Fishing Village Penang

Penang National Park

Entrance of a house

Known of having very diry beaches, thanks to their “Cleaner, Greener Penang” campaign, Penang is looking PWETTY Clean now.

Other states should start a cleanup plan too!!!!! Especially the Klang Valley.

I went back to Penang for a few days taking my taiwanese friend along, and am really happy that tourists are coming back to this beautiful island for their holidays.

Keep it up Penang!!

Coming back from from her friend’s place, C realised that what she took was too much and picked out what she really wanted and didn’t know what to do with the others. THROWING the rest away would be my personal choice since it’s someone else’s old stuff. BUT NOO……C is not the type who wastes…..so she decided to give it away to others. FINE she took her bunch of stuff to H’s place and offered…H didn’t like those things at all and just kindly accepted some of the clothes. There was this particular bag that C didn’t want it and wanted to force H in accepting it….H refused to take it….

Later on, C saw me walking along the corridor and shouted to me saying, “ Hey!!!! I’ve got a present for you?”

me: What?

C: Here you go….I think it really REALLY (she emphasized the word Really very much) suits you

Me: What???? No way I don’t even need it … It’s not my colour

C: Sure it is….it’s so colourful plus you’re young and it suits your style plus it’s new

During this time I wanted to get the opinions of others to help me kindly refuse it. As she is older than me I didn’t want to often her….

Me to L: Do you think this suits me ? Is it normal for me to carry this kind of bag????(while eyeing to L in saying no!!1)

L: Errr……..it’s it’s…..definitely new….for you…

Me: Err….I don’t need it….

C: (still in a stressed and forceful tone) just accept it;s a present from me….

Just then N, a french class mate came over and eyed the bag.

Me: N what do you think of this bag

N: (clearly liking it) it’s a nice bag…

C: (quickly cut in speaking in mandarin) just accept it sue ching…..I don’t want to give it to N

C: look (unzipping the bad) there is a longer strap if you don’t want to hang it over your shoulder….

Me:….argh….aargh……Do I actually ever carry this type of bag? You my bags are like LV and GUCCI (trying to give her all the reasons why i don’t want it) C why don’t you keep it for yourself I think it suits you better than me

C: NOO cause I got loads of things in my room already…Come on…it’s a present for you …………………………………………………………….( reluctantly i finally accepted)

Now this fugly bag had ended up in my room…..errr….looking at it is an eyesore…the idea of throwing it away tempts me evermore whenever it’’s in sight….And C keeps asking me when I am going to use the bag as she wants to see me with it…

The Problem with this bag is it’s plain FUGLY!!!!!!!!! I am not a materialistic girl,…..seriously I am not…but this leather imitation bag is just to ugly….with all it’s fugly colours…..

the only person I can think who matches this bad is C herself…..!!!!!!!!!!

after this post I am going straight to the garbage bin downstairs and get myself out of my misery…..

Just to let you guys judges for yourselves……here is a very unflattering photo of the bag…not that photoshopping it would beautify it. 

SO LONG!!!!! FAREWELL !!!! you fugly bag………!!!!

Enjoy these pictures of how I turned 21 with my dearest friends here.

My very fruity and colourfully decorated birthday cake made by Yi Chun, and Ching Hsien ( a Taiwanese exchange student)

Me with Mun seok oppa.

And that’s me smiling…

and smiling for the camera

Then while serving my birthday cake, I insisted that I do it the Malaysian way which is to serve the eldest to the youngest at the table…..hehe

So the paling tua is Ji hae unnie…(heheh I hope she never reads my blog, or not I am so dead!!!)

Next on the tua list….Yi Chang..

Then it was Yi Chun on the list…and the list went on and on….

Prezzies from friends and birthday cards from family members and friends. Thanks guys for making me happy on that day.

Special shout out to JO YING!!!! THanks again my dear for posting my birthday present!!!!!

me and Jo Ying on the Manchester Wheel back in February 2010.

ASSIGNEMENT  list….never ends!!!!!!!!

The real reason behind my lack of attention towards this blog is the assignments given for my second year course, we get a project work for every single subject sometimes even 2!!!

Note most of these assignments are group projects some even craft and we also have to do surveys and market research!!!

Here is my list of assignments to complete…and I am doing it all at the same time cause their due dates are relatively close to each others!

• Internship Report – 10,000 words
• Analytical sensors – Report and bake
• Survey Report for our school’s research centre
• Stock Management Report
• Marketing Presentation
• Marketing Report on market research of a restaurant in Lyon
• Concept Restaurant
• F & B technical recipes

Road Trip to Turin

About 4 weeks ago while working at our school restaurant, my classmate, Gabriele suddenly had the urge to have proper Italian pizza. So, he invited me, Yi chang and leopold on a short 3 hour road trip down south to the closest Italy city to France, Turin. So right after our theory class on Friday, we slipped into comfy clothes and started our supposedly short 3 hour journey.

As we left the residence for a gourmet weekend, it started to rain really heavily and continuously for 5 hours while being on the road. The reason it took us 5 hours to reach Turin was because of the misleads of Gabi’s TOMTOM( GPS system) and we wasted 2 hours driving towards the wrong direction.

Me

Leo with his sleepy eyes

Gaga driving

After 5 hours of driving, we finally arrived at Turin. I were actually worried that we wouldn’t be able to have pizza for dinner. Lucky for us, Gabriele’s favourite pizza joint stays open till 2am!!!!

Starter : Water buffalo mozzarella with parma ham

Water buffalo mozzarella cheese is a MUST try in Italy mark my words it is a MUST try…. before this i always thought that it would already a luxury eating Galbani’s RM 40 a mozzarella ball. The real thing is so spongy, and creamy at the same time. It is lightly seasoned during fabrication there giving it a more tasteful and spongy bit to it unlike the commercial one where you hardly get any taste from it.

My choice: Magherita pizza

Simple choice: buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes with basil leaves.

Probably the best pizza I have ever tasted in my whole life. The crust is thin and crunchy, and you know how we have the habit of not eating the edges of the pizza? well in this case, the pizza bread was so aromatic that you wouldn’t want to leave anything behind. The pizza bread is not soggy and soft in the centre like what you’d expect from thin crust pizza due to the tomato sauce and melted cheese. These pizzas were wonderfully made. they were not soggy in the middle and it was crunchy all the way!!

Even the beer tasted better in Italy.

Shortly after dinner, we went back.

The next day, we woke up around noon. And felt really hungry, so Gabriele suggested we go get lunch in city. Little did we know we were going by foot.!!!

View from Gabriele’s grandmother’s,

Anyway, so we walked ……..

walked…..

walked……

and walked…till the three of us couldn’t stand the hungry anymore and kept asking Gabriele’s as to where we were going for lunch. Just then he turned around with his peculiar reasoning, “ok…let’s have ice-cream to fill up our stomachs and eat an hour later” He then took us to the best ice-cream maker in Turin, Grom. Another reason he insisted of having ice cream then was that, the place would be packed with people.

Us walking into Grom

Leopold

My choice : Hazelnut nougat (TOP), Vanilla (bottom)

The hazelnut nougat was soo good….Italian ice-creams taste very light unlike the ones we buy the ice cream blocks from the super markets. As i was saying the hazelnut nougat was soo good, there were bits of chopped hazelnuts in it, making it crunchy and light at the same time.  I usually don’t take vanilla because of a certain person, but to know how good ice-cream makers are I had to try their simplest and most popular flavour. Made from vanilla bean of Madagascar, this vanilla flavour is a must try in Turin.

After the sweet treat…we walked some more to in search of a good pasta restaurant.

Yi chang and I

So we continued walking and walking in search of a good pasta place and 1 hour later we found it…!!!

The restaurant famous for it’s home made pasta.

These are Gabriele’s childhood friends who were so nice to take us around Turin the day!!! Left is ricard and his girlfriend Julia.

Waiting for lunch, Gaga and Leopold waiting for his mama to call.

Our magnificent starter: Simple toasted bruschetta, cherry tomatoes, oregano, olive oil with buffalo cheese….yummy…the best things in life are the simplest things of all.

Buffabella, shared with yi chang …it’s a rocket salad with ham, cheese…

Me clearly enjoying my very very very caloric heavy lunch…

Leopold had Tagliatelle ham cream i think..

Yi chang had Fusili tomates cream cheese….

My choice was the simplest spaghetti pomodoro which has cherry tomatoes and basil leaves. I was actually quite surprised of how cherry tomatoes are used more often in their dishes than the regular tomatoes. Just like on the  bruschetta and the pasta I ate were all cherry tomatoes, and they do taste differently in Italy. They are much much more flavourful, sweet and have just a slight bit of sour tanginess to it. With the  addition of the fresh basil leaves that we find so often in their cuisine, we get a fresh and pungent aroma just nice to compliment the cherry tomatoes, and the chewy al dente pasta.

After lunch, we walked some more…and walked

View Full Album

Sweets we saw all over Turin

We went up to the tower of Turin’s national Cinema Museum.

After that we continued walking and stopped for coffee. And chatted till their closing and we went over to a trattoria/cafe/bar like place where people take alcohol and tit bits right just before dinner.

Leopold fooling around…

Night came, after dinner at the same place from the night before…we wandered some more around Turin. Actually the guys still wanted to go to a night club, but their sleepy eyes and yawns said otherwise.

Leopold playing with the camera…and asking me to make funny faces.

Please….don’t take my picture…

Leopold felt that yi chang carrying my hand bag was so gay that he insisted on taking his picture. In this picture above, we were actually heading to an Irish pub for night cap. We stayed until 2 then called it a night. Couldn’t walk home cause we actually walked quite a distance from Gabriele’s place so had to take a cab home.

The next day just around noon, we were woken up by his grandmother’s cooking from her kitchen. After peaking into what exactly she was doing, we quickly washed up and got ready for lunch.

Gaga setting the table and verifying that everything’s in place.

So first up: his grandmother’s speciality, home made raviolis stuffed with beef.

Best eaten with freshly grated Parmigianno Reggiano, parmesan cheese. Yum yums to the max!!!!

the next course was roasted veal with it’s jus. Simple yet satisfying… (forgot to take a picture of it, we were all so busy eating)

Grand ma and grand son reminds me being with Ah ma….

Moist Chocolate Cake..

Shortly after lunch…we went back to Lyon.

To sum up this trip. It was really tiring…physically due to the non stop eating and drinking…I must have put on around 2 kilos that weekend. It was fun though with excellent food and excellent company…don’t mind doing it again….

Itala: When I was young, I wanted to smoke when I grow up.

Anton: Me…I wanted to drink.

Me: I wanted to be like my mother…(everybody around me said…aww…) I wanted to go to office just like she did.

In fact, it may seem odd to many but I really wanted to be like her. I really enjoyed watching her get ready for work. Then, on a typical quiet morning would be disrupted by her hair dryer blowing away. I would reach towards her bedroom door, and I hear music from her favourite music station. The moment I open the door, I am hit by her perfume.

She would by then be finishing up her makeup. With her briefcase in one hand and handbag in the other, she would leave for to work. Before she leaves, I’d always make sure that she gave me a peck on then back of my palm and that her lipstick stain is left there. I’d go to school like that, in fact to think I back I really wanted to be just like her…

hehe…just mentioning the wonderful flashback that never fails to put a smile on my face..

Note: I’ve been really really really busy these past few weeks…I promise an update soon on my road trip to Turin and my birthday celebration

Anyway, this is our dinner on Tuesday I think. Leo made Roast Pork whereas Gabriel made a strawberry tart.

Gabriel (in white shirt) filling the base.

Lun and Yi Chang preparing the mise en place for dinner.

Ji hae unni sweating endives

Endives

Searing the pork

After 45 minutes in the oven..

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Voila!!! Roast Pork !!!

Our Dessert

Setting up the table for dinner

Dinner served

Cheers!!!

I was facebook surfing when I came across this photo….was kinda surprise to see myself in this picture cause it was taken quite sometime ago..anyway this is the team in Troisgros kitchen.

Front row L to R: Michel(Sous-chef), Laetitia, Chef Nicholas (Pastry Chef), Chef Florent (head chef), Ryoji, Sebastien, me and yas (japanese intern)

Back row L to R: Nicholas (Sous-chef from the Paris branch), Toyo, Xavier, Fabien, Vincent, sommelier, Takashi, Florent

Been busy with the new term….will try to update soon!!!!!! fingers crossed!

our every lives were to be like this….

By the way, from the left it’s Michael, my cousin Mey Chyi and me having fun in Hoi An, vietnam on the 31st of March 2010.

In general I rate it as a mediocre unit compared to what I had the last time. This unit has burnt marks on the wall, the floor and the whole room just smells like cigarettes.

Anyway, overall it’s still ok I guess compared to what the others got.

I promise an update really soon.