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.

Today is the last day before I return the Samsung SGH-i550 to Samsung Mobile and BlogMob tomorrow. While I didn’t write my reviews as many as Phone Lover Ng Jun Yan or as many pictures as possible like Jolene Lai,

I have at pretty much cover the basics / selected features of the phone, mainly the GPS, 3.0 mega pixel camera, Symbian Series 60 operating system and design. I didn’t want to blog about every single feature as I still have my stuffs to be posted and the users are able to explore the phone on its own.

I like,

1) Trackball. (No joy sticks / joy pads)
2) GPS.
3) Wifi.
4) Symbian Series 60.
5) Appealing design. (To me, at least)
6) 3.0 mega pixel camera.
7) Rotate-able screen when internet surfing.
8) 2.6″ TFT LCD display.

I dislike,

1) Trackball. (Take ages to move across the screen in GPS)
2) No option to switch off wifi. (Wifi is always on)
3) Slow GPS. (Very slow in pin pointing the exact / current location)
4) Relatively slow auto focusing speed.
5) Absence of Xenon flash.
6) Battery life could be better.

That pretty much sum up my experience with the Samsung SGH-i550. Generally, I am quite satisfied with the phone, considering I was juggling between my Sony Ericsson P1i and the Samsung SGH-i550. For those who are seeking for something different (Read : Other brands.) and wants to power of Symbian Series 60 and GPS, this is the phone you should look out for. For the price, you sure get a lot of features and power punched into this hand held device. In fact, I have already found someone to buy the phone.

I would like to say a million thanks to BlogMob and Samsung Mobile for giving me the first and probably the last chance to review a phone for a period of time at no strings attached. Thanks guys!

The Samsung SGH-i550 series :
The Kick Off
The Outlook
The Specifications & Symbian Series 60
The 3.0 Mega Pixel Camera
The Summary

Every now and then, there are colleagues (reporters and photographers) from HQ will be sent down to Malacca for assignments. Among all of them, Tho Xin Yi and Sam Tham were probably the ones who stayed in Malacca for work for the longest time, close to a month to cover the general election in the historical state.

Hence, we hang out pretty often throughout their stint here as I was their food guide in Malacca. And when I was in KL, it was natural that I called them out for dinner.

She’s so going to kill me for this picture. Heh!

Initially, our plans were to drive to Klang for a round of seafood dinner but it was raining cats and dogs and source said that Klang was flooded. We ended up at Ole Ole Bali, after entering Actually Thai and coming out from it, after looking at its unappetizing menu.

It was my second visit and I am really glad that the food tasted still pretty much the same, taste wise and portion wise. Hence, I am not going to elaborate much this time but just briefly go through it.

Our drinks, my barley lime juice and their unknowns. The pictures are slightly blur due to shaky hands and dim lights. Besides, I didn’t really want my colleagues to wait for me to take my own sweet time to take pictures of their food.

I ordered something different although its just a slight variation of my previous Nasi Campur Ole Ole Bali and we also shared a seafood platter (Fish, squids and Balinese satay.).

Xin Yi had some chicken chop thing. while Sam had beef spaghetti alike.

Last, my awfully sweet banana, jack fruit and shredded coconut with sago and coconut milk dessert. It was so sweet that I didn’t manage to finish it.

The bill came up to RM160+, with Sam footing my part of the bill. Thanks, Sam! :D

Overall, I am really glad that they managed to maintain their standard after my last visit six months back. It’s not easy to do so and I got to applaud them just for that. If you have yet to visit Ole Ole Bali, do give them a try the next time when you are in Sunway Pyramid. For a more detailed post, you can read my first post on Ole Ole Bali.

As you all have known from my previous post, I got a Dell Vostro 1500 notebook as my replacement notebook.

I had a difficult time choosing between HP Pavilion and Dell Vostro as both have their own pros and cons with only a slight difference of RM100 in the price.

Specification wise, Dell Vostro wins hands down as it is equipped with 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, 15.4″ LCD display (1680 * 1050 resolution) and three years complete cover warranty while HP Pavilion has 64MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GS with 14.1″ LCD display (1280 * 800 resolution) only.

However, design wise, HP Pavilion has a sophisticated yet wicked cool design on its piano black polished cover and the ports and bays are conveniently placed on the left, right and front side of the notebook, unlike Dell’s.

Initially, I wanted to go for Dell XPS, but the white keyboard puts me off, so, I turned to Dell Vostro as it has an all black design inside out. Well, with the 15.4″ LCD display, 1680 * 1050 resolution and 256MB graphic card in mind, I made my choice.

A brief summary and specification of my notebook.

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.0GHz, 2MB Cache, 800Mhz FSB)
2GB (2 * 1024MB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
250GB SATA Hard Disk
15.4″ UltraSharp Widescreen (1680 * 1050 resolution) TFT Display with True Life
256MB nVidia GeForce 8600M GT GDDR2 Dedicated Graphic Memory
Genuine Windows Vista Business
Internal 8X DVD+-RW Combination Drive with Dual Layer Capabilities
Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module
Intel Pro Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g 54Mbps Wireless Mini Card
9-Cell 85Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
3 Years Complete Cover
8-in-1 Media Card Reader
Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet
Internal 56K Modem

Upon taking out the notebook from the box, I could feel the extra weight that came with the increased size of the LCD display panel. I think it could easily reach 3kg or somewhere around there. If I have to carry my notebook and camera for an outing, I would be carrying almost 5kg on both arms / shoulders. Even though I am not on the move most of the time, the extra weight is certainly a burden.

The plastic used to build the notebook is generally quite high grade and durable. Most importantly, with such texture, there won’t be smudges all over the notebook but the general outlook of the device is pretty dull, dull and dull.

With the extra inches on four sides, one has plenty of spaces for the palm (palm rest) and can easily type on the notebook for long hours without feeling sore at the wrist. The keypads are well spaced and one wouldn’t have to cramp their fingers to punch the correct key or find the function keys are oddly placed. Most importantly, they are responsive and relatively quiet.

On the front, you have the speakers, nicely placed below the media keys. While I would prefer the speaker to be on top / near the LCD display for better sound, it is still better than placing the speakers right under the users’ palm, which is in the case of my dad’s old Inspiron. The speakers are seriously loud, perhaps, on par with my external 2.1 speakers. However, unlike HP Pavilion’s Altec Lansing speakers, which provides a well balanced sound of bass and treble, Dell’s speakers seriously lack the bass.

On the left, you have the WiFi on-off switch, a ventilation hole, microphone and audio jacks and an ExpressCard slot. I find it rather odd to place the WiFi on-off switch at the far end of the notebook. With ventilation hole at the side to dissipate the heat, the notebook is significantly cooler than my HP Pavilion notebook, especially on the bottom of the notebook. I don’t see any problem putting the laptop on my lap for an hour or two.

For the right hand side, there’s two USB ports, a LAN port, an external display connector port, IEEE 1394 / Firewire port (?) and the 8X DVD+-RW combination drive with dual layer capabilities.

On the back, you have the phone jack, two USB ports and the power connector jack. I opted for a 9-cell battery, hence, the protruding battery at the back of my notebook.

Generally, I find the ports are oddly placed and scattered around. If given a choice, I would prefer the placement of ports on the Vostro 1400 series compared to the Vostro 1500 series. The Vostro 1400 series’ placements are neater and make more senses, in a way.

For example, it’s really inconvenient and not easy to access the memory card reader as it is situated really low. My fingers are big and I can’t seem to reach for the memory card unless I lift the notebook up.

Another minor thing that bothers me is that the notebook isn’t level. The front right side’s rubber is slightly shorter than the remaining three corners, hence, the unevenness. Smalll thing that annoys the hell out of me.

The 15.4″ LCD display panel is really awesome and bright. However, that’s not the best part, it’s the 1680 * 1080 screen resolution that kicks ass. Images are really sharp and clear, the difference could be easily noticed when you watch a high definition video. With the higher resolution, it also means I can stuff really more windows and applications in one window. Internet surfing experience has also increased greatly as I can see more for less now. You can click on the picture below to see a full size image of my print screen.

Generally, it is a good notebook. However, Dell should really start considering to create a nicer looking notebook. Yes, they have created coloured Inspiron notebook but that’s not enough as generally, Dell’s notebooks are very dull and boring looking. They should also look into the placement of the various ports and slots for easier access and handling.

Price wise, performance wise and specification wise, I think Dell has done a really good job in that. I do highly recommend Dell Vostro series if you are on tight budget and don’t mind about the black and dull design. If you want a lighter notebook, you can go for the Vostro 1400 or 1200 series.

The sales representative that I highly recommend is Joanne Teoh as the experience I had throughout the process is really pleasant and she was really helpful. You can get her by calling the Dell toll free number followed by the extension number 32530.