A Day In KL

Quote of the day:
(while listening to Tool in the car radio)
Me: Wow! Awesome. Doesnt Tool bring you to places when you hear them?
Lan Sin: yeah, that place is hell
Hahahaha

Song of the day: Bulletproof Skin by Institute. Institute is a band formed by Bush frontman, Gavin Rossdale in 2005. Institute provides a sound that is so rare these days since the heydays of the Seattle Sound in the 90s, that is the the raw sound of old fashion riffs with the gravely vocals. The riffs at the beginning of this song sounded a lot like Helmet which is not surprising since its guitarist, Chris Taynor used to play with bands like Bush and Helment. Definitely one of the bands to look out for future album releases.

Cool to disappear but
I missed you most days
An army of tattooed angels
Have brought me back today

A Day In KL
Last weekend, Lan Sin and i took a drive down south to KL as we had to run some errands back home. Usually when im back south, i would just hibernate at my home but this time, we decided to go around, explore a bit.

We started off with brunch at Tai Thong Dim Sum next to Hotel Armada at PJ. It was quite a task to get your car up the multi storey car park due to the tight space and to make it worst, the ticket booth at the entrance is placed right at the tip of a slope, which can be quite a hassle for manual cars.

The restaurant had an authentic chinese and grandeur feel to it. Probably routine to KLites, but for someone that's always holed up in the rural areas of Penang, it was quite a refreshing sight.





On Saturdays and Sundays, the dim sums are at 50% discount, so we decided to go all out in our orders that morning. There is a variety of selections in the menu, and we got the usual standard orders. The dishes came pretty quick and the service had a personal touch to it, so it was quite a comforting dining experience. The crowd was made up mostly of the elderly folks with their children, laid back and just enjoying a wonderful morning meal. Soon, our table was filled to the brim with dim sum dishes that were waiting to entice our taste buds. Each of the dim sum was prepared with a generous amount of fresh ingredients.









Of course, even to dine with a 50% discount in this sort of restaurant does not guarantee that no holes will be burnt on our pockets. It was still slightly pricey and one does wonder if anyone would want to come here on weekdays. But overall, my dim sum craving is satisfied with a hearty meal.





To walk away our urge for an afternoon nap, we decided to go for a shopping trip at Pavillion. I have never driven to the Bukit Bintang area simply because it looks like a maze to me, but thankfully with a newly acquired GPS with us, it all seemed a lot easier.

Stepping foot into Pavillion, i realised why it is deemed as a shopping paradise in Malaysia. It has an endless choice of fashion outlets that caters to everyone from young to the old and from the expessive teens to the classy adults, it's a place spoilt for choice. We even had a chance to sit down by the runway to catch a fashion show from the fashion label Warehouse.











Besides fashion outlets, shopping complexes are also rated by the variety of food and beverages services that they offer within the premise. And i am very impressed by the size of the floor where the food outlets are situated at Pavillion. For any hungry man, it would definitely feel like a heaven's heaven.

One shop that we decided to visit after bumping into it when we entered Pavillion from our car park was MOF, Ministry of Food which serves sweet Japanese dessert. Radiation aside, the sight of a creamy green tea ice cream bathed in a bowl of red bean paste seems like a thing to desire for a lifetime. We orderd once of its chef choice which is green tea ice cream with hot (fresh from the oven) sweet potato and yam and the combination tasted really good.


Ice cream dipped in red bean paste


Green tea ice cream with yam and sweet potato

By then,it was almost time for dinner, and this was definitely the highlight of the day. My sister and bro in law who have been a food resident in PJ for years brought us to this place called "Ribs by Vintry", which apparently serves really good ribs and wine.



It's a classy and comfortable place, reminding me of the beautiful nights that accompany the many fine dining areas in Melbourne. At the entrance of Ribs, there were 2 shelves of an assortment of wine that can be savoured together with our meaty dinner that we were about to have.


The place with its selection of fine wine





For starters, we had 200g of roast pork and fried cheese. Many would disagree having roast pork for fine dining instead of having one by the dirty roadside stall, but this roast pork, apparently self made with their very own recipe has got to be one of the best ive ever eaten, with the crunchiness and the succulent fats at the right amount of greatness.


Roast Pork


Fried Cheese

We also got ourselves 2 variations of pasta; the Chef's Pasta and Tomyam Pasta. Lan Sin enjoyed the Chef's Pasta very much. It was prepared with a rather unorthodox ingredient, which is fried pork oil cubes (chu yao zha). Usually, i would eat that with wan tan mee, but for pasta, now that's surprising but equally delicous.


Chef Pasta

And our main course was the Barbarian Ribs, the standard meal with wine. It was a meal that was very much fitting to its name, Barbarian. Not only was the portion huge, but we ended up having to eat like a barbarian, that is to use our hands, just to get our teeth into the tight corners of the rib bone.


Barbarian Ribs


A bottle of red wine to complement our meat

My 2 favourite dishes of the night has got to the Buffalo Wings dipped in danish blue cheese and the ham wrapped around winter melon chunks. Danish blue cheese is an exact moniker of durians. It stinks but once you eat it, it's simply heaven. It's basically molded cheese that has turned blue so the smells really rotten. Imagine dipping hot steaming buffalo wings into melted danish blue cheese. Ahh..salivas on my keyboard already. The Ham on the other hand is something quite unique. It's prepared with a slice of thinly cut cured ham wrapped around a chunk of winter melon with some rocket salad inside the roll. It's one of those dishes that seduces your taste buds by bringing you to different stages of tasting. Salty at first, and then a rush of sweetness once you bite into the melon. Almost a puddle of saliva on my keyboard now.


Ham rolled over winter melon


Just love'em ribs

Lan Sin and I had great fun even for a short weekend back in KL. Yes, we can work like cows on weekdays but for a weekend of bliss with friends and family, it was well worth it.