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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Taiwanese Stone Pot Steamboat @ Fong Lye, The Gardens.

I love steamboat. Best with the companion with love on a silent rainy night. 

I bet most of you are very familiar with all the buffet deals that most of the outlets are doing right now especially in Subang & Puchong area. Huge selection of ingredients but you can hardly find one that serves you the right quality, especially seafood. So given a choice, I still prefer ala carte menu that serve you just the right portion of quality food. 

We went to Fong Lye Fusion in The Gardens Mall some time ago to try their Taiwanese Steamboat. Ordered a course meal for 2 pax at RM 98.00 includes appetisers, steamboat material such as seafood, meatballs, vegetables and etc. 

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Beautiful mixture of dipping sauce. 

Colourful appetisers that open up your appetite in one second! 

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Complimentary appetiser: Jelly-O steam egg, crabmeat maki & spinach. 

Here comes our soup base in hot stone pot with spicy soup. For the package, you could choose either normal yin-yang pot or hot stone pot). Unlike the plain soup base you get in the other places, it comes with a pot full of vegetables, mushrooms, and others which make it savoury! I actually thought for a minute that every materials on the menu were inside the soup already. Surprisingly, it's not. 

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Extremely "ho-liao" soup base.

Of course I was wrong.
You will get two bowls of fresh ingredients like prawns, clams, fish slices, squids and of course meatballs and fresh vegetables. My favourite? Egg dumplings. 

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Say cheeeeese!

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So, put everything (maybe not) into the pot and let the party begin! 
With each ingredients you add into the soup actually change the taste completely. The heavy soup base without anything was already heavenly but with the seafood and meat slices added that enhance the flavour, it was oh-so-yum! 

I personally love the shrimp & fish paste on the side that you made a little meatball into the soup. If you can't do it right, get the super friendly staff or even the restaurant manager would do it for you. 

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Poor Angry Bird, nomnomnomx. 

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Can't wait any longer.

Major love for everything we had. 
We didn't manage to finish everything unfortunately, I think it could serve up to 3 pax if you're not a big eater. Sure, you could order some other dishes like the tepanyaki to accommodate more people. I'll definitely go back to try some other courses on the menu soon!

RM 98 ++ for such generous portion of quality food and excellent service, I think you might want to give it a try too? :x



Hungry ghost, 
Louise Xin



Sunday, January 13, 2013

James Bond Island Tour, Phuket.

Back to our ten days trip to Phuket last November.
One of the many islands hopping tour we took, the James Bond Island Tour (Phang Nga Bay).
The tour basically took us to a sightseeing day of visiting James Bond Island, Hong Island, Koh Pan Yee (a village that built on water) for lunch and canoeing at Koh Talu.

Before stepping our foot onto our speedboat, guide took us to a quick tour to fruit & elephant farm that included in the programme we booked. Well, its funny how I hafta go with the rest of the tourist to see, feel & touch durian, rambutan, mango and etc when I have them in the garden back at hometown. :|

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You know what's on top.

A little elephant show. Le boyf definitely enjoyed his private massage service in public, if you get what I mean. =))

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Adorable little thing that never get enough of bananana!

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Most of the Thai are extremely good with their hand craft skills. Not to mention the towels and blanket in hotel were beautifully fold everyday, I got this little necklace from the staff while we were touring with elephant. :)

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After some opening laughter in the morning, off we go to the sea!
Instead of hiding inside the speedboat along the journey, we were seated on the deck to keep our eyes satisfied by the spectacular scenery laying in front of us.

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Am I the only one who find this look odd? 

Arriving at the James Bond Island which is full of humans. Humans, they are everywhere. :-w

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An island that used to be nothing turned into a hotspot instantly after James Bond; The Man with the Golden Gun were shoot here.

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Acting as we were the man. =D>

Acting as a lunch stop for most of the tours to Phang Nga bay, there were quite a number of restaurants that serve seafood and Thai cuisine, of course. We had our late lunch there and were told we are close to the end of the tour.

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 Koh Pan Yee, a fishing village builton stilts by Indonesian fisherman. Accommodating roughly 200 families between 1.5k to 2k people descended from 2 seafaring Muslim families from Java. (Wiki)

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Next spot goes to Talu islands where you will be seated in the canoe propelled by the most friendly staff ever, to go around the island to catch the amazing view of natural sea caves. Wonderful!

I actually thought we will be the one who canoeing but our guide was right, we can barely move it right. Of course the stubbornness within me doesn't allowed me to go without trying. I tried and it moved! But I figured it might takes me 3hours for a 45 minutes work, I gave up.

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Spot where you'll have lean back to pass through the cave..

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Thanks uncle for taking this awesome photo for us!

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Our hero, super like him!

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You'll run into a 'cafe on boat' and have some drinks if you need. Hot sun kills.

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Wonderful day trip ended.
2 hours drive to hotel and we're back to the pool.

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p/s: you know it's another post that I insist (or force) you to look at my beautiful pictures! :P *runs!*

Grab a seat, have a beer.
Louise Xin



Saturday, January 12, 2013

New Year's Eve at W Hotel, Seminyak Bali

Ok, let's skip that million things that I want to post but I decided I should share my new year's eve in Bali first with ya! I bet many of you had a havoc night out for party or simple as a gathering with friends. For us? So many "obstacles" to go through which I think it make the best night out of all.

Kicked off the day chilling by the pool in villa after breakfast was simply blissful.

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Weeks before we depart, we wanted to book the very famous Potato Head NYE count down's party but unfortunately it was fully booked and all tickets are sold out. Ku De Ta is of course, sold out too!

So during the day itself, we decided to drop by to check if there's any ticket sold  on the spot. We were told to come back at 7pm sharp as they have 150 tickets for walk in, and they don't encourage queue up so we have to be there on time!


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Potato Head, Bali.

It's not worth wasting every minutes of sunlight, we went around Seminyak area and visited the next happening spot - W Hotel, apparently one of the hottest spot in Bali for the day.

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The entire place is so beautiful with modern interior design with the most spectacular beach front view. But then again, a night stay in the hotel would cost us the same with the villa we rented for a week. :|

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It was actually the one and only day that we got perfect weather with sun shining on our face during the entire trip. Now come to think about it, I think we were kinda lucky to stuck in this beautiful spot.

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Got our late lunch/early dinner fixed at Woobar.


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It says "Grab your hottest girl, free drinks for that most revealing outfit choice!"

Great spot for mingle, relax, chilling, and of course some gossip. :P

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Sunshine boy having fun.

Spotted a special NYE's liquid menu just for the day itself. I wasn't surprise that the prices are all sky high but some are seriously, r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s ! For example, I wouldn't pay $400 (RM1200) for a bottle of Black Label, or would ya? 

But drinks by glass were acceptable. ($15/each)

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Perhaps due to it's busy crowd in the afternoon, the service at Woobar was terrible! We tried to call the waiter/waitress for 3 times and waited for half an hour but no one gives a damn to us. Got us quite grumpy but when we finally had our food, it compensate a lit. :S

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Cyril's secret affair behind Mona.

We travelled back to the villa for a quick shower after lunch, and went back to Potato Head at 6pm to find out that all tickets are already sold out around 5pm! WTF major disappointed because they insisted us not to go queue up or whatsoever. And why would you start selling them at 5pm when you told us to go back at 7pm?!

Knowing there's no chance for us to get in, we found L hotel for dinner before the NYE party started.
Overpriced menu with average quality, I don't recommend it unless you're running out of idea.

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Smoked duck @ L Hotel.

Stopped by different places to check on their NYE's party and realize the best is still W Hotel for London Beats & Resident's DJ. Since all of them shares the same beach, I suppose it's gonna be fantastic to watch the fireworks regardless where you are!

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Then again when we reached W Hotel, we faced another issues where guest with shorts are not allowed to enter! Anyway, long story short, the boyf managed to get in before 12 am and everything went perfectly well after.  ;;)

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Washroom are cater for... talent only. 


The NYE ritual - bubbly popping time before the tick-tock turns 00.01 a.m !

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The moment after 3, 2, 1.... 

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Witnessed one of the merriest fireworks on the beach and party crowd was definitely a WOW experience. Didn't manage to capture a good video of the fireworks but I guess you could Google NYE in Bali and watch it on Youtube.

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Fun starts pouring in after the count down and too much Gin & Tonic can never do you wrong on a new year's eve party! :D 

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Experienced probably one of the most dramatic night ever but we had fun eventually!
So, no regrets!  :x



Cheers,
LouiseXin