Time flies

Time moved so fast. Before long it would be 2012 - cue talk about the end of the world! Idlan would be in Year 2 then. Irfan would be in his last year in Kindie .....

And I would be hitting 40 next year. That would be when live really begin I supposed.

Unreasonable Neighbour

Anita had a shock when she went over to our Taman Cemerlang house to let the cleaners in. The house opposite was doing some renovation and they placed the skip right in front of our house.

To make matters worse, the entrance to the house was blocked by a parked car! We had a car in the garage - belonging to my brother-in-law currently in Turkmenistan, but they probably would not care.

Good thing we rarely stay there. I liked the house, especially during weekends but in the last few years it had become crowded. I didn't think it would fetch that good a price if we were to sell it off either looking at the neighborhood.

Dinner for Mum

Being a good son that I am, I took Mum out yesterday evening for her Birthday dinner. Unfortunately, Julia couldn't join as her son, Imran was not well. We would have another bash during the weekend with her family around - reason for another meal!

We went to Latest Recipe at Le Meridien, KL Sentral, one of my favourite buffet outlet. We had a hefty meal. In fact my parents sampled almost everything on display except for the raw stuffs - they left that for me. And my boys as usual, went bananas at the chocolate fountain.

We stayed on for coffee, and only finally went back home well past the boys' bedtime. It was well worth it. Irfan fell asleep in the back of the van on the way home. Bless! I could not take much picture as the boys kept pinching my iPhone.

Now that he was full, he was occupied with my Galaxy SNice meal it wasHad some lovely apple crumble to round things off. Yummy custard ....

The meal was good as usual, although the Indian selection was rather limited last night. It was well compensated by the line of sashimi I gobbled. I suffered some terrible reflux last night as a result.

What was left was planning for another family meal this weekend. It had to be dinner on Sunday as Julia would be in Port Dickson for a conference this weekend. It would be at Legend's Water Chalet, where we had a really great outing the last time. I would be occupied during the day as well, as I would be doing a photowalk. It would be the Scott Kelby's Annual Photowalk. This time, I passed on to Ripi to do the planning. We would be starting off from the same spot as last year, around Central Market. It should be great fun.

Serai at Empire, Subang Jaya

I was taken out for lunch earlier, but we did not go far. We had a quick bite over at Empire Subang. There were plenty of choice as far as food was concerned. We were recommended Serai, on the Ground Floor, and that was where we settled at.

It was a fusion restaurant, blending East and West. We were talking rendang pasta here. I went for the more traditional choice in nasi kerabu. It came with piece of roast chicken, something not commonly seen.

The chicken and the condiments were good, but the actual rice did not taste authentic. The drinks however were superb. I ordered calamansi soda. In hot weather, it tasted really nice. My host ordered the rendang pasta, but it came late. Apparently, the waiter - who was a fusion person, Bosnian we thought - messed the order up. Him being Singaporean was not impressed LOL! The Chief Supervisor did cone over to apologise. No, we did not get a discount.

The calamansi soda comes with a healthy dose of mint .... nice and coolingMy nasi kerabu which came with roast chickenWe raced through the rest of lunch. Service was quite fast, and it would have been faster if the order was not messed with. The nasi kerabu was not bad at all. My conclusion was, it was more a venue for snacking than actual heavy meal. The pavlova apparently was a hit, according to FourSquare.

Would I come again? Maybe for a quick drink, yes. But not for another round of nasi kerabu I don't think.

Bad Experience at Ben's

We finally had the chance to sit down for lunch at Ben's General Food Store. I was meaning to do this after the visit when I accompanied Idlan for some pizza. Today, I sampled some food, and the service there first hand.

On the previous visit, the restaurant was only half full, and I commented on how good the staffs were. It was packed today, with queue outside, and the service definitely eroded. Not only that some of our orders were messed, the waiters had the cheeks to come over and explained what we did wrong. Apparently, since we ordered mains which included salad, the starter salad we ordered would come together. But the problem was, the orders for starters and accompanying salad were completely different, and still the waiter insisted that we ordered wrong.

Playing spot the foreigners ....The food preparation area ....Anita was hungry at the time, and was rather mad at the waiter, and we had to explain again what we ordered and how we insisted our orders to be prepared. It was finally rectified when the shift manager came to speak to us.

The pizza for Irfan was fine, but apparently, we had to pay for the the extra parmesan - something we did not have to do three weeks ago. Hmm! Odd. Maybe in three weeks time, we should be forewarned to bring along an oxygen tank just in case we would be charged for the air we breath. You never know!

Irfan went hyper after all the fizzy drinks ...The pizza has arrived ....Told you I was not into green peas .....I think, the problem was not so much the food, but the "we know best" attitude of the staffs there. Anita thought it was more to do with the fact the majority of the patron that afternoon were foreigners, and hence we were treated as second-rate customers. To be honest, I kind of agree with her. Unfortunately, this was still true in many of the more affluent areas and hotels in the capital. I guess, all of us have the urge to please the foreigners more than our own people ……

As a result, I had to reduce the rating for this outlet, and warn that it may be best not to visit it during busy hours ….. unless that you are a foreigner ….