Emirates : KL > London

Hey guys! Did you miss me? It’s been a while since I posted anything, sorry for the disappearance. I am doing fine here. Anyway wishing you guys a Happy New Year 2018! 🙂

I travelled to London in December 2017. This post is mainly about my experience flying with Emirates. My first time with them from Kuala Lumpur to London via Dubai. I choose Emirates as I wanted to experience travelling to London with a stopover thinking it will be less stressful as you won’t be stuck on a plane for 13+ hours.

After weeks of purchasing the flight tickets, finally, it’s time to go to London! Yeayy! J J I am very excited to go to London this time as I will be experiencing how Christmas is being celebrated in the UK.

Back to Emirates, the check-in at KLIA was smooth. The boarding announcement was clear.  The staffs were welcoming and friendly.

Once I got onto the plane, the setting is almost similar to Malaysia Airlines A380. The cabin environment was nice with good ventilation, lighting and temperature. Take-off and landing were decent for A380 plane. The seats were comfortable considering I am 6’2 in a normal seat. Point to note, I did pay additional for the seat selection. The ICE infotainment system is fantastic and you can watch so many programs which are cool.

I was not too impressed with the in-flight dining. Some item was out of stock and they don’t seem to ‘entertain’ additional requests. At one point, I requested for soft drinks in between meals but didn’t get any.

One thing that I don’t like about Emirates is the baggage allocation of 20kg per person which is horrendous. Most of the other airlines provide at least 25kg for such long distance travelling. I don’t mind flying again with Emirates if the cost of the flight is significantly lower than other airlines.

 

Sheraton Imperial KL

I booked the stay over the phone. Awesome service through the phone. Professional yet friendly service by the reservation team (sorry I can’t recall the names). The nightmare started when I requested for a special arrangement for my stay, I’m celebrating my partner’s birthday. The housekeeping and concierge called me but I gave up talking to them. I dealt with the reservation team who handled my request. The reservation team communicated to the teams accordingly and ‘apparently’ it can be done. Phewww… My initial request with the mentioned teams was not ‘accepted’. How funny is that for a 5 star hotel! A let down if you ask me.

Anyway moving on to actual stay. Check-in was smooth as it was done at the executive floor. We had coffee and finger food while waiting at the executive lounge.

I was very surprised when we got to the room, which is an Executive Club suite. It was fantastic! It’s huge and looks really good. The bed was comfortable and so relaxing. A clear view of KL tower and you can also spot KLCC.  If you wondering what is included in the room; free breakfast, access to executive lounge, evening cocktails, 2 pcs of laundry per day.

They had the bed decorated with rose petals and decorations which were awesome and a nice surprise to my partner.

The executive lounge is a nice place to be. Relaxing set up and perfect to lounge. The staffs are attentive but some of them are just average. Could be better in the delivery of service as some of them don’t look very keen to ‘serve’. The evening cocktail session was nice, from 5-8pm. A variety of finger foods, fruits, yogurt, bread and drinks, basically bottomless. I enjoyed it.

I also had ordered food while staying here via the room service. It was handled well and food was good.

Check out was fast and smooth. Not much personal touch by the staff.

Overall I loved my stay at the hotel and love love the Executive Club Suite. I have stayed in other hotels’ executive room but this one is most outstanding in term on space, room feature and exclusivity which surpassed by expectation. I had stayed here previously (many years ago) and at that time, all facilities looked dated. Only comment is the service rendered by the staff. While it is sufficient it was not that memorable. No personal touch or I would rather say ‘service with an attitude’, good attitude obviously.

Visited in April 2017.

The Spring Garden, Suria KLCC

Who doesn’t fancy dim sum? It is one of my favourite Chinese food to have at any time of the day. The Spring Garden is part of Tai Thong Group. They have a few restaurants which are serves pork-free dishes which is ideal for me. This is not my first visit here as I have been here on numerous occasions.

On this visit, I have ordered numerous dim sum items. To be honest, I can’t recall the names for each respective items. But it’s safe to say that I have tried nearly 90% of the dim sum menu.

So what do I think? Well I like the food here as it is not too oily. The ingredients are super fresh, especially when it comes to seafood such as prawns. The portion is decent and for some can be pretty big for some dishes but in all its satisfying.

The wait time for your food can be a little bit long when it is crowded or during weekend. But so far i have never had any problem as we normally place our dim sum orders in batches, so there’s always food on our table.

The price is a little bit higher than your typical dim sum restaurant. No issues for me since this is a Chinese restaurant in located KLCC, what do you expect? Will be returning soon! Yummm 🙂

How would I rate them? The atmosphere 4/5, Service 4/5, F&B 4/5.

Where at? Lot 413 & 414, 4th Floor Suria KLCC, 50088 Kuala Lumpur.

Magnum Cafe, Midvalley Kuala Lumpur

A Magnum café? Cool! I can’t imagine what would be offered here and the varieties of magnum ice cream that would be available. For a short period of time, my imagination went wild! Anyway, the 1^st Magnum Café in Malaysia is Midvalley which was officially launched on 14^th November 2014. Since it’s so new, the queue to get in here is so long!!! Seriously!

The Queue fr Magnum Cafe

The Queue fr Magnum Cafe

Magnum Cafe

 

Anyway despite the long queue, I managed to try out this place on last weekend. Guess how long I had to queue to try it out? It’s almost 1.5hours. I cant imagine what I do for the sake of food! Haha

Make my Magnum…

Make my Magnum…

Magnum Cafe

 

Anyway, for the benefit for the people, this is what happens in the cafe.

• First, pay for your ice cream, its RM9.90 each.
• 2nd, You will need to choose the flavour of your ice-cream; classic vanilla or the chocolate brownie.
• 3rd, Choose your toppings (wisely). You can combine up to 3 types of the toppings.
• Wait for your Magnum to be prepared. It takes about 2-minutes for the ice-cream to be ready!
• Enjoy your personalized Magnum ice-cream! Make sure you take lots of photos of your FB, Instagram, Twitter, bla bla bla…

The chocolate to dip your icecream!

The Magnum Cafe.

The toppings available…

My Magnum!

I had vanilla ice-cream dipped in milk chocolate, coated with rose petals, freeze dried raspberry and almond, drizzled with dark chocolate.

The other Magnum hehe

 

You can also choose from the pre-set Magnum that is available, such as Sweet Fantasy, Pop Attack, Cookie Monster, etc.

So, did I like it? Off course, who wouldn’t? Would I come here again? Well, I would but next time I would like to try out the café food and desserts.  The make your own magnum is nice but not that fantastic, especially after the long queue and drooling over the ice cream.

Bling Bling Magnum decor

Wall decor.. its all about Magnum!

The damage!

Wall deco, made using the magnum ice-cream sticks!

 

Fantastic steamboat buffet @ Yuen Steamboat!

Does Yuen Steamboat does familiar to you? Well, they are one of the most famous steamboat restaurants which used to be located in Sunway Mentari. I remember the days when we use to come here and wait in queue to get a table. If you are coming as a large group, it will be wise to make advance reservation. Meanwhile, if you are wondering what is steamboat all about? Then perhaps hot pot sounds familiar to you.

FYI, they have moved to Zenith Corporate Park in Kelana Jaya, PJ (yes, they have moved since early 2014!) which is a stone away from my work place *clap clap clap* The new location is easy to find (behind Paradigm shopping mall) and has ample of parking. Yeay! Please note that there is parking fee of RM1 (If I recall well). I’m ok with the parking fee as I would have proper parking spot and seems like a safe area. The new outlet takes up a few units of the shop lots so it is quite big. It is on the same row as Cosway.

The buffet spreads are well placed and seems attractive. The food looks fresh and the whole buffet serving area a clean and well chilled. What do they have here; varieties of fish balls, seafood, sausages, foo chuk, noodles, meat, eggs, vegetables, etc.

 

Our table

 

Buffet spread

Buffet spread

Buffet spread

 

You can choose to have a whole pot filled with plain soup or / and tom yam soup. We decided to have both. Yuen also serves fried noodle, fried rice, bbq chicken wings which are yummy! A variety of sauces are available for your preference.

Our steamboat pot with Tom Yam and clear soup!

 

 

The buffet spread

 

After enjoying all the food, you probably would ask what’s for dessert? Well, you can have fresh fruits, ice creams or some local kuihs. The kuih talam here is pretty good. The service is good, mainly foreign workers are but they seem fast to act and replenishes food fast.

The sticky yummy bbq chicken wings! Grab it while its hot!

 

The price is RM31.27 (that’s 29.50 before the 6% tax) including free flow of Chinese tea which is not too bad. For the old timers who have been to the previous outlet, the previous price is much lower then. I would say the price is okay for such food (unlimited buffet style, as long no food goes to waste). I know I enjoyed the food here.

Visited in September 2014. How would I rate them? The atmosphere 4/5, Service 4.5/5, F&B 4.5/5.

Where at?

Yuen Buffet Steamboat Restaurant,

8G, Block A, (same row as Cosway at the car park entrance),

Zenith Corporate Park (behind Paradigm Mall),

Jalan SS7/26 Kelana Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Thai food at Fa Ying, Paradigm Mall PJ

I was in Paradigm mall and decided to have dinner at Fa Ying. It was raining earlier so the thought of having hot tom soup in that cold weather is nice.

Fa Ying does serve set menu for dinner however I wanted to try something else. So after browsing the menu, we ordered Seafood tom yam soup (RM16), Roasted Duck Red Curry with Lychee (RM18) and mix vegetables (RM16) and rice.

Yummy seafood tom yam soup.

 

The food was prepared quite fast and was served hot. The tom soup is good, they always have been. The mix vegetable was fine. The duck red curry is very good! The curry had had the right consistency and thickness (not diluted), well-seasoned and spiced, the chunks of roasted duck swimming in the curry was perfect and somewhat tender. The hint of the lychee in the curry sounded a bit weird for me but it all blended really well. The lychee didn’t influence the curry by being too sweet which can overkill curry taste.

Mix Vege

The delicious Roasted Duck Red Curry

 

We shared these foods with 2 people. I think it can even be shared with 3 or even 4 (obviously this applies to non-big eaters). The service was so so on this day despite not being busy day. The food seems good for me to resist not coming here for a meal.

Oh yea, Fa Ying is running a contest where a lucky winner will be sent on holiday to Phuket Thailand! Who doesn’t love holidays! Hmm I’m keeping my fingers crossed although I know the slogan that I have filled up on the submission form is for sure lousy lol.

Visited in October 2014. How would I rate them? The atmosphere 4/5, Service 3.5/5, F&B 4/5.

Tedboy Bakery Bangsar

Tedboy Bakery is a no stranger in the KL f&b scene and for being a new age bakery. They are based in Bangsar and location is quite prominent as they are opposite Bangsar Village 2 and same row as Sri Devi’s restaurant.

I dont come over to Bangsar (especially the Telawi streets) that often so when I was here to do something, I decided to drop by at Tedboy to try out some pastries.

I bought custard raisin danish (rm3.20), butter croissant (rm4.50) and a poppy pound cake (rm19.90). The danish and croissant was nice but I was not too impressed with it. I felt that the danish could use more moisture by having more custard and a little more raisin and cinnamon to make it smell and taste good. The croissant was not as buttery as I thought it would be. It seemed a little bit expensive for plain butter croissant.

Custard Raisin Danish

Butter Croissant

 

But, I really liked the pound cake. It tasted good, like a homemade cake and smells nice. yummy!

Poppy pound cake

 

They do have a variety of pastries and breads which looks and smells good. If I am in the area, I will choose to drop by again to try out some other pastries. What can I say, I am a sucker for pastries! Haha… The outlet looks really cool. To me it looks like modern and clean design which is what it should be all about.

The damage

 

Visited in May 2014. How would I rate them? (Scale 1 to 5, 5 being the highest score). The atmosphere: 4 / 5, Service: 4 / 5, F&B: 4 / 5.

Where at: Tedboy Bakery, 10, Jalan Telawi 4, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 03-2202-1312. Open 8am – 9pm daily.

Deepavali 2014

“Deepavali (Diwali or Divali) is a “festival of lights”, is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year. The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. The festival preparations and rituals typically extend over a five day period, but the main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. In the Gregorian calendar, Diwali night falls between mid-October and mid-November.

Before Diwali night, people clean, renovate and decorate their homes and offices. On Diwali night, Hindus dress up in new clothes or their best outfit, light up diyas(lamps and candles) inside and outside their home, participate in family puja (prayers) typically to Lakshmi – the goddess of wealth and prosperity. After puja, fireworks follow, then a family feast including mithai (sweets), and an exchange of gifts between family members and close friends. Diwali also marks a major shopping period in nations where it is celebrated.  Diwali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and Pakistan”.

 

Deepavali decorations @ Sunway Pyramid.

Deepavali was celebrated on 22 October 2014 in Malaysia. We had a wonderful celebration this year. What can I say, other than plenty of food ranging from cookies, traditional dishes, curries, dosa and home cooked food. I took few days off from work so I took the opportunity to help out at home with some chores. Although our family is considered a small family, we had a wonderful time especially with lots of friends visiting us. I have a fair amount of non-Indian friends so they really love to have Indian food at our home during this festive. Deepavali is generally celebrated for about 7-10 days as people will be busy having ‘open houses’. Thats the beauty with Malaysia, we celebrate so many festivals together and its a melting pot of culture.

Variety of muruku available.

Legend’s Briyani… A clay pot version!

Briyani is an Indian cuisine and well known dish in many countries.

Its rice (normally basmati rice) cooked with Indian spices such as ghee, cloves, cardamom, coriander, ginger, etc. It is also common to serve non-vegetarian version which mostly served with chicken, mutton, prawns, etc. Its common to serve briyani with curry or kurma, boiled egg, salad and papadam. You can find many variation of briyani available out there.

Legend Briyani has a new outlet in Kelana Jaya which is close to my work place. I have never heard of them prior to this but I was told that they are famous for the claypot briyani and have been around for years. So I guess I had to try it!

On my first visit, I tried the claypot chicken briyani. Its briyani rice layered with seasoned chicken. It seems to me that the briyani has been pre-cooked and it’s being cooked ‘well’ in a clay pot upon order. So its really hot when its being served!

The taste of briyani is good and it is well seasoned, not too heavy with spices. The chicken pieces (boneless) are tender and juicy. My only feedback would be to add some ‘moisture’ in the rice as I find it too dry.  Its served with cucumber raita (cubes of cucumber with yogurt and onions), curry and papadam.

I think the briyani here is good and well spiced. Most of the restaurants tends to ‘spice up’ the briyani until it is too over-powering with spices which I dislike.

Don’t fancy briyani? Well they do serve banana-leave rice, thosai, puri, fried noodle and so on, just like an Indian restaurant. The price is also following ‘restaurant’ standard so you might find it ‘slightly’ more than the typical outlets. I do have to say, this outlet in KJ is very clean and well ventilated. The food seems good and worth paying.

Oh yea, I love the nescafe Tarik here. Very kow! Hehe

They have set meals for lunch which starts from RM5+ which is a good deal. I have been here on numerous occasions which are during lunch hours.

Anyway, if you are craving for some briyani or indian food and happens to be in Kelana Jaya, why not give Legend a try!

Visited in 2014. How would I rate them? (Scale 1 to 5, 5 being the highest score). The atmosphere: 4 / 5, Service: 4 / 5, F&B: 4 / 5.

P/s – some of these images are taken from their official site: http://www.legendsclaypotbriyani.com

Saya suka Satay!…

Chicken satay

Mutton satay

Saya suka satay! That means, I love satay!

What is Satay? It is actually small pieces of meat on bamboo skewers and grilled. Normally the meat would be seasoned and marinated at least for few hours (or overnight for better taste) before being skewed and grilled. Satay is normally served with nasi himpit, peanut sauce (sweet & spicy) and cucumber. It is a common dish in Malaysia and well like by all.

Satay is very famous in Kajang , a small town in south of Kuala Lumpur. Depending of traffic, it can take about 40 minutes or more to reach here from Kuala Lumpur. You can find variety of satays such as chicken, mutton or beef easily. There are some places that serve fish, pork, deer, chicken liver / gizzard, rabbit, etc.

Peanut sauce.. Yumm. I love this!

Grind chili sauce! Very spicy!

Since I am staying in south of KL, it is very easy for me to go to Kajang. One of my favorite satay place is Haji Samsuri.

I normally visit their outlet at Bangunan Dato Nazir for many years now.

Cucumbers

Nasi himpit.

 

Why do I like the satays here? Well, you can variety of satays here. The peanut sauce is very good. If you like your sauce to be extra spicy, then just add the grind chili sauce for additional ‘zing’.  I normally like the sauce to be extra spicy.  The quality of satays here is good. I remember many years ago, they used to be a much ‘smaller’ restaurant and waiting for them to prepare the satays will take a while. Nowadays they have a very big kitchen and waiting time for the satay is not that long anymore which is a good thing. So, if you are here in Malaysia, do try out Satay!

If you have tried Satay, let me know whether you liked it?

Hj Samsuri

Hj Samsuri

 

Visited in May 2014. How would I rate them? The atmosphere: 3.5 / 5, Service: 4 / 5, F&B: 4.5 / 5 (Scale 1 to 5, 5 being the highest score).