Mandarin Grill

Last weekend I went for one of the most expensive meals I've ever had in my life. Here's how it started.

I wanted to catch up with Xes for dinner.

Xes is a lawyer and a good friend of mine. He's a good lawyer too. So me and a lot of the other Nuffies bug him every day for help on legal advice and he even gets down to doing some legal work for us sometimes ... for free. You know how some lawyers can be very calculative about their time.

Heck I have an Aunty that I will call here Aunty Elizabeth. Now Aunty Elizabeth was a really successful lawyer in her days. One day many years ago I asked her for some legal advice and got some very vague answers.

When I wanted to go into the details she insisted that I speak to a proper lawyer about it and refused to say anything more to me. Like each word that leaves her lips is worth RM10 or something that she won't even share any advice with her nephew.

I've met lawyers just like Aunty Elizabeth and lawyers who are on the other hand always very helpful to share their knowledge of the legal world. Xes is the latter. He's the best and he's the kind of friends you want to keep.

So I wanted to go somewhere nice and I asked Boss Lepton for a suggestion. I said I wanted to go somewhere nice, slightly fancy but not over the top. Boss Lepton suggested "Mandarin Grill" in Mandarin Oriental. I thought okay... won't that be a little expensive but I trusted him when he followed on to say "No lah... not that expensive".

When I walked into the restaurant I began to like it already. I liked the ambience.

Felt really grand and exclusive.

The waiters too were really friendly.

Then I opened the menu......

and my whole night changed forever!

I remember some blog reviews saying that the steak there was supposed to be good. Naturally I looked at the steak prices and the cheapest steak cost RM115 while the most expensive steak cost something like RM460. Not to mention, that was just the cost of the steak. Not inclusive of any sides.

I took out my mobile phone and Tweeted to ask my followers if I should get the hell out of there and run... RUN and DON'T LOOK BACK!!!

This is me getting ready to bolt!

But nobody replied me so I decided to stay.

Princess tweeted too.

Soon Xes arrived with his beautiful girlfriend Angeline and we started dinner.

We didn't order any appetizers for fear of adding on to the already impending bulge of a bill but the chef from inside the kitchen probably took pity of us and gave us a small helping each of complimentary pumpkin soup.

It was fantastic!

After some chatting and all, the main course came soon enough.

To enjoy our main course, we didn't just use any knives. The waiter opened up a case of all sorts of custom steak knives and got us to pick them.

They steak turned out to be really really really really really good.

I asked everyone how they thought their food was and they all loved it.

Princess.. in going with her 'cute' image decided to go for the cute food. She ordered a little baby Wagyu burger that I could've sworn was on the Kid's menu if they had one.

Then came the time to order dessert. Xes has a sweet tooth. Actually he has sweet TEETH. So we ordered a Creme Brulee to share.

And cake with ice-cream.

Both were lovely!

To top it off, at the end of our dinner the chef gave us yet another complimentary treet!

Macaroons!

The bill at the end of the night. RM1,200 for 6 people.

I'm glad we didn't order wine. Probably the last time in a looooong time that I can afford to eat in a place like that but I had a good experience. Thanks also to the chef that kept giving us all sorts of complimentary stuff!

Good food, great service and fantastic company!

KL's Stand-up Comedy Scene

I notice that these few years I've been spending my time really differently. I'd imagine the typical Malaysian couple would spend their time on weekends going window shopping in malls, watching a movie and stuff along those lines.

Princess and I used to follow that routine and all but after a while we began to be a boring couple. So we started not going out and just staying home on lazy Sunday afternoons, reading our books or just lying around.

Then after it dawns on us that we've become a lazy couple, we get defensive and quickly go find something to do... like make chocolate truffles.

One thing that we've been quite active in during our free time though is the stand-up comedy scene. To be honest, that came after going for some stand-up comedies and getting to know Jenhan. Last week we went for Timeout's Stand-Up Comedy night at Zouk.

The stand-up comedy scene in KL is really fast growing. We have some really good stand-up comedians in Malaysia and every performance I attend is always packed with people so there's quite a following too.

I think it takes sooo much confidence to be a stand-up comedian. Imagine having to stand on a stage with a spotlight right on you. Then look at the faces all staring right up at you, waiting for you to say something that will make them laugh. And if you don't make them laugh then you end up having a load more stress piled on to you.

I think it's such a hard job and I really admire how so many of these stand-up comedians have the courage to do it for fun... not for money or anything but for fun. That night we watched like maybe ten different comedians including Rudy from Mix.FM and it was so much fun.

This Canadian guy made fun of me the most though.

Princess and I were sitting near the stage when he went around asking people what their ambitions were when they were young. This lawyer in his 50s answered that he wanted to be an "astronaut" and Princess went "Hahaha so cute wan!".

And then to my surprise he turned to me and asked me "Now what did you want to be?"

Being caught by surprise I answered it as honestly as I could (which I now realize was a big mistake). I answered "Postman".

He said "Postman?!?! Man you must've been watching too much porn!!" (Think because there's gotta be some porn somewhere that involves a postman and a lonely housewife or something).

Everyone found it funny that I wanted to be a postman. Why though? It's something I really wanted to be and even my mum didn't find it worrying when I told her that I wanted to be a postman.

When I thought of being a postman, I thought of riding my motorbike with the wind in my face. The outside world would be my office as I travel house by house delivering mail. Plus I was going through a phase where I loved putting letters into mailboxes so that was loads of fun to me too.

But as I grew older my ambitions changed with age too. At one time I wanted to be a soldier and another time a pilot. Not sure why I was so fickle but I think I was heavily influenced by the movies I watched. Top Gun made me wanna be a pilot and Rambo made me want to be a soldier.

I'm turning 26 this year... and I'm neither a pilot, postman or soldier.

Goodbye Jia Jer & Hello Small World!

Today I experienced an EPIC traffic jam in KL. It was raining cats, dogs, dinosaurs and hippos during rush hour and my destination was somewhere off the LDP. I could seriously use one of those flying cars the Jetsons use to get around.

Anyway this will be a short entry. Some friends came together last weekend for a long lunch at Delicious.

All to say goodbye to this guy!

Jia Jer... my friend whom I got to know at college, then followed me to London for university and then back to KL to work again. Goodbye for he has moved away to Australia and left us behind to live the good relaxing Aussie life.

Goodbye Jia Jer! We will miss you!

Trivia: My friend Jia Jer whom I've known for many years is actually the elder brother of Princess' good friend Jia Meei.

Such a small small world!

Small world ride in Disneyland Hong Kong! Whee...

Speaking of a small world. Let me tell you another story.

Years ago while I was studying in London I knew this guy (whom I will refer to here as) Alfred. He was a nice guy and all but he was going through a tough time in his life. He had broken up with his ex-gf (whom I will name here as Susan) for like... 1-2 years or something and he was still hung over. Like he couldn't stop talking about her and tell people how much he loved her and all that.

One day Alfred told me about how Susan's best friend had actually sent him a really nasty e-mail scolding him for something he (wrongfully) accused Susan and telling him to fuckoff and leave Susan alone (you know standing up for her best friend). Being a fellow guy-friend of his I just shook my head and said "What a bitch!".

3-4 years later I had already gotten together with Princess.

One day I was telling her about this friend of mine (Alfred) who was heartbroken over his ex and how his ex's bitch best friend had sent him a nasty e-mail to scold him. Princess gave me a rather peculiar look for a while... then I realized that Susan's "bitch best friend", was actually Princess.

What a small world indeed!

PS: Alfred has happily moved on now and has had other girlfriends :) He knows I'm dating the "bitch best friend".

Tim & Audrey Make Truffles!

Last weekend was a long weekend, one where Princess and I had done everything we normally do on weekends. We've spent time with her parents, had meals with my brother, watched a movie, watched lots of TV and done lots of reading so much that we had almost run out of things to do.

So on Saturday afternoon we were all just lying around at home trying to think of what to do. All our friends were all busy so we had no one to meet up with (or possibly none of our friends wanted to hang out with us. Maybe we embarrass them in public with the stupid things we do).

Then we were thinking of going out at night for drinks and all but again we had no one to meet up with. So Princess and I started talking about how we had become.... a typical boring couple. Gone were the days where we had loads to do on weekends. Lots of friends houses to go to, lots of drinking at night and dancing in clubs. Lots of those kind of stuff.

Now all we do is stay at home, watch TV, read books and entertain one another by doing stupid things like hiding behind a door when the other walks into a room. Just before we were about to succumb to boredom I decided to take matters into our own hands.

We thought of doing some really random things on impulse. Princess and I come up with all sorts of ideas for things like that. Like one idea was to go to the airport, take the next flight to Phuket or something and go for a couple of days.

Other simpler ideas we came up with was to go look at the showrooms of new apartments and check out the show units (pretending to be potential buyers... you know a newly wed couple looking for a home to buy).

Trouble with that gig though was that me and Princess often look and dress so young, they'll probably chase us out of the showroom or ask us "Are you both lost? Where's mummy and daddy?"

Last Saturday though we decided to do something that could've gone really wrong. We decided to bake or make something. When thinking of the possibilities of what we could make we got ourselves excited but not nearly as excited as when we thought about the possibility of opening our own bakery some day. "Timothy & Audrey's Leetle Bakery!" (Yah I know we get too far ahead of ourselves sometimes).

Phew... right after we fantasized about that we got to work immediately.

We googled around and we found an easy recipe to make Oreo Truffles on this website! All we needed was cream cheese, chocolate and lots of Oreos. Best part was that it was easy to make. We didn't even have to use the oven and risk burning down my place. So we hopped into the car and drove to the nearest supermarket to buy the ingredients.

An hour later we came home, had dinner first and started work on Project Oreo Truffles.

First we had to break up the Oreo cookies.

Then once they've all become powder-like, we put it the cream cheese to mix it all around.

Then we melt the Hershey's chocolate chips we melt to make chocolate.

And this is where most of the time is spent. Rolling it into little balls and swirling it in the chocolate.

After that you sprinkle any of the leftover "Oreo-powder" on it and put it in the fridge to harden.

The whole process took us 90 minutes though I think we just sucked and a pro would've been able to do it sooner.

You know what else a pro would've been able to do?

This is how the Oreo Truffles were supposed to look like.

This is how our Oreo Truffels looked like.

I was shocked at the difference! One looked like how truffels was supposed to look and ours looked like... pieces of tar you pick up from Jalan Kuching.

PRESENTATION FAIL!

Nevertheless I brought it to work for the Nuffies to try and they all loved it. HAH!

Don't judge a book by its cover (or a truffel by its outer chocolate layer).

Then again you can't really get it wrong when it comes to the taste right? I mean you are after all just putting the exact same things into a bowl and mixing it together. Haha! No matter!!! That was still Timothy & Audrey's first truffles! Next we might actually bake something.

Stand back world!!! More ugly but nice food coming your way from Tim & Audrey!

Nuffies BBQ to Celebrate our 3rd Anniversary

A couple of nights ago the Nuffies came over to my place to have a little BBQ to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of Nuffnang being around. We were actually thinking of doing a big party with bloggers and all but with all the events we had in January, our events team was too exhausted to put something like that together.

So instead, we had a BBQ at my place. Now here's me being honest: I don't really like BBQs. Why? Because here's what always happens at BBQs I go for:

1) You end up eating undercooked food.

2) You end up eating overcooked food (burnt).

3) You never get enough food because there are too many people to feed and not enough BBQ pits to serve everyone at least in the beginning half when you're hungry.

The Nuffies suggested a BBQ though, so I decided to go along with it and the truth was, while I had my fair share of undercooked and overcooked food that night, I still had fun.

Here's how it started off.

1) Right after work, some of us came over to my place first to set things up. The other half of the Nuffies were all busy with work and had to stay back in the office.

Yee Hou was put in charge of starting up the fire since he seemed to be the only experienced one among all the guys.

All Robb and I did was watch.

The girls made fun of us not taking the lead in starting the fire and said "How manly..... " but Robb and I weren't bothered. We were BBQ noobs, no point hiding that. I do now know how to start it all up. Quite easy really.

All you need is just to put these firestarters in with the charcoal and wait for it to light up.

If any smart alecs are going to say "Real men don't need firestarters to start fires... we use sticks and stones"... well all I gotta say is, why bother when you have Cock brand firestarters.

I always thought that would make a great brand for condoms (Cock Brand - Ribbed & Ready) but instead they come up with a Cock brand for everything else BUT condoms.

2) While the guys were busy setting up the BBQ pits (or watching Yee Hou do it), the girls were in the kitchen making some preparations.

Linda and Sara here were busy preparing the potatoes that we were going to butter up and wrap in foil to put in the pit later on.

Feeling totally useless while waiting for the charcoal to heat up, I decided to help.

Sara and I had some Henry Ford Specialization thing going on there. She was cutting up the foil and I was buttering the potatoes and wrapping them. I am pleased to say that I contributed to half of these wrapped potatoes here.

3) Yuen Yee on her end was doing other stuff.

Doing something to the lettuce and cutting tomatoes, most of which I ended up eating raw later on that night.

4) Soon the rest of the Nuffies arrived and our lack of cooking skills became really obvious. The first few chicken we cooked were burnt from the outside but raw on the inside. Yeah yeah I know I know, that just means the heat was too strong but heck, we were hungry and couldn't wait for it to cool down.

I started with the cooking myself but gave up.

Then Michelle, Jestina and Jackie started to take the helm of the BBQ pit and the ratio of cooked:raw food that we served seemed to improve.

So I just decided to join the rest of the Nuffies who were just sitting around chatting waiting to be served cooked food. Yes the helpful bunch!

5) After our BBQ we all decided to play Taboo.

You guys know the game Taboo right? It's like you have many cards and you pick a card with a word on it. You're then supposed to make your team guess the word on your card without saying 4-5 words that are restricted.

So you're supposed to make people say "bikini" without saying any of the other words on the card.

We had two team leaders, Rachel and Robb. One by one they picked the people they wanted.

Rachel ended up picking her buddies buddies.

Robb on the other hand picked the Nuffies based on merit (me included bwahaha). He picked whoever he thought would be good in the game.

So the result is... Robb's team (or my team), thrashed the other team for both rounds. HAHA!

There there... issokay Rachel. *pat pat*

Christy came at the end of the night to visit us after her date with her new boyfriend.

And here's a group picture of the Nuffies that night to end off.

Happy Birthday Nuffnang!

Thanks for the great night Nuffies. Robb says we should do this once a month. Haha! Can you handle it Yuen Yee?