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Mini steamroller taking up a carpark spot

This picture of a mini steamroller parked in the car park at work just cracked me up...

Posted in by Huai Bin at 04:41 PM Permalink | Comments (23)

Carlos D'Cantina review

Carlos D'Cantina is a TexMex eating establishment located behind The Beach Club in the heart of the clubbing district of KL. The eatery spans three stories - there's al fresco dining options spanning the entire ground floor of the place, with pool tables on the second floor and a VIP lounge in the works for the third floor.

I went there for dinner with Justine last night courtesy of Larry, who is a partner of Carlos D'Cantina, and has been nothing short of hospitable the whole time we were there. The dinner menu was personally selected by him and we managed to sample the offerings Carlos D'Cantina has on its portfolio.

The ambience of the place is great - it's interestingly done up with the al fresco concept obvious in the architecture. There is a huge screen at the seating area, but the volume was not overwhelming - it manages to strike the perfect balance between being audible and allowing conversation at the same time. The service at Carlos D'Cantina is also flawless, and most important of all, unpretentious, for a place in this district.

This is Chilli cheese fries, one of the flagship dishes of Carlos D'Cantina. It's a hearty mixture of fries, chilli, and melted cheese...the ground meat and cheese topping makes this a great starter. There is a really interesting anecdote behind the conception of this particular dish, which involves a late night call for munchies, but it's not my story to tell. Go and ask about it. ;)

Here's another shot of the chilli cheese fries with flash. The bed of fries is literally smothered by the topping; it's one of the dishes where you just have to dig in. TexMex food at its prime...the portion is huge though, so I would recommend sharing this dish to reserve space for one of their mains.

This is the Texas Chilli Dog, one of the main dishes Carlos D'Cantina serves. It comes with fries, hot sauce and a side of pickles. I noticed that the sausage (or hotdog, if you will) is different from the ones I'm used to having - it's very tender and maintains the taste of hotdogs that mass produced sausages do not have.

It turns out that the hotdogs Carlos D'Cantina uses is specially made from a distributor - there's no excess filler and binder in the sausages. I liked the chilli that tops off this hotdog as well...more meat is always good. The cup of lettuce which has a tomato slice, a ring of raw onion, and one slice of pickle completes this dish.

The Texas Style BBQ Chicken is also another great main dish. It comes with a side of french fries and corn on the cob wrapped in foil to keep it warm.

The chicken is nicely tender, with an almost melt-in-your-mouth texture and the jalapeno based sauce is hot, a wonderful combination.

The spiciness of this dish is offset by the sweet notes offered by the corn on the cob served alongside it. Larry also furnished some off-menu items for dinner, concept creations that will make it into the menu in the near future. We also had the very spicy Habanero hot wings, which comes highly recommended from me if you like your food hot. It's hot. I can take a lot of chilli. If I say it's hot, it means it's hot. ;)

The chilli powder at Carlos D'Cantina is home made and is a closely guarded secret, as this "Don't Ever Touch!!" labeled container shows. It's a mix of several varieties of chilli and peppers blended for the perfect taste and spiciness factor.

Carlos D'Cantina is a great experience - the food is great, the portions are generous and this is one of the rare eating establishments where they take pride in the food they serve. It comes highly recommended from me...get some of the chilli cheese fries or Habanero hot wings to soak up the alcohol after clubbing!

Posted in Food reviews by Huai Bin at 10:02 PM Permalink | Comments (24)

Guide to eating a Top Off coconut

The Top Off coconut experience is commonly available in food courts...it's the shrink wrapped coconuts at the drinks counter with the top partially serrated for easy opening. It's a very user friendly coconut.

It comes in several varieties - a fully green one (skin on) which tastes a little tart, a mostly skinned white one which has a sweeter content, and the Thailand variety which is a small, fully skinned coconut. I have had all of them, and my personal preference is the partially skinned one.

The whole coconut is covered with shrink wrap - including the top of the coconut. You need to remove the shrink wrap before the coconut can be consumed. The removal of shrink wrap goes according to user preference - I tend to just tear off the top of the shrink wrap.

Next, you use the side of the provided standard spoon to remove the "cover" of the coconut. The easy way to do this is to analyze the partial factory cut top for the largest point of possible entry and wedge the side of the spoon (the thin side) down, before using leverage to "scoop" the whole top back up.

It should look like this after that step is completed. Do not, under any circumstances, allow the top of the coconut to fall back into the coconut. It should also be noted that this is the most difficult part of the process, as there is a distinct possibility of causing a faux pax by twisting too hard and spilling coconut juice all over the place.

The user may proceed to use the spoon to separate the coconut flesh from the now separated top for consumption. The flesh of the coconut is edible, and the top of the coconut contains a significant amount of coconut flesh...this should be appreciated by eating said coconut flesh from the top.

The next step is to insert the (provided) plastic straw into the open coconut receptacle. The coconut juice can be sipped straight from the coconut. Optionally, the spoon can be used to harvest more coconut flesh from the inside of the coconut. It is important to remember that the entire internal circumference of the coconut is coated with coconut flesh...which is edible.

The coconut juice should appear as a clear liquid, unless the coconut has been disturbed in any way (e.g. internal flesh scooped for consumption, vigorous stirring etc). Do not be alarmed if the coconut juice turns murky. This is perfectly normal and the coconut remains safe for consumption. The color change is caused by cross contamination from the coconut flesh, but this is not as bad as it sounds...since the flesh is edible. Certain connoisseurs also appreciate murky coconut juice. I reiterate - murky coconut water is perfectly fine.

There is an option of adding ice to the coconut for a chilled coconut drink. The user does this at the risk of diluting the coconut juice. Coconut connoisseurs frown at this practice, but it is widely...er, practiced for a colder drinking experience.

Enjoy your coconut.

Posted in Local food by Huai Bin at 03:42 PM Permalink | Comments (7)

Nike "Play To Win" football vending machine

I have to say, this is the first time I've ever seen a football vending machine...this is the Nike "Play To Win" football vending machine in front of Sungei Wang Plaza. I've seen the Nike commercials on TV - the Play To Win series of ads. The most memorable one was the forest scene with a guy playing solo football (or soccer, if you like) where he scores and the wind going through the tree leaves sounds like stadium applause and it ends with the tagline - "Play To Win".

These are the exact same footballs from that commercial. It's the Nike Total 90 Swift soccer ball series and the vending machine has about 20 of the footballs going for RM 45 each. There's a slot for inserting RM 1 to RM 10 denominations and presumably, a football will drop down from the vending machine into the flip up receptacle at the bottom. I didn't have a spare RM 45 to find out, but I would project that as the likely scenario, since it's a vending machine.

I got a HP iPAQ hx4700 just now for RM 2,300. The retail price was RM 2,488 and I probably could have brought the price lower, but I was in a good mood, the shop has just opened - it was the first sale of the day for the commission based attendant. She was happy about it, probably made her day, so I didn't mind. Passing it on and all that. ;)

Posted in by Huai Bin at 12:33 PM Permalink | Comments (10)

Justine Lee

I managed to meet up with Justine (who also has a "Poh" in her name - never did forget that) late last night after the scheduled work has been completed. We headed to Carlos D'Cantina to meet up with Larry - full review later...I've got to check out now.

Posted in XX chromosomes by Huai Bin at 12:22 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Just: The new way to enjoy wine

The Just label is not well known for wine...at least I haven't heard of it, until I saw this display at the Jusco supermarket. The attractive features of the Just wine display is the unconventional wine bottle size, the wide range of varieties available and the affordable price at RM 8.50 per bottle.

Just seems to be a new label and has an interesting tagline which goes Just: The new way to enjoy wine. The small Just wine bottles are color coded based on the type of wine it contains - there are various options of red and white wine.

I couldn't resist the interesting bottles and grabbed two different ones, a Merlot and a Cinsault. The bottles have easy screw on "metal corks" (otherwise known as covers) and thus can be appreciated without having to purchase a corkscrew. Just wine is a produce of France.

The Merlot is described as "a round and balanced Merlot with aromas of ripe fruits" and weighs in at 12.5% alcohol. It tasted alright, but I'm no wine connoisseur so I can't be more descriptive than that, unless I sprout some pretentious bullshit about the wine being "naughty to the palate at the beginning, with an aftertaste that caresses the tongue with warm notes of oak" or something to that effect. ;)

The Cinsault has a label that describes it as "a consistently fresh and aromatic Cinsault with delicate aromas of red fruits". I've never heard of the word Cinsault before, but it tasted like a rose wine. This one comes in at a slightly more satisfying 13% alcohol. I had it at room temperature, and it tasted alright nevertheless.

Just: The new way to enjoy wine!

Posted in Ethanol and tobacco by Huai Bin at 07:39 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Promegranate fruit

The promegranate fruit, sometimes spelled as pomegranate, is a seed based fruit that I've seen around in Australia and Malaysia, but never got around to trying it, not being a big fan of fruits.

I got one of them to eat just now though - it retails for RM 3.59 per fruit and the promegranate fruit originates from India. It looks rather like an onion with its bulbous shape and flared ends - a large, reddish onion.

The pomegranate fruit is filled with red seed pulps in segments much like the pomelo fruit. I was told that only the seeds are edible, and not the skin.

Much like the pomelo fruit, the pitted areas around the skin and segments tastes bitter, but the seeds have a slightly muted tartness...muted being the keyword here. I found the fruit rather bland, to be honest, and didn't find eating it fresh particularly interesting, though I imagine it would go well in other preparations.

Posted in by Huai Bin at 07:25 PM Permalink | Comments (8)

Food Junction @ Midvalley Megamall - Western Food

Food Junction is the food court located at MidValley Megamall which I've been frequenting due to the close proximity to the hotel I'm staying at (it's just next door).

There is a Western Food section on the entrance of the food court - there are several themed food eateries at the place.

The Western Food category has displays of their menu repertoire in a visual format, which I found to be very useful in gauging which of the dishes is likely to be good.

This is the first row of the food dishes that this section offers...

The second row is also filled with cooked dishes on the second tier, with condiments on the bottom one...

The third row has both tiers filled with food.

This is the Seafood and Spaghetti with Cream Sauce (RM 15.90) that my CTO ordered...it looks creamy and nice, and has several prime seafood items on the dish too.

I went for the Baked Seafood (RM 19.90) which was recommended as one of their specialties. I was not disappointed...it was spicy, with tones of garlic and the toppings were piled on - more prime seafood: prawns, large mussels, smaller mussels, squid...the works!

Posted in Food reviews by Huai Bin at 06:36 PM Permalink | Comments (19)

Soon Fatt Beijing Roasted Duck

Soon Fatt Beijing Roasted Duck is a popular roadside stall in Jalan Pasar (Market Road) in Pudu, KL. I went there for a late lunch with a couple of people. The ad hoc seating arrangements of plastic chairs and tables were packed full of people, from, dare I say it...all walks of life.

The stall front has displays of whole duck and other meats and the front is adorned with a newspaper clipping which shows the stall in a paper write-up. Adhering to the all-in-one stall design, steamed rice containers, soup cauldrons, tea kettles are all within easy reach and the wash basin is in close proximity with the back. Nifty, self-contained roadside stall design...

This is the main platter that we ordered - there's a thigh of their renowned Beijing Roasted Duck, as well as a cut of breast meat, together with sweet meat and deep fried pork under a bed of nice gravy and sprinkled with stalks of spring onions. It comes with a serving of rice and soup...and the duck tasted good.

Posted in Local food by Huai Bin at 06:54 PM Permalink | Comments (9)

Cititel Mid Valley Hotel, KL

Cititel Mid Valley hotel is the "business-friendly" hotel situated conveniently beside one of the larger malls of Klang Valley - Mid Valley Megamall. Cititel KL hotel is a towering monolith of 28 floors of hotel space.

The business obligations of the day took up much of the...er, day. We only managed to check in after 7 pm. Cititel Mid Valley Hotel is adjacent to a mall that opens from 10 am - 10 pm, which is great, but the hotel has really small rooms, which is not. Plus, they charge RM 3 for toothpaste and toothbrush.

/me writes it off as a business expense. ;)

It's a good thing that the drinking water is complimentary...like most hotels, they have their own drinking water, and the guests have complimentary breakfast at Citi Cafe every morning too. The lobby area and Citi Cafe has Wi-Fi access, but I opted to use my Digi EDGE connection to my notebook since the AP down there is RM 30 for 2 hours...which I would have gone for, if I don't have an existing free connection. ;) It's also notable that this is the first trip in which sixthseal.com updates in real time, thanks to my notebook and GPRS/EDGE cell phone.

I'm staying on the 20th floor of Cititel, Mid Valley. It's a smoking floor and I'm in room 2006 - please feel free to ring the doorbell at odd hours of the night if you're so inclined, but I'm likely to be out the whole day. ;)

The view from the 20th floor is great - it feel good to be in KL again...I was walking around Mid Valley just now and have been to bsc and other places earlier during the day. KL feels like the place for me...I'm not sure why, it just feels like the right place for someone like me to be living in. :)

Posted in Travel by Huai Bin at 11:35 PM Permalink | Comments (22)

Fatimah Restaurant, Negeri Sembilan

This is a 24 hour place in Negeri Sembilan - Fatimah Restaurant. I noticed that we were passing signs that ends not in KL but in N.S. (Negeri Sembilan). Our client/companion confirmed that we had indeed crossed into another state, which explains the long drive...but "crossing into another state" in Sarawak takes much longer than in Peninsula Malaysia. ;)

Fatimah Restaurant is located on the way back from Port Dickson and is under the jurisdiction of Majlis Perbandaran Port Dickson (MPPD), which was the first sign that we weren't in DBKL territory anymore. I had nasi campur (chose the nasi kuning (yellow rice)), with nice, spicy ayam masak merah, curry kambing, and udang pedas. It was somewhere between Lukut and Sepang, I believe...it took several hours of driving...

It's my first review of a place in Negeri Sembilan. ;)

Posted in Food reviews by Huai Bin at 11:14 PM Permalink | Comments (4)

Japanese choco mochi with peanut fillings

I got these from ff (see post below) during the weekend - it's from Japan, and since I can't read the script, except the Romanized "choco" word, I thought it would just be perfect for a sweet ending to the dinner I just had. I'm in the habit of eating something sweet after a salty meal...

Closer scrutiny reveals a photo of mochi - the glutinous rice based food, and this looks a lot like the ones we eat at the paternal side of the family during the festival. The maternal side makes it into a soup, while we eat it dry, with either colored sugar (red), finely grounded peanuts (optionally mixed with brown sugar) or both. There is an outline of a peanut on the wrapper, so I figured I'm in for a treat.

There are two wrappers - the outer decorative one the inner protective one, which reveals a confectionary that looks like toffee. I took a bite of it...

...and it has that melt-in-your mouth, saliva inducing soft and chewy texture of mochi together with a peanut jelly filling which tastes like peanuts. The integration of different and unexpected textures is impressive - I couldn't help but eat all of them.

It tastes more like toffee than chocolate, but they're both cool with me, so it's all good. :)

Anyway, I'm going to pack now - will be going on the 7 am flight out of Kuching tomorrow and I'll be staying at Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley (the one just beside it) while I'm in KL.

Posted in Snacks by Huai Bin at 07:30 PM Permalink | Comments (5)

Meeting e from LA and fish_fish from Japan in Kuching

I managed to meet up with e and fish_fish over the weekend, despite the hectic schedule at work. I got around to meeting up with them during a break at Da Lai near King Center. This is a photo of us in 16:9 aspect ratio:

L-R: e [cooknengr.com], who is strictly heterosexual, as he informs me ;), fish_fish [blogspot.com], with a policy of not revealing herself in photos (it's true - check her blog), and me.

e kindly gave me some stuff from LA - Everclear high proof grain alcohol, a can of Coors Light and two types of smokeless tobacco. Thanks! I shall review them individually.

ff also brought back some stuff from Japan for me - a giant Kobe Wine flavored Pocky which is only available in that prefecture in Japan, Ramune - the drink with that push down ball, 5 packs of different Japanese cigarettes from a vending machine and candy. Cheers! I'm going to enjoy reviewing these.

My apologies for the late posting, have a lot on my plate at work. I'll be flying to KL early tomorrow morning and will be staying in a hotel there. It's a business trip, so I probably will be busy, but if anyone wants to hook up, you can always try 016 869 0110. See ya!

Posted in People by Huai Bin at 10:56 AM Permalink | Comments (13)

The photo that locked me out of the car

This is a picture taken just now at the landmark Jalan Padungan cat statue. It's wearing CNY clothes, so I decided to pull up beside it to get a shot before the clothes are taken down. The locality of this Kuching cat statue is right beside a roundabout, but I figured that it would take all of 5 seconds to take a photo, so I just got out in the middle of the road.

This is the same flawed logic that got me an obstruction of traffic ticket (which is still outstanding) while I popped into the local 7-Eleven "for a couple of minutes".

I did manage to take several shots of the festive cat statue in less than 30 minutes and walked back...to see the car engine still running, with the doors closed and locked. This didn't look right, but it took another 5 seconds to realize that I've somehow locked myself out of a running car parked in the middle of a busy roundabout at night.

My first thought was to break the driver side window, figuring that it wouldn't cost as much as the other windows to regain access to the locked car, so I wrapped my hand with excess shirt material and forcibly hit the window...

...which didn't even produce a hairline crack. That's a good thing in hindsight; coz the shattering glass would probably necessitate a quick trip to the hospital.

I looked around and found a fire station about 50 meters away. Salvation! The Fire and Rescue Department would have something heavy to break windows with.

I walked over and told the amused firemen about my predicament. The head was aghast at the fact that I wanted to break the window to gain quick access (had to meet someone) and offered to jimmy the lock for me. I've thought about that too, but I haven't really had much practice doing it, considering grand theft auto wasn't one of my career path considerations...

Thus, the firemen trooped down to the roundabout. Imagine the sight of about 13 firemen gathering around a car to force the lock open. It was a sight to behold, I imagine...

It just took 2 minutes for them to flip the lock and open the passenger side door. I thanked the firemen and offered to buy them a drink, which they accepted.

I learnt how to break into a locked car in 2 minutes flat today. Thanks firemen! ;)

Posted in Hmm... by Huai Bin at 11:26 PM Permalink | Comments (25)

Big nuts

I have a bag of really big nuts. No, it's not what you think, but thanks, I have a set of really big nuts too. ;) I've been told that I'm a little nuts as well, but that's besides the point and the wordplay is getting cheesy.

The product I'm referring to though is this bag of big assorted nuts. It's made in Japan and retails for RM 19.50 for a large packet of individually wrapped assorted nuts. I brought it to the office today.

The packaging on these snacks is very aesthetically pleasing, as with most products originating from Japan. The packs are ingeniously shaped like a pyramid, and opening it makes the packet "flat" for easier extraction of nuts. There are five different varieties of nuts and snacks in the pack.

The first packet is green and since I can't read Japanese, I can't say for sure what kind of nuts it contains, but inference from taste and sight suggest that it's not a common nut.

Here's a look inside the green packet. I'm not sure what this particular variety of nut is called...I've had them before, and it's not cashew nuts, peanuts, macadamia nuts or pistachios. It's a crumbly sort of nut with a lingering texture that sticks after you're done chewing them.

The second packet is pink and the nuts on the packet illustration shows a familiar sight.

It's peanuts with a twist - the nuts are coated with a sweet and sticky substance and have dried seaweed (nori) pieces on it. It tastes good, nori and peanuts naturally go well together.

This is the yellow pack and it's the first to feature a non-nut product.

The contents feature deep fried rice puffs with the same sweet coating that's on the peanuts pack. This is the best one from the pack.

Next up is the blue colored pack, which contains another non-nut product.

It's filled with long snacks which tastes really bland. It's also made from deep fried rice based flour and has bits of what seems like peanut skin in it. Unlike the other pack contents, this one is neither salty nor sweet...it's just...bland.

The last pack is orange colored and it's a mix of nuts and snacks.

There are plain salted peanuts inside as well as deep fried salty rice sticks. It's a nice, if common, integration of nuts and snacks.

There are some good offerings in the big nuts pack, but the best thing about the snack pack is in the presentation - it just looks good. :)

Posted in Snacks by Huai Bin at 02:35 PM Permalink | Comments (16)

Samjin Mochi Ginseng Pie

Samjin is a South Korea based confectionary manufacturer which has a line of Choco Mochi Cake as their signature line. Mochi is a made with glutinous rice and comes in a deliciously chewy texture. It's a traditional Korean and Japanese snack.

My parents went to Korea for a vacation recently and bought back several packs of Samjin Choco Mochi Cakes. It's supposed to dominate the market share in mochi confectionary in Korea. My favorite one is the Ginseng Mochi Cake.

Ginseng Mochi Cake comes in a box containing five individually wrapped packs of the "Ginseng Pie". The promotional spiel goes 'Ginseng Mochi Cake' is enhanced in its taste as inserting Ginseng cream mixed with extracts and powder from world famous Korean Ginseng in a rice cake, which doesn't exactly make much grammatical sense. ;)

Samjin products are currently only sold in souvenir shops in Korea and it's surprisingly addictive. I've had the regular ones and the Ginseng ones and while both have a wonderful chewy texture that makes it impossible to eat just one, I like the Ginseng Pie better.

The interesting thing about Samjin Choco Mochi cakes is that the chocolate is beige and crumbly...there's a filling covered by the chewy mochi and covered with chocolate. The Ginseng Mochi Cake has Korean Ginseng added. I brought several boxes over and realized that I've absently eaten one after another continuously...it's really that good!

Mmm...chewy. ;)

Posted in Snacks by Huai Bin at 07:11 PM Permalink | Comments (11)

RM 15 bowl of prawn noodles

Min Kong Cafe reputedly has the best prawn noodles in town, the standard against which all prawn noodles are benchmarked against in Sibu.

I went there for breakfast just now - it's a popular place for breakfast and people go there for the RM 15 prawn noodles. It's the flagship dish of this place.

The prawn noodles is cooked Foochow style, with the noodles fried before cooking and served in a large soup bowl with three large king prawns, partially peeled.

It's a hearty and warming breakfast, and no, the soup isn't as radioactive orange as the photo seems to indicate - it's dark brown, but the lighting conditions made it come out like that. It's a good place for breakfast if you like prawn noodles. The place also serves fish noodles for RM 15.

I'll be flying back to Kuching later tonight...going back to work tomorrow.

Posted in Local food by Huai Bin at 10:35 AM Permalink | Comments (21)

KFC O.R. (Original Recipe) Fillet Burger

KFC OR Fillet Burger is the latest addition to KFC's admittedly paltry burger portfolio. The O.R. stands for Original Recipe, as in the KFC chicken.

The advertisements and promos for the KFC O.R. Fillet Burger centers around "missing" and "lost" themes involving the burger in question.

One particularly amusing one involves a "car missing" poster which describes the lost car, which was last seen with a KFC O.R. Fillet Burger on the front seat.

The KFC Original Recipe (O.R.) Fillet Burger is basically a Zinger with an Original Recipe fillet inside, instead of the Hot and Spicy breaded fillet used in the Zinger.

The diminutive size hardly makes it justifiable for a meal though...and yes, that is the real size, it's smaller than a soda can...

The KFC O.R. Fillet Burger comes in a mild blue colored wrapping, which is a contrast to the siren red Zinger wrappers.

The O.R. Fillet Burger comprises of a tender cut of KFC Original Recipe chicken, lettuce and mayo...and that's about it. It tastes good though, a simple but satisfying burger. I have no beef (pun not intended) with it except for the below average size (for a burger).

It's just not meant for big appetites...

Posted in Fast Food Inc. by Huai Bin at 10:31 PM Permalink | Comments (14)

Pizza Hut's New Rich Gold Crust Pizza

Pizza Hut's latest new crust is the much lauded Rich Gold Crust Pizza and it comes with the tagline Indulge in a golden ring of extraordinary flavors. Extraordinary indeed! The new Pizza Hut Rich Gold Crust Pizza is the best crust I've seen come out of their ovens in a long time!

The Rich Gold Crust Pizza is 18% larger than the average Pizza Hut crust, but don't let that figure put you off - what bulk is added is good. The promotional liner goes "An exciting combination of a golden ring of sweetness and savory mozzarella cheese and cheddar cheese on the crust".

Here is the gist of what the new crust has to offer - it's basically a three-ringed affair which consists of a sweet inner ring, a mozzarella middle ring and a cheddar outer ring.

We ordered it with the Royal Masala topping, the new crust is valid for all the Family Favorites and Supremes set of toppings and the Royal Masala topping goes very well with this crust, as we got to know later...

Behold the Rich Gold Crust Pizza Double Golden Spinner! The waitress at Pizza Hut pulled out a new game, which seems to be a Pizza Hut staple nowadays - they always seem to have an accompanying new game for every new promotional item that they come out with. I got the free ice blended coffee.

It's from the new "Go Icy in Pizza Hut" ice blended drinks range they're trying to pitch - I choose the Mocha Frappe Freeze - "a rich European Chocolate fantasy with the aroma of fresh toasted Arabica coffee".

It's alright...it won't be stepping on Starbucks turf anytime soon, though it's a good option for drinks in Pizza Hut. BTW, I actually got another pizza with the Pizza Hut games when it first few iterations came out.

Here's the Rich Gold Crust Pizza in all its glory, on a platter and hot from the oven...

You can see that the Rich Gold Crust takes up almost half of the pizza, which I thought would be a bad thing, but it turns out that the crust can pull its weight in the taste department too.

The first crust is actually made out of sweet potato (!).

The sweet richness of the first ring is palpable...the baked sweet potato is still warm and slightly pliable under a thin baked in crust.

The next layer is a generous portion of warm and malleable mozzarella cheese, which provides a nice contrast to the first sweet crust by giving it a tart and rich mouth-feel before surrendering to the final thin conventional cheddar topped layer.

The Rich Gold Crust Pizza comes highly recommended from me. Try the Royal Masala topping with it - the pizza goes from hearty meat flavored to the surprisingly synergistic sweet, malleable baked potato in the first crust, before it ends with a burst of tart, warm and rich mozzarella cheese. Nice!

Posted in Fast Food Inc. by Huai Bin at 11:53 AM Permalink | Comments (16)

Exhibit A

Exhibit A above shows various benzodiazepines (diazepam, lorazepam), non-benzodiazepine hypnotics (zopiclone) and dihydrocodeine tartate. I have been generously self-medicating with 510 mg of DHC per night and I realize that I'm getting pains and aches all over, in between doses.

Pains and aches, my friends, pains and aches...

Crap...

Posted in by Huai Bin at 09:22 PM Permalink | Comments (19)

Chinese New Year visitation photos (2005)

These are the Chinese New Year visitation photos from this year. I was supposed to go on another one today, but I can't make it coz I slept late last night. The photo above was the point house - Karen's place, where we met up at about 11 pm or so. The people grew and shrank with every house due to personal obligations - Karen is the one in the white dress.

This is us at Justina's place - she's the one in blue, middle. I'm wearing a red shirt, and I'm on far left in this one. I noticed that a lot of my ex-classmates who did medicine is now doing a final year abroad, I've seen interesting photos from India, Scotland, etc.

We dropped by Siew Leng's place after that, and she was doing homework on the second day of Chinese New Year, which was quite impressive. She's the one in the middle, red stripes.

The next house was Thien Na's house...and a lot of people congregated and left there - Lisa, Wendy, Collina, Jenny etc.

Here's me and Thien Na coz we realized that that particular corner of the house has been featured in the past few CNY photos so here's one from another angle.

We went to several houses before ending up at Catherine's. She's wearing a muted red and standing in the approximate middle. It was good to catch up with all of them, all my ex-classmates, and see where they are now. That's the best thing about these group visiting exercises, though I usually go out with a smaller group of people. It was fun, catching up.

Posted in Chinese New Year by Huai Bin at 03:21 PM Permalink | Comments (14)

Skybound Hackers Havoc firecrackers

The festivities of every Chinese New Year's Eve demands firecrackers and fireworks and this year did not disappoint...in addition to the regularly scheduled display (otherwise known as The Usual Suspects), there was also a new firecracker that debuted this year.

It's a Skybound product and it comes in the standard 16 shot format - it's called Hackers Havoc firecrackers and it comes complete with a pasted on display of some fried out dude bathing in the green cathode ray of a monochrome monitor, with frequent appearances of "Legion of Doom" and classics like that.

The fuse is on the top of the firecracker, and it does bear some surprises when we lit this one sometime after midnight...

The first few shots comprises of a smattering of "Colored Rain" - bursts that disintegrate with a crackle into more pyrotechnics in the air.

It then switches to the "single red glowing bulb" interim...

...before launching into two-tone standard issue reports with flare mode and finishing with a tri-side-burst of white light that caught me by surprise. It's a good one, this Hackers Havoc - a product befitting the name, a medley of fireworks, what one imagine would be the byproduct if pyrotechnica was controlled by a hacker for a minute or so...

This year's firecracker and fireworks display, sponsored by The Citizens of Sibu, was no less outstanding in turnout, if less so, in duration.

It's still a cause for celebration that the festive season is ushered in the traditional way, back here...

Oh, and Colored Flower/Chai Lei is being renamed Pop Pop again this year...

Posted in Chinese New Year by Huai Bin at 02:02 AM Permalink | Comments (15)

Each CNY is different in character

I just came back from the annual Chinese New Year reunion dinner and I can't help but dwell on a message that one commercial on TV had - each New Year is different in character.

I'm reminded about how true that is, the families that merge and drop off every new year, considering that we only go through an average of 60 new years. :)

Posted in Chinese New Year by Huai Bin at 08:02 PM Permalink | Comments (13)

OMG, it's tomorrow!

I have less than 24 hours before I go back to Sibu - time managed to sneak up on me and it's Friday evening, and I realize that I haven't cleaned my place here (take out the garbage at least, seriously, it's a dump over here ;)), neither have I done my laundry, heck, I haven't even banked in my paycheck for last month!

Shit, I can't even go and see my doctor today, coz I'm exhausted...and it's very likely (90 percentile range) that I'll get involved in an accident. Fatigue kills, ya know. Speed kills too, so there you go.

Well, my apologies for not updating much these days...I was busy with work and with the forum. I'll be going to Sibu tomorrow and I fear I would not be able to wake up and I'll miss the flight!

I'm being totally serious here.

I could very well sleep until the evening, it's possible...

Posted in by Huai Bin at 04:26 PM Permalink | Comments (20)

LimTeh.com is online!

I'm not sure why I chose this particular name for the domain since there are better ones out there. I think it was the way people here use that phrase back in the days. Lim Teh in Hokkien literally means "drink tea" but it really means "going out for drinks" - where friendships are nutured and business deals are sealed.

The sixthseal.com forum is up, but in a different domain. It's still very much in its test phase, and I will give Moderator status to the people who emailed and asked when I come tomorrow.

I'm very tired now and I'm going back to sleep. I mean seriously, I'm dead tired.

Oh, and I picked up limteh.org, limteh.net, limteh.biz along with limteh.com. You know, they had a sale going...

LimTeh.com - Social Networking at the Virtual Online Water Cooler [limteh.com]

Posted in by Huai Bin at 04:51 PM Permalink | Comments (21)

Carlo Rossi 187 ml mini bottle

I saw this interestingly sized bottle of Carlo Rossi red wine on the shelves - it's between a long necked beer bottle and a 750 ml wine bottle with normal dimensions, so the diminutive size is quite noticeable. I also got the unusually smaller bottle to the right, but haven't sampled it yet.

Carlo Rossi is a well known local brand due to its competitive pricing structure (a pretentious way of saying that its cheap ass wine ;)). I've had this particular label quite a number of times, and while it's nothing to write home about, I can't argue with the value. Carlo Rossi red wine comes in the normal bottles and larger 3 liter ones as well.

This small bottle costs RM 11.65 and contains 187 ml of red wine. It was dusty when I got it off the shelves...I wonder if it's meant for sale or rather as a free gift. Nevertheless, it was collecting dust on the shelves of the local supermarket, so I decided to relieve it of its pain. ;)

Carlo Rossi red wine contains 14% alcohol. That's on the higher range when it comes to wine (not counting port or brandy), so it comes out as a pretty good value for the price range.

Download: Carlo Rossi 187 ml [sixthseal.com].

I drank the small bottle of Carlo Rossi red last night, and found that it was the perfect size for after work quaffing.

That's right...you don't sip Carlo Rossi...you quaff it. ;)

Posted in Ethanol and tobacco by Huai Bin at 08:47 AM Permalink | Comments (16)