Tiramisu; Nero Vivo, Bukit Bintang

Mmm tiramisu. I am constantly in search of the perfect tiramisu; an idea which, like Utopia, a Discrimination-Free World, Stilettos That Do Not Kill Your Feet and Make You Want to Die, and Arsenal Somehow Miraculously Winning This Year's Premier League, is maddening elusive and yet enticingly ideal. You think you reach it/achieve it/bought it/are going to see it materialize THIS SEASON, respectively, but then, no, no; cicaks pop out of nowhere/sexism rears its ugly usually-male head/the beautiful shoes that you thought were The Ones (The Two?) turn out to be just as painful as the rest/Arsenal dash your dream, yet again. So it is mighty heartening to stumble upon something that IS real and almost-perfect and in your grasp. Especially when you can eat said real and almost-perfect thing and are grasping a spoon while it's in front of you.

The tiramisu equation usually goes a little something like: Tiramisu equals many ingredients equals so many variations equals so many ways to screw it up beyond belief (in fact I no longer eat at Dome because I despise loathe and ABHOR their tiramisu) but also equals, occasionally, so many ways to get it right while being innovative.



THIS is innovative, and was done right. Creamy tiramisu in a biscuit bowl, with a side drizzling with passionfruit sauce (the drizzling seems a bit random to me as well; but it worked because it was perky, unexpected and aesthetically relevant). Doesn't quite make up for sexism and racism and blisters on my feet because I insist on wearing heels to the office every day and the depression with which I resign myself to the fact that Arsenal will not win the League this year, but I'll take my little pleasures where I can get them.

Nasi Lemak; Kampong Baru

I have decided that it is my calling to embark on a Holy Mission. It is the Mission to Find the Best Food in KL. And it began two weeks ago, with a visit to Kampong Baru, which apparently (and by apparently I mean, goosey says) has or had the best nasi lemak in KL.

I’m always very wary of places that boast the best of anything. It might be the contrarian in me or the economist’s need to back everything up with evidence or numbers or cold hard facts but really, you can’t just go around definitively claiming things unless it’s definitively proven. Major digression and for example: there’s this sign near the Curve that advertises Desa Park City as “the best place to live in KL. Undisputedly.” All this sign makes me want to do is, not move to Desa Park City as the point of the giant ad obviously is, but shrilly dispute this damn claim. Where is the evidence backing up this indisputable statement? Resident survey, comparative living standards chart vs. other areas in KL, definition of “best”? If you’re not going to at least ATTEMPT to make the statement indisputable, then do not order me to not dispute it. It infuriates me, insults my intelligence, and makes my blood boil, all in one go, every single time I pass by it. And then I have to take a time out and realize dude you are getting worked up about a silly poster and then I play some pop music to calm down but then I drive past it another day and get worked up all over again.

ANYWAY. As I was saying, this place apparently has or had the best nasi lemak in KL so like a gastronomic mythbuster, I went to try it out.





So. Myth busted. Chicken is dry, nasi not lemak enough, not enough peanuts and ikan bilis; not bad, but, one would hope, not the best. Well that was fast.



[Right about now, I'd really like to do this thing that I am famous for doing. It's really very helpful when one wants to avoid awkward moments and momentary hiccups of any unpleasant emotion, so I will outline it for your benefit. Firstly, something happens that invokes some kind of displeasure directed at you from a third party in your life. For example, this may be: a) working too much and being an antisocial hermit who neglects family and/or friends, but may also be b) getting into an argument with no foreseeable resolution. For example, and I’m just saying.

You then avoid all Emotional Elephants In The Room and act like everything is a-okay. To do this you do not address the source of displeasurable emotion directed at you, but pretend nothing happened. For example, I’m pretending I did not just neglect this blog for about two weeks. This is a totally roundabout way of saying I am aware that I have been totally MIA and am sorry. Work has been consuming almost all my waking hours during the weekday, and on the weekends I am busy recovering from the weekdays. But I am now pretending that everything is okay by actively not addressing this issue. Wait. Dammit!]

Nasi Kerabu; A Birthday Party

Ha! Too smart for YOU, office network restrictions! I'm posting this on Samson but I'm not divulging how. But ha ha ha!

Kelantan blue rice with accompaniments of which frankly, I don't remember the names, because I was so agog at the blue rice.

Goosey told me that the rice was blue because it was soaked in iodine but I later found out this was false and the story was fabricated because he just likes to pretend that he knows everything. The rice is blue because of the herbs it's cooked in.

Ha! See, nothing can get past me.

Fatty Crab; Petaling Jaya

Heaven is a plateful of fatty crab drenched in chili sauce. With toasted bread on the side to dip into the delicious sweet and spicy sauce, warm fried rice to wash it down, and barbequed chicken wings to start it off. And did I mention heaven is only RM40ish per person?

For once I will shut up, cease the verbosity, and let the pictures speak for themselves.

Birthday Cakes; Nando's, KLCC, & Sultan Lounge, Mandarin Oriental

WELL. It turns out I have been discovered. Found out. The popo are onto me. The pigs are on the scent! Big Brother is watching, and he doesn't like what he sees. The office network has blocked blogspot. This cannot be a coincidence. I've been sneakily and stealthily posting regularly since I started working here and now all of a sudden it is blocked and I know it's because of me. Dammit. I even tried posting on Samson the BlackBerry but he doesn't support the uploading of pictures. I will find a way to perservere though. Oh yes. I will.

More birthday cakes even though it is no longer my birthday. Cakes taste so much better when they are: i) surprises, ii) set on fire by way of candles, iii) eaten right after you make a birthday wish, and iv) accompanied by the sweet (figuratively) and not-so-sweet (melodically and musically) sounds of people you know singing to you.

Chocolate cake with ice cream from Nando's--thank you colleagues! I was totally not anticipating a cake so this came as a surprise to my stomach. My stomach and I had not budgeted for dessert, and so I couldn't finish all of it.

Chocolate mousse cake with strawberries, gooseberries and mulberries--thank you boss! I really want to rave about this cake because it was PERFECTION but since it was a surprise (and it WAS, because I got this four days after my actual birthday) no one will tell me where it came from. Or what it's called. Or whose idea it was!

But it was gorgeous and perfect and the mousse was just the right texture to melt in your mouth and the chocolate rice krispies at the bottom added just the right something extra to the creamy moussiness and I love love love loved it.

Does cake get better as one celebrates older birthdays? Because I can't ever remember being spoiled with three different kinds of cake before. This makes a very strong case for looking forward to turning 25.

Ice Cream Float; New York, New York

A gargantuan ice cream float at New York, New York. The restaurant, not the city. I feel the need to clarify that because frankly, it's confusing. Maybe it's just my excessively inquisitive mind, but I get confused easily, and what's with restaurants that aim to befuddle and perplex potential clients? I can think of a dozen restaurant names off the top of my head that thoroughly confuse people when they call you and are like "where you at" and I'm like "yo I'm at [insert restaurant name]" (I may not actually talk like this, but please feel free to use your imagination), and they're like "..... what?"

For example, and this not an exhaustive list:
- Manhattan Fish Market. Not actually in Manhattan. Nor a market.
- Secret on Jalan Damai. ("Where you at?" "Secret." "No, come on." "SECRET." "Where is the darn place?" "SECRET!" "I hate you." Confusion abounds.)
- Apartment. ("Where you at?" "Apartment." "Whose apartment?" "I don't know who owns it." "What is wrong with you!?" Confusion abounds.)
Anddd so on and so forth.

So I had my ice cream float at New York, New York not-the-city-but-the-restaurant. It was gigantic and monstrous, and is strangely fitting for my mood on this Sunday night, as I am currently sitting at Starbucks with an assortment of caffeinated drinks rushing something for tomorrow morning. Rushing three different projects for tomorrow morning, to be precise.

Do you know what stress looks like? Stress looks like a menacing ice cream float bullying you. And I know I'm stressed when I even start to villify my favourite drinks. Sigh. Back to work.

Cupcakes; Work

I am totally insanely swamped with work. Even though things are apparently slowing down. In fact to celebrate (or commiserate) the slowing down of work people have been bringing cakes to the office and just handing them out, out of the goodness of their hearts.

They are not really very tasty though. Or at least this one wasn't. It was like eating pure butter, deceptively made up in pink and cream hues to attract the unsuspecting eater in spite of its complete lack of taste. Like a cakey Venus Flytrap! And I'm the fly! Except... I ate the cake and the cake didn't eat me so... wait... my seemingly ingenious metaphor just fell flat on its flowery face. On its deceptively PRETTY flowery face.

Full marks for style, little cupcake, but zero for substance and taste. Also full marks for the evil genius category. You are the most conniving cake I have ever eaten, as you managed to get me to eat ALL of you just because you were so attractive and despite the fact that you tasted nasty. For that I must give you due recognition.

Edit - Holy crap I just realized that I am an evil cupcake! I too am a small pink wily evil genius! Thought to be continued later. Or perhaps just abandoned, since I just ranted about a conniving cake that I now find is the gastronomic embodiment of who I am.

Hello Twenty Four

Once upon a time twenty four years ago today at two in the afternoon (the parental unit from which the subject of the story emerged reminds said subject every year without fail of the time that she came into the world) a baby girl was born.


She would grow up too petite, too bossy, too clumsy, too verbose and too happy, with a predilection for cupcakes and pyromaniacal fascination with candles, especially birthday candles. The end.

Hello Goodbye 2008

2008 in review and in summary and in neither particular nor chronological order:

I turned 23, started a food blog, got OG the car, quit equity research, joined a sovereign wealth fund, traded painful 7 am starts to the working day for more bearable 9 am starts which helped to make the case for my career change being one of the best decisions of my life, bought Hermes the beloved iPhone, sold Hermes the beloved iPhone, took possession of Samson the BlackBerry, read more than 20 books, missed and then didn't and then missed Faten when she came back and went away again because plus ca change, sister, bid a teary goodbye to Nazzybutt who left all of us to study abroad, came to terms with the fact that Zahirah is at 14 years old taller than me, saw Ali lose his two front teeth and the baby fat on his cheeks, cried as Splotch the Kitten died a slow overnight death, made people vote in the March elections and in that way affected my change onto the political landscape of Malaysia although I didn't register in time to vote, took an IQ test, got 4 points below the cut off IQ test level, swore off IQ tests forever, held a snake, caressed an iguana, had arm used as a parrot perch, watched Spain become the champions of Europe!, went to Hong Kong, went to Macau, went to New York, went to Singapore, went to Malacca, went home to Brunei several times but not nearly enough to satiate my homesickness, watched as the financial world panicked and imploded in the face of an economic recession tsunami, watched friends fall in and out of and in and out of love, welcomed a niece to the family... and world, became eerily fascinated by Sarah Palin and what she represents as a republican mother and career woman, was relieved when Obama won despite said fascination, discovered Jeopardy archives online which almost singlehandedly made my year, spent too much money on coffee, spent too much time on the wrong guy, spent too little time with my closest friends because none of them are even in the same country as me, wrote too much, slept too little, got heart broken, got over it, fell in love again anyway, ate a lot of food.


So here's to you, 2008. You brought the good, the bad, and a lot of drama. May 2009 bring more ups and downs and the proverbial it.

Mushroom Chicken Chop; Cosy Corner, Ampang

Mushroom chicken chop drowning quite happily in its mushroom gravy. The 'quite happily' may actually apply more to how I felt when I was eating it rather than how the chicken may have felt about being drenched in mushroom sauce, but only marginally, because who WOULDN'T want to be swimming in gravy with french fries to keep you company?