gelato shops, cake shops, restaurants along the main street which you can walk and enjoy the sights. I saw a lot of shoe shops as well -___________- but no time to try....
By the way, Italy seems like a super small road place. What i mean is, the roads are not very wide, quite curvy and also always near a cliff ( which freaks me out a bit ), even the streets of Sorrento can never accommodate more than 2 rows, let alone their passage ways are also quite narrow as well. Well, we basically spent less than 2 hours in Sorrento ... so.. that's it :)
Anyway, tomorrow - we headed towards Naples in the main city.... more next.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
OooH Toys!!!!!!!!!!
Before i left my company, some of my colleagues had a farewell for me. Ah ... so nice of them. Also got tortured into speech making which i absolutely don't like :P.... To be honest, i did not expect it, am touched they did give me a farewell and was pleased i did not CRY. Acheivement of the day. I will not go into the details of the farewell dinner, it can be read here... from one of my ex-staff and good friend.
However, today i am showcasing my other hobby which is ... Still life photography or product photograpy of ... Anime toys. Luckily they get me a PG rated toy so i can showcase it. :) You know how those anime toys are. I love to collect those which anime i have watched such as Harumi Suzumiya, Full Metal Alchemist and Inuyasha but the list is endless.
I have recently been following the site by Happy Soda on lighting for Product Photography and am trying to make my kiamsap lighting studio with less than RM50. And so i did. I got my old desk lamp ( which is free ), a stand lamp from ikea for 16 but bulb is around 29. Shoe box is free and tracing paper (RM0.50) to make a diffuser. Hehehe.. Of course my twilight books became my "tripod" as i was doing this on the floor.
Results are below. Need to change the bulb a bit but otherwise kiamsap lighting studio is acheivable! It is a bit yellow as it was probably due to the WB but otherwise tweakable. Have the new daylight bulb already, today i will take picture of Neji :)
Damn, next time when i start travelling while working, still life photography can only be done once in a while! Oh well, back to the other type of photography then.... I have a few of these in my cupboard, gotta start taking more man....
However, today i am showcasing my other hobby which is ... Still life photography or product photograpy of ... Anime toys. Luckily they get me a PG rated toy so i can showcase it. :) You know how those anime toys are. I love to collect those which anime i have watched such as Harumi Suzumiya, Full Metal Alchemist and Inuyasha but the list is endless.
I have recently been following the site by Happy Soda on lighting for Product Photography and am trying to make my kiamsap lighting studio with less than RM50. And so i did. I got my old desk lamp ( which is free ), a stand lamp from ikea for 16 but bulb is around 29. Shoe box is free and tracing paper (RM0.50) to make a diffuser. Hehehe.. Of course my twilight books became my "tripod" as i was doing this on the floor.
Results are below. Need to change the bulb a bit but otherwise kiamsap lighting studio is acheivable! It is a bit yellow as it was probably due to the WB but otherwise tweakable. Have the new daylight bulb already, today i will take picture of Neji :)
Damn, next time when i start travelling while working, still life photography can only be done once in a while! Oh well, back to the other type of photography then.... I have a few of these in my cupboard, gotta start taking more man....
Monday, 14 December 2009
My poor PC MC ed
Sorry for the extremely long silences... but my PC mc-ed... That's right. Too much games on FB. No actually the graphics card decided to "overheat" and hence will randomly hang the screen. Had to fight nail and tooth to debate the issue of the Graphics card however, my case was not heard. I am NEVER buying anything with NVIDIA GeForce. Again.
Need to clear up some old post and pics first. :) Toodles.
Need to clear up some old post and pics first. :) Toodles.
