13th June 2010

Just before I start I would like to appologize to everyone that I have lied to on the weeks leading up to the 12th of June 2010 weekend and also on the 12th and 13th of June 2010. I lied alot on those days to keep the secret of what will happen on the 13th of June 2010 a surprise.

I had planned to propose to Amy on the 13th of June 2010 about a month before the date. I went to get the ring from Habib at the Curve on the 14th of April 2010 and just before going into the shop, I actually met Amy's mum and brother. Lucky they didn't see me going into Habib itself. After getting the ring, I also planned to book Traders or Concorde Hotel. I planned to either go to Skybar or LunaBar since Amy has been asking me about it.

I finally settled on Skybar as because Mei Mon told me that LunaBar is cheaper and they served beer in plastic cups. All my plans were thrown into dis-array when Amy told me on Tuesday 8th of June 2010 that she would be heading to Singapore for work. Once it was confirmed I cancelled all my hotel bookings and suddenly the following day she said she would be coming back on Friday itself.

Unfortunately for me, when I tried to book the hotel room again it went from 435 to 500 bucks a night. Lucky while looking around on the net, I managed to find a webpage that was offering the same room for 380 bucks a night without breakfast and 20 dollars F&B voucher.

On the 12th of June 2010 itself, we went for a massage at Urban Retreat the Curve. It was quite good as I took the Yoga Thai Massage. The lady cracked my back and also my shoulders in places that I didn't know it was possible to crack. After Massage we went for lunch at Kluang Station and then comes my first lie. 

I told Amy that I had a Korean counterpart over in KL and I was going down to KL to meet up with him for drinks. I told Amy I would be back to pick her up for dinner and she should wear something nice as I got something planned for the night. 

In actually fact I went down to KL to pick up some flowers....

I hardly give Amy any flowers and I think I should start on this momentous day. After picking up the flowers from Raytan, I went to Traders hotel to check ourselves in. After that I was thinking that after all the drinking in SkyBar we might get hungry so I decided to head to KLCC to get some supper time and maybe a bottle of dessert wine. After walking around KLCC I settelled on 2 cup cakes from....

I didn't get the wine and decided to head back to Subang to get the wine because there weren't any good selections in KLCC. On the way back, I got the dessert wine and went home to shower and pack. I realised that we didn't even have a camera with us other then my SLR. I ended up bring my super old Canon PowerShot A80 with only 4MP sensor.

I picked Amy up for dinner and we went to our first stop of the night which was Palate Palette for dinner at Jln Mesui. I was  recommended to go try this restaurant and lucky for me I told Amy about this place around 3 weeks prior. Initially I wanted to fully surprised Amy with dinner but lucky I didn't because Saw Wen also invited us for Tapas Night on the 12th of June 2010 and I had to make a whole load of excuse for not going for it. I knew Amy also wanted to go and meet up with the Mangkuk-itis gang because it has been a while.

So at Palate Palette we decided to order the Mushroom Cappucino and Prawn and Avacado Salad for appetizers, Moo Stew and Minimalist Burger for mains and Asam Boi and Lemonade Slurpee for drinks.

The drinks were quite appetizing because they were very sour. It increased our appetite for the appertizer (pun not intended). The Mushroom Cappucino was interesting as it is basically mushroom soup with some foam on top. The prawn and avacado salad was pretty okay as well. Individually the parts weren't that nice but put together it was fantastic. The minimalist burger really shocked me, I didn't really read the description and hence I was expecting a full on burger with buns and chips. In the end it tasted pretty good as the beef was nice and juicy and the combination of sauces was good. However I think the price doesn't justify the dish especially when compared to the Moo Stew. The Moo Stew was really good. It has big, chunky pieces of beef and the sauce was fantastic. I think they even make their own pasta. The first bite was interesting and as we continue to eat it just got better.

We were super full after dinner and we decided to walk around the Changkat Bukit Bintang area and finally head to Bar Italia for some coffee and dessert. We wanted to head to the top floor which has an open air bar and some nice chic seats. Unfortunately it was fully booked up and we settled into the second floor on some nice and comfy couches. Amy ordered her favourite Affrogato, I order a coffee cappucino and we ordered a Tiramisu to share.

The cappucino was just nice and I would say one of the better ones that I have had in Malaysia, the Affrogato was okay but not as good as Dome. The shot of espresso was great but the ice cream was a little too sweet for our taste. The Tiramisu was crap. It is one of the worst Tiramisu I have had in a while.

After dessert we went for the main attraction of the night which was to head to Skybar. We had 2 rounds of drinks each and also a plate of fried calamari since we had an early dinner. Before the first round of drinks I had to go down to my car and pick up the bottle of mine and brought it back up to the room to put into the fridge.

At around 11.30, Amy decided we should head home and I told her that Citibank has 50% of Traders and we should do something really impulsive and check into the hotel. I got her to go to my car to get our bag of clothes which I have packed and I went to "check in".

We went upstairs and I pretended to be surprised at seeing the room for the first time. We cleaned ourselves up, tucked ourselves into to bed while sipping some ice wine. We went to sleep after that without anything else happening.

The next morning we woke up and freshened up. As Amy was freshening up, I went to get the ring out of the room safe and placed it under by bed. When she was good and ready I asked her to close her eye sas I got a final surprise of the day. I took the flowers out and gave it to her and wished her Happy Anniversary. She was happy and was admiring the flowers. We decided to have the bijoux muffin with some coffee for breakfast.

After breakfast while tucked back into bed, I mentioned that her ring was getting old and needs replacing. I took the ring box out and said you should replace it with this. She was speechless and I would say surprised. I said before you say anything, I got off the bed, I knelt on 1 knee and said.

On the 13th of June 2010

On our 3 years and 10 month anniversary

On the 13th floor 

and with a size 13 ring

Will you Marry Me?

She stared to cry and hugged me and said YES. With that simple 1 syllable, the universe at that point was alligned and both our lives have become 1.

Little Lotus

While I was Penang recently to help my bro shift house, there was a nice little Lotus pond about 100 meters away. We were so busy doing the shifting that I didn't have any time at all to take any pictures of the lotus. What was worst is that one day we saw quite alot of the lotus flowers and some were just blooming. The next day they were all gone. We suspected that some of the neightbours might have gone to chop it off to be placed in their house or something.

However lucky for me on the last day just before leaving for KL, I managed to sneak in some time to take some pictures of the lotus.

The lotus flower or Nelumbo Nucifera has a couple of stages in its life time. The picture above is when the bud of the lotus flower had formed but hasn't open up yet.

I was lucky enough to capture this which is one of the lotus flower that was about to open up to reveal its true beauty. The picture below is also the lotus flower about to open but from a different view. You can see the distinct yellow color of the seed pod.

 

Some of the flowers are pretty huge in size and some of them are quite small like the next couple of photos.

I could be mistaken and I have sinking feeling that the 2 above photos are not actually lotus flowers althought they were in the same pond. They are much smaller then the other lotus flowers and potentially they are water lily instead of lotus. Any botanist reading by blog?

Once it fully opens up and the pretty pink leaves drop off, the seed pods turns from yellow to green.

Kinda of scary when I looked at the pictures of the seed pod. It kinda looks like alot of eyes are looking at you all at the same time. It also kinda looks like the spout of a watering can depending on your preference. 

The amazing thing about the lotus plant is that it has many uses and most of the plant can be used for something. The flowers can be used for decorations, the patels are often used as granish for indian and chinese dishes. The seeds in the seed pod are edible and more often then not they are dried and used in flower arrangements.

The roots are also edible and usually either stir fried or used to boil soup. Finally the leaves are also used by chinese people to wrap gloutinous rice and in Korea it is also dried and made into tisane which is a type of herbal tea.

Talking about the leaves, some of the leaves are huge and water proof too. Check it out...

This is the beauty of photography. I saw the nice flower, I took pictures of the nice flower and for my blog I research about the nice flower. Yea Yea I am a nerd and watch too much discovery channel. What to do? Engineer mah. :)

Many faces

When you have a beautiful girlfriend, what do you do? Well of course take out your camera and take pictures of her lar. Then what? Since suddeny all my friends are going to leave me for Amy so here is another post for this lovery girl call Amy Koh Poh Suan. 

Introducing her many faces and smiles. First is the cheeky look

From the cheeky look she can go to the serious look in 2 seconds flat.

Then boleh berubah her muka setengah senyum

Second last is the "pai posey" pose

Last but not least is the full smile with the gigi. This is the one that melts people's heart.

Got a camera, got a beautiful girlfriends? Take picture of her lar. :)

Best Mojito I have ever tasted

Amy calls me a pussy for liking the Mojito. I think it is not a pussy drink because heck it was invented by the Cubans. They are no slouch. Okay I admit that it contains mint leaves which make it look green and hence pussy. However a well made mojito is a fantastic drink.

2 Years back while we were in Singapore, we stumbled upon a restaurant called Cuba Libre @ Clarke Quay.

We had no expectation what so ever, we just walked in because they said they were having a live band. I ordered the mojito and it was 1 for 1 and we didn't even know it. It was made by this Rastaman looking guy with dreadlock and he was pretty friendly as well. Now after so many years, everytime we go down to Singapore we will visit Cuba Libre for mojito and they still have 1 for 1 mojitos before 9pm.

It is one of the best mojitos I had drank before. They use actual cuban rum with alot of mint leaves and brown sugar. That is the real way to make a Mojito. Top it off with a stick of sugar cane, it is the best drink you can have.

Have to thank Castro for this drink. Haha.

Eat Fest

I always try not to make excuse for me being fat. The reason why I am fat is because I eat too much and exercise too little. We are Malaysians after all, most of us are pasionate about our food. Just look at the amount of foodblogs and wannabe foodblogs online.

This time however, I can attribute to me gaining weight to too much travelling. When I travel, I usually eat more because I want to sample everything and I do not get my daily exercise because I am just plain lazy. Back home I got my mum to motivate me to wake up everyday for exercise.

2 weeks back I was travelling for work and the amount of food and alcohol I consumed was no joke. I came back and rested for all but 4 days and off I go again. However this time is more for pleasure then business. Amy asked me to decide what to eat this trip around. I was too lazy and told her that this trip I am a mindless goon and she wears the pants for this weekend. She can decide where to go and where to eat.

It was a good and bad decision. Good because I didn't need to think about where to eat and go but then I ended up spending close to 2 whole days shopping or should I saw follow Amy shopping. Yea I didn't even get a single thing at all.

Anyway back to the eat fest, our first real meal was of course Yoshimaru Ramen in the previous entry. After that we went shopping for a couple of hours and then decided we need some coffee. We were in Bugis Junction and we found this nice little cafe called NYDC.

We weren't hungry or anything, we just wanted some coffee to wake us up and refresh us from all the shopping and the hustle and bustle of Singapore. So I ordered a Hazelnut Elephantcino and Amy ordered the Spiked Affragato.

The Elephantcino was nothing to shout about. It was a litlte too sweat for my liking and it tasted very "fake". I know normally for the hazelnut flavour they would use syrup but some good places, you actually cannot tell they are using syrup. However in the Elephantcino it is very evident they used some syrup to flavour the coffee. The spiked Affragato was better. The scoop of vanilla ice cream was different but not as good as Dome Affragato. They shot of espresso was so so only but the kicker was they also used some Baileys in the mix to give it the "spiked" feeling.

Our next stop was for dinner and since Amy has been raving about how Tony Roma's in Singapore is so much better then the Malaysia one. We decided heck we should try it out. The mad thing is that we were there around 5.50 and freaking hell there was already a line in front of the restaurant. We had to wait around 20 minutes just to get our seats.

Since I knew we were going to have a heck alot of meat and constipation will soon follow, I decided to order a ceaser salad for starters and Amy want to try the Spinach and Artichoke dip.

The ceaser salad was okay but the dressing was a little bit too sour for our taste. What I was disappointed about was the fact that it didn't have any fried bacon bits which is common for a ceasar salad. Coming from a Halal country, we do not get much ceaser salad with real pork bacon. So I was looking forward to it but it wasn't to be. The Spinach and Artichoke dip was quite disappointing as well. It was quite bland tasting and the nachos that came with it was extremely oily. We were using tissue paper to dab the oil. We also got some bread for starters with some garlic butter. Since we thought we over ordered, we had the bread sparingly.

We could not decided on which flavour ribs we wanted so we decided to order their "taster ribs" which consist of 4 different flavours of ribs.

The Original BBQ in my opinion had too much BBQ sauce on it. It overcomed all the flavours of the meat itself. I think it is kinda of a standard for Asian countries to over do the sauce. There was one which was spicy which was okay but maybe a little too spicy for my taste. There was a sour one which was good but the best was the sweet one. It was marinated just nice and the meat was so tender it just fell off the bone. It was the best one.

The next day for morning tea time, Amy again has been raving about this Takoyaki place in ION@Orchard. I quite like Takoyaki and so we decided to go and have some.

Now that is some good Takoyaki, it look a whole lot longer to cook but it was superb. Each piece of Takoyaki had a piece of octopus in it. The Takos were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The BBQ sauce in combination with Japanese mayonaise was also a perfect combination. We were one of the first customers there and as we were waiting there was only one guy behind us. We had to wait for it to cook and once it was cooked out of no where a line developed behind us. Crazy.

For lunch of course we had Ippudo Ramen in my previous entry and finally for dinner we went to Chinatown for some local food. We stopped by a China restaurant to have some chinese kebabs. Basically it is kinda like satay but chinese style. It was really good but our mandarin was really koyak. What was worst the person taking our order was from China and could only speak and read Mandarin. Decided not to bring my camera along at night so no pictures of the food. 

That concludes our crazy Eat Fest in Singapore.

Ramen Crazy

I didn't know that Singaporean people were Ramen Crazy. There are so many Ramen places in Singapore and everyone has their favourite ramen place. The last time I was in Singapore Amy brought me to Marutama at Central Clarke Quay and it was really good. This time around one of Amy's friends brought us to Yoshimaru at East Coast Park.

All of us ordered the same ramen which is basically inclusive of everything which includes Char Siu, Egg, seaweed and some fish row. The broth was actually pretty good and just as good as Marutama. The ramen itself was okay. All in all it was a good bowl of ramen but the place is really small and the service wasn't fantastic.

We were also fascinated with something on the table. Can you guess what it is?

It is actually like a pepper crusher type thing but for sesame seeds. Took us a while to figure it out. Laura also suggested we order a plate of chicken Karaage to share and she said it was the best.

It was pretty good, it kinda taste a little like the XXL chicken by Shilin but what sets it apart from the rest is the peppery powder that comes with it. We have to thank the newly wed couple (Laura and Ron) for picking us up, bringing us to Yoshimaru and also paying for lunch.

The very next day while we were walking around at the famous Orchard Road, we passed this super exclusive shopping comples called Mandarin @ Orchard. Amy told me that someone told her that there is a nice ramen place there. We were there just before 12 and know what, there is already a queue. So we decided since we were there we should give it a try.

I ordered the most simple of the ramen which is basically noodles, couple of piece of char sui and some japanese ginger. Amy order something similar but with garlic oil, sesame seed oil and fish row.

What was interesting was that at most ramen places, you can always ask for fried garlic. However this place didn't have any fried garlic but they had fresh garlic. The other interesting thing is that, Ippudo is the only place that actually asked us if we want our ramen soft, normal or hard. To be on the safe side both of us ordered normal.

I was quite excited about this bowl of ramen because it is the first bowl that used pork broth instead of chicken. Unfortunately the pork actually gave it quite a distinct (smelly) taste to the broth. I added some fresh garlic and it started to taste a whole load better. Unfortunately it was the most disappointing bowl of ramen we had in Singapore. I would rate Marutama as the best, followed very closely with Yoshimaru and finally Ippudo. However the noodles at Ippudo was the best of them all.

Our satisfied face after we all the Ramen Crazy