A little over a week ago I had the chance to eat at Nikko hotel for the second time. The first one was a Guinness St. Patrick’s day event about 2 months ago with the awesome lamb shank, this time it was hi-tea at their Cafe Serena Brasserie, arranged by foodstreet. I was again greeted by the friendly host Azira for this occasion.

choices of pastries

To be honest, this was the first time I had hi-tea anywhere. I initially thought that hi-tea would actually involve some sort of really high class tea, but apparently it is just a buffet style late afternoon meal that can be quite substantial. Oh well, learn something new everyday - never to simply assume.

may I have a bowl of that please?

The hi-tea at Cafe Serena Brasserie serves quite a lot of dishes, from a huge selection of pastries, raw oysters, mussels, clams, wantan soup, mee goreng, cheese cakes, ice kacang, to mini potato, mee hun soup, satey, and even chocolate fondue. Definitely more than enough for anyone’s stomach. I was spoiled for choices.

raw oysters, mini wantan soup, baked mussels and more

I started off my meal with a serving from the raw bar, a few fresh raw oysters, mussels, prawns, and clams. As with any buffet, you should always start with things that aren’t very strong tasting and work your way from there. If you started off with satey and plenty of peanut sauce with extra chili, the taste buds will be desensitized to dishes with subtler tastes.

Between chatting with Azira and taking some photos, I had a mini wantan soup, salad, some pastries, pancake, and moved on to satey, fried chicken, and the very very good meehun soup (my favorite). Then of course it was chocolate fondue and some fruits for dessert. But I did sneaked in another serving of oysters as I simply cannot resist.

a bit of noodle, chocolate, raw stuff, fruits, healthy meal ya.

In all, it was a very satisfying and hearty meal. While the food was very good, the hospitality from Azira was even better. We throughly enjoyed the session. Thanks!

More pictures can be found at my flickr set.

Sammy enjoying her meehun soup, and the friendly Azira

Other than Hi-tea on weekends and public holidays, Cafe Serena Brasserie also serves buffet breakfast daily, as well as lunch and dinner on Mondays to Fridays. Buffet dinner has an even wider selection of food, including sashimi from their Japanese kitchen as well.

Address:
165, Jalan Ampang,
50450 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.159767, 101.718045
Tel: 603-2782 6228

Tags:  Buffet,  dining,  food,  hi-tea,  hotel,  klcc,  nikko,  serena brasserie

Posted by KY | 27 Comments »

I was at KLCC during the PC Fair weekend. Instead of fighting with the crowd shooting those Tech Girls indoor, we went to the main entrance of KLCC to do some streets photography. It was just after rain and the sky was still gloomy. I thought since there lighting condition wasn’t suited for the more conventional streets photography, I’d do something different instead.

So here you go, a series of shoes @ KLCC. It is interesting how much two legs and a pair of shoes can tell now isn’t it?

Rough Rider	Establishment
The Angle	Relaxation
Casual	A Conversation
Tired	Slanted
Decisions, Decisions	Zebra
Chilling	Domination
Flirty	Authority

By the way, there will be more postings on Bangkok trip shortly. Stay tuned!

Tags:  canon,  klcc,  Photography,  shoes,  streets

Posted by KY | 25 Comments »

Last weekend we headed to Kampung Baru in KL to capture some election colors. On the side note, election is this weekend, please do vote and vote wisely. The worse thing you can do is to give up the most basic of our democratic right. I am ashamed to say that this would be the first time I go to the ballet box due to being overseas and so on, but it’s a start. Assess the candidates and parties carefully, and make your choice, every vote counts.

As it turned out, I only managed to snap something like a roll of pictures before the rain pours, but here goes:

Color Imbalance

It was also one of Kim’s first photography trips and I must say she has an eye for this thing! Check out her post on the trip.

The whole area was filled with banners, mostly of the ruling party and some of the opposition. It is sad to say that in this country, we still have to resort to putting candidates of the same race (and sometimes same sex) against each other. But hopefully change to the better is on the way.

Stare Cock

If I vote for you, will you buy me a motorbike?

Kampung Baru is one of the very few real kampungs left in the city of KL. Located just a stone’s throw away from the bustling KLCC, here you find people living a much simpler life. With roosters still roaming the streets and houses built just good enough to have a shade under the sun and rain.

Welcome to my Home

For the old folks, evening is spent chilling with friends and having a good time. No sense of urgency, no rushing for deadlines, no hunting for more gold.

Relax and Laughters

In a city with more toll ways than rivers, many folks here still rely on motorcycles and bicycles as their primary transport, getting them from A to B. Of course, there is also an LRT station just around the corner transporting them to a very different world just a single station away. It is truly a time machine more than an underground tube.

Clinging On

Kampung folks are also usually a lot friendlier. I took the opportunity to snap a picture of this chubby kid at the restaurant. I think he was confused, this is the world he lives in, we are the visitors.

The boy will grow up to inherit the country from our generation, and it is us that must make a choice to give them what they deserve.

What’re you looking at?

I hope you enjoy this series. Thank you for viewing.

Tags:  b&w,  elections,  kampung baru,  KL,  klcc,  photos,  streets,  voting

Posted by KY | 24 Comments »

Most of you who come to this blog expect to see recommendations of good (or at least interesting) food. However, I’ll have to disappoint you today with my second post on where not to go for lunch. Some of you might remember my rant on Kim Gary, but the experience I had yesterday at Delifrance KLCC is arguably worse.

Hello, I don’t want my chicken medium rare

So myself and a few colleagues decided to have lunch at Delifrance after a few other suggestions were rejected. It is a decent place for a cup of coffee and some light snacks, I suppose, but the tables were a bit smallish for lunch. I ordered the set lunch for the day (RM 16.90++), a chicken dish that comes with soup/salad, and a miniature glass of soft drink.

first rejection

Well, we had actually ordered 4 set lunches, but somehow only 3 came as the waitress inevitably missed out one of my colleagues. The poor lady had to wait for another 5-10 minutes for her food to arrive after everyone else’s. Bad service

After a pretty long wait during the busy lunch hours, my food finally came. A colleague of mine started to complain that the sides looked nothing like the photos on their menu. Instead of broccoli and mashed potato, we were given salad and wedges. The annoying thing is that I just had salad as my appetizer, and it is the same thing again. Bad combination

I cut through my piece of chicken, it was pink, with traces of blood. I had actually put the chicken in my mouth before looking at it, it was cold inside. Like just came out of the fridge cold. Bad food.

I called for the waitress and told her about it. Without a word of apology, she took the dish back to the kitchen. Bad service

A very long 10 minutes later, the waitress returned the same dish to me. It looked like they have reheated the chicken. I give it a try without much complain, lo and behold, the same bloody chicken is still half cooked (pun intended). Horrible food. I called for the waitress and explained it to her that she should just take it back and crossed it out of the bill, she just asked if I want them to replace it with something else (she should have done so in the first trial). When I said no, she just said ok, not a single word of apology. Horrible service

after they “fixed” it, I got this

The Malaysian service mentality is some what of a joke. My colleagues were nice enough to still pay the 10% service charge, I probably wouldn’t. That would be the last time I go there.

Tags:  bad-food,  bad-services,  delifrance,  klcc

Posted by KY | 44 Comments »

It actually took me more than three years working at KLCC to discover Ozenki Ozeki Japanese restaurant, situated just a stone’s throw away from my office at Menara TA. I couldn’t resist the temptation looking at the giant menu outside the restaurant and decided to give it a try just a while ago, and went there again with the noob Nicholas before he left KLCC to greener pasture.

the menu is huge, literally.

Other than the ala carte menu, Ozeki offers some unique set lunches. I always chose the RM 28++ combo, you basically get to choose 2 main dishes from 6-7 different choices, with salad, soup, rice, fruits, and a couple condiments accompanying the set. The mains include sushi, sashimi, tempura, saba shioyaki (grilled mackeral), salmon shioyaki, unagi kabayaki, chicken teriyaki, and beef teriyaki. There are also noodle set lunch and normal set lunch.

fresh Japanese food with decent pricing

While the 2 mains might look a bit smallish, they are actually plenty enough for lunch. In this outing, I had the grilled salmon and 5 pieces of sushi to go with some rice, soup, salad, and a rather delicious piece of tofu as appetizer. The noob had unagi and sashimi instead.

the menu inside is the same size as this one outside

Overall, the food was pretty good, and for this area in Klang Valley, a pretty good value. Service was friendly and professional, interior decoration and ambiance were nice, and most importantly, the ingredients were fresh. I’m feeling like going there again this week. Anyone?

Ozeki is situated at Menara TA, just a couple minutes from KLCC

Address:
Menara TA One, Ground Floor,
No. 22, Jalan P.Ramlee,
50250 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.156724, 101.709795
Tel: 03-2166 4263

Tags:  Japanese-Food,  KL,  klcc,  menara-ta,  ozeki,  salmon,  sashimi,  sushi,  tokyo-cuisine

Posted by KY | 26 Comments »