Just gonna THROW all the pictures into one post so it’s better flow methinks! Woke up on Saturday rather hungover (cos i met up with Jason the afternoon before -_-) and rushed to go out cos Aunt G said we’d go walking around some shops before having lunch, and then go for our first Vogue Festival talk that day.
We went into a design shop which sold furniture and knick knacks for the house. I bought a funny book with a hole, and an olde comic book with cartoons i’m not familiar with but Uncle Mark said he used to read when he was a child. So i thought it’d be nice to educate myself on this cult comic i have no idea about. It’s quite funny so far and i only read ONE PAGE. There were some cool mobiles (stuff that hangs in the air) too, but i reckoned it’d just be more rubbish in my house that i buy and plan to put up somewhere and never do.
Pottered about Smallbone and Devizes cos aunt G loves redecorating apartments, it’s her expensive hobby.
Tried to see if the queue at the V&A for the David Bowie exhibition was long, which it was. Anyway there was definitely no time to enjoy it and do everything else we had planned that day.
People always complain that they go cuckoo when they read my long food posts while they’re working late in the office, so i’m putting a giant disclaimer on this one = don’t! I’ve just had a lunch of pizza and salad myself and feel i want to eat right now too…
My parents and i went to try Private Kitchen in Uptown, which serves Hong Kong dishes. Three out of the four dishes were really good – seafood fried rice, simple tofu fried on the outside and soft on the inside, and lotus root salad pictured above. They’re also really large, which we didn’t anticipate so it’s a good place to go with a group of friends and won’t cost you much. I had to takeaway lots of food which i happily whacked within the next few days.
+ + + + + +
I went to Mezza9 for one of their tapas nights with Rudy LF one Monday, tho i heard they’ve changed it to Thursdays now. It’s a brill idea where there’s a yummy spread of over a dozen types of tapas and each one you pick costs anything between RM4-RM10. So you don’t have to order a big main dish when you’re busy drinking, and just take what you like, when you like. The one tapas you MUST try is the ‘dates wrapped in bacon’!
+ + + + + +
Clem took me to Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio @ Publika for dinner. The dishes taste as good as their presentation. Above is salad with foie gras, ham and chicken.
Since Clem was away in France last week and Cammy is still in confinement after giving birth, Kenny invited me to attend one of the Hennessy XO event nights to play tag team. I be his social fluffer.
The event was held in Chin Woo Stadium, which was done up real glam inside just for the event, and ran for four nights.
We started the night with some socialising and sipping of Hennessy XO in a large room decorated to look like the interior of an old ship. When we were ushered into the dining area, Kenny pointed out that we were literally stepping on top of a swimming pool. Clear perspex/plastic coverings created a stable (i hoped!) flooring atop water. I thought it was cool and all but didn’t really get the concept till i saw the set up further inside.
This is the side of the dining area, meant to look like the sea. In the middle of the room where all the chairs and tables are, is supposed to be the ship itself, so it’s as if we’re dining on a ship. All the walls around us had moving projections that took us sailing to six cities throughout the night!
While we sailed throughout the world, we also went on a journey of international cuisine. In each city we ‘stopped’ at, we sampled a specially-designed dish inspired by its cultural influences. All the dishes that night were personally created by American celebrity chef Lee Anne Wong, who was a finalist in season 1 of Top Chef before acting as culinary producer for four seasons of the show.
I went for the premiere of a REALLY interesting new Malaysian TV show created by Honey Ahmad!
It focuses on two things i love about living in the city – FOOD + FASHION!
If you can guess from the title, it’s called ‘I Eat KL’ and features 3 girls in their late 20s who form friendships over food, have strong individual fashion preferences, and have a little love and work drama thrown into their lives.
I’m so glad there’s a series about how girls in KL love dressing up and eating cos it’s so true! We are constantly sharing information about where to shop and eat! I’d say most of our salaries go to these two things (besides travel), do they not?
Food-wise, the show is shot in some popular makan establishments in KL like Yut Kee, R.A. Nasi Lemak, Satellite Chicken Rice and Adi Burgershop. I didn’t even know where some of these places were or looked like, so there are so many useful tidbits of info on places i haven’t tried myself. And goddamn, did i crave nasi lemak for DAYS after watching the first two episodes!!!
As for the fashion portion of the show, Jiman Casablancas serves as the head stylist, and did a fantastic job of dressing the girls up in pieces from Malaysian designers like Alia Bastaman, Syomir Izwa, Silas Lieu and Sereni & Shentel. Local food and local fashion. LOVE IT.
Jiman: “Each girl has their own sense of style, so we made sure that we dress them according to their character. I see their sense of power dressing complementing their appetite for good food.”
The three main characters:
1) Sabrina (played by Nadia Aqilah Bajuri) is a journalist and dreamer who’s currently having a crappy time at work and in her love life. She’s intensely involved with nasi lemak.
2) Meg (played by Dawn Cheong) is Sab’s best friend and just got back from culinary school in France. She’s a perfectionist and control freak who is intensely involved with her career.
3) Kiki (played by Chelsia Ng) is a spoilt brat fashionista who’s possessive about people and street food. She’s intensely involved with herself.
Other cast in the show are names you’d probably recognize, like Tony Eusoff, Bront Palarae, Peter Davis and Gavin Yap. There are also some names involved like Justin Nazreen, Michael Chen, Olivier Johanan, Adam Sinclair and Kimy Ordie.
After perhaps five-too-many cocktails at Potato Head, Clem and i hopped into a taxi back to One Eleven. We’d arranged to have an anticipated Japanese dinner at Shiro, the resort’s sushi and sake bar helmed by Chef Shiro aka Shinya Kuwazoe.
Shiro is a cosy restaurant on the first floor of One Eleven. Well it didn’t feel so cosy when i first stepped in, cos we were the only customers there at first so i felt like too much staff attention was on us. But after we settled down and started talking to Chef Shinya who hails from Osaka, we felt more at ease and ended up spending a good few hours taking our time tasting all our food and chatting non stop. Oh, and having lots of sake. We must have ordered three bottles… and shared it with Shinya too, cos the food he served us was just too good that it felt only fair we shared our drink.
The restaurant itself is designed by the famed Shigemasa Noi, who’s been experienced in store and display design since 1965. The most recognizable feature in Shiro are its raw walls made out of intricate wooden blocks placed in various levels. I don’t even want to know how much work went into that…
As for the food, never would i have thought that Bali would hold some of the best Japanese food i’d ever had. I still dream about the fatty tuna that melted in my mouth that night…
Being under the One Eleven umbrella assures us that Shiro uses only the best and freshest ingredients they can obtain.
If you’ve noticed, i’ve got into the habit of compiling all my food pictures into a folder, then blogging them when i have the time to. I like it much better this way… it gives me a clearer idea of what i’ve been putting into my mouth. The only thing is, after uploading all the pictures here, i realize how MUCH i eat and am a little bit disgusted slash surprised slash embarrassed! I know i’m VERY LUCKY that my metabolic rate is considered pretty awesome compared to other women my age, although i do force myself to go for Powerplate twice a week so that things don’t get too jiggly everywhere.
But besides that, i have thought to myself before that: “As long as i have enough money to buy myself whatever food i fancy, i think i’ll be happy for the rest of my life.” Traveling to countries like Myanmar have rearranged my perspective that living in a city like KL has its beautiful blessings that we easily get our hands on whatever food we desire like Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Korean, etc .
I’ve started dining in Yeast (Telawi, Bangsar) more often. Went there for dinner with Aps where we both ordered the same dish of salmon and it was truly sublime. We didn’t even talk while enjoying the first half of it. It sat on creamed spinach and three types of sauces. The kitchen team are all French, as is the general atmosphere and interior. I made friends with Francois (the head waiter?) there cos i have general respect for the French who choose to live in Asia – they are the French who are more adventurous and honestly love South East Asia.
Seeing it’s French and a good restaurant at that, i brought Clem back to have a weekend brunch one day. We had the croque madame which was SO good, and a decent spinach quiche. Clem said it reminds him of simple French food he misses back home.
+ + + + + +
Also in Telawi area, is Bait, where i sometimes go for meetings. During a lunch with Aishah one day, i decided to go for their oysters and a glass of white. Sometimes you just gotta give in to your desires even tho you feel a tad guilty about having wine in the afternoon.
I tried their lunch set of vongole. Aishah had fish and chips.
