Happy Birthday Anita

Anita's Birthday 1, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

090909 marks Anita's birthday and being a good hubby, I organised a few things for her. However, since it was a normal working day, we only celebrated in the afternoon. Being Ramadhan we decided to have our iftar outside after she enjoyed her prezzies and flowers.

Shot of the Colonial-themed interiorI let Anita picked which restaurant she wanted to go to. She picked a new restaurant at Great Eastern Mall, a branch of Penang Village. The actual restaurant was as mentioned, newly opened. All the furnitures and trimmings were nice. The concept appeared to be English Colonial, which is understandable as Penang was one of the former English Straits settlement. And unfortunately, that was where the niceties end. It was meant to be a buffet, but the spread was rather pathetic for one. A price tag of RM45++? You got to be joking me. Put it this way, the food selection were spread along two tables, and that was it. Yeah, that would be OK for a private party, but to charge patron for that amount of money .... I thought it was ..... inadequate - being diplomatic here.

Anita enjoying her foodAnd how about the food? One thing that will always win buffet over for me is diversity. People coming to take on a buffet expects that there will be selections. Here, there was some sweets - mainly jelly or Malay kueh, a small selection for appetiser and salad - like 4 plates to choose from, the main course, being either white rice or 'tom yum' fried rice with about 7 dishes. If you don't fancy rice, there was either spaghetti or 'kuey teow'. The food were best described with the typical Manglish expression of 'so-so la' - reminding me of Idlan's music school where he had to sing out the notes - fa-so-la. To sum things out, I went for a take away right after the RM250 dinner ...... My mum-in-law in her typically acidic one-liner quipped - "better to eat at home".

Since we arrived there early and fed the boys there, they became restless by the time we finished our meals. Irfan especially was going hyper and I had to take him out for a walk in between my courses. It was not an altogether bad evening. Anita was happy with her gifts and well-wishes from her friends. When I updated my facebook status about 'my wife celebrating her brthday', one of my old collegemate replied that she wishes my wife a happy birthday and said sorry that she did not no her personally. When I told her who Anita is, she then realised that they used to share the same dorm while in college - Anita is my childhood sweetheart and we went to the same school before.

We came home relatively early with some take away of course. That was then I had my dinner. Will I recommend Penang Village to anyone? No for a buffet. It was simply a lame excuse for one. Maybe the ala cart menu is better. I suspect that that was how they usually do their business. The interior settings however was nice. There were big wndows with good view of the outside. I bet it would be nice during lunch.

Happy Birthday to Me

090620 KL Butterfly Park 12, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

I had a long day yesterday. Woke up early to send my maid away from the LCCT in Sepang. SHe is going home for around 10 days to visit her family before the coming Ramadhan. Got back home just in time for Jumaat prayers. Luckily there were no delay.

It was the first time I have been to the LCCT. It certainly was .... low cost. Completely different to the grandiosity of KLIA, it more resemble a branch of Tesco for a lack of a better description. Bear in mind that you are there just to catch a flight, not doing anything fancy at the lounge or duty-free shops.

The rest of the day were filled with answering emails, SMSes and facebook messages. Many thanks for those who took the time to write. I have tried answering all of them, but I am sure I missed a fair few. I will try to get round yo that. We went to dinner, just the four of us after Idlan's music class.

Today, we had a celebratory lunch with my father-in-law. Due to some freak coincidence, he was also born on the 10th of July. I guess that's how I manage to get her daughter's hand for marriage you see. We had a Chinese at Corus Hotel. I must say that this meal was better than the one we had here for Idlan's birthday. I guess it was because this being a lunch rather than dinner, and there were no other guess. Food was excellent and the waiters looked after us very very well.

Thanks again for the warm wishes.

Birthday Do at Victoria Station

Today happens to be my brother-in-law's 47th birthday. We decided to have dinner at Mum-in-law's favourite place, the Victoria Station at Jalan Ampang. My brother being a trained cook, knows the manager there but unfortunately there were a few complains.

The food was good as usual. I had my usual shrimp cocktail, chili spare ribs and starfruit juice. I noticed straight away that the quantity is smaller. Not only that, the garnish for the baked potato is also different and the dressings wasn't that plentiful. I thought I was imagining things, but then my father-in-law started complaining about the size of his steak. The manager argued that it has always been the same size but he got no answer when my dad pointed out that it is now queen's cut rather than king's, whatever that meant. The manager seemed surprised.

Irfan sampling some cake

The two boys had spaghetti and bread. Anita had some fish. The next thing I needed to point out is the service. The waiters used to be a mixture of local and Philipinos. They speak very good English and communication have never been an issue. Now, there are replaced with Bangladeshis, or at least for that shift. They were slow, rude and difficult to communicate with. I given up asking for water after calling twice. They need to improve. Even the Mamak stall workers treat customers better than them.

Idlan cannot be bothered and continue on with his Snoot Blaster!

Next came the biggest shock. I took Irfan to the toilet to clean up his mess. He was covered with spaghetti literally. Oh my God! The toilet was bad. I never knew the restaurant to be this bad. The urinals were dirty and it smells! Victoria Station used to be better than this, or have I missed the toilet all these years I frequented them?

I don't think anybody related to the joint read all this but if they do, something needs to be done. There used to be big businessman and VIP, not to mention Johnny Foreigners from around the Ampang Hilir area coming through this place. Imagine the business they are going to lose if they keep this up? Good luck to them! Please email me if the manager happen to read this blog, and I am expecting free lunch at the very least!