The bestest NYE celebration yet!
So good that I had to make up a word!
We were at Genting at the Cheangs for yet another awesome round of BBQ, alcohol and companion.
I wish you could have joined us but you most likely couldn’t anyway, so here be photos.
# Drinks galore! Kronenbourg Blanc, Erdinger Dark, Carlsberg Gold, Kilkenny, ,Tiger, Little Creatures (all of 2 precious bottles), Obsession wine, single malt whiskey, alcoholic and non-alcoholic punch and a huge 4 gallon of H20 for hydration purposes 
But nobody got too drunk ‘cos we’re all grown up already 
As usual, the BBQ Addicts whipped up a range of tasty food. Stuffed mushrooms, skewered scallops, skewered lamb, asparagus and bacon, meat meat meat…
Enoki and bacon, more seafood of cod and prawns, cold pasta, seafood bisque…
Pork sausages on steroids…
A chunk of ham, oysters, pork ribs, lamb racks etc.
Some of the happy attendees:
Then it was 12am and 2012, the beginning of the end of the world, yay!
Hugs and kisses all around, this shot below is my favourite and very apt!
I hope 2012 lives up to its welcoming party
So what did you do for yours?
How to throw the best surprise dinner party ever!
1. Get a good venue at an affordable price, preferably a private room to jump through the scale of awesomeness such as the one at TJ Haus where the owners are ever obliging and take pride in decorating their eatery.
2. Conspire with friends to arrive early and make use of their youthful energy to blow up some balloons for party festiveness. Or to just sit and frown at cameras.
3. When the birthday girl is about to enter the venue, make your friends hide and marvel at them doing such a great job 
4. Conspire with friends to bring birthday girl to sekret party under the pretensions of ‘just a normal dinner’. Lead birthday girl into sekret room, and ta-dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh present her with traditional dick-lookalike balloons.
5. Commence dinner party with awesome food!
6. Follow up with awesome (and totally frozen) ice-cream cakes because that’s the only cakes our birthday girl would eat! Feel free to get a non ice-cream one if yours isn’t as fussy
7. Make everyone show their signs of affection towards birthday girl!
8. Party ends! Everyone is happy, goes home and happy to have awesome friends like Horng + Yuki + Kim + ShaolinTiger + KY + Haze + Saint + Michelle + Zess + Cassandra + Terence + Celine + King Sebbie. And everyone else who couldn’t make it, much love! <3
Italian Tomato @ Jalan Maarof, Bangsar
You know that place in Bangsar sandwiched between the Toyota car showroom and the Indian temple?
It is now Italian Tomato, a new Italian restaurant that took over Gaja Bistro. Where Gaja was more contemporary (read: dark) with unique art pieces, Italian Tomato was refurbished to be warm, cosy and inviting.
Parking is ridiculously ample as it’s on a private lot. Traffic, well you know I know lah, that area can be a bit of a hassle to get to sometimes.
Missyblurkit asked me to join her to check out the place. I said yes though I was slightly afraid that she’d pull another Trattoria Cucina where we overdosed on food, heh.
To start off, we had sangria. Here they blend the sangria; the wine and the fruits so you get a frozen margarita-like texture. I liked it, thought it’s refreshing. After a while it got a bit sweet so I simply added ice cubes.
Mozzarella in Carrozza (RM15). Mozzarella and anchovies sandwiched in between bread then deep-fried, served with tomato salsa. Goes straight to the hips, this one! Pretty brilliant especially when consumed with the salsa, though I didn’t realise that it was supposed to contain anchovies until missyblurkit told me so.
Pizza Salmone (RM32). Smoked salmon on a light cream base with capers, onions and salad. At Italian Tomato, they have a massive wood-fired oven so that’s where they bake their pizzas for that authentic smoky crispy crust. As I don’t fancy salmon and cannot provide an objective opinion, missyblurkit told me that it’s good. Ok lor.
Pizza Chorizo (RM28). Lamb sausage, grilled peppers, olive, chili flakes, tomato, mozzarella and ricotta cheese. I loved this one! I can go back just to feast on this pizza as I find it very tasty, the ingredients combined gives you a slightly spicy, savoury dish. Couldn’t praise it enough.
Spaghetti alla Pescatora (RM35). Mixed seafood in a spicy tomato sauce. Would have preferred my pasta to be al dente but the sauce is tasty so not much complains. Sorry if this is not very descriptive but I only have one way to talk about seafood tomato pasta: nice or not nice. This one nice.
Ravioli di Pesce (RM28): freshly made salmon ravoli in a creamy salmon sauce. Missyblurikit says it’s pretty good. Gnocchi quattro formaggi (RM33): homemade potato fontina, mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan cheese in a cream sauce. I found it to be bland, not recommended.
Grilled lamb chops with spinach and potatoes (RM34). We had it medium, the grilling was perfect that leaves the taste of the lamb naturally flavourful. Love the sauce that comes with it.
For a new restaurant, I think Italian Tomato is off on a good start. Sure some kinks are to be expected as they’re babies but give them time and I’m sure they’d be looked into and rectified. I was told that they’re having a deal with a group buying site soon, keep a lookout for it!
ITALIAN TOMATO
Lot 61, Jalan Maarof, Bangsar.
Tel: 03-2282 222
Pork-free, serves alcohol.
Giveaway: FlexiRoam for unlimited calls back home at the lowest prices when you’re overseas!
Isn’t that fabulous?? Use FlexiRoam to make and receive unlimited phone calls when you’re overseas for only RM10 a day! That’s friggin’ cheap!
To make sure you know how cheap: my recent phone bill (without FlexiRoam) when I was in Bangkok showed a RM35 for one day of 7 inbound and outbound calls, with each call lasting no more than half a minute. Sweat.
How FlexiRoam works is:
(on the assumption you’re on DiGi roaming in Singapore)
- You buy a foreign SIM card with any telco, let’s say SingTel. Stick that into your phone
- To make an international outbound call, you’ve to send an SMS to a FlexiRoam number. Then they will connect the call for you. Don’t worry as all these instructions are available when you obtain your roaming pass
- The charges for you when you make a call from SG is the charge of an international SMS from your SingTel SIM
- The charges when you receive calls would be your local DiGi rates. If DiGi charges you 15 cents/min for local calls, that’s how much you’ll be charged when receiving your calls
- Your SingTel SIM will need to have enough credit for you to send international SMSes for each call to MY you want to make
All these for only RM10 a day! Pretty useful to have. Don’t worry if you’re a bit blur on how it goes, you’ll very soon get the hang of it.
Thanks to FlexiRoam, I have:
10x RM50 FlexiRoam credits to give away, woohoo!
Just because it’s the end of the year and all that, I’ll make this super easy.
Just drop me a comment on here telling me that you want a RM50 FlexiRoam credit.
So simple! 10 random blog comments win. Deadline: 2nd January 2012. Go on now!
Famous Australian beer, Little Creatures in Malaysia!
Little Creatures is in Malaysia!
If that didn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry you’re not alone. Apparently the appreciation is mostly by those who’ve been in Australia long enough (read: students) to understand why it’s so fantastic.
This is because Little Creatures is kinda an exclusive thing. Their microbrewery is in Fremantle and that services the entire Oz and limited countries. Now Luen Heng just brought them into Malaysia, whoopedoo!
Actually they were available here many years ago, brought in by another distributor. Don’t know what the story is but I suppose it tak jadi or got limited stock from the source or too expensive for Malaysians at that time or what, so didn’t work out then lor.
Anyway we went to the (re)launch of Little Creatures at The Hill. Had the Pale Ale:
As you can see, it’s a beautiful amber colour with a light thin head. Smells of citrus and scented hops. Once we got a glass to pour out from the bottle, it became wonderfully easy to drink. Crisp and tingly notes. The first aftertaste of bitterness disappeared after about 3/4 into the bottle. ABV 5.2% in 330ml bottles, it’s too easy to have too much of this and not realising after!
We found out that LH also brought in the Bright Ale so we ordered that as well.
If you’ve been to Brewerkz, this is similar to their signature Golden Ale. Fresh, flowery hops… ABV 4.5% in a 330ml bottle. It was all right, I suppose my palate was a bit too.. err influenced from the earlier Kronenbourg and Little Creatures Pale Ale (which I do like). So by the time I got to the Bright Ale, I found it to be a tad light for me.
You can get Little Creatures Pale Ale and Little Creatures Bright Ale at selected Carlsberg+Luen Heng outlets. I don’t mind some more of that Pale Ale, really… 