London Food Guide

Monmouth Coffee Company

Apparently the best coffee in Borough Market. There’s a long queue to get your coffee and seats are limited.

If you can’t wait, there are many other small coffee kiosks around the market.


One of them is Flat Cap Borough.

I find Monmouth okay but loads of people like it judging from their queue. I find their latte a bit milky. Perhaps I should have ordered a piccolo or a machiato.

They have an interesting long table concept with bread and other condiments freely available for patrons.

Monmouth Coffee Company
2 Park Street
London SE1 9AB

Shoryu Ramen
Long, long queue to get in. Tables are small and it’s quite difficult to sit a large crowd. Notwithstanding that, their ramen and hirata bun (char siu with bun) are awesome. Met Sow here for dinner.

Shoryu Ramen
9 Regent St,
London SW1Y 4LR,

Nearest tube station: Picaddily Circus

Burger and Lobster

Only 3 things in the menu, burger, lobster or roe! We ordered burger and roe. Roe, in a form of a sandwich, is exceptionally good. Burger was tender and juicy but I should have ordered the lobster 🙁

There’s also a long queue to get in. We were there at 530pm and there was no queue. But the waiter and waitresses gave us dirty looks for sitting there too long.

Burger and Lobster
36 Dean street,
Soho
London W1D 4PS

The Elgin

My favourite cafe so far in London. Strategically located – just few doors from my apartment. Friendly service and great coffee (they serve piccolo here!). There’s no queue nor it is crowded.

Food is great. Pancakes and mushrooms on toasts are highly recommended.

The Elgin
225 Elgin Avenue
London W9 N1J
Nearest tube station: Maida Vale

Kuching, Sarawak 2014

I’m glad that I embarked on a practice involving data protection. It brought me clients that would not normally appoint small firms and it brought me places like Singapore and Sabah to give talks. On 8 March 2014, I made a trip to Kuching to give a talk to the Sarawak lawyers, organised by the Advocates’ Association of Sarawak. 

I almost missed my flight to Kuching cause they closed the check in counter 45 minutes before departure. Fortunately,  I had no check in bags hence they allowed me in. Phew. Since I was the last person, I was given the last row at the plane. You can’t recline your seat if you’re in the last row! Fortunately, I was the only one there.


Colourful seats

It flight lasted about 1 hour 45 minutes.

Kuching is a beautiful and serene city. There were many rows of pretty pre-war shophouses.

The hospitality of the Sarawakian lawyers were great. Upon touchdown, Vice President of AAS, Leonard gave me a driven tour around Kuching city. We even passed by the old Court house and the unique looking State Assembly building.

After that we had dinner and drinks at Junk Restaurant. AAS treasurer Liew joined us after that. I had a few pints of stouts before ending the night at 11pm.

I am told that there were about 400 lawyers in Kuching (there are about 1200 over lawyers in Sarawak). Most of them are general practitioners unlike us in KL where we could specialize in certain areas. The oldest law firms are not really that old unlike the ones we have in Kuala Lumpur. The oldest I know is from the 1950s. I do not know whether there are still any old European law firms.

Membership in the AAS is not compulsory. The Sarawak Court manages the admission of lawyers and the Disciplinary Board supervises the lawyers. Leonard chairs the Kuching branch of AAS. I am told that they had to use their own resources to run the association because they don’t have their own secretariat.

AAS booked me a room at Pullman Hotel.


View of the foyer.

I got an upgrade to family room.  It was too big for me! They gave me a King size bed with a single bed.

Before entering my room, I heard the sound of a TV show. I knocked on the door and I thought I was at the wrong room. I re-checked the number and it was the correct room.

I slotted my room card onto the door and opened the room. I was all dark except for the TV. I inserted the room card and the lights were then turned on. TV was showing WWE wrestling. I slept with the lights on the whole night!


Picture taken immediately upon entering the room – can anyone see anything floating around?


View from the hotel room.

The seminar was attended by around 60 people. It was okay. I got another invitation from the Miri lawyers association to speak as well. I even met lawyers from Sibu and Limbang.

After the talk, we had lunch at Tandoori Palace. It is owned by the Secretary of the AAS, Mr. Sarbjit. Food was awesome but shouldn’t have a glass of beer before my meal. I felt quite dehydrated!

The trip back was uneventful. I parked my car at KLIA (costs me RM61 only). Brought back a Sarawak layer cake – it was tasty.

On the next day, the news of missing aircraft MH370 came about. How sad. I could have crossed paths with some passengers. In fact, I later found out that one of the passengers, Stanley, was my former client’s staff. I remember him being a pleasant man.