Ladies and gentlemen, after weeks of design and development, the new design of this blog finally goes live yesterday.
The template is the brainchild of Haze, the awesome max designer and artist who did my wall mural too. She is, of course, also my fiancée, as some of you might have found out from facebook already.
Anyway, lets dwell a bit on this theme and allow me to showcase what has been added and how the new features could be useful to you.
Other than that, the blog is also updated to the latest WordPress installation and the comment system finally supports threaded replies too. Something that was supposed to be done long ago. This allows me to reply comments via the dashboard and also WordPress for Blackberry application, not to mention it makes more sense too.
the version of the KYspeaks.com till 11th July 2010
Compared to the previous theme, this is quite a major upgrade. I didn’t want to only make the changes purely on aesthetics alone, form over function is ok, but always better when you have both right?
Over the next few days we’ll be troubleshooting the new theme a bit and make necessarily debugging/changes along the way. Let me know your feedbacks yah.
When adopted by a different culture and people, food often gets adapted as well. Bit by bit, the authenticity gets assimilated to the local taste, and after decades, you get something that bears very little resemblance to its origin. This however, does not mean that the end product is necessarily inferior.
Two such cases on the opposite sides of the world are Chinese food in US, and western food here in Malaysia. You can’t find General Tso’s chicken (my fav!) in a traditional Chinese restaurant here, nor can you order chicken chop with Hailam sauce in Washington DC.
Freddy Western Food at Restaurant Millenium 86
Which brings us to today’s topic, Freddy Western Food, comes with awesomesauce, literally.
We discovered this stall by chance one day when Kerol ordered chicken chop from this stall that looked surprisingly… clean. Her verdict was very positive, and if Kerol said it is good, it must be, she’s got one of the fussiest tongues among the gang.
pork chop with hailam sauce, chicken chop with mushroom sauce,
pork chop with mushroom sauce, lamb chop with black pepper sauce
A couple nights ago we headed over to give this place an introduction to Suanie since she just got hit by a chicken chop phase (to go along with her Teow Chew porridge and pan mee phase concurrently)
I had the pork chop with hailam sauce (RM 9), Haze ordered lamb chop with pepper sauce (RM 9.50), Horng had pork chop with mushroom sauce (RM 9), and Suanie, of course, ordered chicken chop with mushroom sauce (RM 8.50).
While the pork could be just a bit juicier (due to the cut, I think), the sauce was really, really good. Good enough to overcome the slight dryness of the meat. Suan was very happy with her chicken chop, as does Haze with her lamb chop that came with a bit of bone marrow too.
There’s another secret under the meat – mash potato with freshly fried bacon chips. The little touch really made the dish yummy max!
Horng, Suan, Haze, and KY
While there are other more famous Western Food stalls such as those in SS3 near Shell petrol station, this is the first one of this kind that I found worthy of a blog post. Give it a try, I think they serve pretty good spaghetti too!
map to Restaurant Millenium 86 at Sea Park
Address:
Restaurant Mellenium Eighty Six
Jalan 20/22,
Taman Paramount, Petaling Jaya
GPS: 3.108099, 101.623983
This is the last food post from the Redang trip last month. After stopping by for keropok lekor, our last item on schedule before heading back to KL was naturally, lunch.
Ed again served as the guide and this time he brought us to Restaurant Golden Dragon in Chinatown
a very straight to the point “non halal” sign
I knew that it had to be at least a pretty decent place soon as we arrived. The restaurant was absolutely packed even on a Monday, and we had to wait for a table. There was a big group of middle aged ladies with “I love Redang” t-shirts, which doesn’t bear any significance to anything but I just felt like mentioning.
long beans, eggplant, salted fish, roast pork and BBQ pork
Ed ordered a large portion of roast pork and BBQ pork, and I made orders of several other pre-prepared dishes to go with steamed rice. We had long beans, eggplant, omelet, bitter gourd, and some soup too.
Though the BBQ pork (char siu) was ordinary, the roast pork (siu yoke) was actually rather good. We actually ordered a second serving of roast pork to make up for going 3 days porkless on the island.
bitter gourd, omelet, soup, rice
While the other dishes were commendable, my favorite had to go to the salted fish fillets. The aroma and taste was just so “right” I used it to replace soya sauce. Omelet with salted fish, roast pork with salted fish, bitter gourd with salted fish, egg plant with salted fish, they were all awesome!
Terence, Kim, FA, Ed, Horng, KY & Joe, Kerol & Haze
Including drinks, we only had to pay RM 8 per person for the meal. It was really cheap considering the amount of items we ordered. I’ve read that they serve pretty good “tai chau” during dinner time too.
Address:
198 Jalan Kampung Cina
Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu
GPS: 5.333684, 103.132921
Tel: 09-622 3034
A couple weeks ago I received and invitation from Yoke May of Westin to attend Kaesler Winemaker’s Dinner. To be honest, I am not exactly a wine connoisseur, but based on my previous experience at Westin’s EEST and Yoke May’s hospitality, I know this isn’t something I would want to miss.
Stephen Dew from Kaesler
A little background on Kaesler:
The original Kaesler vineyards were established in 1893 by the Kaesler Family, Silesian pioneers who came to the Barossa Valley, Australia in the 1840′s and who took up the 60 acre allotment in 1891. Winemaker Reid Bosward and his partners then bought the Kaesler vineyards in 1998.
Our dinner was hosted by one of the partners from Kaesler vineyards, Mr. Stephen Dew. The six course meal with half a dozen different wines to pair was priced at RM 180, a pretty good value. For myself, haze, cumi&ciki, and eiling, it was even better cos we freeloaded, hohoho.
Hokkaido Scallop crudo, green apple sorbet
Since I’m not exactly a wine expert, I’m gonna concentrate a bit more on food. First to come was the Hokkaido scallop crudo with green apple sorbet laying on a bed of thinly sliced cucumber. It was raw, cold, but subtle and sweet at the same time. The seafood was paired with Old Vine Semilon 2008 (RM 90), a wine with a bit of grapefruit and apple taste, a good compliment.
baby beetroot in flaky pastry; apricot & almond beignet
Second dish of the night was apricot and almond beignet with creamed wild mushrooms and creamed tarragon butter emulsion. We were served with Viognier 2008 (RM 110), a slightly stronger red wine chilled to 18C that went really well with the creamy dish.
Next up was this pastry with a flake of gold: baby beetroot with horseradish and chives. The flaky pastry and beetroot made an interesting if unlikely combination, to be honest I found it a little odd. We had Kaesler Stonehorse Shiraz Mourvedre 2007 (RM 90) to pair with. The wine was slightly spicy but not one that’s very strong, and by the way gold didn’t actually have any taste -_-
eiling and the excellent roast lamb neck with smoked bone marrow
Then came the best dish of the night, roast lamb neck, crisp ice fish, eggplant, tzaziki, smoked bone marrow, cherry puree. I like how they name their dish, you don’t even need to explain what’s in it, ultimate opposite from Chinese dishes where everything is in 4 letter and you have no idea what you’re about to eat.
It was the first time I properly had bone marrow in this fashion and it was heaven! It sits somewhere in between beef tendon and foie gras, the texture was superb, and the taste, very rich and yet subtle. The Stonehorse Shiraz 2006 (RM115) gave the bone marrow a sense of balance too, oh how I miss this.
licorice port glazed braised angus beef short rib, KY & Haze
The last main dish was licorice port glazed braised angus beef short rib, smoked potato puree paired with Bogan Shiraz 2006. The wine had strong oak aroma to it and rich flavor which I liked, but I do think that the licorice kinda overpowered the beef a little. I usually prefer my beef to be only very mildly seasoned, if any.
marshmallow, citrus salad; ciki & yoke may
Dessert was marshmallow and citrus salad with my favorite wine of the night. The sweet tasting Riestling – Rizza 2009, this wine’s perfect with the marshmallow or even just to drink by itself. The citrus though, was really super sour to the point where one bite will bring you to instant sobriety. I wonder where they got it from.
It was a wonderful dinner made better by the great company, thank you Yoke May for the invitation!
Address:
The Dining Room, Westin Hotel
199 Jalan Bukit Bintang,
Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.147758, 101.714591
Tel: 03-2731 8333
There used to be two options to watch World Cup (or indeed any football matches)
Now there’s a 3rd option – watch it online on Astro B.player at www.astro.com.my/bplayer!
Astro B.player webpage, showing current and upcoming games
To access Astro B.player, simply go to www.astro.com.my/bplayer and register. General public gets to stream 38 World Cup games, and if you’re a Maxis user or an Astro Sports package subscriber can watch all 64 matches online live plus match highlights and replays.
The registration process only takes a few minutes. FAQ can be found here.
Japan vs Paraguay on Astro B.player
Though I am a subscriber of Astro B.yond service (with a new 40″ FHD LCD TV that I recently bought), I decided to try the service for the Japan vs Paraguay in the round of 16 matches.
While not exactly full HD quality like you’d get on the TV, the streaming is surprisingly smooth and the audio pretty much indistinguishable from regular feeds.
Highlights and instant replay on Save/Misses
What I also like about Astro B.player is the extra feature they added on the site. You can view highlights, goals, saves/misses, and even check on which players are on cards. This is a feature that you can’t get on the TV as yet. Pretty nifty.
All the more miserable for me as Japan painfully exit the tournament by losing 5-4 to Paraguay in the penalties. Poor Komano missed the only penalty, but the Japs did put up a good fight. All Asian teams are out now, 4 more years I guess.
There’s also a contest in conjunction with the launch of Astro B.player. The mechanic is simple:
The full mechanics are here, and the prizes include 4 laptops, one 42″ LCD TV, and plenty of movie tickets! Check it out on www.astro.com.my/bplayercontest
