My experience at Sky Bar

I went to check out Sky Bar yesterday with the Tokuii bunch and I understood immediately why some people say this place should be shut down.

When we got there and waited by the entrance to get our table, it was ridiculously humid! Air-conditioning was non-existent.

Service was terrible! No one of the waiters or waitresses were attentive enough. The table was still dirty. There was a used piece of tissue in between the cushion for the seats.

Did I mention how humid and stuffy it was in there?

Drinks were expensive and unfortunately poor in quality and presentation. My lychee martini tasted like a shot of vodka with a miserable looking lychee for garnishing.

It was ridiculously hot and stuffy! Didn’t their ID team thought of that and incorporated fans into the design of Sky Bar?

The best bit of Sky Bar is the night view of KL. Really beautiful with the KLCC Twin Towers in the scenery peppered by glints of lights from street lamps and buildings surrounding the Twin Towers. I also do like the decor, it’s cozy and really appeals to the eyes.

There were many beautiful people present though but I still don’t understand why anyone would brave the humidity to be seen.

Would I return to Sky Bar? Never! There are just too many bad points that outweigh the good.

We quickly finished our drinks (Yes, I was whining away) and hopped over to 7-ate-9 for a much cooler, pun intended, experience!

Phew!

I just got back from my night out. Just a quick post as I am really tired and am supposed to wake up early for bak kut teh tomorrow.

Watched Spider-man 3 today. In summary, the action scenes were excellent! Venom looks scary, though it’d be better if they decide to animate in his tongue like in the comic books. I like how Peter Parker’s physical appearance changed when he wears the dark suit. However, I thought there was slightly too much drama and one particular scene towards the ending seemed too convenient. This would be the worse of the trilogy (it ends at 3, right?) but it was still entertaining for me and I still think you should watch it.

After the show, we went to Murni’s in SS2 to meet my ex-manager who flew in from Australia to visit his relatives here in KL. Seriously, I don’t  know why people like Murni. It’s always hard to get a place to park, you can always depend on the crappy service, sure there’s a lot of variety to choose from but most of them don’t really taste that well and it’s always packed. My back was so close to this other girl behind me I didn’t dare lean back.

Like I said before, it didn’t matter where we were (I was merely stating my opinion on Murni – by the way, my food came 1 hour later after much following up with the waiter) and it was great catching up.

Made one last pit stop at the dim sum restaurant along Jalan Ipoh before heading for home.

Greg Pattillo – Flute Beatboxer

I was nibbling away at time today and I was browsing some videos on YouTube. I found this clip with Greg Pattillo doing a beatbox and flute version of the theme song to Inspector Gadget. Cool!

Axis & Allies: Miniatures

My brother and I decided to embark on a new table-top game called Axis & Allies: Miniatures. We got a starter set and 2 booster packs: 1 from the Base Set and the other from Set II of the Base Set. The quality of the miniatures and the supplied terrain maps and counters were top notch.

We had everything out of the box to start playing. The rules are complex at first. Its mechanics allows for some pretty strategic considerations during your turn. After a few games the rules don’t seem that complicated anymore.

It was fun! Sure it’s going to be slightly expensive to maintain as the aim was to try to collect as much of the miniatures as possible, but not necessarily. Just a few miniatures was all that’s required to play a decent game.

My brother will collect the miniatures from the Axis side and I will collect the Allies.

So far we played 2 games and both times the Allies were the victor.

Check it out at axisandallies.com

Chicken with Parsely on a bed of Asparagus

2 nights ago I volunteered to cook dinner. My mom was quite happy with the idea (since she doesn’t need to rush home and cook for us) and she went to do her jade thing until late. Anyway.

This is what I did.

Chicken breast pieces
1 carton of heavy cream
Lots of parsley – finely chopped
Spears of asparagus
Olive oil
Corn starch

Pat dry the chicken breast and pan-fry in olive-oil until brown and tender. Remove and cover with aluminium foil to keep warm (I chucked them into an un-powered oven to help keep it warm longer).

Clean the asparagus with water and peel off the fibrous skin. Quickly blanch them in hot water with a pinch of salt. When they turn brilliant in colour, remove them and plunge them into a bowl of iced water.

Finely chop about 2-3 handfuls of parsley (I like it stronger so I used 3.5 handfuls) and set aside.

Heat up all the heavy cream in a saucepan and add the chopped parsley and stir well. Salt and pepper to taste. When the cream turns apple green in colour, mix some corn flour in water and pour gradually into the cream while stirring constantly until a desired consistency is achieved (slightly runny).

This part is optional, you could just whack the chicken and asparagus anyway you liked, but I did it anyway – so pretentious, me.

Arrange the asparagus in rows on a serving plate and place a chicken breast on the bed of asparagus. Drizzle cream on chicken. Serve.

I got thumbs up from my dad, sis and brother. My mom asked how come it’s so salty. I said it came from the chicken. She was amazed.

Will post pictures soon!

Breakfast at Chew-fany’s

Last Tuesday, BY invited a bunch of us to have breakfast at his apartment. I accepted his invitation and bought a yellow watermelon, a carton of OJ and some sausages (Ayamas’ Premium Line – Italian Herbs and Farm’s Best Onion and Cheese sausages, ahem).

I was surprised I could wake up ahead of the time I set my alarm to go off as  I had a round of seafood and drinks at Asia Cafe in Subang with WL and retired quite late.

I was the first to arrive at BY’s. Looking at the time I told BY that we should really start preparing breakfast otherwise it’ll be a very late brunch.

In the sausages went into boiling water. I gave them a quick fry later to make them tastier (who doesn’t like fried food in the morning? Heh!) and when done, kept them warm in a dish with some aluminium foil over them.

Milk and EK arrived next and they brought along fruits. I spotted some bananas and I asked Milk if we should caramelize them. Immediately she said yes. So off we went peeling the bananas and pan frying them with butter and sugar. Oh by this time, the pancake batter that was prepared by BY and Milk was already ready.

Then came the Project Supervisor, WL who ordered us around and gave us witty remarks on what we should be doing. Of course he was only fooling around and he contributed later by cutting up the mushrooms. BY and I started on the pancakes. One thing I don’t like about making pancakes is that they take forever to cook. Well, to finish up the batter in the mixing bowl that is.

M and WS arrived later with bacon(delish, delish!) and mushrooms. These were quickly fried by WS and BY. Lastly I dished up some scrambled and sunny-side eggs for everyone.

Finally, breakfast was served! What a feast! We had:

Pancakes accompanied with honey, marmalade and kaya (strange but true)
Fried bacon
Fried mushrooms with garlic (forgot to mention BY’s cool Ikea garlic mincer)
Caramelized bananas
Eggs – scrambled and sunny-side up
Sausages
OJ
Coffee
Tea
A selection of fruits

It was good fun. I’ve not seen everyone together in such a long time. We chatted away and made funny observations like how tea-bags can float in vacuum containers on Earth as well as other silly things.

WS brought along some cheese (gouda and triple cream brie) and a bottle of wine. The cheeses were good! I like the brie, it was more creamy than normal but this one was slightly saltier than normal too. The wine was nice as well, very easy to drink.

The dishes were cleaned up – thanks M and Ek – while I just sat my bum down and drank wine and ate cheese and fruits. Hey, I was tired!

WS, M, Ek and Milk went home soon. WL and I hung around slightly longer to help finish the bottle of wine. During this time we watched a funny episode of SouthPark poking fun at World of Warcraft  and talked about cars.

Wedding dinners should be wedding suppers

Recently, I attended a colleague’s wedding banquet in Cheras. On the invitation card, the time the dinner starts at 7pm SHARP. I offered to pick up babycarrot along the way and so buffered in 30 minutes in case I got lost. Well I did get lost and it turned out that I wasn’t THAT lost after all. That wrong turn actually got me to the restaurant. Surprise, surprise! Not that lost, not that lost.

It was 7pm when we got to the restaurant. Thankfully, the rest of the gang were already seated. Ek, Milk, SW, HE were all there so we chatted for a while to kill time. It was already 8pm when tables around us were still empty! There were already grumpy faces.

Finally, at the time of 8:30pm, the bride and groom walked ceremoniously into the dining area and the food followed by. 1 and 1/2 hours of waiting. Not fun at all. The course trickled in and I noticed that even when we were positioned in the middle of the service line, we still got our food last. Grumble.

The food was not too bad. When the dessert arrived, we quickly finished up and headed for home. Thank goodness for good company that night, otherwise it’d be quite slow.

Honestly, I think that if the card says the dinner is to be served at 7pm sharp, the latest would be 7:30pm. Just start the ceremony and dinner. Too bad for those that arrive late. After all, the time the dinner start is already printed on the card so there’s really no excuse for being late.

Rubber time is one bad habit that’s truly Malaysian.