The Year of the OX!!! - Part 2

Day 4 of CNY. The Year of the Ox - so far so good. From 9 days of holidays, I'm now down with another 3. Time sure does fly past. This year has been a bit different for me as I no do not have to goto the ex's hometown to 'bai lin' - which has been a tradition for the past 4 years. So from day 3 onwards, I've been just house visiting, sitting around watching Astro at home and winning money! He he he.

On day 2 of CNY, my family and I had a open house - also the first time since we moved to our place 3 years ago. Couz WF, who's an apprentice chef whipped up a delicious lunch for all of us. From vietnamese spring rolls to pasta to salad. I only contributed the mash potatoes, which of course got insulted. "At least I had 2 scoops WHAT"- Calene told me.

Ok what! Looks not too bad!

For the first time in many many years, I've had a winning streak since my HKD1600 win at the Venetian Macau few weeks back. Small win is better than nothing!! So may the good luck run throughout the year of the Ox!!!!!

The Year of the OX!!!

We usher in the Year of the Ox tomorrow!!!!! The older we get, the less 'ang pows' we get. And the questions never change every year you visit your relos houses, 'When going to get married ah?' - and they never give up. And every year you're inclined to give the same answers, 'After you son/daughter aunty!" Otherwise it'll be, "Wah leng lui already" or "Wah fat already!" -mostly the latter and you'd wish you are able to throw the whole plate of "yee sang' into their faces. (If years younger, they'd probably would have pinched my cheeks!)

That said, the guys and myself had a pre CNY BBQ dinner at Jack's house last Friday. The night started around 7.30 with food and pre-dinner drinks (well not like the guests had a choice - Jack made all late comers down one shot of vodka every 6 minutes they're late!)

The gracious and handsome (ahem) host

Cal is very happy to see people get punished for being late - holding the glasses that would be filled with vodka shots - see the broad smile?

Jerome - our chef for the night did a great job with the BBQ

One of my favourite dishes for the night -mashed potato. So nicely done up by Jerome - Cal practically whacked 1/2 the pot (no I'm not exaggerating). I'm gonna try his recipe very soon. Looks easy but you'll never know!!!Jack's favourite - cockles (which was not exactly everyone's favourite)Being a pre-CNY gathering, the 'lou sang' is a must!!

Living in a multiracial and multicultural country, we were all really surprised that Hedzri - our muslim friend had never tried to 'lou sang' in his life (considering this dish is customary Malaysian Chinese tradition during Chinese New Year). A quick interview with him....

Nintendo wii and drinking games which lasted until almost 1 am. Damn, now I'm quite excited to get my very own set- that's if I get enough ang pow's this CNY. Yeah wishful thinking! I reckon people are getting stingier with the angpows as we get older. Either that or they expect you should already be married and giving to their kids/ grandkids instead.

The guys kept giving me shit about how crap I was at such games. Wait till I get my very own and beat their asses and shut their mouth! Woooohoooo

That's all for this post. Here's to wishing everybody a great year ahead.

May the Year of the Ox bring in prosperity for everyone, wealth, good health and a great love life ahead. HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!

Oriental Spoon, Sooka Sentral

It is not that easy finding a halal dim sum place in the Klang Valley, let alone a good one for our departmental lunch yesterday. The 6 of us finally decided on Oriental Spoon, located in Sooka Sentral, which takes less than 5 minutes walk from KL Sentral, smack right in the middle of the city centre.

We were greeted by captivating pieces of Chinese decor and wood furniture as we entered the restaurant. As we have made reservations earlier, they seated us at a private booth with comfortable seats.

Only 3 days from Chinese New Year, it's always the Chinese Malaysian tradition to have 'yee Sang'. Yee Sang is a traditional aspicious dish that symbolises the ushering of prosperity, good healthand longevity for the lunar new year. Lou Sang is merely the act of mixing together the Yee Sang dishes with chopsticks, which consists of the usual assortment of vegetables like white radish, crispy crackers, bits of pamelo sacs, pickled cucumber and carrots mixed with crumbs of nuts and sweet sauce along with slices of raw fish/ jelly fish / abalone.

We'd pre-ordered some black pepper seafood udon and stir fried vegetables in addition to our dim sum. Everyone thought it was surprisingly 'yummy' for a halal Chinese restaurant. The udon was very well done - they were relatively generous with the servings of seafood.

Then the restaurant proceeded to serve our dimsum .....

Steamed Siew Mai

Steamed Rice Rolls with Prawns

Deep Fried yam Dumplings

Steamed 'Har Gao'

Fried Radish Cake

Overall the meal was pretty satisfying except for the 'BBQ Chicken Pao' (above), which was not at all tasty with its overly thick pastry and too little filling. On top of the pictures above, we also had steamed fish balls, beef balls and fried spring rolls, which we dished into it too quickly that I'd forgotten to take pictures. Level of service also needs to be improved as at times we had to ask the waitresses 2-3 times to get what we wanted. The meal came close to RM300 for 6 of us.

Oriental Spoon1-5, Sooka Sentral, Jalan Stesen Sentral 5, 50470, Kuala Lumpur(opposite the MRCB building). Tel: 03 – 2261 3222/ Fax: 03-2780 2055. Opening hours: 7 days a week (11 am – 8pm).

Out of 5 stars..

Overall ambience 4

Food 4 (for a halal restaurant standard)

Service 3

Originality

..this has got to be the next best thing after William Hung.

Gotta salute this Korean dude's courage to sing in English.....(please turn on your speakers!! or at least have your headphones on)

After 12 pm, I officially go on leave for 9 1/2 days. for Chinese New Year..wooohooo...can't wait for the BBQ at Jackjack's place tonight!

3 gorgeous chics

advertising for Ribena!!!

L-R - Mama, me and Sooyin

It ain't my fault if sales plummets after people see this picture but it could just be our BIG BREAK into stardom!!!!!!

A Post Secret Proposal

N/B: The pictures from this blogpost have been taken from postsecret.blogspot.com

I've almost forgotten how long I've not been into the Postsecret website as I've been so swarmed with work and travelling, until Calene showed me this secret in this week's postings- it reminded her of one of our friends! He he, well I admit I do get really irritated when people do not reply or tend to reply DAYS later..yeah but there are some people out there who send you another text hours later when you forget to reply them and that also gets on my nerves.

Then I saw this posting through the website. I've seen romantic wedding proposals on TV, heard them through friends' experiences and I've always wondered if it's possible to get proposed by on airplanes, like in the movies - you know like get the pilot to announce and the whole plane stands and cheers as you agree to accept his proposal, cheesy as it may sound. But this has got to top my list as one of the few most most tear-jerking ones.....

And here, the outcome of this postcard...

"-----Email Message-----

Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:04 PM

Subject: she said yes!

Frank,Sorry for not letting you know a little sooner. We have both been calling our family and friends since it happened. It all went down around 10:30 this morning. After getting out of bed, I grabbed the ring from where I had been hiding it for nearly two months. Being my birthday, I just finished opening my presents from my girlfriend. I then got the laptop out to check the weather, and we started to look at the secrets. I was actually very nervous/excited as we scrolled down the page. As we got to it, my girlfriend asked what the card above ours was a picture of. I was somewhat concerned she had already seen ours, but she hadn't. I then scrolled down to our card. She was looking at the card for a while, and then looked at me. At the time, she was wondering if that was really our cat or not. I then reached into my pocket, took out the ring box, and got down on one knee. Before I even asked, she kissed me. She was crying, and my eyes also started to tear up. I then took her hand and asked her to marry me. Her answer was yes!!! I then had to go into a discussion of how it all came to be. She was definitely surprised by the date of the proposal as well as my method of proposing. Frank, I would like to thank you again for your agreeing to do this. It couldn't have been better. The date is set for March 13, 2010 . "

Here's wishing the couple a lifetime of happiness ......

I've mentioned this post to Kevin and the poor fella said that this guy has just raised the benchmark for all men alike! Ke ke ke..recently my childhood friend, PH got married. Still yet to find out how he proposed (If you're reading this, remember you owe me your story leh!). I think I'll do a post soon and compile all the stories I've heard to give my good old buddy, Kev some inspirations as he's well....a little boring!! Or he could maybe get his gf pregnant and well, save on the proposal ring........

Lee Hom's concert...finally

one of the most enjoyable and impressive concert's I've been to in a long long time - at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Hotel, Macau on Jan 10, 2009! The opening started off with a big bang of fireworks.




The theme of the concert was 'Music Man' where he portrayed himself as one of the superheroes - just like batman, superman ...


There was like this special mike where he used and instant transformation of his voice into a grave sounding hero!


Great graphics as well!!! A comic depicting Music Man!!



The man's a perfectionist! He played the voilin, guitar and piano during the show on top of corrning his romantic ballads! You could just fall in love with him instantly! Good looks, great voice and a physique to die for...what more can one ask for??

An element of surprise for all of us when he did this little magic act and appeared almost at the back of the hall, a mere 2-3 metres away from where I was seated. I could have fainted if it were any closer! (The pictures will tell how close were were - yes, I did zoom a little!!)

And last of all, great sound system. Listen to two of my favourite ballads I took using my digital cam..