I couldn’t find a better title  

Met up with my ex-colleagues after sucha long time. There is only one still with the company and it was time to update us on the latest office goss! 

The married one at that time was going on her honeymoon to Italy and Switzerland. The almost married was telling us about her life as somebody’s fiance. The paint-woman showed us pics of her trip to Norway. The entrepeneur… well, she’s still as enterprising!

Here we are having dinner at Madam Kwan’s, Midvalley. 

 

 

My food represents me; I’m a big headed prawn. Ha! Ok. Stupik joke.

Triple H got this for us from Norway. Inside are 12 mini caramel filled wafers from Gouda’s Gilde. They are slightly crunchy but not too heavy on the caramel so it wasn’t too sweet. Tasted like light maple syrup. Just what we needed when we had our brew at Coffee Bean.

 

See you soon girls

Breakfast at… 

Granny Smith apples as a counter top piece

Empty at 7am…

 

Simplistic at its best; a jolt of pink on every setting.

You get to choose four items from each category: hot bevs, smoothie, cold and hot meals. For a start, I had the mulberry leaf tea and Mango Energizer - blended with mango, banana, tofu, soy milk and honey. Rich and substantial, it is like a mini-meal by itself. I absolutely enjoyed this and it is the best mango smoothie I’ve tried so far and I dare to say that would beat Jamba Juice anytime.

 

By then you are already half-filled with mango but you have to enjoy the nutty, seeded bircher muesli topped with tropical fruits of sliced bananas and diced mango and papayas. Finishing it off with sunflower seeds, you would think it had to be a breakfast only the old folks with enjoy. I, however, beg to differ. It was very good.

Finally (thank god), for the hot meal, I opt for open face egg white omelette with fresh mushrooms and spinach complete with roasted tomato wedges. Unlike the heavy, oily and squelchy feel of egg yolks, the egg white omelette was light and a perfect start to your morning.

Here’s a close up.

Yes. THAT… was breakfast. You hardly have room for lunch after that. Actaully, this is my second morning at Glow. The first morning, I forgot to bring my camera down and document my food intake but I had the following:

1. Illy cappucino
2. Green Clean – Fennel, cucumber, spinach, celery, apple, spirulina, sunflower seeds and macadamia (sounds horrid but it was surprisingly plesant. Strong nutty taste)
3. House toasted muesli with tropical fruits
4. Scrambled egg whites with ratatouille (not the rat!) and grilled mushrooms

All ingredients in Glow are organic or naturally grown.

OK.. that’s all the food talk I have on Bangkok for you. Right after breakfast, I packed and was outta hotel. Here are some last min pics I took of the hotel before my cab arrived:

The lobby

The entrance

Ta-da.. finito

Loy Krathong is a festival celebrated annually throughout Thailand. It is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai Lunar calendar, in the western calendar this usually falls into November

“Loi” means “to float”. “Krathong” is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk, decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river.

Since most of us weren’t staying in Bangkok till Saturday - the day the festival falls on, our Thai colleagues invited us for a pre-loi krathong session at the hotel. Before we released the mini ‘raft’ into the hotel’s man-made water feature pond (no choice, there wasn’t a river in the city), all of us made a wish.

Bad photos taken with my phone. That’s my little floating raft. Hopefully it was cruising to the right channel to get my wish across.

 

Love without intervention. Why has it become so hard? :\

to be continued…

My second trip to Bangkok in the year; business this time. Arrived pretty late after having to go through the Bangkok jam. Hardly 30 mins in the room, I was rushing off to the business centre to get some charts printed out. As soon as I was back, AHA! Picture and discovery time.

I spent two nights at the Metropolitan Hotel on South Sathorn Road. A Como hotel property, the Metropolitan is catered to business and vacation travellers and not your usual (like yours truly) shoestring budget dwellers. If you’ve heard of Como Shambhala group, you have the idea on their concept and decor. I got this off their website that Shambhala in Sanskrit is ‘for a sacred place of bliss.’ And I was in that state… Welcome to Metropolitan. Population: Big Moolah People.

It is always nice to be greeted with a basket of fresh, colourful fleur and fruits.

 

It is even better when you’ve got a bed that is so irrisistably inviting…

Just across the bed, a small sitting area…

… where I got to enjoy my phad thai ala room service! TV dinner baby!

Condiments to suit your taste: fish sauce, red sliced chili in vinegar, sugar and crushed peanuts.

 

I wanna be evil, here’s a close up of one of Thailand’s famous local noodle dishes – sweet, sour, spicy all in one. My favourite!

It was back to the grind right after… At RM 24/hour for broadband, I wanted to make sure that my time online was worthwhile..

And I love hotel bathrooms. It is always a plus point when they have what I want – bathrobes!

  

 

Ahhh… and soon, it was time to snooze on my egyptian cotton sheets and down pillows. I like!

to be continued… Organic breakfast at Glow and loy krathong

An order for baby shower. Nothing baby about it except that my artwork is pretty infant. Here are my vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing. I was trying the icing for the first time and I hate to brag but it was very good. Too bad, there are some people who commented that it was too ‘buttery’. What do you expect from buttercream anyway?

Yums.

For orders, RM 3 per cupcake with a minimum order of twelve. Made to order.

Haha, makes me smile whenever I look at this pic. Kids and their facial expressions. Mei-Mei looks annoyed with her bro stealing the limelight. Cute-nyaaaa..

Triple H wanted to suggest that we try Fong Lye in The Gardens for our quarterly meet-up but we couldn’t because of Cik Lily. So the next week, I dragged my mom to treat ourselves to Taiwanese cuisine because… we deserved it!  

 It was early noon and yet the place was buzzling with hungry Chinese.

 

L-R France Milk Tea and Oolong Milk Tea. The French one tasted better (don’t ask me about the name). The Oolong tea was abit blend so I traded it with my mom. Haha.

 

We ordered smoked-tea duck with rice noodles. It was delish. Clear broth topped with fried onions, spring onions, chives and bean sprouts.

 

The roasted duck simmered in clear soup was tender and was missing the pungent duck scent which is a good thing! MMM, don’t you feel like taking a bite now?

Their rice noodles, which is supposed to be our Malaysian bee hoon had a different texture to it. It is something like the glass noodles/tang hoon that we have over here but this one was much softer and less plastic-y.

Beef dumpling in a dark beef broth with chili oil. The skin of the dumpling was too thick and they weren’t too generous with the stuffings. But it was an overall good try. Wouldn’t order this again though.

My favourite! It is one of those childhood food that momma used to make for us. Deep-fried sweet potato balls. This one was slightly different, they added glutinous rice to the mix so it had the spongey and bouncey feel to it. I prefer the plain, boring one where it’s just sweet potatoes and nothing else.

For RM 3.50, they sure were generous with this one.

 

So give this place a try. I went back there again about two weeks ago and I tried the beef brisket noodles which is a popular dish in Taiwan and it’s highly recommended. Remember to go for the French Milk Tea if you are thirsty for lai cha.

SO THERE! I finally blogged….

Yippee! I got my Schott wine glasses from IS the other day. They were going on sale for RM 79 a pair (original RM 119). I went with the Diva range which was meant for white vino. I’ve also added two labels of Sauv Blanc I had this week in My Wine List.

The clanging of the glasses and a toast for celebration. I swivelled the white at the stem and tilt the glass back to meet my lips. The vibrant intensity of crisp, lively liquid fills my pallete.

My glass is now empty. My life is full.

Aly’s birthday at Sky Bar. Ha ha, as usual we arrived fashionably late. 

  

Fantastic view of the Twin Towers from where we were.

Some pics that I have… still waiting for the slow coach to pass me some

 

 

A litle too late, the lights of the twin towers were shut off when we took this pic.

Happy Birthday grrlie! Karaoke Tuesdee!

Most of us would remember some of the very first dual concept restaurant//fashion outlets like Zang Toi’s West 57th Street. At that time, this low profile cafe was located at the lower ground of Sungai Wang Plaza. I remember its dim ambiance; the restaurant illuminated with candles sitting on layers of harden wax in brass trophies. Yeps, Zang Toi’s dad’s bowling trophies did come in handy.

Now, a second cafe is up and running in the newly opened Pavillion on Bukit Bintang. Situated in Parkson, this tiny diner takes a spot in the ladies’ fashion section. No trophy-candle stands though.

Fall 2007 menu; fashionably appetizing

Zang Toi’s signature blue and white concept 

 

 

An overdose of branding never cease to exist.

The half Hainanese blood in me was calling out for Hainanese Chicken Rice Balls. Served with onion and garlic fragrant rice shaped into tennis balls and a generous serving of kampung chicken (not the privileged condo dwelling hens), the typical Hainanese love their rice drizzled with thick black sauce. You also get a bowl of tasty (not the MSG type of ‘tasty’)clear chicken broth. All this for only RM 13.

 

Daddy ordered the nasi lemak with beef rendang. I’ve had better nasi lemaks so this would not be one of those ‘repeated’ orders in future. Price RM 15.

If you are looking for something non-local, try the smoked salmon sandwich on sesame bun. It’s deeeeelicious! Served with a layer of melted cheese and tomato, the burst of flavour and texture keeps you in anticipation for the next bite. 

 

Lastly, the signature dessert: moist melt-in-your mouth chocolate cake layered with choco fudge and bananas with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to finish it off. If this was death by chocolate, it’ll be a sweet one. Mmm mmm mmm…

The price? Only RM 7.

A clean sweep! We had no leftovers, baby!