Heaven

Cakes! From A Slice of Heaven, by Just Heavenly

Jaya One outlet. Ironic enough, it was situated at Lower Ground level.. *grin* This slice of heaven must've had quite a long journey.

Now. Allow me to introduce the cake everyone's raving about

The Chocolate Durian.  Do a quick Google search and you'll find near universal acclaim. Chocolate and durian, match made in heaven. Then it is sliced and flung down to earth where swooning people succumb to its sheer magnificence.

Yeah, but seriously though, it's goood. Deathly pungent, delightfully creamy, and carefully encased within chocolate ganache. Despite its pint-size appearance, this should be taken in small amounts as it may become cloying, and the durian is intense! Mind-blowing. Man, i have sampled many a durian cake but never one quite so rich, concentrated and aromatic.

Priced at RM9.90, it may seem a tad more upmarket in terms of price/gram but it was completely worth it.

Next up, Death by Chocolate, which was... nothing too life-threatening after the whole durian bomb. It reminds me of a smaller, denser and more expensive version of Secret Recipe's signature Chocolate Indulgence. The chocolate cream within was thick, and silky smooth. But at the end of the day it gets stamped "forgettable".

The banana creampie was, surprisingly, a delight. Sure, the caramelized bananas still tasted like... bananas, but I was pleased that the custard filling contained a mild banana aroma. Awesome. And the pie crust was crunchy and laced with chocolate, so no complaints there...

And uh... banana creampie... *snigger snigger* ;P

I found A Slice of Heaven on Google. About a month back Sis treated me to some pretty little cakes that she bought from BSC's luxury food hall O Gourmet. I googled their names afterwards (Peach Gateaux and Strawberry Torte) and A Slice of Heaven popped up.

Strawberry Torte. It was... strange, actually. It had a peculiar sourish, yogurt taste to it but not awful at all. xD It was brought to me at room temperature. Perhaps it would taste fantastic chilled.

Ha! The Peach Gateaux got smashed during transport. But its taste didn't diminish. Cream was thick and dense. Genoise sponge layer at the bottom was delicious and moist. Only gripe i have is about the peaches. Sure, canned peaches can hold their ground. But fresh peaches would have so divine...

Here's how they actually look like. Gorgeous, innit? With crushed pistachios sprinkled on top.

Oh my... So many items on display!! I was beside myself when i saw it. Like what????? I could stick my face against the glass all day...

McTwists

Twists. Yes, that's what McDonald's calls "out of the box, but pressed right against it".

Have been following McDonald's new product "twists" for quite some time, coz i'm a fast food whore and i just can't help myself!

First product twist. Triple Cheeseburger with Cheesy McShaker Fries.

McShaker fries are just awesome, because
a) i'm a fries whore
b) salty  fries are boring so add cheese / bbq / hot n spicy to my fries and ooohlala!
c) the shaker powder thingies make my fries soggy, and i like soggy fries.

3X Awesomeness!!

Triple Cheeseburger? Originality: 0.5/5. We've seen it all before with the Double Filet o Fish and etc.

But screw that, coz i've always been a fan of cheeseburgers so i had to try it!

Conclusion: 3 is a Crowd.

Triple Cheeseburger turned out to be slightly dry, and saltier than the Double Cheeseburger. And y'know what the problem is? Condiment to patty ratio. Amount of ketchup, mustard, pickle and diced onions was the same, which wasn't sufficient to moisten the extra patty, and to offset the saltiness of an additional slice of cheese.

Like they say... Three is a crowd! And it applies to cheeseburgers.So it's best to stick with double cheeseburgers, however awesome the 3 layers may seem.

Second twist. Black Pepper Chicken McDeluxe with BBQ McShaker fries.

Originality: 0.75/5? I mean KFC's done the same before, changing their Spicy chicken into the Black Pepper Crunch, which was mind-blowing.

Conclusion: Mind-blowing!

Ok seriously the photo doesn't do the burger much justice, but it's fantastic. The entire chicken thigh was just bursting with pepper and spiciness. Aaaand it was incredibly crunchy. Only thing i can gripe about is the teeny portion.

I guess you don't have to be too creative to blow people's mind. >)

Third twist, also the current promotion. McChicken Supreme with BBQ McShaker fries.

Nothing supreme about this la, seriously, coz i never really liked McChicken in the first place (ranked second least favourite behind the beefburger). The tagline sucks bad. Golden affair with a smokey taste. A tad too glamourized for my liking, AND the chicken slice, which  wasn't really smoky to begin with!

Trust me. I love smoked ham and stuff, and the slice in this burger just doesn't cut it.

I have a picture of the burger in my phone but i'm too lazy to transfer it, and frankly, it doesn't deserve a spot in this post.

Random #11

I'm awake at 5am. Was supposed to go to the fish market with my mum at 3am but she'd fallen asleep and so the trip is postponed.

So i'm here posting random photos. I have got loads of them. Loads. Accumulated since February.

#1 Celebrity Fitness Mid Valley

I've been on a guest visit to Celebrity Fitness at Mid Valley and it was quite amazing. I think the discrepancy in quality between the one in MV and the one in 1U is criminal.

CFMV has

• 2 storeys,
• almost double the area of CF1U,
• a funkily lit outdoor pool (i tried to snap a picture but got people swimming... not v. good lor),
• a halfcourt basketball with chains as the net,
• almost triple the amount of strength-training machine,
• double the amount of treadmills / cardio equipment,
• an assortment of alien work-out machines that look damn cool,
• a maze-like locker room with twice the amount of lockers,
• loads of shower cubicles,
• personal training room (as opposed to the pet farm fence area in 1U),
• a huge dance studio,
• better aesthetics mirrors all over, glowing red walls and so on.
• lots of water coolers (only 2 in 1U),
• cooler-looking water coolers, UFO shaped,
• fucking awesome treadmills with FANS on them!!! :D
  

Needless to say la, CFMV trumps CF1u, and it's disgusting, really. We're paying the same amount but the facilities are a lot better. Sigh. I think the biggest difference is the fact that the MV outlet has got bigger space and more equipment, and there's more than enough for everyone. I usually avoid going to gym in 1U during after-work hours as it is always packed and you can see all the machines and treadmills fully occupied.

See here. Walao. So many treadmills. And this is only one row. There are even more along another corner.

#2 Iron Man frenzy

I watched Ironman 2 on the day of its official release, and the crowd at the cinema was insane. This is GSC's entrance. Only problem was that it was before 11 a.m. On a weekday.

You don't see this on NORMAL weekdays. I was horrified that the parking was full quite so early.

#3 Tong Kee Egg Tarts

Sean introduced us to Tong Kee Egg Tarts when we were at Times Square searching for shoes. He weaved in and out of those little KL lorongs and finally came to the Tong Kee outlet only to find that they had already sold out.

So, he drove us in his Alphard to the Sri Petaling branch instead. Damn siao.

Yellow driver = Sean.
The Alphard is insanely comfy and spacious, especially when i had the entire back seat to myself. It had a skylight out of which we took turns to stick our heads.

Here it is! "The Best Eggtart". The eggtarts have the quality to substantiate that claim though.


Oh my goodness. Hongkie egg tarts are the best type of egg tarts, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Heaven. Tong Kee's are definitely one of the best around, and is, taste-wise, on par with Canton-I. Price is somewhat lower by 50 cents if am not mistaken.

5-10 years back there used to be this bright little franchise selling egg-tarts of all kinds that i used to like. I think it was called The Tart Shop or something. Had all kinds of tarts, raisin tart, peach tart, etc. If they had churned out tray after tray of Tong-Kee-esque tarts, their business wouldn't have gone down in fuh-lames.

Double

McDonald's Doubles

All 4 doubles in 1 one go. ;)

Sigh. Looks divine.

Oh. And Mega Sausage McMuffin with Egg.


Double The Taste.

Double The Enjoyment.

Double The Calories.

XD

I'll need to jog an hour just to burn off one set of these.

Cakes!!

To me, there are two cupcake spectrums.

The looks spectrum (attractive on 1 end, ugly on the other),
and of course
the taste spectrum (divine on 1 end, suck ass on the other).

Both completely subjective, of course. You know la. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Taste is on tongue... of the... betaster? xD




D'lish again. I have a fatal attraction to D'lish's desserts. They always look mesmerizing, luring me into the evil witch's gingerbread house who will feed me and then eat me.

Except, there aren't evil villainesses waiting for me inside. Unless, it's the Diabolic Devil of Diabetia, and the Queen of Heart Attacks. Time to schedule my medical checkup.

Anyway. Red Velvet. I've never tried a red velvet cake before. I've seen some captivating pictures of them like the one below.

By fatboybakes. Mmm. Looks not bad, right anot?

So when i saw the cream-cheese-turded red velvet cupcakes sitting in the display. I had to order one.

Sis says the best way to eat a cupcake is with a spoon. Couldn't agree more, especially one with a tall frosting.

Honestly, the red velvet cupcake was quite a disaster. Bleargh. Cream cheese is not too bad, a tad too dense. The cupcake itself was horrendous. Dry and sticky and sorta chewy. Bad combination. And the cream cheese frosting was too overwhelming and it was all that i tasted. V. bad buy.

So far the first disappointment i got from D'lish. Still... Red cupcake, quite magnificent. If you ignore the fact that it looks like shit. Ha! ;)

More D'lish cupcakes. The snowball and the vanilla.

My nephews will definitely love the vanilla one with all the sprinkly stars and moons. :)

And it was absolutely delicious. Hideously coloured, yes, but D'lish! The cake was velvety, and moist, and made even more so by the butter frosting. Mm mm.

Have blogged about the snowball before. With umbrella. Tastes just as good, with a thinner and coarser layer of frost with coconut flakes. But uh... I made a mistake by eating both cupcakes back to back and i was a tad too cloyed by the vanilla to enjoy the snowball.

Now. Time for cakes.

I might have mentioned fatboybakes before, baker of the red velvet. It so happened that Heko knows him through her food writing career and ordered me a durian cheesecake for my 21st birthday.

May not look spectacular, but the taste was... nothing short of godly. Orgasmic, i tell you. I had slice upon secret slice (sneaking into the kitchen at 5am) because it was that irresistible.

Slice of heaven. I wonder how he does it. I mean man! The durian taste was so rich and dense and perfectly whacked into the cheese that it's light and creamy. Bloody fatboybakes. He sure knows how to work his baking magic. At least that's the impression i got from my first purchase. No buyer's remorse whatsoever.

Now. Am in search of one of my latest cravings. Will post when i get my hands on 'em

Dream

Had a pretty nice dream just now.

Involving these two chicks that i don't know.

Nothing obscene.

They told me they were full and said i could have all of their food!!

And there were plates and plates of food.



Damn i'm a food slut.

Batu

Some people are crazy to go all the way to Batu Caves for breakfast at 7am... Like me. And YZ.

About 1-2 months back, i sprang up at 6am, early bird style, and i got on MSN and saw that YZ was awake too. So we decided to grab breakfast, which became a problem.

Ask us where to have supper past midnight, we have a decent list. But breakfast at 6am... Bleargh.

Quick internet search brought us to... Pan Heong, quite famous in the blogosphere for their excellent food and generous servings and.... cheap prices. There's no "reasonable" about it. It's just cheap. Quality, quantity and price. The whole trifecta. Keeps customers flocking in.

YZ's crazy over cantonese fried. But i'm not a fan. Has this slimy texture that feels like eating mucus.. Creeps me out. But hey, the one at Pan Heong is excellent mucus... Apparently, one of the best. The gravy was extremely thick and rich and they weren't chintzy with the seasonings, or with the ingredients.

I had a hankering for porridge so i chose the porridge with fish slices and century egg + side of yow zhar guai.

Light, smooth, slightly creamy, and packed with slices of melt-in-your-mouth fish slices. Perfect for breakfast, i would say. And the portion was huge, enough for two persons.

One of their signature dishes was this fascinating claypot porridge, but i backed off real quick when i realized that it had frog legs inside. Frog legs... Damn i've seen them slaughtering them at the pasar malam, and man it ain't right.

Are frogs even livestock? More like wild game, right anot?

Next! The highlight of my morning. Deep fried nam yu pork. Lean, with just the right amount of fat. Absolutely delicious. And sinful. Looks divine, doesn't it?

Total damage. V. worth the price, seriously. It is no wonder they are packed all the time.

Melaka

FIRST OFF! A Happy Chinese New Year to all.

Remember how Harry Potter got his early Hogwarts letters? All flood-flying into his house? I hope you get ang pows in a similar fashion. :P

****
Anyway! Melaka trip!




Now, according to several sources, my previous trip to Melaka and Seremban with Dad was a bit of a failure as I didn't do a whole lot of so-called must-do activities. Attempting to "must-do" those activities, I went down to Melaka with ZY and YZ last week.


Trip got off to a horrendous start as traffic slowed down to snail-pace on the Seremban highway. Apparently, la, got some accident happen (cb inconsiderate bastards, of all the days to drive recklessly...)

Two ambulances slid by (like a boat slicing across still water, and us, the water, had to ripple aside to make way), sirens blaring like nobody's business.

It took us 20-30 minutes to move a distance of 500 metres. Fucking slow, man. We saw the Seremban exit signboard (1km).

After what seemed like god damned ages, we reached the Seremban 500m signboard. Wtfffffffff.

Annoying part was the bloody bus and lorries that blocked our view so we couldn't satisfy our busy-body curiosity.

Eventually the congestion was too unbearable so we decided to ditch the highway and to pop into Seremban for a little spin AND siew paos. And by "pop in", i meant crawling the remaining 500 metres to reach the Seremban exit.

Seremban Siew Pow!! So this is the supposedly authentic Seremban Siew Pow with tantalizingly thin and crispy skin. Oohlala. U see, got Malaysian Book of Records somemore.

吃就吃正牌芙蓉烧包 Wanna eat, must eat authentic Seremban Siew Pow.

The thing is... How does one judge authenticity? And does being "authentic" necessarily imply superiority over other imitations? We're authentic and therefore the best and the rest of you cheap imitations are sucky.

Geez, their 烧包 also write wrong! It's 烧包 not 烧饱. 烧饱 means burn until you are full, and i guess i wouldn't want to be burnt sampai kenyang.

Crispy crispy pastry, crumbling to reveal piping hot center. Can you not say awesome?

Seremban Siew Pow's meat filling isn't as tasty as Asia Siew Pow, but their pastry is much thinner. You win some you lose some, i guess. Can't have it all.

Oh, and we went in search of this what-you-call-em curry-chicken-in-a-bun thingy but they had already sold out.

***
Traffic was just as hellish back on the highway. At least, for some distance, after which cars began moving at normal speed again for no apparent reason. Wtf! No car wreckage blocking half of the road. No blood spattered all over the road. No aftermath. No nothing. -_-"!! It's like the traffic jam magically occurred for no reason. No closure. Hmph.

***
Reached YZ's grandparents place to deploy stuff, huge place, like 3 and a half storeys high with freaking loads of rooms. And off we went to Jonker's street, which is pretty much an overpriced pasar malam, jazzed-up to trap tourists.

Was nearly CNY then, and the street was all swathed in red lanterns and lights. I call this the angler fish strategy

(y'know the grotesque anglerfish with the little shiny filament thingy in front of their heads. Used to lure unsuspecting prey to the light and bam! They're eaten)

Street is all shiny to lure tourists and once they enter they're sliced and diced!

But of course, i'm a crazy cynic so ignore me if you want. :D

I think it would have been a better experience if it hadn't rained. The moment we reached, it started drizzling. Tiny little drizzles. While we ducked from umbrella to umbrella, we saw this! Waffledog. Corndog's cousin?

Waffledog maker. :P

Mm mm! Looks tasty doesn't it?

But the novelty quickly wore off. I guess coz it didn't taste as good as i was expecting. The sausage was delicious but the waffle batter had this peculiar soy-ish aroma that wasn't too palatable.

Thank goodness it was raining, though, as there was little foot-traffic. Apparently on normal weekends, the queue is disastrous, ppl lining up like siao to try the waffledog and the waffledog-maker can only churn out 8 in 1 go... Not v. efficient.

Picked up some bubble milk tea afterwards. Never try chocolate banana. ZY ordered it and it was disgusting. Neither chocolate nor banana, it was stuck in between in an artificial-flavoured identity crisis...

***
Divine barbequed chicken wings somewhere near YZ's grandparents'.

Sigh. Delightful chicken wings. With crisp skin and succulent meat. I'm always sorely tempted to eat BBQ chicken wings in KL but they're often not v. tasty as they barbeque it once beforehand, and re-BBQ to heat it up = sucky. Hmm but i read that there's a famous stall in Jalan Alor. must go scout some day.

I regret not spamming these wings.

Mediocre oh jien, with handful of coriander (generous, but unappreciated. grotesque things). 1 word: sucky. Scrambled egg flecked with pieces and pieces of individual translucent starch. I think the feller didn't quite possess the skill to make a decent oh jien.

Next stop, satay celup.

I've heard some pretty impassioned speeches about this, that it's so divine, and it's so BOMB... That people can suck down 20-30 sticks of satay celup. And i was intrigued.

I thought it was something like lok lok with different types of sauces.

But to my surprise (and annoyance), it was just 1 giant bubbling pot of satay sauce.

Bubble bubble, boil and there's trouble? And i know what the trouble is...

Everything tastes the same! -_-"

So fine. I dunk a stick of fu zhuk in. Bam! Tastes like satay sauce.

Chuck in some fishball / vegeball / wan tan. Bam! Tastes like satay sauce.

The chikuwa thingies work best, i would say, because the satay sauce will flow inside the tube and come gushing out when you bite it.

In any case. You taste satay sauce. Gets boring mighty quickly. So... I stopped at 11.

But i witnessed the specimens who could devour stick upon stick of satay celup though, who were seated next to us. Huge table, loads of satay sticks lying on the table, and lots of empty green tea cans (they were surreptitiously pouring whiskey, but why though, cannot drink at satay celup places?).

***
Next morning YZ brought me to this kindly old uncle who was selling some sort of Chinese rojak(assorted fish cakes fish balls and fish cakes + loads of crunchy heart-killing fritters drizzled in a tangy sauce) near the junction outside his gramp's house.

He asked whether i had studied in China before because i could speak such accurate and perfectly accented Mandarin (nya-haha!). @_@ One does not need to study in China to be able to speak Mandarin properly, lor. One requires only the media. :P Applies only to those who have basics in Mandarin, of course.

Taiwanese beef noodles. Again. With a piece of fried pork ribs in the background. Fantastic!

***
After i managed to kick ZY up (no easy feat i tell you. that bastard. had to sprinkle water and slap him twice in the face before he agreed to wake up) we headed over to this satay place that sells pork satay. :D

:D

Fwalala! Pork satay! Tiny little skewers, but wonderfully crispy. Completely satisfying.

I had 15 of these babies. Which is crap for my standards.

The thing i regret is going on an eating trip to Melaka during one of my diets. It's not that i felt guilty about binge eating. It's just that my stomach has shrunk considerably and i got full quickly so i couldn't binge. Ha! On one hand it's good news too. ;)

Next door to the satay place was this quaint little cafe-bakery where they sell "thousand-layer" cakes.

I first heard of it from YZ's engineering gang. "Fuiyo we went to eat this thousand-layer cake." And the impression i had was... Kuih lapis. Those pink and white ones. And i thought, all the way to Melaka? Gula melaka kuih lapis, maybe?

But when i reached the bakery i started to have sneaky suspicion that it was

Mille crepe. -_-"! Though i would say it was a decent description. I mean they do seem to have lots of layers of crepe.

Tiramisu (virgin one). Looks awesome, doesn't it, with all the coffee-dusted peaks and valleys. :D

Taste-wise... It was like a huge mouthful of cream and mascarpone with a teeniest hint of coffee.

ZY's choco-banana. Tastes.... like a huge mouthful of cream and mascarpone. LoL! Couldn't taste any banana as there wasn't really enough space for large enough chunks of bananas to squeeze in and give flavour anyway.

ZY's double choco-banana disaster. Ha!! But! This was delicious nonetheless, much better than the bubble milk tea.

Oh, and this is ZY. He broke YZ's grandparents' sofa. LOL!! Pathetic attempt at screwing it back using a metal ruler. Lorenzo somemore wtf.

Last stop was this cendol place. Apparently THE dessert to order is the gula melaka cendol. Their gula melaka is extremely thick, with a burnt sort of caramel taste to it.

Ooohlala. Look at the pot of gula melaka. And the 4 bowls of cendol. Divine right?

But stupid me. I was tempted by the dumb ass mango ice kacang and it was a major fiasco.

a) mango sucked. it was all dry and soaked in this soury artificial mango syrup.
b) ingredients sucked. corn was grotesque. disgusting large kidney beans.
c) combo sucked. they poured gula melaka on my ice kacang!

Think. Sour and sweet from the mango, bittersweet from the gula melaka, culminating in a bowl of ice kacang that tasted like vomit. Pah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apart from horrendous ice kacang and early traffic jam, i think the Melaka trip was fantastic. :)

AND i can conclude that it's best to go on trips with friends than family. Ha!