Last Friday I was invited to my very first Friday Wine Lunch, a monthly event arranged by the Millennium Associates and Pernod Ricard Malaysia. The venue was Carat Club, a place at Pavilion I mistakenly thought in a bunny friendly way until very recently.

As it is a wine lunch, importance is placed not only on food and wine, but the combination as well. We were introduced to Montana, wines from vineyard in Marlborough, New Zealand, to go with some very fine foods from C. Club.

Montana Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir

The event was very classy and it was almost out of place for me, but I was seated close to the brand manager of Pernod Ricard and the chief sub-editor of a major English daily who were both very friendly people. The host Mr Lionel Lau made the event a learning experience for me with his knowledge in wine and the ways he could explain which wine goes with what type of food, and the “why”. Very interesting, and I shall learn more.

grilled tiger prawn and chilled rocket vichyssoise

The first two dishes were Chilled Rocket Vichyssoise and Grilled Tiger Prawn to go with Montana Sauvignon Blanc. The vichyssoise, a type of creamy soup with almond and diced potato; while the grilled tiger prawn came with apple and cider sauerkraut, with some lemon butter beurre blanc.

The soup was an interesting experience as it was served cold, not bad, but just different. The tiger prawn though, was fantastic with the creamy lemon butter base and mixed well with the apple cider sauerkraut. But most importantly, the white wine goes very well with the two creamier food, cutting through the texture left on your tongue.

Citrus Tea Duck Breast, Salmon Rossini, and Chocolate Fortress

There were two choices for main dish, I chose the Citrus Tea Duck Breast and bypassed the Salmon Rossini. Little did I know the salmon was actually served with foie gras, one of my favorite sin foods, but then again, the duck did not disappoint, so all was was not lost.

The Citrus Tea Duck Breast is served with carrot and celeriac braised savoy cabbage, earl grey orange glace and topped with shiso. It carried a tangy taste to the tender duck breast. Instead of white wine, we had Pinot Noir served at about 16-17 C to go with the main dish. It was a good combination with the wine being not too sweet nor too acidic, just nice to neutralize the slightly fatty food.

Friday Wine Lunch at Carat Club

Dessert was C. Club’s Chocolate Fortress, a concoction of chocolate mousse on moist chocolate cake with raspberry. I always love the contrasting taste of the rich chocolates with the sourness of raspberry, and the wine made a good compliment to the entire package too.

map to pavilion KL

The lunch package is priced at RM 95 nett with free flow wine, very good deal I think. It only happens once every month though and space are getting limited as they are getting more popular. Check with Millennium Associates for the next one if you’re interested. I hope they invite me again.

more pictures here

Address:
Carat Club
Lot 5.11 & 6.11,
Level 5 & 6, Pavilion Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.148872, 101.713368
Tel: 03-2141 5302

Tags:  duck,  event,  fine dining,  friday wine lunch,  pinot noir,  salmon,  sauvignon blanc,  wine

Posted by KY | 21 Comments »

Sometimes last week I received this mysterious little black box at my office. I opened it carefully, and look at what I found. A photo frame, a CD, a yo-yo (with lights and everything), a little old school contact book, a video cassette (when was the last time you use one?), a pretty solid looking compass that actually works, and an invitation card to a launch party on the 26/9/08 at KL Hilton.

mysterious black box and it’s content

Confusing, right?

Haaaaaaaaa! David thought his little ploy would trouble me, but thanks to the immense cerebral ability bestowed upon me, I’ve deciphered this to be the launching of the N96. The clues were: photos, music, gaming, contacts, video, and navigation.

the launch party at KL Hilton

I went to the party with cheesie. Together with suan, pinky, robb, tim, erna, james, joshua, will, and jason, we were the bunch who maintain our personal blogs, most of the other attendees were people from Nokia, dealers, and traditional media.

At the media event, Nokia actually launched three models, N79, N85, and N96. These are the latest N series phone, adding to the line of awesome phones that includes the N82 I am using now (and very happy with it). N79 is the sleekest N series phone that automatically changes themes when you switch the phone plates, N85 being the multimedia powerhouse with long playback time and 3D stereo sound, and the flagship N96 with 16 gigabyte of memory, 5mp camera, n-gage games, gps, and that huge 2.8″ display.

I won a digital photo frame!

The event was pretty interesting except the part where we had to wait a bit too long before dinner is served. Cheesie basically finished the bowl of chips all by herself while waiting for dinner, I think her secret of keeping fit might not be Kenko, but having to attend all these events that deprived her of actual meals.

There was also a gaming competition that night, and of course, I was one of the 5 lucky winners (who scored the top 5 fastest time in an ngage racing game) to walk away with an awesome digital photo frame that can play photos (duh), music, and even videos. The nifty little thing comes with a remote controller too. Awesome!

David, job well done again!

Tags:  cheesie,  event,  n79,  n85,  n96,  nokia

Posted by KY | 15 Comments »

Last Thursday I rushed to town right after work to attend the Made of Honor movie screening event, some of you might remember how I challenge Stewie on the fishing game (you owe me CKT, Stewie!) to get to this event. I was so excited for the 8 course meal at JW Marriot, and thought the movie was going to be a boring chick flick. However, the night didn’t quite turn out the way I expected.

Before I go any further, there are more pictures at facebook album here.

Robb, sparkling wine/champaign?, Lorna

My long time friend Lorna accompanied me to the event, and as we walked in, the JW Marriot PR lady sort of assumed we are married. When we said no, she immediately made another mistake and tried to convince us to have a wedding dinner there.. oh well.

As with most events littered with bloggers (some 10 tables of nuffnangers), there were plenty of camwhore sessions even before the dinner starts. There were some friends like ST, Kim, Tim, Wenqi, Ringo, Yee Hou, Nicholas, FA & Bob, Skyler, Su Ann, Robb, Stephanie, Aronil; some familiar faces; and some blog friends I met for the first time such as Suet Li and Atrica. And again, I’ve forgotten many new names like I always do.

Tim, Wenqi, Ringo, Kim, Suet Li, Nicholas, Bob, FA, Su Ann

The setup for the ballroom was excellent, better than most of the weddings I’ve attended. Flowers, candles, and everyone dressed up in suits and evening gowns. However, the food was rather disappointing. I only truly enjoy the soup from the eight course dinner, with the worst dish being the saffron risotto. I seriously didn’t know what the chef was thinking.

The champaign (or sparkling wine) with strawberry was excellent though. Lorna and I kept asking for more till the waiters gave us a funny look.

Made of Honor

I was initially very hopeful for the dinner but didn’t care much about the movie. However, Made of Honor, despite getting a rather low rating from IMDB, was a very enjoyable movie. The show was funny and even touching in several moments. If you enjoy chick flicks (I think I’ve developed the taste for it, a cardinal sin for a guy maybe?), you’ll enjoy this one. I didn’t want to say this, but I’ve enjoyed it as much as I did with How to lose a guy in 10 days. Hee-hee.

48.5 liters plus a tin of petrol, thanks Lorna!

On the way back, I over estimated my petrol reserve by around 3km and got pwned by my car at Jalan Parliament. My car was hungry and refused to work without feeding her the new and improved RM 2.70/liter petrol. I was stranded.

Lucky Lorna drove as well, and I had to call her (who was in front) for help. My princess charming came back 20 minutes later with a tin of wholesome hydrocarbon (RM 5 for the can, 15 for the fuel) and revived the little MR2. Thanks Lorna, I owe you a dinner.

Well at least now I know my car runs 364 kilometers in the city before it’s too late.

Tags:  event,  lousy food,  movie,  mr2,  nuffnang,  party

Posted by KY | 35 Comments »

Late last month I attended an event by Text100, as usual, David was the one who invited me. The venue was at Cafe Libre, Taman Desa; as suggested by Suan to David. Since she was the one who had that brilliant idea to suggest David to host the event there, I thought it was appropriate that she drove me there. Fighting with the traffic was never really one of my favorite things to do.

I’m enjoying the sandwich!

Upon arriving, we found that the whole Cafe Libre is closed for our private function – the Happy Event. No other customers, and free food for all of us who are attending, glorious! I couldn’t really ask for more, could I? But there were really more, read on and you’ll know what I mean.

pasta and the unique orange juice + beer

After hastily exchanging cards with the Happy hGenerators and David’s colleagues, I quickly went to the buffet line without waiting for anyone to start first. The pasta and potato were very good, but my favorite for the night would be the sandwich that has thick slices of tomato in it. The tomato gave the sandwich a very juicy texture and took away dryness from the bread. It was very good.

Cafe Libre also serves one pretty unique drink – beer with orange juice. Thick slurry orange juice at the bottom of ice cold beer, tastes pretty interesting and a must try if you find yourself there.

hula hoop competition, look at Kim!

After getting our stomach filled, the real event began. Apparently the Happy Team just wanted to tell us about Happy Moments. It is pretty simple, make a video or blog post about your happy moment, submit it to the website before March 31st and the top 3 winners of each category wins RM 5,000, RM 3,000, and RM 1,000 in cash! Pretty good deal if you ask me.

everyone was truly happy, with prizes too

After telling us this, it was time for games! There were a lot of prizes given out from the hula hoops competition and the movie quiz. I got myself 2 RM 10 Jusco vouchers, so proud! I also won the first hula hoop competition, beating the likes of Jason and Su Ann! I also played Wii for the first time with Kim, beating her in the tennis game so many times it wasn’t even funny, but it was awesome.

cafe libre is located at Taman Desa

I don’t remember when was the last time I had such a fun time at an event before this one. I think the Happy Team did a great job, kudos!

Address:
18, Jalan 5/109f
Plaza Danau 2, Taman Danau Desa
GPS: 3.099357, 101.687028

Tags:  event,  fun,  happy

Posted by KY | 19 Comments »

Because I know Suan, an immensely talented and famous blogger who sometimes gets invite to special events and such, 5 of us (hot chick, ST, Kim) found ourselves at the Dionne Warwick concert/dinner at Shangri-la Hotel last Monday. An event we would otherwise not be able to afford to get in with our own money, considering it is geared towards the high society and attended by people like Datuk Siti Nurhaliza.

Since I didn’t bring my camera and the camera phone doesn’t do justice to the occasion, pictures below were taken by ST.

how do you like my green batik? Do I look like an apek going to casino?

We were seated at the far corner, not the best listening location, but hey, our table only cost RM 10,000, cheapest of the some 100 tables in the magnificent grand ballroom. The evening was very enjoyable, we were served good food, and Dionne Warwick put up a great show. Her songs were truly the types that penetrates your heart, and the old lady had very good showmanship that made the evening that much better.

These are what you eat if you are one of those rich fellas

And then there’s the food, we were served with:

• Rock Lobster Tian with Pomelo an Avocado, Flamed Maguro and Wasabi Soy Vinaigrette
• Petit Poi’s Cappuccino with Foie Gras Dumpling and Dust of Cepe
• Cod Fillet Papillote and Chicken Roulade with Potato Mash, Baby Vegetables, Teriyaki Glazed
• Anis and Coffee Cappuccino with Almond Cake Flavored with Orange, White Chocolate Black Truffle Ice Cream

I particularly love the lobster starter with the maguro (tuna); the very buttery cod fillet and the sophisticated chicken roulade too lived up to the reputation of Shang’s finest. However, I find that the small foie gras dumpling did not come close to the foie gras experience that I had at my Zipangu visit. This was the night that I tasted truffle ice cream for the first time too, it was good, but I think I am missing my foie gras.

Tags:  concert,  dining,  dionne warwick,  event,  shangri-la

Posted by KY | 28 Comments »