Inside the goodies bag I received from the management of Mahkota Parade, there was a box of mooncakes from Starbucks Coffee.

There were two flavours inside, one was the tiramisu while the other was berries cheese. What design do you think Starbucks Coffee would “print” on their mooncakes? Of course, none other than their own logo.

Splitting the mooncake into half, there’s a layer of rich cheese and mung bean set in the middle, wrapped with a mixture of lotus and coffee paste. Among the paste, there’s some melon kernel seeds as well.

It sure tasted kind of weird to me, neither lotus nor coffee. In fact, it tasted more like chocolate to me. It’s not that sweet but difficult to consume that many pieces at one go.

Compared to tiramisu, berries cheese wasn’t that appetizing. From the colour, it sure looked like any other mooncake.

Upon cutting into the mooncake, my nose immediately detected the aroma of berries. According to the piece of paper inside the box, the paste was made from lotus, raspberries, dried cranberries and dried strawberries. In the middle was cheese and mung bean filling, same as the tiramisu flavoured mooncake.

It wasn’t too bad during the first few bite but after that, I had the intention of putting it aside a.k.a throwing it away the 1/4 piece that I cut out earlier.

Overall, both mooncakes tasted pretty average to me, and definitely way off course from the traditional mooncakes with no fancy or weird flavours. While the new flavours are created to cater the younger generation, after tasting two out of four flavours offered by Starbucks Coffee, I think I am going to stick with the lotus paste, red beans, salted egg yolks and etc. for now.

Oh, I seriously love those jelly mooncakes, lotus paste wrapped with coloured jelly. Heh!

Sam Tham, a photographer for Star Publication, was free to meet up with me after her assignments at Serdang. After picking me up at KDU, we headed for 1 Utama for a drink. She suggested we try a new outlet that specializes in chocolate. Immediately, I recalled of this chocolate selling outlet at one corner somewhere near Chilies / escalator to GSC.

Indeed, we ended up in Theobroma Chocolate Lounge.

Originating from Australia, Theobrama Chocolate Lounge made its debut in Malaysia by opening its first outlet in 1 Utama, followed by another outlet in Pavilion KL. As its name suggested, its signature product is nothing else but chocolates.

Looking at the menu, it has a huge range of chocolate filled, chocolate made and with chocolate products for you to choose from, while you chill out with your friends. Of course, you have the chocolate fondue thingy too, served with four different types of fruits to go along with the thick chocolate. As for the drinks, its nothing but chocolate-related.

Sam had Snow White Frappe, basically blended white chocolate with chocolate shavings and powders on top of it. The side of the glasses are “decorated” with thick chocolate as well. She said it was very sweet.

I can’t remember the exact name for my drink, but I reckon it should be Iceberg Lady. It’s chocolate drink with a scoop of vanilla flavoured ice cream in it. After some intensive stirring to melt the ice cream, the chocolate “milk” tasted really creamy and extremely smooth.

It was really good, but it has a huge problem. It was so freaking sweet that one might just get diabetes the moment he stepped out of the outlet. To make things worse, the drink wasn’t cold at all, it was warm. Warm and super sweet, not a very good combination, if you ask me.

We had something to eat. I don’t know what’s it called, but it has a muffin shaped brownie tasted kind of cake, served with four really small strawberries with chocolate poured over it. Lets assume its brownie although it might not be, ok?

The brownie was served warm and it has this fluffy texture which I absolutely adore. My tongue could barely taste anything after drinking my freaking sweet chocolate milk. However, it tasted pretty nice after I dipped some of the brownies into my drink and ate it.

As for the strawberries, they tasted like strawberries. Duh!

While I wouldn’t mind patronizing the outlet again, the sweetness of the drinks is something that I don’t like or look forward to. A really huge glass of cold water might solve the problem but your appetite for the day might just go down the drain after that. I felt really bloated and my tongue was kind of numb after I left the place.

The place itself is really nice to sit down and talk some craps with your friends over a good cup of coffee or chocolate. Generally, it was still a pleasant experience in Theobroma Chocolate Lounge.

Hop over to KampungBoyCityGal’s review on the same outlet. Some of the photo credits go to them as well.

Jian and I headed to town for Amber Chia’s Mahkota Fashion Runway and before heading back to Bukit Beruang, we decided to have something else for dinner. Jian suggested East Garden at Melaka Raya and since I couldn’t come up with anything else, I took his suggestion.

It sure looks like any other cafe in town. The good thing is that it doesn’t smell smokey inside the cafe. On one corner, there’s a work station, which I am not too sure whether one can use it to surf the internet or not. There’s free wifi and newspapers / magazines placed around for diners to surf or read while waiting or having their meal.

Two page menu for food and drinks. Nothing special, nothing significant, nothing different.

Jian ordered a glass of Tiramisu (Yeah, tiramisu has became a drink. WTF!) while I had plain water.

Bored while waiting for our food, I snapped around.

The waiter recommended their fried chicken chop, with different sauce to go along with it. I had one with thousand islands sauce while Jian had his with sweet and sour sauce with sesame seeds. It is served with barely a spoonful of coleslaw, handful of fries and some lettuces, cucumbers and tomatoes for garnishing. Well, its tasted not too bad, but it’s plain normal at the same time.

I had warm longan with white fungus for dessert. It tasted pretty decent, with generous amount of longan inside.

The bill came up to roughly RM25 for the both of us. It wasn’t as expensive as I expected and for the price I am paying, I am not going to be very picky with the taste.

Through Gary, I managed to get in touch with Satkuru. After some discussions, we decided to meet up for lunch at Equine Park on the following day. Since we were planned to meet up, I asked him to get William Leong to join us as well, since I wanted to meet him for quite some time too.

Satkuru, a blogger whose blog I read very often and randomly. He has been pinging Project Petaling Street and that was how I got to know his existence in blogsphere. Moreover, the fact that he knows most of my ex-classmates did intrigued me. As for William Leong, a featured blogger for Nuffnang, we have chatted a few times on IMs and I, too, occasionally read his blog.

They suggested the famous chicken rice at Equine Park, which I never heard of until that faithful day. Tim Kei chicken rice shop. They also sell mixed rice, char siew and siew yuk too!

Apparently, they were featured in many magazines, TV shows and even Hong Kong celebrities paid them a visit.

The usual sauces like dark soy sauce, soy sauce and home made chilies are already placed on the table. The chilies tasted superb, just like how my late grandmother used to make them. Fragrant and tasty, thick and spicy, the real chicken rice chili sauce. At other places, you get the superbly diluted version, where you taste sourness more than spiciness itself.

The rice didn’t taste like chicken rice at all. It didn’t have the strong chicken rice flavour and aroma. The restaurant calls the rice as yellow ginger rice (loosely translated).

Being the greedy ones, Ah Kit and I ordered their steamed chicken, roasted chicken, char siew and siew yuk. Heh!

The siew yuk was really nice, crunchy and juicy but not the case for their char siew, which tasted like a really thick piece of plastic toy food.

As for the roasted chicken, it was nothing close to their steamed chicken. The meat in the steamed chicken was much more tender and softer compared to its counterpart. Unlike the chickens in Malacca’s chicken rice ball shops. the meat were more chewy and had a firmer texture. It was a little dry but still delicious.

Not too bad, for my standard actually. Maybe I will return for more, just maybe.

One for the album, say cheese!

It’s them again!

At night, to celebrate the arrival of Ah Yong Lee Hwee’s new Proton Saga (Actually, it sounded more like because Ah Yong wanted to eat shabu-shabu.), Ah Yong suggested we head down to Puchong for shabu-shabu.

With no disagreement from anyone of us, we found ourselves standing in front of Japanese style steamboat, Shabu-Shabu restaurant barely 30 minutes later. Its Chinese name is a rather weird / odd one, 强强滚日式火锅. It’s at Bandar Puteri Puchong, just behind Giant and not too far from Papa Kopitiam.

Upon entering, there’s a menu with illustrations of various food served. The price range for a bowl of ingredients / items are priced between RM1 and RM4. They are categorized and separated by different coloured bowls, exactly like the pricing mechanism used in Sushi King and many other Japanese restaurants. At the end of the meal, they will collect the bowls and calculate the total price of your meal.

Of course, if you are a big eater or can eat more than 26 plates, then opt for the buffet. It is about RM26 per pax and shouldn’t be any problem for most people to “eat back” their money spent. After paying, the waiter will lead your to your seats.

The restaurant has two floors and each floor can easily accommodate more than 250 people. It is brightly lit and the whole place is very clean for a restaurant of its kind.

The conveyor belt is built as an “U”-shape across the room, with the waiters / waitresses standing inside the enclosed area to serve you and reload the conveyor belt every now and then. However, due to its design, one has to walk a big round just to go to the toilet, which is at the far end of the room.

It is very similar to any other Japanese sushi restaurant. One empty line goes into the kitchen, the other lines comes out filled.

You don’t have to guess what is served on the conveyor belt as there are wooden cube blocks that display the name (in English and Chinese languages) and pictures of the ingredients. If you see something that you want to eat, just grab it from the conveyor belt and you are good to go.

Upon seated, you will notice an empty hole in front of you, which the waiter will then placed a steel pot in it and pour soup into it. Switch on the power with the control panel under the table and your own personal steamboat pot is ready to cook some food.

They will also hand you two bowls of sauces. One is the spring onions, fried garlic mixed with special soy sauce sauce and the other is chili sauce, which tasted slightly spicier than I thought.

For drinks, you got to help yourself by filling your cups up at the designated self-help stations. Only two chilled drinks are served, ice blended grape and ice blended orange juice. They also serve hot plain water and hot green tea. However, there are no ice cubes and therefore, you are stuck with the ice blended beverages.

Honestly, it is really stupid to offer ice blended because ice blended can’t quench your thirst but merely cool your mouth down. You will find yourself sipping really hard on the ice to “drink”.

Oh, did I mention that you need to refill your soup on your own too? Everything, the utensils, soups, sauces and drinks are all available in the self-help station.

Time to eat.

Meanwhile, snap a random pictures of the buggers while eating.

Then, continue to snap and eat.

After some time, get them to pose for you.

The restaurant is famous for its thinly sliced pork meat, which to me, is totally nothing to shout about. It wasn’t seasoned; it wasn’t marinated; it certainly didn’t taste any special, to me. Just thinly sliced pork meat, that’s about it. Even my mum could do that at home, probably thinner and taste better too! So much about the hu-ha of thinly sliced pork meat.

We spent almost two hours in the restaurant, helping ourselves with the endless supply of food. Overall, the food was quite okay, decent amount of varieties and taste wise, it was mediocre.

However, as I ate, I discovered a few things.

1) Since you have your own pot, literally speaking, you are actually eating steamboat alone throughout the night. Loneliness creeps in after a while. I felt kinda empty even though my three buddies were sitting just next to me.

2) Steamboat is supposed to be a group activity, where everybody waits for the soup to boil, throws in all the ingredients to cook, eats, helping others to fill up their bowls with food you don’t want to eat and etc., but this particular type of steamboat doesn’t give me that feeling at all.

3) Because you are eating alone, you are the one taking the ingredients all by yourself. After a while, you will find yourself taking the same old stuffs again and again and again. It happened to me and I ended up eating more fish balls in one night compared to the past six months. If its the normal steamboat, my bowl will be filled up with unwanted food because the guys always put stuffs that I don’t want to eat yet I have to eat because I have to finish the food in my bowl.

4) The four-in-a-line / row seating arrangement isn’t very convenient for chit chatting throughout the dinner.

5) I don’t really enjoy steamboat buffet, honestly and instinctively.

It was decent, but I won’t go back again, unless I don’t have other choice or the majority wants to dine in similar concept restaurants. I was satiated but I didn’t feel good or really enjoyed the dinner.