Notice something odd and out of place in my blog?

I am very sure by now you have noticed the advertisement on the top of my blog and at my side bar. The blue and white advertisement, that comes with weird, cheeky and funny tag lines is the fruit labour of Timothy Tiah, better known as Boss Stewie, one of the famous bloggers in Malaysia.

Nuffnang, Asia’s first blog advertising company.

Initially, both of the ads were at the bottom / footer of the page and at the lowest part of the side bar, retaining the clean look of the first page of my blog. However, due to Nuffnang’s advertisers’ requirements, some shifting was needed for the ads placement.

As much as I hated the ads spoiling the overall tidiness and sleek outlook of my blog, I have to show my support for my our friend here. If we, Malaysian bloggers, are relying on US blog advertising companies to earn that extra money, there shouldn’t be any reasons why we aren’t supporting our own Malaysia’s blog advertising company, Nuffnang. Moreover, Boss Stewie is a good friend that I got to know during the “Leng Mou? You decide……” days.

Within the first few days of launching, Nuffnang has received more than hundreds of new applications / registrations. Throughout the one month data collecting period, Nuffnang ads impressions has basically reached out to hundreds or maybe thousands of blogs in Malaysia, forming a very solid and far reaching out advertising platform for the advertisers. With the data collected and used to further convince the advertisers, Nuffnang is ready to roll out its first round of advertisements.

I can confidently say to all of you now that we have gotten advertisers on board and the first paid ads will roll out the week after next on the 25th of March 2007. - Boss Stewie.

How does it work? Simple.

Where to sign up? Here.

If you are a Malaysian blogger that doesn’t want to earn some money from your blog, we forgive you.

But…

If you are a Malaysian blogger, and want to earn some money from your blog, and yet to register, shame on you.

If you are a Malaysian blogger, and want to earn some money from your blog, and you read Boss Stewie’s blog, and yet to register, shame shame on you.

If you are a Malaysian blogger, and want to earn some money from your blog, and you read Boss Stewie’s blog, and you know him from the net, and yet to register, shame shame shame on you.

If you are a Malaysia blogger, and want to earn some money from your blog, and you read Boss Stewie’s blog, and you know him from the net, and you also met him personally, and yet to register, shame shame shame shame on you.

No offense. Ha!

Sign up today by clicking HERE!.

P/S : I know it is very late to blog about this considering Nuffnang was launched almost two to three weeks ago but since Boss Stewie personally requested for a pimping featured post, this is the least I can do to show my support for Nuffnang, Boss Stewie, Ming Shen and the guys behind Nuffnang.

As usual, Nee and I were having our regular crapping session on Yahoo! Messenger.

“J, when are you going to treat me Marche? I miss the meatloaf neh!”
“Hmm… I also want to try Marche for quite some time already.”
“Then, come KL and we go mum mum together.”
“Ask your boy friend bring you go lah! Else, wait till I come KL.”
“Don’t want. I can wait.”
“Wait loh!”

And that was how both of us ended up in Marche Movenpick, The Curve for dinner.

Upon entering the restaurant market place, you will be handed “passports” which is used to order your food and drinks. It will be chopped each time you placed an order at the stalls. Don’t lose the “passports” because if you do, you will be fined RM200 for each passport you lost. Atmosphere in the restaurant is basically spacious, lively and cheerful due to the lighting, colours used and decorative items on the walls. It’s really pleasing to dine inside.

As for the stalls, they are categorized into many sections like pastas and spaghettis, steaks and meatloaf, seafoods, beverages, desserts, drinks and etc. where you will select your own raw ingredient and the chefs will cook them on the spot for you. Hence, the market place concept that Marche Movenpick adopted.

We placed our order and went to collect them after a while. We ordered two glasses of fruit juices, a rib eye steak, a chicken meat loaf and rosti. Comparing to the pictures at Nee’s blog and many blog posts that I saw and read on many blogs, I have very high expectation of the food. Never in my mind that it turned out to be so disappointing.

I don’t know why but why did my mixed fruit juice was served without a single ice cube in it? Maybe it’s a norm but I love my drinks served cold. I love my ices. Warm and sour, what a way to start my dinner.

Up next was my rib eye steak. I remembered I asked for medium well but my rib eye ended up fully cooked. The only restaurant that I ate so far that managed to cook my steak the way I want it is Chilies. As for the rest, they tend to overcook it and Marche was one of them. (I have yet to try other steakhouse though.) They seriously need to work on its presentation. All they did was slap the steak, mashed potatoes and some vegetables on the plate, pour some gravy on it and serve. The least they could do was to arrange them nicely and scoop the mashed potatoes nicely instead of one lump. Mushroom sauce tasted “fake”, steak was overcooked. The consolation was that the mashed potatoes tasted quite good.

Nee’s meatloaf was too salty for my liking. Again, the sauce was nothing to shout about. Again, they really need to work on their presentation.

“Today’s meatloaf not nice! It tasted so much different from the time I did my food review.”
“You also know how to say ‘food review’.”
“Okloh! Nah, the remaining half is yours!”
“……”

Is it my photography skill that sucks so badly or the food really looked different? The first picture was the meatloaf when Nee did her food review for her magazine, while the second one was the meatloaf when we had our dinner.

Up next was rosti. Rosti basically is like your breakfast set, comes with a hotdog and a serving of potato hash browns (a variation). The hotdog tasted nice because you can’t go wrong with hotdogs. As for the hash browns, maybe some extra flavouring would be nice. Look at the golden brown colour hotdog during Nee’s food review and compare to the hotdog we had that night. Can you see the difference? It’s not just obvious, its absolutely freaking obvious that even a blind man can see the difference.

I didn’t have the mood to try their desserts anymore. We sat there, looking at each other, thinking of what to do next. While I was mourning over the food, she, being like other self obsessed girls, took self portrait. -shrugs-

I admit I wasn’t really in the mood of taking food pictures that night. However, I still don’t get it. Was it my photography skill or was it the food’s presentation which caused the pictures to be so “bad”? I mean, I do realize that the pictures I took are bad, but this bad?

For a restaurant like Marche Movenpick, they really need to do something about their food presentation instead of just dishing their food to customers just like that. After all, the eyes are the first thing that will “eat” the food, followed by the nose and lastly, the tongue., followed by cameras and lastly, the tongue. Even KFC serves its mashed potatoes in a nicely hemisphere shaped instead of one lump / piece like Marche. Taste wise, is also equally disappointing.

I paid the bill and it came up to RM96, which I think, for the price that I am paying, I prefer to dine in Chilies instead.

Perhaps, a second chance for Marche the next time I visit KL? Yes, Marche is definitely going to get a second chance because one of my blog readers, Gary had just sent me a Marche Movenpick RM50 gift voucher.

Thanks a lot, dude!

It wasn’t easy to ask Juliana out for a date and it took days, weeks and months just to wait for her to say “Yes” so that we could meet up and catch up with each other. And last week, she finally had the time for me. I picked her up from her hostel at Serdang and we headed for 1U where we would be meeting Milly.

Meet day dreaming princess, Juliana and potential mom, Milly.

We went to Vietnamese Kitchen for lunch, which I had a good impression of during my last visit with Sook Ying. I got to say, they serve the best water chestnut drink ever. Just the right sweetness with lots of chunky water chestnut to chew on. I think they even added eggs into it as well. Milly ordered tau fu fah with added toppings like dried longans, sea coconuts, raisins and red dates. It was really smooth, soft and delicate.

Milly ordered a bowl of kuey teow with pork ball noodles. The meatball tasted normal yet nice. However, there were only three meatballs, which I don’t think is worth the price. I mean, three only? Its not even enough to fill my teeth’s gap.

Juliana ordered some Vietnamese fried rice or something like that. It came with one deep fried chicken spring roll, lots of cucumbers, turnips and other vegetables, topping off with some chicken meat and crushed peanuts.

As for me, I ordered a plate of fried bee hoon in XO sauce, topped with some vegetables and fried eggs. Nothing special but at least, it tasted good. The bee hoon was served in a plate of deep fried spring roll skins. Nice!

I got shaky hands. -sweat-

I also ordered a side dish, mango / banana with prawns rolls which was totally finger licking good. The natural sweetness of the fruits and prawns, combining both of them together produced a unique taste. Definitely a must try dish when you are here. Even fuzzy eater like Nee also loves it.

The bill? RM77 for the three of us.

After our lunch, we went to watch “Dreamgirls“! Finally! For your information, Malacca’s GSC decided not to screen “Dreamgirls” for unknown reasons and watching “Dreamgirls” was one of the things I must do when I was in KL.

The movie was awesome. I have the soundtrack long before the movie was released and hence, when they were singing the songs, my fingers / legs were actually tapping along with the music especially during those catchy tunes. After watching the movie, the soundtrack is even better than before. Jeniffer Hudson deserves the Oscar however her singing is really over powering and at one point of the movie, it was annoying.

During the movie, Emily SMS-ed me whether I would like to try her tiramisu which she baked herself during the afternoon. Furthermore, she wanted to meet Juliana as well. Hence, after the movie, we headed to Section 14 to meet up with Emily. It was a short meet up as she had a birthday party to attend while my friend was waiting for us for dinner. We were at the road side, eating tiramisu and taking pictures, with those Indonesian workers looking at us like one kind.

Kai Hong, one of my best and finest makan kakis I have in KL decided to bring Juliana and me to Kepong / Bandar Manjalara to eat crabs and seafood for dinner.

However, upon arriving, we realized the restaurant was closed. Since we have parked our car and everything, we went to the opposite stall that sells clay pot porridge. For a stall that sells only porridge, they do have a lot of customers as it was full house when we arrived.

The specialty of this stall is that they cook and serve their porridge in clay pot and they will only cook them when you order. Hence, rest assured that your porridge has fully absorbed the tastes of the ingredients like oysters, peanuts, porks, fish, chicken, eggs or any combination of your choice.

Kai Hong ordered a kung pou tin gai (宫保田鸡 / Paddy chicken / Frog (?) in dried chilies.) which was totally mouth watering. Every table ordered this! The gravy was really thick, sweet yet spicy as they cooked it with lots of cili padis, dried chilies, gingers and onions. Mix the superbly thick gravy with the porridge and you get a bowl of aromatic yet spicy porridge.

Being the greedy guy, I ordered a combination of oysters, porks and eggs porridge. Ha! Actually, I wanted to add chicken meat too, but there wasn’t any chicken that night. It was the egg that gave the porridge the yellowish colour. The oyster and pork also gave the porridge a natural sweetness to it. However, I couldn’t find any oysters inside.

Kai Hong footed the bill and it was very cheap indeed. My porridge was RM6.50 while others was around RM3 to RM5. Cheap and delicious, what more you can ask for? Even Juliana finished her pot bowl of porridge. Told you, Kai Hong is my one of the best makan kakis I got to know in KL.

Updated : The stall is at Taman Bukit Maluri, Kepong. It is somewhere near Tuck Kei Restaurant and is along a row of dai pai dong.

We said our good byes and in no time, my food adventure for my second day in KL ended.

The first day in KL was really a hectic one, all because of 2kgs of Mille Crepe which Boss Stewie and Cely ordered. It was a rush against time and traffic jam to get the cake into the rightful owners and / or at least, store them in the refrigerator before it started to melt. For that, I had to endure a traffic jam at Bukit Bintang area, which caused my car to overheat not once but twice.

Boss Stewie and Cely, you two owe me big time! You read me! Big time!

In no time, I was at the skyroom of Federal Hotel spending the evening with more than 70 bloggers. Most importantly, I got to meet a lot of bloggers whom I wanted to meet since I started blogging. Click here to read “I Have Met These Bloggers!”

The gathering wasn’t as awesome as I had imagined, but it was good enough as the objective of the gathering was achieved, to gather bloggers across the nation and spend a meal / night together.

Like what Earl Ku said, Friday is not really a good day for such big gathering where traffic is really horrendous, especially Bukit Bintang area. Maybe some alcohols will make the gathering better as alcohols always do wonders and liven things up. Food tasted better than I had expected, thumbs up for that! Other details of the gathering can be read on many blogs at Petaling Street, so I shall just skip that part.

These are the people that I met for the first time :

The mysterious funny guy of blogsphere, Wingz of rojaks.blogspot.com,

Blog reader, Fattien of arch-lancer.com,

The famous housewife who is also a pro-blogger, 5xmom of chanlilian.net,

Ex top ten list writer, Simon of simontalks.com,

Cunning and evil looking gay guy, Bryan of sapiensbryan.com,

Organizer #1, Shireen of shiryen.blogspot.com,

Founder of NuffNang and from Singapore, Ming Shen of nuffnang.blogspot.com,

Always seem to be in depression guy, Kenny Lee of onegigspace.blogspot.com,

The tiger from Shao Lin, ShaolinTiger of shaolintiger.com,

Claimed-to-be-my-silent-reader-but-I-am-so-doubtful reader, Kelly. Why do I kept have this feeling that I have seen her somewhere but I can’t recall where. Now, I remember who is she. Shame on me.

King’s wife of simplyhantam.wordpress.com whom I only saw when we were in the lift exiting the hotel and we didn’t take any pictures.

These are the people that I met for the N-th time :

So Gua’s friend, Ah Kwong of blog.ahkwong.com,

Always-seems-to-be-busy guy, Loc Kee of loc1717.blogspot.com,

The friend that I supposed to stay at his apartment with, Mikel of splashmilk.com,

Old friend, April of vervesincomposition.com,

The lovely couple, James and Mae of loopymeals.blogspot.com and powderpuffmae.blogspot.com,

Auntie Cely of chingling.net/blog,

Mobster lookalike, Earl Ku of kukujiao.com,

Bald looks good on him, Daniel of danielfranklingomez.com,

Totally different and beautiful on that night, Penny of pennypupz.blogspot.com,

The couple who got together by knowing each other blogging, Endroo G and TihTahPah of endroog.com and tihtahpah.blogspot.com,

Uncrackable Egghead of littleskywalker.blogspot.com,

and of course, many other bloggers more like blogsphere’s big brother Jeff Ooi, Malaysia’s most sought after wedding photographer Kid Chan, another famous blogger Suanie, Tech Guru Liew CF, another famous blogger Kimberly and many other big shots bloggers whom I was too shy to go up to ask for a photo or never introduced myself to.

Nonetheless, it was nice meeting everyone.

P/S : The complete list of all bloggers who blogged about the gathering by undebug.org.

Another bloggers’ gathering but this gathering is going to be very different from all the previous gatherings I have attended.

Reasons :

1) 100 bloggers across the country.
2) N-th floor above ground floor of Federal Hotel, over looking Bukit Bintang.
3) Definitely more than RM35 worth of door gifts.
4) Buffet style dinner.
5) Digi’s Yellow Coverage Fellows might be there!
6) Event coverage by The Star.
7) Event sponsored by Pikom, Digi, Tenaga Nasional Berhad and many more.
8) 100 bloggers, again.
9) Most importantly, food adventure in KL throughout the weekend.

See you guys there!