You Handsome Devil

I attended a product launch the other night. It was for the brand new Leica camera, the CL. A mirrorless interchangeable lens APS-C camera which was compatible with the Leica TL lenses.

Typical Leica, they didn't come cheap.

There used to be a couple of Leica Stores in town, but the one at Starhill had closed a couple of years back. The one left was located at Avenue K, right next to KLCC. That was where the launch was done.

Don't press that!!!!An Executive from Leica Asia Pacific was next giving some corporate spiel Some real-life samples from a local photographer Wong Mun KeatA simple affair mainly to introduce the new camera. The event started off with speeches from the Leica Excutives, both local and regional, followed by a brief talk by a local photographer, Wong Mun Keat telling us his experience of having the new camera along for a week. He shared some sample images as well and gave us a bit of flab our of how it was like with the new kit.

The camera could be bought with a brand new pancake lens kit - and f 2.8 Elmarit - or alternatively with a standard zoom lens. I noticed that most of the better images were taken using a higher-end Summilux. That would mean investing in an extra lens to get the best out of us camera. That combination, plus the trimmings could easily set me back RM 25000, which frankly still be inferior to the setup I have at the moment.

The bottom line is the quality would not be as good as the M system and its lenses. Yes, you do get autofocus but the camera just felt front heavy with the wide lenses. Plus, there was no stabilization on the basic system. And since I preferred a 28mm look anyway, using my Leica Q made more sense if autofocus was needed.

That doesn't mean that the CL system was bad. Far from it. If I didn't have the Q, I would've bought the new kit and gave it a good go. With the pancake lens, it just felt great on the hand. Plus you still get glimpses of famous Leica colour. So far, there are no addition to my camera cabinet ....

Lunch at Al Halabi

It was not often that a restaurant which looked good on the outside, served good food. At least not often here in Kuala Lumpur. So, Anita and I decided to be a bit more adventurous this Sunday lunchtime and for some reason, I fancied some Arab food. I passed by this particular restaurant on a newly opened section of Pavilion recently but it was too late for lunch then.

So, I decided to give this one a go. It was called Al Halabi, located on the seventh floor, through the escalator near Times Bookstore. It was part of a new section called Dining Loft.

It was spacious with a separate seating area in filled with natural light right at the back. A lot of shisha smoker back there, so we decided to take one of the seats in the main area. Very nice setting, true to Middle Eastern theme, with some of the waiters who were actually Arabic.

The cooks were definitely from the Middle East and they have a butcher there preparing fresh meat and ingredients, plus a baker who actually baked the puffs and bread traditionally. The grilling was also done in-house as well and the produce were displayed by the main counter as if you were sitting in a market. It was reminiscent of Marche.

What did we order? I started with some hummus with sliced grilled meat, and for the mains I had grilled pomfret while Anita had chicken tikka. We had some rice with them and I had some Arabic mint tea in the end.

I was impressed. I could feel the succulent fish melting in my mouth and the dips were amazing. Even the mint sauce tasted authentic - and made from real mint - while the rice was a joy. The mint in the tea was a touch to light to be honest and it finished up tasting rather bitter.

We gave up on desserts since we were just too full.

The seats were very comfortable as we were on a sofa, and I now understood why the patron seemed to sit down there for hours! We ended up sitting there for nearly a couple of hours, nibbling away at our food, before finally leaving the place. The staff were OK, although the Arabs struggled somewhat with their English. The other staffs who spoke English were Filipino or Bangladeshi. How I wished that the locals would work there, as I could see that most of the patron were locals.

Highly recommended although I hope that they could maintain their standard in the future. The place was still rather new when we visited.

The Rivaroxaban Launch

I was invited for a product launch at the KL Convention Center on Saturday afternoon. In this day and age, such launch were getting few and far between. This was a new anticoagulants which I was involved in in the clinical trial back in 2006. It is a good product but damn expansive. Yes, I prescribed it to a couple of my current patients since they had budget for it, but I can't see it being used extensively in Malaysia since the alternative is far cheaper, as well as relatively well tolerated.

The Pharmaceutical Company certainly did not pull any punches at the launch, with the dinner reception being held at the Petroleum Club on the Twin Tower. I decided to give it a miss having been at the club a couple of times in the past. But why spent so much money on such reception. As far as the Company is concerned, this is an important drug with two other competing agents in the horizon. Should the product sells well, it is a potential gold mine. Therefore, I do understand why the company was banking so much on the launch.

Walking in the tunnel from Suria to the Convention CenterThis guy apparently supposed to present a blood clot.The product launch itself was full of gimmick. They had a drama troupe giving presentations and mingling around with the guest. A kind of performance art which would not look out of place at an art gallery. They had speaker coming from the States as well for good measure. Delegates from out of town also get to stay for the night at one of the hotel at the Golden Triangle. Not a bad deal all around eh. But unfortunately, such cost would eventually be passed on to the paying patients .....