Month: October 2010

Melaka – 30.10.2010

The first thing that came into my mind when I arrived Melaka was DJ Anatta’s gig back in 2006. She had a gig at Pure Club hence a few of us accompanied her there.


There we encountered some helicopter boys.

Anyway, my trip this time was to accompany A, who had to go there for work. We ate and ate and ate throughout the trip.

We started off with chicken rice balls, roasted chicken, barbecued pork and hot and spicy cabbage at Famosa Chicken Rice Balls. I wanted small portions for each dish but the waiter gave us too much -___- Our plan to leave some space for other food was interrupted.

We didn’t go to Restoran Chung Wah for chicken rice balls because I like the dark sauce provided by Famosa.


Anyway, the queue at Chung Wah was crazy!

I wonder what is so good about this place. I came here once and I find it so-so.

We decided to take a break from food and visited the Cheng Ho Museum. Entry was RM10 per person.

The museum provides a guided tour both in English and Chinese. The tour lasted around and hour.

If you didn’t know who is Cheng Ho, Cheng Ho is a famous Chinese official who had traveled all around the world in the 1400s. Author of the book “1421 – The Year China discovered America“, Gavin Menzies, claimed that Cheng Ho found America before Christopher Columbus.

Notwithstanding that Cheng Ho was a eunuch, some of his descendants can be traced until today. Apparently, most of them live in Thailand and their pictures are shown in the museum.


Models of Cheng Ho’s 208 ships that sailed through the world

Our tour guide also gave us a brief explanation on how forced castration was done on eunuch in China. According to him, a boy’s penis together with his balls will be carved out and covered for 3 days. If he is able to pass water on the 3rd day, he will be able to survive. uuuhh..


Plenty of porcelain in this museum. Many of them donated or loaned by locals.

Overall, I think the artifacts and presentation of this place is rather mediocre. I don’t understand why Malaysia museums like to use mannequins. I don’t remember seeing any in the British Museum in London or Mets in NYC. Some local politician got contract to provide mannequins is it?

After our museum tour, we walked to Jonker 88 for our favourite cendol.

However, the queue was bloody long and we decided to forget Jonker 88. As we were about to enter the shop next to Jonker 88, our friend Frederick waved at us.

He was in front of the line and he offered to buy us cendol! Woohooo.


He even gave us a bowl of curry laksa cause he over ordered. -_____- I was soooooooooo fulll!

Before my trip to Melaka, my colleague recommended me to try the Mille Crepe in Nadeje Cafe. Apparently, it is better than Food Foundry hence I was determined to try it before I head back to KL.

Before setting to Nadeje Cafe…we bought a packet of fresh onde-onde 😀

To be continued..

Penang Curry Rice @ Restoran Ming Yang, Kuchai Lama

Ming Yang Restaurant is your typical Chinese coffeeshop with various stalls selling all sorts of dishes.

My parents like eating at this place but I hate eating at this place. Although they have many stalls, none of them serve tasty food.

Until Penang Curry Rice came along!

Penang Curry Rice is a small stall with various dishes to choose. It’s like economic rice but with a focus on curry.

My personal favourites would be their curry potatoes and petai. Their potatoes are cooked till soft whereas their curry is not spicy (to me).


Yummy petai!

Penang Curry Rice is only open at night and opens till late.

Parking may be a problem. There’s an open parking opposite Ming Yang. It is RM2 per entry.

Beef Noodles @ Restoran Yang Kee @ Taman OUG, Kuala Lumpur

This place was my regular hangout during my college and university days. Whenever the pork noodles place at Sun Sea Restaurant is closed, I’ll head to Yang Kee Restaurant for their awesome beef noodles.

My personal favourite would be their dried version of beef wan tan mee (egg noodles). Their noodles is topped with tasty minced beef whereas a mixture of beef brisket, soft thinly sliced raw slice beef, stomach and beef balls are placed in a bowl of clear broth.

However, they are not very generous with their meat. You may want to ask them to “kah liu”. Not to be calculative, they gave me a slice of beef brisket and 2 pieces of raw slice beef, stomach and beef balls. -_-

Other than beef noodles, they also have yong tau fu. Great side dish.

The place is packed during lunchtime on weekends. Hence, be prepared to wait for your table!

Address
52 Jalan Hujan Rahmat 2 (same row as Steven’s Corner)
Taman OUG
Jalan Klang Lama, Kuala Lumpur

Opening hours:
8.30am-7pm. Closed on Mondays.
For Sundays and public holidays: Open from 8.30am-4pm.

Map

Peng Jiu Fish Head Noodles @ Imbi Market, Kuala Lumpur (友九鱼头米)

After losing my Mayorship of Yut Kee on foursquare, I decided to find solace at Imbi Market. You may remember I blogged about this place many months ago. Ah Weng Koh Hainan Tea was recommended by me as a good breakfast place.

After eating at Ah Weng Koh for a few times, I discovered a stall selling tasty fish head noodles. It’s just a few steps away from Ah Weng Koh and apparently it was recommended by Lonely Planet! You can see a few articles pasted on the stall.

I did a Google search on it but I can’t seem to find any blogs featuring this place.

Anyway, their fish head noodles soup is quite thick and creamy with generous amount of meat. Overall quite tasty.


Picture taken with my camera phone. Pardon the quality.


It comes with a cute little basket to dispose bones or anything you dislike.

The only problem with eating at Imbi Market is that it is bloody hot. Made me sweat like a pig.


My shirt was all wet – as if I just joined a wet t-shirt contest.

Imbi Market is just a few metres away from Pasar Rakyat. Parking space is ample. You may park by the roadside or pay RM2 for private parking.

Map

View Larger Map

iPhone 4 Review

Remember that I got my hands on the iPhone 4 from the Maxis iPhone 4 Launch? I finally got to test out its features.

So what’s new with it? What’s the difference with iPhone 3? The following are my observations.

Appearance
iPhone 4 appears sleeker than iPhone 3. It is flatter but heavier. It can get quite slippery sometimes due to the glass-like surface. Cool factor is of course there.

Retina Display
Retina display on iPhone 4 makes the screen clearer and more detailed. It’s like high definition TV. You can zoom out from a screen and still see the words clearly.

iOS4
iOS4 is the newest version of iPhone operating system. Although iPhone 3GS supports iOS4, I heard iPhone 3GS with iOS4 causes problems e.g it lags. It’s like trying to install Windows Vista on a Pentium I (ok, I may be exaggerating). With iOS4, the speed is good and multitasking is useful.

FaceTime
iPhone 4 has an additional camera on the front. It allows for “FaceTime” where a caller can look at the front camera and see the other caller.

The front camera however is slightly lower quality. Check out the comparison between a picture taken using a front facing camera and the back camera.


Front camera

Nevertheless, the front camera do take nice video. Like this one prepared by Jamie Toh.

Connection
The so-called Antennagate didn’t cause any problem for me. I think its over hyped by the media.

Since I got an iPad 3G, I subscribed to Maxis Broadband which provides for 3G connection using a Microsim. I used it on my iPhone 4 to go online.

The Maxis 3G connection is quite fast. I played a video on YouTube and it didn’t lag one bit. Check out the video below.

On the other hand, if you wish to subscribe to Maxis’ iPhone 4 plan, which plan you would require depends on our budget. For me, iValue 1 is most suitable for me. 1gig of bandwidth and 16GB iPhone are good enough for me. I just need to skimp on my data by turning on Wifi when I download large files. For more details on the plan, check out http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/iphone4/rates.asp

My only complaint about the iPhone 4 is the battery. It run out quite fast. But this is quite common among smartphones. To conserve battery, 3G, Wifi and cellular data should be turned off when not needed.

Applications

As many of you know, iPhone allows a user to download applications off the Apple store. Some are free and some must be purchased.

Facebook and Twitter are essential to me since I am hooked to the Internet. Facebook has its own App hence don’t bother searching for others. As for twitter, I downloaded Echofon as my Twitter App.

The problem with many free iPhone Twitter apps is that they are unable to retweet tweets. Echofon is one of them.

As for games, I downloaded the Millionaire Tycoon for my girlfriend. It only costs US$1. Additional map packs (extra maps) costs US$1 per piece.

Angry Bird, one of the world best selling app, is worth purchasing. I have the HD version on my iPad. 😀

Closing
Overall, iPhone 4 is a good phone. Many people asked me whether a Blackberry or an iPhone is good. To me, it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Blackberry to me is good for emails, chatting and work. But it’s terrible for surfing and games. Blackberry’s default browsers cannot load many websites. Maybank2u’s website is one example.

As for iPhone, it’s good for web surfing and games. It’s a little bit difficult for me to type but I guess I can get use to it. I did a typing contest with TimothyTiah once using a Blackberry and an iPhone. Our speed and accuracy were about the same.

So after downloading and installing all the essential apps, my iPhone 4 was perfect. Good things ought to be shared and hence, I gave it to my girlfriend 😀

Hope she will enjoy it as much as I do!

Know your rights!

If you haven’t heard, 4 lawyers (or would be lawyers) were arrested by the police recently for distributing copies of the “Red Book”.

See the article by Malaysian Insider below.

Police see red over remand rights book
By Yow Hong Chieh
October 10, 2010

SRI PETALING, Oct 10 — Four legal aid volunteers trying to educate the public on their basic rights when faced with the police were themselves briefly detained today by police for distributing a book on remand rights.

Two lawyers and two chambering students from the Bar Council Legal Aid Centre (LAC) in Kuala Lumpur had been handing out the Bar Council’s “Red Book: Police and Your Basic Rights” to members of the public in Bukit Jalil here when they were arrested.

The four were taken to Sungei Besi district police headquarters at around 3.00pm for disseminating an “anti-police” publication, LAC KL chairman Ravinder Singh told The Malaysian Insider.

They were released some three hours later without charge. No statements were taken from them, and copies of the “Red Book” which had earlier been confiscated by the police were returned to them.

Ravinder said the Legal Aid Centre, an independent body under the Bar Council, was currently consulting its lawyers and would issue a statement soon.

The “Red Book” — launched in 2006 by de facto Law Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz — provides information on what to do when stopped, arrested or questioned by the police.

Legal Aid Centre volunteers handed out copies of the book in Sogo, Bintang Walk, Masjid Jamek and Bukit Jalil today to mark the start of National Law Awareness Week.

My Dad told me that during the The Communist Insurgency War in Malaysia, the police used to search premises for the “Red Book”. Those found with the “Red Book” are quickly whisked away by the police and never to be seen again. Apparently, this “Red Book” is the Little Red Book – a book filled with collection of quotations excerpted from Mao Zedong’s past speeches and publications.

A few people have asked me where they can download the Malaysian Bar’s Red Book. You can download the English version of the Red Book here and Malay version of the book here. You should print a copy and leave it in the car. 😛

Robber Caught!

That was the headline of the flyer inside my mailbox.

For once, the civilians triumph! The security guards at my area caught a would-be robber!

What happened was that the security guards saw a suspicious car and approached it. Immediately thereafter, two men ran out from the car and the guards gave chase. One of them was caught. He was then photographed and his picture was splashed in the flyer.

The flyer mentioned that he was handed to the police. He was equipped wit a bag-full of break-in tools. Apparently, he admitted his intentions to the police. The man is a Chinese and he is a Singaporean…wtf?

Looks like the security in Singapore is so good that Singaporean robbers have to come to Malaysia to rob.

The only unfortunately bit of this flyer is that a neighbour lamented the lack of participation in the security fund by other neighbours. It’s sad to know that some of my neighbours are enjoying what we all fork in with paying a single cent. I wonder if there is a way to get many of them to join. Perhaps we should consider hiring an Ah Long to collect payment from them.

The security in Malaysia is getting terrible. Every day we hear news of friends or friends of friends being robbed. Hiring security guards doesn’t help to improve the country’s security. Robbers can just head to those places without security guards.

I guess the best way is to improve the economy of the country. If everyone is well off, there is no need to rob right? There is of course the hardened criminals but reducing the numbers would be a great start.

Anyway… Civilians 1 – Robber 0!

My Birthday 2010 – Part II

Well, my birthday post is not complete without a posting on this particular gift.


My buddies got me an awesome gift for my birthday. It came with a rather “cute” wrapper.

My buddies knew I got a new iPhone 4 hence they got me a iPhone dock. It’s a speaker cum radio 😀 It also can act as a battery charger.


It fits my iPhone 4 perfectly.


Even my iPad! But the problem is that it doesn’t charge my iPad’s battery. Non Apple iPhone battery charger doesn’t work on iPad.

The highlight of the present was actually the awesome birthday card.


29 years old baby boy -_-


Hand drawn Doraemon! With dokodemo-doa (pintu suka hati) innit! Totemo daisukiiiiii~ arigatou gozaimasu!

My Birthday 2010

As I get older, I thought this year’s birthday will be a quiet one. But I was so wrong.

It started with a nice dinner with A at Favola, Le Méridien Kuala Lumpur.

Thereafter, we attended a surprise birthday party for one of my high school friends, Cross. His girlfriend gathered a group of us and gave us a custom made shirt with the words, “Turning 30 but obviously not the waist line!”.


We got a barrel of beer. It came with an interesting ice box cum beer dispenser.

Cross’ girlfriend also got him an awesome cake. BMW shaped cake!

But it was involved in an accident with Cross’ face…

So after a few beers and flaming Lamborghini, we went wild.

Since it was also Kiang, Elaine and my birthdays, we had to drink extra and hell broke loose thereafter. There were a lot of “brotherly” love. Heh

A week thereafter, my parents, A and I had dinner at Purple Cane restaurant to celebrate my birthday. A and I brought my mum here on Mother’s Day and my Mum suggested that we go there again. It was Dad’s first time there. Dad bought me a book entitled “Renegate – the making of a President” by Richard Wolffe.

After dinner, I bought drinks for my hengtais at Somo. After ordering a bottle a Moet champagne, the manager came to my table and wished me happy birthday. She then gave us some complimentary finger food and also a Flaming Lamborghini. -_-


We also ordered 3 sets of “Tokyo Rush”. Tasted horrible.

The total damage was RM1K plus. Ouch..

2 days later, my ex-Sheffield Unimates gathered to have lunch. It is my 9th year celebrating my birthday with them. Thanks to our permanent organising committee comprising of Big Ass J and Mitciao.

I used to have this practice of keeping all birthday wishes but I got a little bit lazy and scrapped it this year. One thing I notice is that birthday wishes now come vide Facebook and Twitter. I used to get a lot of them vide text messages and IM (msn msg, IRC) messages. This year, such messages were less than 10!

Looks like times have changed.