After one too many postings on parties and relatively pricey food, I think it is about time to write about something most everyone afford to eat in this economy. A good old plate of wan tan mee at Restaurant Ho Weng Kee, strategically located at the commercial area in PJ most recognized for its food offerings, SS2.
no air conditioning nor fancy tables
This particular kopitiam specializes in wan tan mee with its various differing types of ingredients. You can have them with braised chicken feet and mushroom, curry chicken, prawn dumplings,beef, shredded chicken meat, and so on. I usually prefer mine the old fashion way, dried noodle with char siu, and a small bowl of wan tan soup with spring onion served separately. To me, wan tan mee never not complete without pickled green chili.
old fashion char siu and wan tan with noodle
For this particular brunch session, we ordered 2 plates of old fashion wan tan mee, and a serving of deep fried dumplings as appetizer.
The fried dumplings were actually very very good! freshly fried with very crunchy skin and meaty yet with appropriate amount of other such as fungus, very juicy and tasted awesome. This was one of the better fried dumplings I had in a long time.
pickled green chili and the very good fried dumplings
The wan tan mee, on the other hand, were pretty decent in their own right. Char Siu could be a little thin, and while better tasting than most places, it falls short of hock lim at PJ State as far as char siu in wan tan mee goes.
Over all the meal was a pretty good one though, I helped myself with plenty of pickled green chili, and that fried dumpling was just pure ecstasy. I shall order the dumpling on my next visit and perhaps try their other wan tan mee varieties.
ho weng kee is on the street parallel to LDP
As for price, Ho Weng Kee charges slightly more than your normal kopitiam with hawker stalls. A plate of wan tan mee goes for RM 4.50 to RM 5.80 depending on the ingredients chosen. I still find it pretty reasonable.
Address: 32, Jalan SS2/66
Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan GPS:3.119294, 101.620284
Opens for breakfast and lunch, closes on Tuesdays
First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming and made the fifth installment of our annual Xmas Eve Party a blasting success. There were some 40 people who turned up, quite a few bottles of liquors and wines brought by you, and again, Tuborg sponsored loads of free beer with their beer girl Siao Ling joining the party as well. It was awesome.
Due to the hectic schedule a week (including a trip to Singapore) prior to the party, my housemates and I only managed to put up some minor decoration and set up the place in the last 2 hours. I bought some x’mas lights for my two x’mas trees, reuse the deco, got some snacks, mixers, a Coleman huge ice box filled with ice from 7-11 and we were good to go.
free Tuborg beer, and lotsa socializing
The party got started at around 9pm with Terence, Chris, and Anthony arriving first. Sheryl, Cindy, and Simon arrived there after, and joined by Eiling, who managed to fetch Huai Bin to my place despite being already 3/4 drunk before the party even got started.
Suan, Alan, and Wei Yi were around when our favorite Tuborg girl Siao Ling showed up with all those beer just as my new ice box was yearning for some attention. We quickly set things up and the party really got started right after that.
As the resident alcohol pusher, Terence was doing a fine job ensuring everyone a fair chance to get royally drunk by mixing 2 huge glasses of alcohol laden concoction named Life and Death. Erna was very fortunate to have a few gulps and ended up missing half the party by passionately hugging my gate with a really stoned facial expression. Elfie was embarassed that her fellow Sabahan can’t hold her drinks.
There were some new faces in this year’s party, Shamsul, AC, Faye, Chris, Anthony, Rebecca, Jenson, Aireen, Daniel, and Debra are friends of friends or people whom I got to know via the blog but never met prior to this party.
Cindy, Selina, Siao Ling, Tock, Yee Hou, Firdy, Huai Bin, Elfie, Michael, Eiling, Erna, and Zoe are certainly are friends who attended the party for the first time. I got to know some of them via blog, random events, and via other friends.
There are also those who are no stranger to our little yearly celebration, Reta, Naufal, Nicholas, Alan, Adrian, Rachel, Kelvin, and Mohan all came to the party at least once before.
Then there is the group of my closest friends who were here since the get go. My housemate Horng, Suanie, Gareth, Kim, Huey Fang and Chan, and Terence. I am glad that my exgf Sheryl was able to make it after being away in Europe for post graduate studies for the past two years.
some of the more embarassing gift exchange moments
We didn’t actually have a dress theme this year. Instead, the legendary gift exchange has a little twist in it: It has to be something you can wear, and you must wear it after opening. This idea came from Horng, blame him if you were one of the victims.
Some of the more messed up gifts include a purple bra (I hope the size fits you, Elfie), disposable undearwear, a few boxes of condoms (Huai Bin wore one in public, scaring off all the girls), numerous underwear, socks & stockings, headgear, and lipsticks. The gift exchange was pretty intense, very dangerous.
the Heineken hat exchanged hands 5 times, stupid Michael!
The most saught after gift item was this Heineken hat brought by Michael. The hat was snatched up 5 times and ended up back to Michael just because Elfie wanted it (that’s wh4, stupid Michael). I think we should make it a rule that you can’t pick your own gift next year onwards.
some of the things people do when they are slightly influenced
Things got a little wilder after the gift exchange session as the blood alcohol mixture gets a bit out of hand for a few people. There’s this particular “Patrick” who can’t seem to walk properly and ended up passed out all over the place. The best thing was he kept saying “careful! careful! the earth is moving” and “are you guys ok?” everytime right before he passed out. Patrick is seen sleeping in two places with “James” sitting in both places in the collage above.
There were also some toe licking actions by Faye and Huai Bin, Siao Ling was, tragically, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The party was great, and it was only appropriate that we had to end it after the cops came at 3:30am saying we were a bit too loud. Some of us then headed to Ming Tien for an early morning breakfast where Rachel promptly vomit out the wan tan mee after consumption. I think she was eager to join Patrick and James as the third person to throw up.
Again, thanks for coming, Merry Christmas and see you guys next year!
Last weekend I went to Singapore for the 2nd time in a month, and instead of being on a mission to do Malaysia proud like the last one, this trip is all about having fun. I went to the V-Post Nuffnang Christmas Bash thanks to the invitation from Nuffnang. Chartered bus, hotel room at Marriot, party with a bunch of bloggers from both sides fo the straits, all expense paid. What more can I ask for?
The costume party has a pretty, er.. unique theme. We’re each assigned a letter V, P, O, S, or T and are supposed to dress up as something corresponding to the letter. For example, in the picture below you see Jolyn as Tape mesure / Tailor, Vivien as Student, and Ginni as Playboy Bunny. I was the Potong Stim Pirate with very minimal effort spent in fixing up my so called costume.
Jolyn, Vivien, and Ginni in the taxi on the way to the party
The other traveling bloggers include Suan as a Trekker, Huai Bin as Osama (who changed his letter to P, as I shall explain later), FA as the Shopaholic, Eiling the Vampire, Cindy as Venus, Audrey the Virgin Bride, and Ninie as probably another Vampire.
party people at the place to be
The party was hosted at DXO, which was quite a distance (in Singaporean term) from the hotel. Now one thing about this city-state I can do without is the 2,500 traffic lights you have to go through to get anywhere.
Outside the club Nuffies such as Tim, Nicholas, Pinky, Firdy, Yee Hou, Robb, and Ming were already waiting. Curiously, I also met Mike Yip, who seems to appear in every event regardless of location or organizer. Kenny was lurking around as an old man as well.
myself and Jolyn, the old man who’s hairy and bald at the same time
The whole place was rather packed with people and with the MC, Randall, running the show. There were several games and prizes to be won, and I walked away with an Osim pace counter after being the first one to name all the Nuffies in order of their letter to spell out the word NUFFNANG.
Audrey won the best costume with Cindy as runner up, and Mike Yip got a pair of tickets to Manila as the first prize in lucky draw too. I guess we didn’t do too bad at all.
While the party was pretty eventful, I thought it’ll be nicer if we were given more actual party time to dance and shake what our mamas gave us. However, there were only myself and a few other fellow Malaysians doing that during the limited party time given.
Audrey sleeping like an apek, and Huai Bin missing out the party
Overall it was still a very fun trip, we managed to catch up with a few buddies and met quite a few new friends at the same time. In the last picture collage you can see how Audrey doesn’t sleep like a Virgin Bride, and the only picture I snapped at the party, of Huai Bin missing out 75% of the event. So Huai Bin’s P stands for PASSED OUT
Next up would of course, be the fifth installment of X’mas Eve Party at home! See you!
Before heading to this somewhat ridiculously named restaurant for my last review on Guinness-infused Christmas main course promotion, I was a little apprehensive and thus I did a bit of research online. The reviews are certainly positive for The Magnificent Fish and Chips, so I brought Cindy of MDG fame (I know, overused line) along with me on this particular mission.
Magnificent Fish & Chips bar, with menu on the wall
The restaurant is situated at Changkat Bukit Bintang, just directly opposite Gypsy Wine & Bar, and a stone’s throw away from Bermuda & Onion, the other two places I have visited along the stretch of shops that is frequented by more expats than locals.
The owner Paul James is from England and a season ticket holder of Hull City Football Club, a friendly figure who made a quick escape when I tried to take a picture of him, possibly being not comfortable with his almost tragic hairstyle. He explained that all the fish served is from fresh stock except for the Atlantic cod (frozen), and that the name of the restaurant was invented after a particularly heavy drinking night.
the little cup Cindy holds is a Guinness miniature glass premium, comes in 4 different designs
The very helpful waiter, Zam, came to our assistance as we sat down, and politely explained that there is no “small” menu available. Everything they serve is written on giant blackboards hung on the walls inside the restaurant, which is not exactly very convenient if you happen to sit alfresco, or upstairs.
I ordered the Guinness steak pie from their Guinness-infused Christmas main course promotion, which carries the following deal you might have read from my previous posts:
order a Guinness-infused Christmas main course
fill up a voucher with your details
tear it in half and give the side with your details to the restaurant to redeem a small pint of Guinness Draught
keep the other half of the voucher to get RM12 off 3 pint of Guinness Draught on next visit
Cindy got the grilled butter fish, we also asked for gaujons as appetizer, with the Guinness ice cream and sticky date pudding as desserts.
Guinness steak pie, a Guinness-infused dish
The Guinness steak pie comes with a choice of mash potato, chips, salad, or these mini potatos soaked in buttery sauce. The pie itself was steamy hot and cooked with beef of very tender cuts. The taste of Guinness used to make the sauce and beef adds character to it and provide a very appetizing aroma, coupled with the crunchy skin of the pie, it was very delicious. I liked it a lot.
grilled butter fish and goujons
Cindy’s chose to have salad with her grilled butter fish. Both the salad and grilled fish is draped with balsamic vinegar, the fish with some black pepper on top too. A healthier choice I suppose, but certainly not lacking in the taste department either. Personally I love balsamic vinegar with salad and never understand the whole fascination on Thousand Island dressing (which is basically mayonnaise and ketchup.)
Goujons is basically a fancy name in French for fish fingers. We had some ten strips of deep fried fish served with tartar sauce and a slice of lemon. They were as tasty as they are hearty and went well with my Guinness Draught.
sticky date pudding, Cindy, and Guinness ice cream
For dessert, the Guinness ice cream is a must order item. Just slightly different from the sorbet made by Chef in Black during the event I attended but certainly offering the same character and unique taste of that thin bitterness and caramelized sweetness. Do try it.
The sticky date pudding though, was a bit of a disappointment with too much custard. I wish that it comes with more fruits and ice cream that is a lot more sour too. The message has been conveyed to Paul James and he said they will be working on improving it.
Magnificent Fish & Chips Bar is located along the stretch of restaurants/pubs at Changkat Bukit Bintang
The final bill came to RM 138+ with the steak pie at RM32, butter fish RM28, goujons RM20, a couple drinks, and two desserts. I would say that the price is pretty reasonable considering the fresh ingredients, nice ambiance, and very good service we enjoyed. I have a feeling I am going there again to try out some of their other stuff.
Address: 28, Changkat Bukit Bintang, 50200 Kuala Lumpur GPS:3.147749, 101.707209 Tel: 03-2142 7021
Other restaurants running the Guinness-infused Christmas main course promotion reviewed in this blog:
One of the most often asked questions I get is “How the hell are you being still skinny when you are having all these food all the time!?” with a sometimes not overly friendly tone. Well, I live a reasonably active lifestyle.
To stay reasonably healthy and not let the excess calories pile up around the midsection, I exercise regularly. In addition to my regular badminton, futsal, and ping pong regime on a weekly basis, I have recently trying to pick up golf with my housemate and best buddy Horng at the driving range.
Horng and I whacking some balls
As it turns out, golfing is a lot harder than it seems. This is my 4th session at the driving range and has changed the way I swing the club as many times from pointers given by others and our observations of other experienced players. Still I get less than half the balls flying properly.
Last night we went to the driving range at Sunway again, and when Amanda called up for a yumcha session we asked her to join us instead. The good thing about this place is that food and drinks are available, and the whole session is actually no different from going out at mamak, except you get to exercise in between drinks and snacks. Killing two birds with a golf ball, pretty nifty.
check out the video with me and Amanda miss hitting the ball
The first time I went to the driving range I ended up with sore back, thighs, and arm. Who says golf isn’t proper exercise? I think I’m gonna do this on a regular basis, and hopefully we’d improve enough to go to the course in a few month’s time.
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I’m also heading to Singapore for the vPost-Nuffnang Christmas Party with a bunch of Nuffnang gang and bloggers. My second visit to Singapore this month! See you there if you’re attending it too!
