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

Umai Cafe: my Putrajaya's favourite hangout

Qayyum under water umbrella 

I can't count the number of times we have eaten here, and I have taken so many pictures of perhaps nearly all the food (though goodness knows where I've put them), but these are the only ones that made it into this entry.

Umai Cafe is situated by a lake, between Masjid Besi and Masjid Putrajaya, right on my cycling route (nearer to masjid Besi). On this particular day, I had wanted to take the kids to the pool, which is right round the corner, and we stopped by Umai's for lunch, because I couldn't be bothered to cook. We had a big wedding to attend to that night (Uncle Amar's) and I still had chores to do: Armand's glasses, Q's shoes, my shoes etc etc etc.

Top 5 reasons why Umai rocks:

Buffet @ Pullman Putrajaya

Click on pictures to enlarge. The pictures are awesome :)

Mazlan's kambing-saturated dish.

I know you guys love buffets, so against all odds and all the rainy days this December I thought I'd stick this one in. This was a dinner buffet excursion at Pullman Putrajaya on 30th November 2013. And to sound crazy, Pullman is only 5 minutes drive away from MMU if you follow the road to Dengkil (take the Putrajaya exit right before Dengkil exit, and keep left all the way).

For a restaurant parked under a world class resort, the price was not bad at all: only RM60++ per pax. And to spare you the shocking finale, the '++' is RM15. Thank you to my personal banker and fellow diner for the awesome treat. May Allah reward you endlessly for your generosity.

Here's what was available that particular night. It was a TGIF night, by the way, which was why I was smiling so broadly in the picture. Not that work has never been so exciting in my life (it is, as usual), but I am done with undergraduate lecture, and now only have to deal with mature students who give me less--shall we say-- challenges. Hooray~~

Musings: the awesome Masjid BESI

Click on images to enlarge.

Main prayer hall.

Late congregation.

I love this masjid I really do. To me it is the perfect model of what a masjid should be: vast, airy, bright with sun-rays during the day and flooded with light at night. This masjid also reminds me of death in some ways. The grave is restricted and small, but we always pray to Allah to make our grave as wide and as far as the eyes can see. This masjid reminds me of that, because you can look past the non-existant walls and see the lakes and bridges and skies beyond; as far as the eyes can see.

Madam Kwan's ~ Authentic Fusioned Food :P



Ningy one day before flying back to China.
Circa 2012.



So this was a Ningy and Shima lunch session. We haven't had one of those in so long we were almost polite to each other. In the beginning. Before she bombarded me with questions from the scandalous picture of a few adorable kids I posted on FB. On Ningy's end, she is no longer with her old yoga place, and tomorrow she had a flight to catch to Beijing. It was a good time to get together and do a food review before the next accumulation of overwhelmingly exciting news.

Madam Kwan had recently opened up a new branch in Alamanda. In retrospect, I have had a few invites to Madam's a few times in the past so I have always had this assumption that the place must be really good. I don't quite get the tags on the place though:

Cafe. Okay. Cuisine. Okay. Nasi Lemak. Huh?

Kwanies must not have yet met my post-doc supervisor who would have gone crazy beserk at the sudden inconsistency in noun usage. Definite re-write and six months worth of corrections right there.



Bojori fried rice. That there is an egg. FYI.

The thing about Ningy is that she's really good at picking which dishes to order, which is why I am always dragging her along when we visit a new place. The bojori fried rice she ordered was really delicious. My mushroom chicken rice with soup and grated ginger was okay too, although I suspect the dish has more MSG in it than all the other ingredients combined.

The cendol and ABC was up to standard for the higher-than-average price we paid for it. But the deco at the place was really cosy and more than made up for it.

For now, I'd say Madam Kwan is really good and very comfortable. A fusion of Malay-Chinese specialties that gives authenticity a whole new meaning, priced just right for the average professional who's taking her time applying for that promotion because she is still editing an authentic paper one of her authentic students sent her.

Chicken mushroom rice. B!

Go to Kwanies and order the Bojori. Thanks Ningy.

Madam Kwans

Alamanda, Putrajaya

Cleanliness: A

Food: B+ (MSG-licious)

Price: RM70 for two people including desert

Satisfaction Level: A

Service: A

Atmosphere: A

Secret Recipe: A Fish & Chippies Day

Kak Sarina and Miza waiting for our chippies

I sincerely miss my S2, I really do, and I am bummed that a few droplets of water by the sink drowned it and scrapped the warranty that came with it. We had some good times me and he. The Samsung service guy called me with awful news. Touchscreens are way to expensive to replace, you might as well get a new phone he says. Didn't he know my S2 is irreplaceble? 

But of course it is not, Allah just has better plans. He always does. Whenever He takes away something or --someone for that matter, He always replaces it with something/one even better. Every single time. Never fails. And now, I am using my mom's redundant Galaxy Tab. See. And by default every caller goes straight to speakerphone. Yay. Hands-free~~ No  more private phone calls. Whatsapp me ok people.

So now, I am looking at the picture folder I had downloaded into my PC just before my S2 succumbed to water. The pictures here were taken way back before Kak Sarina had her baby. There was a SALE at Mothercare's and Miza has a membership card. ____________________ .

We--out of nowehere--suddenly found ourselves at Secret Recipe Alamanda. And fish and chips, although fried, weren't soaked in MSG (I am an anti-MSG activist nowadays). Not to mention, fish and chips are so British, it brings back warm memories of cold winds, frozen puddles, hail stones and stiff jaws (stress from all that PhD write-up)....so we all of us ordered the same thing. Of course the size of the fish are like dwarfs compared to the gigantic pieces of fish they serve over there. But hey. It was delicious.



Random pic from Health magazine: salmon,
dark chocolate, berries and eggs are
good for you~~



From Umar: Allah's Messenger (s.a.w) said: "Eat together, and do not separate, for the blessing is in the company." Ibn Mäja

Alamanda has the best
Secret Recipe 


Cleanliness: A
Price: ~RM15
Satisfaction Level: B+
Service: B+
Atmosphere: B+

Alamanda Food Court: Mixed Rice (give it a try...)

Nadia. My best friend!

I am 99.8% back to normal now. After the terrible headaches and neck pain I have been going through for a while now, I am nearly recovered. Nadia took me to this traditional chinese doctor who did some chi-repairing, and I must say, he was excellent. I know that soon I will be completely recovered insyaÁllah, but I do not want to forget the resolutions I had made while sick. So note to future self: remember your promises!

After the visit to the chi-doc, we stopped by Alamanda for lunch. I have aspired to minimize processed foods and go for all natural. The Mixed Rice stall in Alamanda was a good start. By the by, the chi-doc told me to cut down on the following for good health: kangkung, long cabbage, cucumber, soft tofu, watermelons, pineapple, bananas, cempedak and nangka (jackfruit). The pineapple part just breaks my heart. 

Yes. All this was for RM9. And it was good.

I had the ikan masak lemak (nice), brocolli (nice) and sambal petai (wonderful). Nadia had pretty much the same. And since her plate was pretty much cleaned out after, I am guessing her choice of lauk was good too. For drinks, we had all pure and natural young coconut juice. That must be the best part of our meal. For RM3.80, it was refreshingly sweet and fresh. Awesome. Go for it for sure. My uncle said that if you selawat on it 3 times and drink it from the shell, it will neutralize any bad chi (ilmu hitam) anyone's ever done to you, insyaAllah. So,  skip the coca-cola okay. At least when you're in Alamanda. 

Nadia's

I wish all my blog-readers good health!

Alhamdulillah for good food and great friends and the health and the time to enjoy them.

Alamanda Food Court, 

Putrajaya

Cleanliness: B 

Food: B+

Price: ~RM10 per person including drinks 

Satisfaction Level: B++ 

Service: N/A 

Atmosphere: nice. but that's coz Alamanda's my second home.

Baskin Robbin's (one of the best ice-creameries out there)

Baskin Robbin's is one of the best, long-standing and creative makers of ice-cream out there. And if you're like me, you'd probably have a favourite old-time flavor. For me, it's always been Pralines and Cream. Always and forever. Ever and ever. From since I stumbled upon the little Baskin Robbin's place behind Vandy way back when. I would drop by with my backpack and order the Pralines and Cream for lunch with the Mint-Chocolate-Chip-flavored shake for to go.

So, these pictures are all me on my various excursions with Miza, Ning and Armand. And believe me, there have been numerous excursions because Alamanda has one pretty stall standing straight in my face as I exit the parking lot, with all the ice-cream cakes sitting nice and pretty towards me begging to be picked up. Almost like that annoying cat from Shrek.

 Okay, here's the deal with Baskins: all the flavours taste yummy except for Green Tea and Black Forest Cake. Green Tea ice-cream and doughnut and whatever food item out there that involves green tea in a form other than tea, is a gimmick to make you--the incredibly intelligent consumer--think healthy. Get over it strategic-marketing managers! We know that green tea is only good for when we're shocked into our 30's and socializing with health junkies. And Black Forest is old news since Red Velvet's debut, not to mention it tastes like a regular Wall's ice-cream you pick up at Petronas while filling up gas. Not bad, but not so great either.

So there you have it. If you would like to taste something new that's awesomely delicious, try the Orange Pound Perfection. I know it doesn't sound or look incredibly attractive but it's orange flavored ice-cream thrown in with pieces of orange peel and  pound cake and it's not as sweet as Bombshell Blondie, which, although tongue-blowing, is a little bit too sweet for health purposes, I thought.

Black Forest Cake.
NO.NO NO.
Go get a wall's for less.

Bombshell Blondie and
Mint Choc Chip. YES. But
Bombshell Blondie is very sweet.

Last but not least, don't forget to wear pink on Wednesdays to get discounts. Men, don't think they hate you. We realize pink is so over-rated but Pink is Baskin's Robbin's trademark color and besides, eating ice-cream will emasculate you anyway, so why not give in looking all graceful and lovely.

Baskin Robbins
Cleanliness: B
Food: A-
Price: ~RM5 per scoop
Satisfaction Level: A-
Service: B (sometimes these ice-cream people can be really slow~~)
Atmosphere: A

Black Canyon (never judge a restaurant by its name~~)

Ning's frothy coffee. YES. YES

When I think Black Canyon, I think high, steep cliff and people plunging to their deaths. How about you? Is that why you've been avoiding that place all this time..? Huh? Huh?

Now the neurons in my brain have rewired to take on a different path. All I can think about when Black Canyon comes to mind, is the ultimate selection of coffee that puts Starbucks to shame, combined with --and here's the surprising part--Siamese cuisine. The reason it took a while for me to blog this one down is because I can't come up with enough English words to describe the dining experience without doing a cut and paste from the overwhelming Sup Ketin review. But I'm telling ya..the place was beyond our wildest expectations. Not that it was that wild. OK, just a little bit wild.

Spicy seafood salad with fresh lemongrass. YES YES YES

This was a Shima & Ningy Saturday session. After gawking over Tom Cruise like a couple of teenagers for two hours in Ghost Protocol, it was time for lunch and a spot of karaoke. Although, now that I am sitting comfortably in my reclining chair as I type this in, I think I am getting sick of karaoke. I'm going pro. 

Stir-fried prawn, chicken and cili with jasmine rice. YES

Here's that cili prawn and chicken again. You can get it on its own. YES.

My coffee in a glass boot. YES

I am just going to cut through the chase here. The coffee and desert selection --was more than words can say.  It had it's own menu book for it. Credits to Ning, she did a good job at choosing the stuff we ate that day. Her choice of coffee came with tea (would you believe it?) and these adorable little fish biscuits. And it was only RM6.50.  The stir-fried cilli of prawn & chicken, and the spicy seafood salad with lemongrass were both divine. The rice was jasmine, how cute (and delicious) is that? I never though Siam food could be so awesome. I had thought their greatest food creation was just Tom-Yam. And kerabu mangga. Apparently not.

You may now start looking at the pictures and start dribbling. The manager came by to see if we were OK. I promised her a good review of the restaurant. Promise delivered. Go people!

Sheemz's stamp of approval. Go!

Black Canyon, 

left side of Alamanda Foodcourt, Putrajaya

Cleanliness: A

Food: A

Price: ~RM20 per person including drinks.

Satisfaction Level: A 

Service: A

Atmosphere: A

Penang Village (good food, awful service)

Miza and her cendol bandung.
Seem familiar? YES

Yesterday and the day before I was sick. And the doctor said I needed to stay home and rest even though I looked pretty okay on the outside. So today, to get rid of that final piece of viral infection that was tensing my muscles, it was time to shop and review a restaurant. With Miza. And the place we chose was Penang Village.

The large crowd during lunch implied good food. So we were pretty confident this was going be a great review, and I could enthusiastically recommend this place to you guys, and all of you would go and rock Penang Village with your significant others  and babies.

The deco was nice, the chairs in the backroom where we sat ---awesomely comfortable; black leather with an armrest to one side, I was quite impressed. We sat down and the waiter, who was all smiles, presented us with two dog-eared menus that did not quite match the new deco. Never mind that, we enthusiastically scanned the entrees.

 I asked the waiter for the most-ordered dish. And he said kuew teow goreng. I ordered mine without the tauge (beansprouts) and prawns and Miza went for original recipe. We also ordered the Pie Tei for appetizer and two cendol syrups.

My kuew teow. Not pedas enough! 

Here's what happened:

Miza got her food first. Her plate was stained like it was not washed properly. Mine arrived about 10 minutes later. So by the time we ate, Miza's kuew teow must have cooled off already. 

The Pie Tei, although delicious, arrived with dirty spoons, so we used our hands.

My glass of water smelled used so I asked for a new one. (What did it smell like? air liur basi).

Miza's kuew teow. YES.

I had requested my kuew teow hot, but it did not have a single piece of cili in it, even though it originally said on the menu: chicken prawns, and cilis. (Chicken prawn must be some kind of prawn, because there was not a single piece of chicken in mine).

And my cendol syrup arrived just as we were leaving.

The dining experience fell so short of my expectations, it is affecting my opinion of the food as I write this. In comparison, Seri Penang in Cyberjaya had nice crisp menus, more dedicated waiters and  food presented on very clean dishes. Perhaps we just got unlucky and it was just not our day at Penang Village. Good thing there were lots to talk about.

Pei Tei. YES.

So in retrospect, next time we want nyonya food, you know where we're heading to right? Take a wild guess.

Penang Village, 
Alamanda, Putrajaya

Cleanliness: C (dishware dirty, awful)

Food: B+

Price: RM25 per pax including appetizer and cendol

Satisfaction level: C

Service: B+ (waiters were friendly)

Atmosphere: B (quite a good crowd, regardless)

posted from Bloggeroid

Johnny's (the dude does steamboats~~)

Stuff that's going into the steamboat.

I am writing this entry from the crime scene itself i.e., from the restaurant I am reviewing--as Ning is slurping on the remainder of our steamboat soupie--which she can afford to since she spends at least few hours at the gym...and me? I spend like 20 mins. So, its better for me to stop eating before I actually lose my vivacious coca-cola bottle figure (in-my-dreams).

The place we're eating? Johnny's..that restaurant right at the very end of the foodcourt in Alamanda. Many a time have we trudged through the foodcourt with the sole intention of eating at Johnny's and every single time, we get detered by the delicious array of food on display along the way. Today though, we were determined: having found that the Twilight movie tickets were totally sold out and there was no way we'd be meeting with Edward the vampire tonight, Johnny's will have to do.

To put it mildly, I was mildly surprised. Johnny's is a Chinese steamboat restaurant with prices that were actually quite agreeable. The steamboat for 2 was a mere RM29..not bad eh, and since we're paying to cook the stuff ourselves, the wait for raw meat and veggies to arrive at the table was literally less than 3 mins~~

Seawood noodles with chicken. Like nothing I
have ever tasted before. And I mean that in a good way.

Because I was ravenous I also ordered the seaweed noodles with chicken. That was an additional RM8.90 but it came with Thai tea, ice-cream and a little bowl of tom-yam soup. The tom-yam made me arrive to a new conclusion though...contrary to what Ning had said about this being a Chinese restaurant, I don't think it is, I think its' actually Thai. And while we are on that topic, avoid the Thai restaurant at the bus terminal in cyber, because the last time me and Nadia ate there, there were cicak eggs in the tom-yam soupie.

So Johnny's? It was okay. It did not blow me away but the food was certainly a good variety and the price was not bad at all and in fact cheaper than the foodcourt itself (softdrinks and ice-cream only ~RM2. What?!). Plus there's this steaming couldron of hot soup right in front of you so if you experience one of those akward silences with your dinner companion, you can pretend to get busy and do the cooking instead of toying with your phone and holding a public conversation on facebook. Or if you're like Ning, you can unload your shopping at the table, share steamboat cooking tips and cook at the same time in the true meaning of the word multitasking.

Ning practising to be a good housewife...

This place is great for families. Cook in front of your kids and hubbies why dontcha, and show 'em how its really done without even breaking a sweat. And you don't even have to clean up after. Nice.

Johnny's, Alamanda, Putrajaya
Cleanliness: B
Food: B (good variety)
Price: RM20 per pax (if you get the ice-cream etc. Else it'd be much2 less.)
Satisfaction Level: B+ (we sat outside, and the wind was in my soup. I loved it).
Service: B+ (waiter was friendly and took time to explain to us everything, even though there were so many customers waiting to be served)
Atmosphere: B+ (good crowd, hustle and bustle)

posted from Bloggeroid

Garden (fundamentally female~)

Of course we had to sit next to the grand
piano because it was a grand birthday. 

Garden. The noun is missing an adjective, so at first, I was not really sure what type of garden to expect. But it was in this mysterious Garden that we celebrated Nadia--my bestie's--birthday today.

We soon discovered the Garden is positively female. I am guessing, the entire interior design team is too. A problem may arise if your guy is one of those strong, macho, non-sensitive types, --it's better to eat somewhere else. You'll probably have to drag him kicking and screaming into the restaurant cause there's a 100% chance he'll feel like he's shedded his pants for a dress. A beautiful white and flowery one..

The decoration was excruciatingly lovely. There is a white grand piano in the middle of the floor, below an antique-looking chandelier. A white lamp-post stood near the little stairs. Creeping vines and flowers were everywhere, ceilings were painted sky blue and clocks of every shape and kind covered the walls that kept reminding me of the ACP meeting I had to attend to at 2 o'clock.

Too many clocks puts pressure on the chef.
We're guessing there's only one.

I ordered the Kung Pao Chicken Shanghai noodles and Nadia ordered Pasta Fiesta. Both came in enormous, over-sized, heavy ceramic plates that made the food looked insignificant. But even though the Garden was beautiful, there's something definitely lacking with the food. A little love and a lot of flavour. The chicken on mine was undercooked and the soy sauce and dried chillis were not fused well. The marinara sauce on Nadia's pasta tasted like a modified version of Lingham cili sauce. And much as we're crazy for Lingham with jemput-jemput, on pasta it doesn't taste that good. Desert was ordinary. For the RM9 price, I felt ripped off by exotic Charlotte.

Although it was lunch hour, there weren't a lot of customers and with all the clocks hanging on the walls showing London time, you'd think the food would be served quickly. They didn't. We did get complimentary mushroom soup to make up for it but, it tasted Pizza Hutty.

Kung Pao Chicken Shanghai  noodles. No.

Lemon tea and Jasmine tea. Yes.

Exotic Charlotte. No.

British Strawberry. Overpriced but Yes.

With all these shortcomings on the food, I'd still recommend you to go, at least for drinks. Experience the beautiful overgrown wonderland yourself, why not?

Great place for serious mother-daughter bonding, make-up & hair tips sessions, and girls day-or-night out. There's tables with swings for chairs, draped in vine--where you can swing all day like Jane from Tarzan as you sip flowery Jasmine tea. And if your Tarzan swings with you, doubt not his blossoming love.

Garden, Alamanda, Putrajaya (in front of TGIFs)

Cleanliness: A
Food: C- (mediocre and overpriced)
Price: ~RM35 per pax (including drinks and dessert)
Satisfaction Level: B (the beautifully decorated place made up for the lack in food)
Service: C+ (friendly waiters but long wait)
Atmosphere: calming, girly, very girly, extremely girly, pick one.

p/s Free food on weekends starting 19th November. Go.

TGIF (lift your spirits up!)

Aren't Fridays the best? cause Fridays you can sleep late and get out of bed really late the next day. That's the feeling that TGIF is supposed to evoke in you. And somehow it does.. I wonder if that feeling can be captured? Cause then I can take my EEG measurements in TGIF while the experimental subject munches on nachos and buffallo wings with 32 electrodes fixed onto his scalp. (Yes, I only deal with male subjects as guinea pigs. You can never deal with women's emotions. They're nonlinear. True and tested. We're publishing a paper on that).

Sedap

So today, me and Dor (my soul sister from since 11...would you believe it) hooked up and headed to TGIFs. Right after our manicure. Right after we checked out a few handbags at Parkson's. I am so getting that bag. But not now. Perhaps after my trip to Bali. If I don't splurge. And I probably won't. Because I'm only going to Bali for the bird park..

So as usual, TGIF has that dark, mysterious, romantic atmosphere. Any darker and you'd have to grope around for your food. Certainly if your current love interest takes you out on a date at TGIF, he thinks you're high maintainence but worth it --so, be kind and order the cheapest item on the menu, just so that next time he won't feel too bad to ask you out for mee mamak. I'm just saying. Dating tip number #14. How to get a second date if you like the guy. 

We didn't order a lot, seeing as we both had similar goals in mind: I am in a lose-weight competition, Dor is getting married in December, and honey, that dress has got to fit. So, for now at least, we did not binge. Maybe after Dor has 6 kids, we'll order the party platters and go crazy.

And by the way, the food was scrumptiously delicious. Any better we would have marched into the kitchen and added the chef to our facebook accounts. Hold your horses. We didn't.

TGIF,
Alamanda, Putrajaya

Cleanliness: A-

Food: B+ (authentic American food. It doesn't get any better than this.)

Price: ~RM35 per pax (excluding drinks)

Satisfaction Level: A

Service: B (friendly waiters)

Atmosphere: B (A bit too dark for our purposes. Or maybe we picked the wrong table.)

Cream and Fudge Factory (extreme sugar rush)

Have you ever heard the saying, too much of a good thing..can actually do you harm? Well, much as I want to say all the sweetest things about the Cream and Fudge Factory, and much as I admire the professional-looking chef mixing the ice-cream up on his ice-board like cement, I must say, the cream fudge factory was... too sweet.

With diabetes running genetically in almost every household in Malaysia, I personally found the ice-cream that was already too sweet to begin with, and then topped some more with cookies and pieces of chocolate almost unbearable. And this is me who has an uncontrollable penchant for sweetness. Not exaggerating it but I am literally all sugar. They took my gallbladder out ages ago. They, as in the X-files people who did Charlie the Unicorn.



coffee ice-cream in a basket



chocolate ice-cream

So I didn't finish my ice-cream cup. Thank goodness I only ordered one scoop. Thank goodness it was on Ning.

Cleanliness: A-/B
Food: C+ (tooo~~ sweet)
Price: ~RM13 per pax (including the cone or that little basket the ice-cream goes in)
Satisfaction Level: B-
Service: B (friendly, chef was like a sushi chef)
Atmosphere: NA (no enclosure)

Kenny Rogers (chickens getting smaller?)

I've just finished cooking beef rendang for the eid celebration tomorrow, and now, before we actually leave town for my grandma's, I want to put in an entry for my food excursion last night for my handful of loyal blog readers, just in case you miss me while I'm gone. Probably n o t? 

Last night was Kenny Rogers. I know what you're thinking. Another western food chain? boring. But bare with me please. Before I actually go into local restaurants, let me get my act together because I don't want to put them out of business. 

Caramel machiato and Americano

Le chick!!

So we arrived at around 7:30 pm, and dilly dallied around the mall looking at -- what all normal late 20's girls look at -- shoes, before we decided to get some meat into us. 

At 8pm, we finally plodded on to Kenny Rogers, settled on the PVC chairs and made ourselves comfy, flipped open the menu, and, after a mild discussion on calories, decided on the quarter chicken, three sides and a muffin. Let me be crystal clear here: two quarter chicken meals. No ones sharing.

The music was good. Some mainstream Indonesian band that made it big in Malaysia. Thank goodness they were no longer spinning and re-spinning Kenny Roger's ancient tracks. Much as I am into country music, Kenny is too old and too melancholy. Which reminds me of that really old track my guitar guru told me to practice. That really melancholic song Sembilu (Splinter, I think) by Ella. I keep messing up the first verse and singing: ...tak terlintas ingatanku terhadapmu (read: you never once crossed my mind) ...and strumming so fast that its become more like a cheerful puppy-love song than a heartbroken one. Oh well. 

The food, lets just say it was good. So good Ning was in extraordinary good spirits the remainder of the night. But that might have been the Americano coffee she ordered because I'm beginning to see a trend. The chicken was gorgeous. And the muffins were sinful (for me at least, being in a lose-weight competition and all). 

All in all a risk-free dining experience, with a substantial amount of food on an enormous plate at a reasonable price. Bottom-line: an excellent place for taking an awesome friend out on her birthday. For the not so awesome friends, there's always McD.

Kenny Rogers,
Alamanda, Putrajaya

Cleanliness: B+
Food: B (chicken portion was really small)
Price: ~RM25 per pax (including drinks)
Satisfaction Level: B+
Service: A-/B+ (friendly waiters, fast order)
Atmosphere: B (friendly atmosphere, music could be better)