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Entries by Haris Abdul Rahman (3576)

9:53PM

The Preparation

United would be playing Arsenal later tonight. And as usual, made my preparation by ordering some tandoori and mee ladna from NZ. The boys were still abuzz at home, so I had to get some roti telur for them.

While sitting there waiting, the Spurs-ManCiteh game was on, and Spurs we being given an absolute hammering. Citeh just scored the fourth just now. An unbelievable goal from Kun Aguero.

Kick-off would be around midnight and it looked like Anita might not be able to catch the game since with the maids were away, she had to prepare the sahur for the family. So, would be watching it alone I think.

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11:36PM

Iftar at Bumbu Desa KLCC

This year, the family Iftar was at Bumbu Desa, KLCC. It was yours truly given the task to pick the venue. My first choice was supposed to be Restoran Warisan near Dataran Merdeka. Unfortunately, despite numerous attempt at calling, no one picked up the phone.

I tried my luck with a few other places but they were all fully booked. During lunchtime today, I headed over to KLCC to make the booking as again, nobody answered the restaurant number, nor the supposedly Iftar booking hotline. I went straight to book the tables and made the food order for Iftar as they only cater for ala carte. They did not have a Ramadhan buffet.

Not expecting much, we gathered at the venue just before 7pm, surprised to see that all the order was already on the table. Cold. The place was packed, so we just sat down, ordered drinks and chatted until Iftar time. And that was when the second surprise came in.

The food was actually quite nice. Better than we hoped for as the expectation was rock bottom to start with. They offer Sumatran - Sunda and Padang - cuisine. Most of the item in the menu were already familiar to us. Sufficed to say, even their sambal and vegetable were very well prepared. Their specialty dish was ayam bakar. It looked plain, but the meat was really succulent. They also had a variety of tempeh - a Java offering. There were also grilled prawns which was lightly buttered, again a must-try.

The place had a reputation for bad service. It was packed, but we got what we ordered for. Not much ground for us to complain about service tonight really.

Unfortunately, the lack of a Ramadhan menu made ordering for food rather awkward. There were no starters, and at the end we did not bother to order desserts. They did bot Wen offer dates for us. Room was at a premium. There were not much room to maneuver in and out of our seats. We had to leave early since the surau was five floors down. The children were getting loud by then. And the price was not exactly cheap either.

Even if the food was nice, I wouldn't recommend the venue for Iftar mainly due to the way the menu was set up. Ordering ala carte for Iftar lead you to either under or overestimate the amount of food to order. Plus, you had to order in advance to make sure there weren't any wait for the food. Even Spice of India next door had a special Iftar menu. And don't bother calling the restaurant beforehand to make a booking. Nobody would bother to pick up, and you might as well just come personally you make the booking.

I thought I also include this video taken after Iftar with the children on the ride.

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9:52AM

Maids Returned for Raya

Our current maids - one with our family and the other one with the in-laws - had been with us for a year and a half. They were aunt and niece, coming from the same village in Padang. A few months ago, we planned for them to have Aidilfitri back home, and they left this morning.

The AirAsia flight booking was straight forward, but the two ladies had never been on an airplane before in their life. Expect some drama then. Anita and her mother went over with them after sahur to LCCT in Sepang. Got them checked-in. The flight left on time, so, they should be with their family by later this afternoon.

As for us, we had another couple of maids coming in for during the day - one Filipino, as a cleaner and another local lady to do the cooking. Our maids would be away for a couple of weeks. But we should be able to manage. Fingers crossed!

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4:59AM

More X100 Loveliness

All the photographs were taken around Pavilion and Sungai Wang, right after I got hold of the camera. I must say that I was still not familiar with the real potential of the device. The main write-up is here.

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3:56PM

The Fuji X100 is Here!

Yes! I have taken the plunge. I have been monitoring the reviews on this little beauty since the beginning of the year, and has set my sight as a replacement for my LX-3.

Many alternatives came and went. I tried the PEN-3, the GF3, and even the Leica X1. But there is something unique about the X100. It was solidly built, it has a large APS-C sensor. And the lens were super sharp. To top them all off, the leaf shutter and the range-finder style layout. I really couldn't ask for more.

I was close to plunging on the PEN, but at the end of the day, I would just stick the pancake lens on it. The X100 comes with a superb lens to start with. So the argument about needing a zoom did not come into the equation as far as I am concerned. I could still use my EOS 7D for the serious business if I needed to.

So, as soon as I got the unit, I took it out for a quick spin around Pavilion - where else. These were the results. All were from RAW files, with a bit of curve adjustment on Aperture. No sharpening or colour manipulation done. I also cropped them into 16:9 aspects, and added in the borders and watermark. This was from the first spin. Imagine how it would be once I become more familiar with it.

More photos could be seen on the slideshow here. There are also more photos in this post.

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