Holiday Destination: Hot Springs Sungai Klah

[Click on pictures to enlarge. Thanks Abang for the pictures].

All clean and ready to go home. Thank you Hotsprings for a wonderful day!

Oh my Allah. I have wanted to review this place for so long, but always got deterred. I would type it all in, stare at the screen and delete what I wrote. Or I'd be happy with it but won't hit the publish button. My Hubs says just leave it if you're not feeling it. But it's such a nice place not to review.  So today I thought I'll put it in anyway, because the school holidays are near, and you must be pulling your hair out wondering where to take the kids this time. Well this is a nice place. And it's cheap. And it's near.

The park was nice, clean and calming. 

We were in Sungai Klah for a wedding last month (my entire family), and I knew about the hotsprings, so I suggested we go. My bestie had her family day there and although she never elaborated on the experience afterwards, I gathered she had a pretty nice time. So we had packed extra clothes in advance, and were looking forward to a relaxing day with our toes in hot water doing nothing.

When we got there, it was around 3 pm already. There was very little people about although it was a nice and sunny Saturday afternoon. We parked the car in a dedicated parking lot and walked up towards the ticket booth. Tickets cost RM12 per adult, and you board a friendly little tram to enter the park.

I was expecting little ponds of hot water in the middle of a wild forest with chalets scattered here and there, lots of mosquitoes whuzzing by your ears and rubbish everywhere. But I was wrong on all counts. The place was clean, interesting and nicely laid out. No mosquitoes, no rubbish, and clear of mat rempits. In fact, it surprised me that there was such a small crowed of people for such a nice place on a weekend.

As soon as we arrived, we headed straight for the biggest pool. On the way, we passed by an egg-boiling area where people were sticking their egg boiling apparatus into the hot water and waiting excitedly for their eggs to cook. Since we had just came from a kenduri that had tempoyak and rendang tok, we K.I.Ved and continued on. 

The main water pool was a good size, with two water slides set between some artificial rocks. I quickly changed into my swimming clothes--my old pajama pants sorry--and joined the crowd. Ohhh~~ it was such great fun~ If you've been to Sunway Lagoon, you'd know the big crowd just spoils about everything. That day, it was just perfect. There was an average of 2 people per 20 squarefeet which was just fine with me. I had my space. I splashed and sploshed and threw water at hubs like a cheesy Sudirman-Anita-Sarawak music video. He ran around in slo-mo like a Baywatch lifeguard.

The main swimming pool. This is just one half of it. It was big.
 There was another hotter public pool on the other side of the park. 

Hot water fountain, with water at 100 degrees celcius.

After an hour of swimming, playing on the slides and acting like we're 18, we propelled ourselves to the present and decided it was time to explore the rest of the park. So me and hubs left the rest of the family (who can't get enough of the pool) and went back to the egg place. For the next half hour we soaked our feet in the hot water pond, took some pictures and watched people boiling and eating eggs. Then hubs said we should check out the Jacuzzi's.

sheemzhotsprings

sheemzhubs

The Jacuzzi's were in a dedicated area further into the park. The open-air jacuzzi's cost RM75 per hour and roofed-air-conditioned ones cost RM100 per hour. We were quite surprised we could get a jacuzzi immediately. The lady at the counter seemed bored and eager to get rid of us (her FB status was getting hits on "two more customers. help, need new job"). She ushered us into the little compound and left us without so much as a goodbye. We locked the door from the inside and looked around.

The jacuzzi place. Although it was a Saturday there wasnt that much people
around and we got a room immediately.

The open-air jacuzzi had a high wall running around it, and was very private. There was a roofed platform with benches to put our stuff on, a little room with a clean white toilet bowl, a stone water basin that looked like it came from the Hang Tuah era, with a slab of stone next to it for a stool, and a shower. The Jacuzzi pool was set in the middle, surrounded by what looked like some really crazy wild plants. The water was really really really hot and it took us approx 10 minutes to work up the courage and several buckets of cold water, before we finally jumped in. I think I just killed all the bacteria in my system that day with the heat and cold I subjected myself to. And upped my immune system by 100%. When we left an hour later, we were calm, collected and squeaky clean.

The private jacuzzis are very private
and romantic.

Roofed platform where we changed
and put our stuff

Stone water basin, stone slab and
shower. I loved it.  

The jacuzzi with natural hot water

We went to get an ice-cream sandwich after that and checked out another large swimming pool (but we didn't jump it, we were already very tired), a 100 degree fountain, a little river and a bridge. We waited at a nice little gazebo for the others to finish swimming and clean up to drive home to KL.

All in all, it was a great Saturday at a very very pleasant park. The place is awesome for the whole family and just great for some quiet time away with your significant other. However, according to my BFF, the place is very hard (keras). In Malay terminology that means banyak hantu. Her husband was involved in the development and he vows never to take her and the kids there ever. But to be perfectly honest I was totally unaware of any paranormal activity, although hubs said he felt like we were constantly being watched. I have yet to scan our pictures carefully of any weird 3rd presence. If I do find something extraordinary, I will make an announcement on the Asian Food Channel.

Map of the park. Click on picture to enlarge.
It was a really nice park!

Sungai Klah Hotsprings
Take the Sungkai Exit off Lebuhraya Utara Selatan

Cleanliness: B
Price: RM12 per adult. Very very cheap for such an awesome place.
Satisfaction Level: A++
Service: B
Atmosphere: A. I thought it was OK. Banykkanlah zikir kalau rasa takut :)

Kyros kebab :: go for lamb kebab!

The epitome's of kebab. Kyros Lamb Kebab. Not so good looking on the outside,
but very good-tasting on the inside. Please, do grab one now.

There's a little Kyros Kebab restaurant in Warta Bangi thats been there since time memorial but I've never even blinked at them --how haughty taughty of me (slap self). I guess the idea of kebab did not appeal, although I had kebabs nearly every other weekend back when I was studying in the UK. Tapi bak kata orang-orang bijak pandai kalau dah ada jodoh tu takkan ke mana. Tak pandang pun lama-lama boleh jatuh cinta (google translate on left). Nowadays I am an avid Kyros kebab fan. The lamb kebab.

The first time I had Kyros is quite a story. My husband probably doesn't even know he contributed to the meeting, even though he was the one who set us up. It was love at first bite~

Flashback:

We were on the way to Genting, and the car died on the way up the mountain, as normal love stories go. A kind Samaritan stopped to help us and by the time we reach the top, it was getting dark. We  had driven round looking for a carshop. My husband parked the car near a row of shops and left us to get some supplies while we waited for him in the car.

Something emerged from the forest and stumbled past our car. Relax, it was just a dog. With three kids in the car though, the excitement and commotion was like watching an elephant pass by in a drive-through safari. The dog was really skinny, and looked starved and half-dead. We took pity on it and searched around in the car for food. We found the kyros kebab hubs had bought before we left Bangi, and flung it at the dog. Before I did though, we all took a small bite each of the kebab.

Pause remote:

The kebab was superb. 

Continue story:

So superb the kids began fighting over it and I nearly changed my mind about giving it to the dog. But in a matter of seconds it was flying out the window anyway, and the dog gobbled it up and wobbled off. Hubs returned safe sound and unscratched and I apologized for his lost kebab and promised to get him another. He nearly strangled me in the car and threw me off the cliff--actually no, that was an ending to another movie. Just to fast forward a bit, while hubs was immersed in watching a really boring movie recently, I went out to Warta and bought him the replacement kebab. Promise fulfilled--although it was 9 months later. I hope you realized you were eating a kebab that day Abang.

Ida with black pepper spaghetti. A!

Miza with rootbeer float. A!

Present Day:

Last week me and [Assoc Prof] Miza went to Streetmall for a late lunch after another long meeting discussing the future of the younger generation (the ones who are currently stuck in FOE) and how we can get them to do the AES evaluation online without tying them to their chairs. There is a Kyros Kebab restaurant at the streetmall and remembering the one lingering bite so long ago at Genting, I suggested we get the lamb kebab to Miza.

She loved it, as did I (flashback: Genting episode). And Miza liked it so much that she stopped to get one for her husband too the next day, who said it tasted better than a Subway sandwich. I agree. Subway seems to taste the same nowadays regardless of the different fillings; it's like drinking different brands of mineral water. But if Subway was Air Mineral Petronas, Kyros Lamb kebab would be Evian.

Black pepper spaghetti. A!

Current promotion at Kyros Kebab @ Street Mall Cyberjaya. Make it a lamb kebab night!

Anyway, the pictures you see here was visit number 3 this month with Ida tagging along. Ida said the black pepper spaghetti is good too. Me and Miza remained faithful to our lamb kebab, we were women on a lamb kebab mission that day. It was as awesome as expected and as filling as a plateful of rice with 3 sides and an extra dash of tempoyak/sambal belacan/budu (insert favourite condiment here). The shredded lamb gives you an extra boost of energy to patiently finish off that thesis which reads suspiciously like its been copied off Wikipedia. And the bread was warm and crunchy enough to make you feel all optimistic for another semester of marking scrawling assignments, quizzes, lab reports and exam papers. Thank you Kyros for the awesome lamb kebab. Alhamdulillah.

Lamb kebab --> recommended!!

Kyros Kebab

Warta Bangi or Streetmall Cyberjaya

Cleanliness: A
Food: A

Price: Appropriate

Satisfaction level: A

Service: B++ 

Atmosphere: B++

Papa John's. Best pizza ever. Period.

with my babies. At Papa John's

Last Sunday was a Papa John's weekend. I had promised a Papa John's review back in May 2013. A promise is a promise. Better late than never. Biar lambat asalkan selamat because Papa John's has got to be the best pizza makers in the entire world and I want this review to be so perfect, your next stop this weekend is Papa Johns even if you have to drive all the way from Selatan Thai to get here.

I am sure your current favourite pizza place is Pizza Hut and you've probably ordered Dominoes countless times. But seriously, Papa John's is really special~ See, Papa Johns is the only pizza makers in the whole wide world (to my knowledge at least) that comes with this amazing garlic butter dip that can make your taste-bud plop and your fat cells multiply at twice the normal rate. And you wouldn't care about the dip if you're used to ordering Pizza Hut and Dominoes. Because Pizza Hut and Dominoes are in a conspiracy to cover up the dip by Papa Johns. Because they want the dip so bad but they can't because Papa John's came up with it first.

The epitome of all pizza sauces. Papa Johm's garlic butter sauce.
Simply dip your pizza into sauce then take huge bite.

We had this. And then ordered cheesy bread and spaghetti some more.

cheesy bread. Love at first bite.

All-meat pizza. A++

Spaghetti and breadsticks: A!

chicken balls. Awesome. 

Verdict on the deliciousness of Papa John's are as follows: I give Papa John's a 9 out of 10. My husband says 9.5, Armand, my 13 year-old says 8 and Iman, my 8 year-old says 6. Qayyum, my 5 year-old didn't say anything, he was busy with his spaghetti. But if this was a thesis we could see a correlation between age vs. score given: Qayyum would probably give Papa Johns 3. Regardless, the last 3 sample scores do not represent the mature population so we can and will overwrite them. Conclusion: at 9.25 over 10 Papa John's is the best. 

There's a good deal running in Groupon for Papa John's: a RM50 voucher for RM25. Definitely get one of those because I think my husband paid RM100++ for our meal (Thanks abang. Only Allah can repay your love and kindness~~). If I still haven't convinced you Papa John rocks, it's okay. I won't take it personally. Not everybody likes pizza. Only highly sophisticated bookwormy ambitious nerdy really fit people do. 

Papa John's
IOI mall or AEON Seri Kembangan 

Cleanliness: A
Food: A (my favourite pizza). I wish they delivered to Bangi.
Price: Standard for Pizza. Get the Groupon.
Satisfaction Level: A
Service: C -- quite slow. But it seems to me Pizza restaurants always have slow waiters.
Atmosphere: B+

Tappers Cafe On the Block: Lunch selection a must try~

And the best honey lemon tea award goes to...

TAPPERS!!

I had lunch with my sister Jah at Tapper's the other day, and I thought the place is definitely worth a review. They have a cool selection of lunch dishes around ~RM12 that comes complete with Honey Lemon Tea that is the best lemon tea I have had in my entire life (I am bolding and underlining it and including pictures of me drinking it for extra emphasis). Tappers is this feminine-looking white-wash restaurant at Shaftsbury Square (my new favourite place). It's in the same block as Pizza Hut and Secret Recipe. The place even has it's lights on in the afternoon so you can spot it through the haze. You can't miss it.

Tappers. Front entrance.

The manager came over as we sat down and took our orders himself. He recommended the chicken parmigiana, and I asked my fries to be replaced with potatoes and vegetables. Jah ordered the fish and chips. 

Here's the verdict:

The chicken parmigiana was delicious. It was topped with cheese transforming it unwillingly into a chicken pizza in my book and you know how much I love cheese (it keeps me in my current shape). The potatoes and carrots were sweet and yummylicious. Jah thought the veggies were mediocre, but that's because she didn't grow up eating carrots and potatoes everyday like I did. My parents had jobs when she was born. And the Beatles had disbanded. 

The fish and chips were OK. It was talapia, fried in batter and smelt slightly fishy-- so Jah squeezed lemon all over it making it soggy. I miss the fish and chippies drenched in vinegar we used to get back in the UK. I have yet to find a restaurant that serves incredible fish and chips. If you know of a place in mind, please ping me asap. It has to have vinegar with the fish or it wouldn't qualify.

Chicken parmigiana. I ordered mine with potatoes instead of fries.
A+!!

Fish (tilapia) and chips. Very good! B!

There were other items on the menu that look really good too, which I am definitely planning to try on my next visit. I just hope I won't order the chicken parmigiana again because then this food review is going nowhere. And we all want to get on with the next episode.

One other important observation: our orders arrived really fast --almost as if it was just waiting for me to say the magic word to be delivered. The place was packed at lunch hour so I had expected at least a 15 minute wait. Service was definitely first class with the manager taking our orders and everything. And I did notice a Jalan Jalan Cari Makan plaque on the door! TV3 had beat me to it~! Again! I need my own TV channel.

Here's our bill. RM30 bill is not bad at all for the food, service and comfort.
I had a RM60 bill the day before at Secret Recipe next door. That's two trips
to Tappers right there!

Will definitely be back tapping at Tapper's door (for the free meal). Someone stop me from ordering the chicken parmigiana again, please!

Tappers Cafe on the Block
Shafstbury Square, Cyberjaya

Cleanliness: A
Food: B+
Price: A -- lunch sets come with choice of drink, appropriately priced.
Satisfaction Level: A (thank you to the manager for the recommendation and warm service)
Service: A -- food arrived super fast!
Atmosphere: A -- good crowd

Alamanda Foodcourt: crazy selection of food~

Me with my crispy poppia. And sis and daughter.

Fun times in an Alamanda foodcourt on a work day with my family members--the ones who stay home and lepak all day watching sinetron (the Indonesian dramas). My mother, may Allah reward her for bringing 6 healthy boisterous people into this world, had a stroke 3 years ago and once in a while we'd take her out on a shopping spree. Please remember to include her in your prayers. May Allah make her well again. May Allah shower her with His love and guidance. What am I without my mother? Unborn.

Mak and her nasi campur.

Begin review:

My mother, my maid and Iman, my step-daughter, had food from the Nasi Campur stall--the very first stall on your right as you enter the foodcourt. There's a nice selection of lauk there priced unbelievably, let me emphasize CHEAP. I am not sure if the dude at the counter is new, or my smile was sparkling white that day but my mother's dish had about 6 lauk on it and he charged me RM7.50. My step-daughter had her telur masin what-not what-not and that was RM4.50 only. And my maid had some kuah and veggies and that was RM3. 

I was shocked suspenseless. Can Nasi Campur Putrajaya be cheaper than Nasi Campur Bangi? Is Bangi really the metropolitan it claims to be? Watch TV3 to find out.

Jah and her yee mee.

My sister Jah had what we usually order when we eat at Alamanda: sizzling-black-mushroom-chicken-yee-mee. That's the stall with the longest line and cheapest entrees (or so I thought before I came across Nasi Campur.) Possibly the best yee mee in the whole of Putrajaya too. I can recommend a nice Yee Mee place in Bangi, but I will save that for another entry. Please stay put until I do.

Side note: I do not recommend Sizzling Yee Mee to pregnant moms and unhealthy people though. I suspect there is a considerable amount of MSG in Yee Mee that only very healthy young people are able to digest. High dosage of MSG's may cause heart palpitations or nauseousness. Those shitake mushrooms don't help either: they have a really strong flavour and leave you with petai breath. 

Armand with his bento box

My son loves the Teppanyaki Salmon to pieces. I do too..it's the brown sauce, which is probably made from salted soy sauce, honey and few hundred sploshes of Aji-No-Moto. What I do not love is the price. For RM18 you might as well eat at a posh Japanese restaurant with your feet in the air than a noisy food court with plastic tables. Armand doesn't even eat the beancurd soup or salad that comes with it, so if I order, I would return the soup and salad and ask to replace it with extra rice and more salmon. Smart as a Japanese, aren't I? Except if the Japanese was really really smart, they'd make a better version of the beancurd soup.

Siti with her coconut drink

My maid had the nasi campur, but her nasi campur only had kuah on it so a picture of her with that would look like we are depriving her of lauk which may end up on youtube under maid abuse. So we thought we'd take a picture of her with the coconut instead and she willingly agreed because she's on a roll to get fit. The coconut at the drink counter costs only RM4.50 and is fresh and good for you. Its probably the only dish in the entire foodcourt that is  not splurged with MSG. And with a model like that <-- who can resist? 

As for me, I had the crispy poppia with crabstick --shown in picture at top. I don't know why I bought it, I make better poppia at home, but I seem to get rambang mata at the Alamanda foodcourt everytime and don't know what to order. In the end I always end up eating a little off everybody's dish (read: finishing my mom's leftovers) and ordering the cheapest item available: i.e., crispy poppia. Besides, the guy at the Poppia Crispy stall intrigues me. He's like the only second person in the world who looks really unhappy to see me. The first is the chinese dude in Warta who is always telling me to keep my watches away from my mobile phone like I shouldn't give him business.

Iman with her nasi campur

I hope you enjoyed my review. Next time you are in Alamanda, skip all the restaurants and head straight to Auntie Anne's. The pretzels there are crazy awesome. 

Alamanda Foodcourt
Putrajaya

Cleanliness: B
Food: B
Price: B
Satisfaction Level: B
Service: B
Atmosphere: B

Saba' :: Still the best!

I love it when my husband has meetings in Cyberjaya. He would call me up and we'd go out for lunch. Or coffee. Regardless, it makes the laboring day pass by faster. Which is just great. Before you know it, I'm in the car on my way home humming a happy tune.

I've done two of reviews on Saba' before, so I won't re-iterate and bog down your brain cells when you can use them for something more productive; like concentrating really hard on the sermon during Friday prayer and becoming a better person an hour later. You can just skim through them old entries here. The pictures are gone, but trust me, its just food photos. Google has a lot of them.

We'd already concluded from the last Saba' post that ordering something else apart from lamb kabsah may be disappointing, so today again, I had ordered the lamb kabsah (awesome as always) and I didn't think to do a review. But my husband had an epiphany and ordered that red-bean dish (picture number 3 below) which I thought tasted extraordinaryly like good spaghetti sauce. I can't recall the name but there's a picture of it in the menu if you want to try it (point and order). It came with an enormous chewy black sesame bread that reminded me of Elfen bread from LOTR ---it keeps you full for hours. Definitely a must-try.

Muttabbal. Best best most awesome appetizer on earth.

Lamb kabsah. A dish so simple the lamb stands out.

Bread and red bean sauce. A!

Saba' is great for going when you are extraordinarily hungry because the dishes are gigantic Arab-size servings served really quickly. Regardless of the so many new places that have popped up in Cyberjaya, Saba' still remains my favourite Arab food place. 

Abang with his schawerma.

Saba'
Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia


Cleanliness: B
Food: A!
Price: Just right.
Satisfaction Level: A+-- I always love eating with hubs.
Service: B++
Atmosphere: A-- too many people. They need to open up a bigger restaurant!

Secret Recipe Shaftsbury: New Menu~

Don't we look like sisters? We probably share a grandma somewhere back up the line.

It's always fun going out with Ning. I did a review with her last on Penang House and if you recall, it's now my turn to pay for lunch. Today we decided to go to Shaftsbury's in Cyberjaya to check out the restaurants there. Shaftsbury's Square is the new row of shops right up the street from MSC.

Ask for the brownie to be heated. And ask for WALNUT Brownie.
Simply awesome. A!

Ningy--a.k.a Dr Guo to people under 25 and living on MMU campus---is from China and all we talked about that day was the MH370 crash. It was quite therapeutic because you know how women need to get 21,000 words off her chest to feel good again? (this theory remains to be proven though). Well, I think I managed to finish my word quota that day with Ningy, because I fiercely stared at my Master's student who dropped by my office unexpectedly that afternoon until he scurried off in fright. Sorry.

Anyway, we finally ended up at Secret Recipe and you know I've done reviews of Secret Recipe before. It isn't that Secret Recipe is my favourite favourite place at Cyberjaya, no no, that would be Tokio still, but the brownies and ice-cream have this magnetic pull I can't resist especially in light of current incidents: the missing MAS flight, the haze, the draught and the denggi outbreaks, na'uzubillah. Money can't buy you a feel-better pill (actually it can) but chocolate cake and ice-cream is safer and halal.

Ningy ordered beef steak (RM22.50) and I had the fish and chips because it was a new hotter version of Fish and Chips, check it out; Spicy Fish and Chips (RM18.50). I loved it and Ningy's black pepper sauce which flooded her beef was good too, although she said the beef was a bit tough. I noticed something else too-- Secret Recipe had a whole new menu book with...*drumroll* PIZZA! I tried ordering and they said the store is still new so no pizza on serve-- bummer! If I was 22 I would have stomped off to Pizza Hut which is just next door. Now that I am a wiser, I just gave an annoyed smile.

Close up of heaven.

Pizza is now on the menu!!

Spicy fish and chips! Fresh and crunchy. B++!

Fresh and tough and good sauce! B+!

Apart from the extra-terrestrial prices (especially cake) plus tax charges that make you feel like voting for the opposition party, I still think Secret Recipe is a nice place to lepak-lepak and hang out with friends and family. The new branch in Shaftsbury's is still new enough to have fluffy sofa's and there's a new selection of food, cakes and drinks since last time I visited them--which was back in December 2013 with a RM254 ringgit bill that had left me quite traumatized. Until this day.

Lunch set includes lemon tea that tasted plastic.
Get water instead.

Secret Recipe
Shaftsbury Square, Cyberjaya

Cleanliness: A -- new place, sofa still plump and comfortable.
Food: B+
Price: B -- I hate the taxes they have at this place.
Satisfaction Level: A
Service: A
Atmosphere: A