Anniversary Dinner at Favola

The nice welcoming ambiance. Nice seats, dimmed romantic lighting. Expecting a nice meal.Puan Anita and I celebrated our 14th wedding Anniversary last evening. Being Ramadhan, we planned for an Iftar in town, but since it was Saturday, most of places were already fully booked. I wanted to go to Latest Recipe in Le Meridien, but the only seats we could get were by the lift. Not exactly romantic.

As an alternative, I booked a table at Favola, the place where I had a superb lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was a true Italian affair, with nice motifs and decorations. The seats and ambiance were very welcoming, and we had our seat overlooking the kitchen, and was able to see how the food were prepared. The lighting were suitably dimmed, and the waitresses were kind and attentive. We arrived early, and made our orders for the food for Iftar. We then took a stroll around the hotel lobby.

The place promised much, but unfortunately for the evening, it did not deliver. We were left disappointed. The entre and pizza were delicious, but unfortunately, the same could not be said about the main dishes. This was a similar complaint I had when I had the lunch there previously. The antipasta was superb, but not the mains.

For starters, I has grilled peach with buffalo mozzarella and rocket salad. Anita had some seafood salad - calimari and clams basically, all served with Italian bread. The bread and the salad were excellent.

My buffalo mozzerella and rocket salad. Definitely something to order again should I return.Now you see it ...... now you don'tNext came the pizza. It was not bad. But the wood-fired pizza at Alexis Ampang - my children favorite - was much better. And this was the chef's specialty pizza - called Favola.

Then came the disappointing main dishes. Anita ordered spaghetti marinara. It was on the dry side to start with, and despite adding tobacco Tabasco (thanks Jools!) and sliced parmesan, she still did not finish her meal. The pasta tasted bland, and was overpowered by the overspiced thick marinara sauce. I suspected that there too much olive oil as well. By the end of the meal, when the pasta cooled down, it started to absorb the oil and became soggy. Thumbs down unfortunately.

Anita's main dish, the marinara. The least we say about it, the better.The top layer was crisp. Blowtorch may be?If you think that the pasta was bad, I ordered another chef's recommendation in a lasagna for my main meal. It was well overcooked, and the top crust layer was more or less as crisp as a piece of wood. It was burned, while the minced meat at the bottom still tasted rare! A basic culinary mistake I must say, and one I did not expect from such a prestigious outlet! The top burnt layer tasted bitter and …… burnt, while the oily bottom layer tasted like ….. olive oil. You can see the herbs still separated from the minced meat, as if they were added in as an afterthought. Did they use a blowtorch to burn the top layer?

To cap things off, my mango juice smelt as if they were fresh ….. out from a box. We did not bother to order dessert or coffee. We would rather head home and see what our boys were up to.

The meal experience could have been much better .... if the meal was as good as the ambiance.The main lobby at Le Meridien. Nice and compact.Well, Favola may be a nice place to have afternoon tea and salad, but that was just about it. The main meals were disappointing, despite me picking up the chef's specialties. The ambiance was nice and the waitresses were competent and attentive, but this did not make up for the disappointment in terms of the overall gastronomic experience. We were expecting better.

Favola was located on the 8th floor of Le Meridien, on the level of the swimming pool and the Grand Salon. The official Le Meridien website featured the restaurant here. Remember to show your FourSquare check-in to claim your 10% discount! Sorry about the quality of the snaps since the lights were dim, too dim for my iPhone.

Nightcap at Godiva

Stopping over for a nightcap at Godiva was always going to be a bad idea. First of all, everything there was expensive. And secondly, the offerings there were so yummy and rich, I was feeling really sleepy when it was time to head home. The hot chocolate there was so potent.

The boys, as usual had a field day pointing towards the chocolates in the display cabinet. Idlan would always ask if those chocolates contain alcohol. They picked three pieces each before we settled for the drinks. Anita and I ordered a piece of cake each. I chose the Godiva chocolate cheesecake. Yummy!

The eyes certainly lit upThe cake was layered with a chocolate biscuit base at the bottom with a thick layer of chocolate flavoured cheese. On top, there was a layer of pure chocolate, with a piece of the celebrated Godiva chocolate to cap things off. There was also a smear of strawberry and mango purée with some chocolate sauce. Needless to say that the piece was rich and by the time I was halfway done, I just had to slow down. The purée was concentrated and tangy, adding a zing to contrast the bitterness of the dark chocolate.

Anita's portion.... and now for the hot chocolateThe hot chocolate drinks were ace as usual. I was sleepy well before we left the cafe. The effect did not last long though as I was rather hungry during the drive home and had to stop for some KFC to take home.

The Godiva outlet we frequent was the one in Pavilion, located on the second floor.

The Secret of Raya at Pavilion

We ventured out to Pavilion after Iftar this evening. The Raya decor was being installed and for that evening, they had a 60s themed event, with dancers doing the twist. Really couldn't figure out how that actually fit in with Ramadhan. The dancers managed to get a few of the Arabs to dance along with them. Hopefully those Arabs did not get the idea that the twist was a national Malaysian fair.

I was not very sure what the overall theme was but it centered around the Secret of Raya, whatever that was. There was a big poster at the background, similar to the one you see at the cinema. So, may be it was like a mini movie, set in the 60s. Since the music was blaring out loud, the boys was not keen to go to the main foyer, so,I was not able to find out a bit more about the event. It was also drizzling outside, so we did not venture towards the fountain area.

Doing the twistWe finally left Pavilion just after ten, with a long queue forming at the exit. Even at that hour, Bukit Bintang was still buzzing. I was rather peckish and had to stop at KFC on the way, waiting for a good 20 minutes for my order. Anita and the boys were in the car enjoying the Boboi Boy DVD we just bought.

Lost in Translation

So, I had to do a bit of translating. Started them a couple of days back but only managed to finalise them after sahur this morning.

It was a pamphlet for an upcoming patient support group I was involved in. The original was in English, and I had to turn it into Malay. The initial draft was far too technical for everybody, but not as bad as if you cut and pasted the whole thing into Google Translator.

I then realized that it was more difficult than I imagined it would be to have translation which actually both made sense and non-technical. Now, I appreciated why the translator were paid hell of a lot of money …..

Tale of the Cranes

During my stop at Bangsar Village earlier, I found out a bit more about the paper cranes I have been fretting about recently. It was in memory of a celebrated girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died 10 years after the Hiroshima atom bomb, due to the effect of radiation. She died of leukemia. Before she died, she hoped to make 1000 origami paper cranes, motivated by an ancient belief that it would grant her her wish.

Her wish was to live, but unfortunately, at the time she died, she was a few hundred short, and her friends came along to help out and she was buried with the thousand cranes that she wished for. The problem then was not lack of time, but lack of papers.

The desk for origamiSo, in memory of the recent Japan tsunami victims, a charity drive was launched. Along with the paper cranes, came monetary donation. By May, visitors to Bangsar Village managed to origami - is that a verb? - together more than 6000 paper cranes, and donated over RM90,000 for the fund. The cranes were on display all around the shopping center, both, Bangsar Village and Village II, suspended from the ceiling on pieces of string.

An interesting read, and the story was told in a book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Crane written by Eleanor Coerr. That being written in 1977 meant that no audiobook version were available for me to listen to. I would fancy a copy though. Maybe I'd be lucky at Kinokuniya.