Here's My Story

I had been meaning to try this restaurant but somehow I kept forgetting. One day, while Ban was out for a family dinner, I had mine there. I distinctly remember taking a photo of the food I had but I can't find the photo anywhere. Humph. I ordered the pasta aglio olio (RM11) and added the ingredient grilled shrimp (RM6). It was fragrant, which was a pleasant surprise, and the pasta portion was quite large. Thus it was rather disappointing that it was a little bland, not spicy at all and a little greasier than the usual aglio olio. The shrimp, thankfully, was great. Juicy and fresh. As for drinks, I had the white fungus with longan drink (RM5). It was more like dessert although it was classified under drinks. It was quite bland and there was no longan in sight. However, it seems to complement the pasta quite nicely. Perhaps to wash down the salt and grease? Will I try it again? Hmmm the service was quite good and thus I'm inclined to give it another try. I'll brin...

For fans of Might & Magic franchise, here's another avenue to enjoy some aspects of the game: Duel of Champions  ("DoC"). It's free-to-play. The heroes and creatures used here are from Heroes 6. You will recognise some of them graphically, albeit some with different names. This is a card game, in the same vein as Magic the Gathering ("MtG"). In summary, Each hero comes with starting stats of Might, Magic and Destiny. Every turn, can activate the hero's ability to increase one of the stats or draw a card or activate a special hero ability if available. There are 3 types of cards you can "deploy": creature, spell and fortune and each one has different stats requirement. Besides meeting the stats requirement, you'll need to spend resources to play a card. By default, you'll earn 1 resource in turn 1, 2 resources in turn 2, 3 in turn 3, so on and so forth. The battlefield is divided into two: one for each opponent side and fur...

Its full name, according to the menu on its official website , is "The Euphoria Banana Split Waffle Sundae". It has Double Vanilla Ice Cream Scoops, Waffle Squares, Crunchy Dark Waffle Balls, Gooey Toffee & Fresh Bananas, served with Pure Melted Chocolate & Caramelised Pecans. At AUD14.50, it is such a huge portion that I definitely couldn't finish it by myself (shared with my sister). In addition, after awhile, the chocolate was too much for me ("jelak" in Malay language; closest English word is "bored"). I had to stop to drink some water and rest a while before continuing. Too much chocolate? Too much sweetness? *shrug* I love chocolate ice-cream but probably not in this manner. I suspect banana split served with chocolate ice-cream is good enough for me. Nevertheless, thanks to my sister I finally get to patronise the famous Max Brenner Chocolate Bar.

Tony Romas served food that are of higher-than-average price and so I seldom go there. I did enjoy having the food there previously - the last was for celebrating Father's Day with my family. Recently, Ban and I had lunch there on my birthday after gym. Yes, I felt a little extravagant the special day :) Apparently they started something new since that Father's Day celebration (years ago lol): they served a few slices of bread and butter as appetiser, for free. There was, however, no butter knife in sight. There was a steak knife and I wouldn't had minded using it as butter knife if it wasn't for its humungous size (that just screamed "use me only for cutting steak!"). Shockingly, they informed me that they don't have butter knives! Whaaaat? Either someone didn't think things through or they are that stingy. Updated 28 May 2014: Oh, found another photo: Also, I was reminded by my sister that they did serve bread with butter as appetiser d...

Normally when I'm playing a ARPG (Action Role-playing Game) computer game, I'll try to kill whatever that can be killed in the game to get experience provided there are great adverse consequences (e.g. NPCs start killing you, entire town hate you etc). For example, in Rift, there are "critters" such as fox, rabbit, squirrel where you can just one-shot kill it. I assumed that many players do the same. In Guild Wars 2, they have such critters as well. So yes, I have killed one or two rabbits but I didn't continue because the experience gained was miniscule. Ban, however, reacted differently when he saw a rabbit: "Oh rabbit, I want to bring you home." @@ LOL

After the second visit , I was keen to have their salmon sashimi set and so Ban and I had our lunch there recently after gym. The salmon sashimi had the same thickness as the one we saw but, oh boy, much smaller in length and width. The salmon maki this time had a discernible smaller diameter but with similar height (i.e. taller than usual) and (still) with pieces of salmon rather than mashed meat. The grilled salmon, fortunately, was not any smaller and quality was "ok" according to Ban. Looks like this restaurant has problem maintaining consistency. Will I go there again? Probably, and I'll order the same thing to check its consistency.

I mentioned Kita No Zen only once  in passing but it is one of the Japanese restaurants that Ban and I regularly visit. It is next to Hokkaido Ichiba, its sister restaurant. In fact, they have overlapping menu. The impression I have (right or wrong) is that Kita No Zen serves more sushi and sashimi while Hokkaido Ichiba serves more noodle. If you know the actual difference, please do tell me. Oh, it is also the only Japanese restaurant we patronise that serves green tea for free. Normally at Kita No Zen, I will order ala carte sushi and usually it's all salmon sushi. However, on rare occasions (Valentine's Day, birthday, dating anniversary) I'll try something new like this: The only thing I really didn't like was the squid sushi. The rest were fine although some sushi were a tad small. I was shocked that this cost RM50! Oh, come on, the maki's filling was cucumber. Definitely overpriced, isn't it?