Vino Vino Cafe at Bay Avenue

Me: I'll have a Mojito, please

Waitress: What??

Me: A Mojito.

Waitress: What??

Me: D, could you please?

D: A Mojito.

Waitress: Sorry, we don't have that on the menu.

Me: Huh? L, could you please point out the item for her?

After L does this she says, with a rather smug look on her face that makes me realise she heard us all long...she was just trying to make a point.

She goes on to tell us they don't have Mojitos. They're moh-JEE-tos.

Uh...okay whatever makes you happy.

After all that, it came out with a couple of measly mint leaves that were kind of brown at the edges. And didn't taste that good.

But anyways, the whole incident had our table quite amused for the evening.

On to the good stuff, though. The place is really lovely and welcoming. I'd give it an A for ambiance. The bar looks welcoming and the opposite wall is lined with bottles. The super cool dispensing system I read about looked pretty awesome, though we didn't feel like trying it out the other night.

The staff were also pretty pleasant. This is also one of those places where they'll dim the lights and sing along with you and your friends when they bring out the cake if you've come to celebrate a birthday..and have brought along cake.

Had the waitress been right as far as pronunciation was concerned, I would've said the whole experience was educational, too.

Food was just so-so. Rather pricey, with the below bowl of rice with flakes of Salmon and the salad costing RM29.

Would probably go back again...most likely just to try out that whiskey and wine dispensing system or for a coffee.

Rounding off the holiday season at Eastin

"Occupation?" my sister asks, the pencil hovering over that column on the feedback form she was filling in for me.

"Umm..."

I think it's time I come up with some humorous (and possibly more convincing) line to answer that question. My only inspiration at the moment is Barney Stinson's "Please..".

But yes, something to figure out before all the pesky family reunion dinners and visiting relatives during the next holiday season at the end of the month.

We do seem to have a lot of holidays, don't we?

Anyways, we were having the semi buffet dinner at Eastin hotel's Swez Brasserie, which according to their website starts at RM48++ per person. The price varies according to what you order for your main course. Choices include seafood marinara and chicken Cordon Bleu, which are the RM50++ options. The buffet portion of the meal are the starters and the desserts. Starters included a pretty nice selection of canapes, salads, two types of soups, various cold cuts, a modest selection of cheeses with Ritz-like (by that, I mean I'm not sure what brand, but you know..that type of) crackers.

The downside of the semi buffet was I already kind of full by the time I was done with starters. And honestly, I'm not really that big a fan of huge main course portions either, which is of course what you get when you actually have to order a main course at a semi buffet.

The desserts were just soso, with a huge selection of custard-y jelly like thingies, a few choices of cakes, and ice cream. The chocolate fondue was a little disappointing. Strawberries ran out pretty quickly and it was quite awhile before they were replenished. Marshmallows were huge making the marshmallow to chocolate ratio a bit to large. Other choices were dried mangoes and dates. Meh.

I did love the fact that they had a selection of tea, mostly Lipton variants, Boh tea (which were, strangely, not individually wrapped like the rest), and Genmaicha.

It was a fairly nice meal. Starters were good, main course pretty good but desserts left a little to be desired. I left feeling too full for comfort, and vowing once again that I shall avoid such indulgence. I'm sure I will...until the next holiday comes along.

When I grow up, I want to be...

The way I'd complete that sentence changed pretty much every week for me when I was a kid. And now that I think about it, it still changes about that often and has't stopped changing, or at least fluctuating between a few favourites.

Which is a bit of a problem now that I'm supposed to already 'be' something other than a student.

When I got my job, I was pretty excited - it was one of those that gave you the opportunity to move around - yet another way I was putting of being defined by a specific job or role.

Instead, I've found myself six months into a job, without much experience that will bring me any closer to deciding what exactly it is that I want to do. Make that without much experience. Period. At most, it has helped me rule out one or two things I definitely don't want to do.

So that's two down, and another 10 or so to choose from!

Perhaps it doesn't have to be a complete elimination process.

But all the same, not feeling challenged in the right ways at my job has left me feeling restless and craving a change. The only thing is, the latest possibility of a change that has caught my fancy is this writer's job I saw. Judging by my complete lack of materials to present should they want to see any samples of my work, the minuscule readership of this blog, and the fact that that job I saw doesn't pay very well (read: I'm not ready to take that huge a pay cut to actually do work instead of bum around), I'm guessing the prudent thing to do is sit tight in my less than satisfying job.

Thankfully the holidays are here!

Time to think about wrapping presents (I have a few ideas about cute ways I'm going to do that) and finally using my cute handmade gift tags that I've just been itching to use!

It's that time of year, for holidays and parties...and dreaded spring cleaning.

It's been like this all along. The holiday season (ie. School holidays and Christmas) always closely precedes the more 'serious' festival in my household: Chinese New Year.

Which means my happy haze of waking up and sleeping whenever I feel like it, partying and just plain bumming is always somewhat tainted by the stressful ordeal of putting up with parents who make spring cleaning super duper stressful.

This year, it's even more exhausting. For the first time ever, I'm not having school holidays as I deal with this!

As I write this, I'm sitting on the floor of my room, leaning against my bed. Surrounded by piles of stuff that have been moved from the other room that the hourly cleaner we hired is cleaning. It's beyond me why we have to take the 7.30am appointment. Does nobody else believe that Saturdays are meant for sleeping until, at the very, very least 8am? No, seriously, we made this appointment early and my parents took this slot by choice! WTHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Actually, it's also a little beyond me why we have so much stuff.

Apparently the clutter malaise that permeates this house is quite common (yes, I did some online research on the matter).

Excuse number 1:

I might need this thing later on.

Actually, kind of true. I've been shopping in my own closet lately. I'll write about that some other time.

Excuse number 2:

This piece of junk might become valuable someday.

Actually, also kind of true. You know all that old stuff you pay to see if you're a tourist in this little island of mine? We're locals, obviously that kind of stuff exist in our houses. Then again, you're not paying to see my house, are you?

Excuse number 3:

Honestly, I don't remember anymore. It's too freaking early in the morning to actually remember what I've read all week while bumming around at work with nothing better to do (also the topic of another post, should I feel like writing about it to relive the frustrations of a workplace that is challenging in all the wrong ways).

She looks at me uncertainly and says, "Um...you know that this machine can't be used by pregnant women...," and hastily adds,"and people with pacemakers."

It was casual Friday at the office, and I was standing in front of one of those BMI and percentage body fat calculating thingamajigs which had been set up in the office for an event we were having, in a while dress that falls just above my knees, and one of those cropped cardigans that you tie up instead of button.

The dress was pretty similar to this...

and the cardigan, something like this.

I didn't feel particularly offended - I knew she was just trying to be as tactful as possible in the face of uncertainty. But it did make me think - why is it that the moment a girl not in a magazine or catalogue wears something that does not hug every lump of her body, it is assumed she might be pregnant? This isn't the first time someone has assumed I'm preggers just because I'm wearing something that isn't, ironically, hugging the slight bulge that is my very baby-less belly (hmm...is that, in fact, as sign that I'm not as unfit as I think?). I am a huge fan of cute dresses that bring words like 'breezy/summer/light' to mind. And it pains me to think that perhaps it isn't fashion that dictates we all be stick thin and wear things that make most of us look fat (last year's high waisted jeans, pants and skirts, anyone?). Perhaps it's this strange thing we've all developed - that anything that doesn't hug your body completely indicates you've got some jiggly bumps somewhere to hide.

*Images were just from a quick Google search. Not the actual clothes I wore.

Road trip: Melaka

We had one thing, and one thing only on our minds: FOOD!

A bunch of us had decided to take a weekend road trip over to Melaka recently. We stayed with our friend,W, there so there won't be any hotel review in this post.

All we did was pack our bags and drive over and let W take us wherever she thought we would like.

As with any other trip to just about anywhere with friends other than Gina, we started out late! We were to leave at about 11am to get to Melaka just in time for lunch. But well, at 11.30am, K still hadn't arrived - he'd only just picked up the first of the three of us.

It was no surprise that the moment we left my place, K asked if we were hungry and shall we have lunch? So we picked G up and went for some pretty good noodles soup with fish. The foodie trip has started even before we left!

Right after that we leave for Melaka and it's heavy traffic all the way. By the time we met up with W, it was already around 3pm. After we dropped off our luggage at her place, our next stop as for pork satay! On the way there, she warned us that it wouldn't be the regular peanut satay sauce. Instead, it would be some kind of pineapple sauce. Her hesitation got me a little worried that I might not like it. But, damn, I'm craving for it again as I write this! The pork was tender and juicy - even softer than regular chicken satay. And the sauce that I'd worried about before? Well turns out it's oh only AWESOME!

It's just this shop in a row of shop houses not too far away from Jonker Street. I have no idea what the name of this shop is but according to the GPS coordinates I saved, it is not Sun May Hion, which is the first address I got when I Googled pork satay in Melaka. It does, however, appear to be only about a block away from the aforementioned other shop.

A little not here...it might not be a very good idea to take my word for it when it comes to directions, eh?

Anyways, back to the food. It's one of those places where they get you started off with, well exactly what's in the picture. A plate of satay, a big pot of the sauce which you can dish into individual dishes (there were 5 of us), some cucumber and ketupat. They then replenish you're plate as you finish. After several times, and they notice you're slowing down, they'll ask if you would like some more, and will stop once you've had enough. You'll be charged according to how many sticks you've had.

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Next up, Cendol and Laksa!

The next stop is this super popular, touristy place called Jonker 88, that had people queuing out onto the street. There are two stalls at this place: cendol on the left, and laksa on the right. I honestly wasn't that keen on cendol - I don't take it even though I come from another part of the country abundant with this stuff! But I must say for one who has a pretty cool relationship with cendol, I really liked it! Using gula Melaka made all the difference! We had three kinds of cendol: the regular kind, durian cendol, and some third one with a non-explanatory name like three treasures or something like that.

That little dish in the picture would be the sago gula Melaka. Now this was delicious. Strangely, none of my friends seem to have known about this dish before I ordered it. Is it really that unheard of?

We also order a bowl of asam laksa and curry laksa to share. And my review for these would be...meh..I've had better. The curry laksa wasn't too bad. But the asam laksa was just bland...more forgettable than any old asam laksa you get just about anywhere in the awesome island way up North.

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More desserts.

After we walked around the area a bit, our next stop was Dataran Pahlawan for this layer cake/crepe thing at Nadeje. I see people raving about this place all over the internet, and 4 of the 5 of us saying what a lot of people say online too: "OMG why don't they open a branch in KL?"

Needless to say, I was the one who didn't say that. If they did, the novelty, which I'm guessing is pretty much the main attraction of the place, would be lost.

We had three flavours: rum and raisin, cheese, and praline or something to that effect. My favourite was the cheese as it was the least bland! I didn't really dislike anything there but it was, in my book, pretty forgettable.

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By the time we were done with the cakes, we were absolutely stuffed. It was time to take a little break. The boys went for a massage while the rest of us went home to chill for a bit. We were all supposed to go, but honestly the idea of lying face down with someone pressing down on your back brings to my over active imagination images of me puking. Which kind of made me want to. Okay no elaborating on that in a post about food!

Anyways next up was dinner and we were off to Nyonya Makko Restaurant. Again, this appears to be one of those places very often mentioned online and stuff. And it failed to impress me. I saw some mixed reviews on Trip Advisor, and I'd say you could probably believe some of them.

The place was pretty full and we were lucky to get a table even after they'd let the table we'd reserved go because we were a little late. We had the chicken pongteh, otak-otak, assam curry fish, and some sambal kangkung. The chicken was pretty decent, as with the otak-otak. The sambal kangkung was okay as well, but the curry fish was a bit of a nono. The curry was a little bit too watery for nyonya curry, and it just didn't taste particularly good. Sorry, but this nyonya descendant just doesn't buy it.

Shopping at Jonker Street after that was pretty fun, until it started raining more heavily. But I did get what I'd come to buy: cute hair accessories!

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The next morning, we all woke up late and had our 'breakfast' close to noon. By then, all the chicken rice ball places were full up to their ears, and apparently stay celup places don't open that early, either. So we ended up at some random coffee shop for some fried noodles and the like. It was actually pretty nice!

Then it was off for some more cendol at Donald & Lily's. This was pretty good, too! As with the rojak. We also ordered some more laksa, which was nice, and much much much better curry fish and chicken pongteh.

Our final stop was this tiny little shop that sells jam tarts. You wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't already been looking. But it was awesome!

The jam tarts fresh from the oven were delicious! These jam tarts are the kind with the jam atop the pastry, not those with the jam wrapped up in the pastry. I did ask how long they would keep after buying and was told that they could last up to about a week without refrigeration; and maybe two if you put them in the fridge. But my advice? Eat it while it's fresh and hot! The flavours of the jam and the pastry just don't come together as well after awhile. I know that sounds strange, but it just tastes like you're eating two separate things. But when fresh, it tastes like one mass of crumbly + warm + gooey + slightly buttery + sweet + fragrant. Yum!

And she wonders why she's not well accepted by the team...

Am I a terrible person?

I sure hope I'm not. And I try to be nice, and not judge. But sometimes....it's so freakin' hard not to!

I've read about annoying colleagues before (and written about it). But this...this is a whole new level of awful.

Remember the Self Important Bitch I last wrote about? The thing I find more forgivable about her (as opposed to the next person I'll rant about) is that I don't think she's annoying on purpose. She's like any other person - we've all got our faults and she hasn't quite mastered turning them into personality traits that work for her.

But now front and center we have the Health Freak Girl, let's call her HFG for short.

OMG she is so damn annoying. She is rude in a million ways...actually that kind of sums up everything that's wrong with her.

1. She hums...rather loudly. The worst part is she sits right next to me. The good part is that she's not tone deaf. Actually she's quite spot on with her intonation. But doesn't mean I want to hear her hum some random song.

2. She looks at people's screens uninvited. I know not everyone necessarily has a problem with this. But I do. Today was particularly annoying when I was telling the colleague sitting opposite me about something funny on my Facebook wall, she hears and goes "Ooh" and rolls her chair over to look at my screen. WTF man. Firstly, I wasn't talking to you, and secondly, nobody said you could read it.

3. She answers the phone damn loudly. Like I mean imagine trying to talk over the noise of heavy machinery at a construction site loud. Which is damn annoying if you're actually working.

4. She asks you about something or asks you to do something. And then after sliding over to look at your screen, she repeatedly gives overly detailed instructions like you don't know how to highlight something or press enter. Just freakin' wait, will you? =.= Not like she's damn efficient either.

5. She's always trying to rat out people for things she does herself. You know, little things like youtube-ing when we haven't got anything immediate to do, taking a leisurely walk to and from the place we buy lunch. It's nothing intrinsically bad or wrong. But yes, less than perfect behaviour. But hell she does it too and yet she's always finding ways to try and highlight the fact that other people do it.

Am I a terrible person for harbouring less than nice sentiments for this *AWFUL* person?

I just realised none of this actually explains why she's called the HFG.

You'll find out next time.