Archives for April 2009

how i got a free sandwich with my starbucks latte

April 17, 2009 By Suanie 21 Comments

This morning I stopped by Starbucks on the way to work to grab a cuppa. If you know me well enough, you’d know that my usual drink is iced latte, size venti/ large/ paling besar. So I asked for that, and spotted some nice sandwiches on display and decided to get one as well. The lovely lady at the cashier rang up my bill, and the total payable amount was RM 12.10.

Now, if you’ve ordered the same thing countless times before, you’d be well acquainted with the pricing structure. On the menu board, it says that my large iced latte costs RM 11.50. Then you add in the 5% government tax and it would be RM 12.10. So I was a tad puzzled with what I had to pay. Not that I was complaining of course, but you just want to know lah.

The lovely lady at the cashier explained the mechanics to me. There’s this ‘Breakfast Pairing‘ at Starbucks thing going on. For something like RM6.50, you get a house coffee and a sandwich. Add another RM 3 to switch your plain black coffee to a tall latte. Another RM 2 gets you a Venti size. Sub-total is RM 11.50; 5% tax is RM 0.58 so total payable is RM 12.10 (after rounding up).

So that was how I got a free sandwich when I purchased my Starbucks iced latte. Just thought I’d share 😀

21 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah Tagged With: starbucks

ryan and his coin box(es)

April 15, 2009 By Suanie 13 Comments

Like many people, I leave loose change lying around in my room. If you live with a kid, what can you do to maintain the habit and easiness of placing your coins everywhere after emptying them from your pocket or bag, while ensuring that the coins do not end up halfway between the kid’s throat and stomach?

Just make sure that you put the coins at a place three times the kid’s height lah. By the time they are able to reach the shelf (or grab a chair, climb on top of it to reach the shelf), they’d already wise up to the fact that the notes and coins are better off exchanged for shiny new toys instead of being food substitute.

Apparently all the loose change in my room are already Ryan’s. “Ryan, give me back my coin please?” “No, it’s my money! It’s mine, it’s mine!!!” “Uh, okay…”

I told him that I’d get him a piggy bank to store his ‘new found’ money. I did; it was in the shape of a cute pink piggy with a fat stomach that I got at one of those stores that sell cuteness-overload, space-consuming and pretty much useless stuff.

Ryan liked his piggy bank

Two problems: 1) it was made of polyresin; 2) I forgot that Ryan’s a 4 year old boy. The next day I saw bits and pieces of the piggy bank in the bin, and felt my heart sank a bit. I really liked the pig.

Oh well. Off I went in search of a coin box that won’t easily break. I took the boy with me and he picked out this plastic orange teddy bear, which was honestly the best of the lot. Doesn’t say much about the selection, but at least the boy’s got taste.

Ryan loves his teddy bear coin box

I pray for the teddy bear coin box’s longevity. After all the two coin boxes already cost way more than what I leave lying around in my room.

13 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah Tagged With: ryan the nephew

Tasty chicken and lamb mandy @ Al-Rawsha

April 13, 2009 By Suanie 27 Comments

Update on 20th April 2012: Al-Rawsha has since moved to near Bulatan Kampung Pandan.

We went for a company lunch earlier this month at the Al-Rawsha restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. Since then, I’ve not been able to get the chicken mandy dish out of my mind.

It was tasty, succulent and scrumptious. Something like our nasi beryani (and I’m talking about the Batu Pahat version), but this one was a lot healthier. For one, they do not use gallons of oil to cook their dishes. The entire platter of rice you see in the photo above seemed to contain only a tablespoon of olive oil. It was so aromatic and delicious that I would have consumed more if I could. The chicken and lamb meat were nicely done and most yummy. Take a fork to it and the meat falls like cotton from the bone.

Not sure what was ‘mandy’ so a quick Google search directed to a mandy spice mix.

Need to revisit the restaurant again. If you want to get there before me, it’s along Jalan Damai (Off Jalan Ampang). The map on the restaurant web site is somewhat accurate, except that it’s not directly opposite of Kelab Aman. You’ll have to go slightly further than that, past the Chinese school and a couple other Middle Eastern restaurants. Service was blah, but food was good.

27 Comments Filed Under: Eating Out Tagged With: al-rawsha, chicken mandy, Food, lamb mandy, lebanese

here we go again

April 6, 2009 By Suanie 21 Comments

I’ve just ‘enrolled’ myself under a (fucking expensive) Reductil programme recommended by my doctor.

Let’s see if science will succeed where sheer willpower has failed.

No snarky comments, kthx.

21 Comments Filed Under: Assorted Blah Tagged With: me wants to be a lean machine

elawyer law conference 2009 @ um

April 3, 2009 By Suanie 11 Comments

One fine Saturday morning, I dragged my sleepy arse to Universiti Malaya for the eLawyer Law Conference 2009. Our dear Cheng Leong was to present a talk along with Nizam Bashir on Malaysia’s intellectual property and defamation laws.

With Cheng Leong and Eddie of eLawyer. Photo by A.

Saw Julian, Tock and Zoe. Peter and Wuan arrived late, because they superstars mah… 😛

Cheng Leong saying lawyer-ish stuff

For what was presented at the talk, feel free to read this, this, this and this. Can’t think properly now because I am multi-tasking — thinking of what to eat for lunch, doing some work, semi-watching ‘Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull’ which is running in the background, updating my blog…

I didn’t mean to isolate you Zoe.. It was cold 🙁

Peter had Wuan go check out the UM toilets… Typical 😛

By the way, go help out Julian Hopkins with his Malaysian Blogs Survey 2009. It’s for his PhD thesis thingy, will take about 10-15 mins of your time, and there’s even a lucky draw where the winners would win a pair of Platinum Movie Suite tix.