Dinner @ Maxim

It's the first time the girls had gathered for dinner this year. And they chose to eat at Maxim's because they wanted to walk to Bintang Megamall later on after dinner.

Seaweed & egg drop soup

Hmn .... not very nice. We added some malt vinegar, but the vinegar had a strange taste to it. 

Bitter gourd with roasted pork belly and salted fish

Not bad, as the bitter gourd was not over-fried. It was still crunchy. The roasted pork slices were hidden, but they were quite tasty. The salted fish brought even more flavour to the dish. It was quite appetising to eat this with rice. 

Fish and tofu in a mini wok

I also liked this dish ... It had lots of ingredients in there, namely deep-fried fish chunks, tofu chunks, button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, black fungus, carrots, leeks, white cabbage, and red peppers. The gravy had a good consistency. Not bad.

We paid RM45.30 for the meal inclusive of drinks. Reasonable, eh?

Tuna Sandwich

I hadn't bought canned Tuna for a long time. For one thing, its price had been escalating, now costing RM4.50 for a 185g can. Also, I find great difficulty finishing a whole can by myself. Unless I have tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By then, I suspect that I'd be vomitting tuna at the end of the day.

Today, however, I felt like having spicy tuna with my sandwich. Hence, it prompted me to drive to the nearest supermarket to purchase a can.

In between my breads were cucumbers, tomatoes, tuna, slivers of chicken sausage, mayo, and cheese.

I popped the bread into the toaster to warm it up, and served on my mini cooling rack.

I had enjoyed the sandwich a lot! So much so that it induced me to crave for more tuna sandwiches .....

Sam's Steamboat

The girls said that they would go have steamboat at Sam's. They'd been saying it forever! Since last year, in fact. And they finally did it the other night.

Sam's is located at the intersection at Boulevard Commercial Centre. Can't miss it ... it's right where the nightly makan crowd is. This is a buffet steamboat restaurant. At RM25.00 per person, diners are welcomed to eat all they can.

Well, there were many ingredients available for cooking - meatballs, thin slivers of meat, assorted mushrooms, vegetables, noodles and so on. We took what we wanted to eat and had to cook them by ourselves. We could either cook them in the clear broth or pan-fry them with butter on the hot plate.

The table was a bit too high and the chair a bit too low, so most of the time, we had to stand up to cook. We took what we wanted to eat ... prawns, razor clams, cockles, tripe, ham, thin slivers of pork belly and beef, seaweed squares, an assortment of mushrooms, lots of vegetables - baby corn, lettuce, spinach, kangkong, white long cabbage, and corn on cob.

The hot pot and the hot plate ..

We ate 3 rounds, I think .... and it was so filling. The meats and seafood items were all frozen ingredients, and hence, they weren't sweet. Not so shiok to eat, if you know what I mean. 

At an open space outside the shop, a tent was set up. Here, there was a boy in charge of barbecuing pork belly. We were also free to help ourselves to this barbecued meat. And this was absolutely delicious! The pork was well-marinated and had a smoky, charred flavour from the barbecue. We polished off 3 plates of this! 

 Barbecued pork 

Desserts was also available in the form of ice-cream. Eat as much as you can, if you can. The bill came to about RM33.00 per person, inclusive of drinks and beer. 

Chilling Out @ Beach Republic

The girls wanted to food, free wi-fi and a great chill out on a Saturday night. At first, they went to Siamese Secrets, now named Discovery. But they were made to wait outside because it was a full house and they did not have any reservations.

After a while, the girls decided to go off in search for another place to eat. So they drove out to Beach Republic, partly because they were in a 2-day old brand new car! New car ... drive further away and enjoy the ride!

So, all the girls ordered burgers .... custom-made ones made to their liking ...

 Burgers .... drinks ... and ...

Buffalo wings, RM12.90 for 4 pieces

The buffalo wings were well-marinated and deep-fried to crispy perfection! I enjoyed nibbling on them.

My burger cost me RM11.90 ... pricey, eh? In between a white sesame bun, there was a beef patty, some onions, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, mozarella cheese, and wasabi mayonnaise. Thankfully, the burger was yum ... else I would have made a scene ;p.

The girls did not hang out for too long .... but it was a nice outing which they looked forward to again. ;))

Welcoming Laksa

My first meal back in Sarawak ..... thanks to my colleague.

Sarawak Laksa

Honestly .... it was not very authentic, and the gravy was not lemak enough. But my colleague was so kind to have prepared for us a homecooked breakfast, and for that, I was truly very grateful. I did not have to lift a finger or fork out a dime. All I had to do was to park my butt on the chair and dig in. What more could I ask for?

Dried Ham Meats

Expensive at RM88.00 per kilo. But I had a craving for these Barbecued Dried Meats or Bakkwa, and bought some from the Oloiya outlet at Pavillion. I bought only 5 flat slices, and they cost me RM18.13.

Oloiya is a local KL brand. Its business started at Petaling Street in the 1970's. It has since then carved a name for itself in the Bakkwa industry, and now there are many branches and outlets all over malls in KL, and also in many major cities in Malaysia. There's even an outlet in Miri.

The yellow & red packaging is synonymous with the Oloiya brand  

 

Bakkwa

Oloiya's bakkwa are on the savoury side .... and I prefer them to be a little bit sweeter. The meats were not too hard so that was good. 

Some people like to cut the bakkwa into bite-sized pieces. I don't enjoy those. I like to bite off the meat from the huge sheet ;p. Not sure why ... but I just felt that there was more texture if eaten that way. 

With Chinese New Year just around the corner ... households are busy stocking up on these Bakkwa ... there are many brands in the market .... and my favourite is Bee Cheng Hiang. Can't wait to stuff myself with Bakkwa during Chinese New Year! 

Popcorn Chicken Combo @ Chatime

I'm VERY addicted to Chatime. So I went back to Chatime for the Popcorn Chicken Combo. It's RM8.90 only. The drink costs RM5.90. So that means the chicken was only RM3.00. It's a substantial portion of chicken! So it's a pretty good deal if you ask me.

 Pearl Milk Tea

Popcorn Chicken Original

Hmn ... chunks of marinated chicken breast meat was coated with batter and deep-fried. It was fried. Crunchy on the outside and tender on in the inside. And not as greasy if compared to the fried chicken I had the other day. The chicken was fried to order, and I had to wait about 10 minutes before it was ready.

Popcorn Chicken Combo

It was a pleasure to sit down to enjoy my snack while watching the trendy people walking through the alley downstairs at this very trendy location in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.