As Suanie Sees It

Those who know me know that I am not one for raw fish and meat. That is why Japanese buffets are wasted on me, and I am usually not that excited whenever anyone suggests eating at a Japanese restaurant. But I still go lah, because there are other things to eat mah. Besides more often than not, it’s the company that matters

KY got invited to a food review thingy at Rakuzen, and he ajak-ed me along. Haaaaaaaaaaahhh apparently NOT because I am his back-up plan Anyway we ate at Rakuzen a couple of weeks ago with some other noobs, so I was happy to go along because the food I had was pretty good.

The night before, I mentally prepped myself to consume at least ONE piece of raw salmon. As I keep telling people, it’s more of a psychological barrier than anything else; it took me a couple of years before I could eat medium steak, and more than that before I could stomach ebiko. So forgive me if I seem overly spirited about this whole eating raw fish thingy, but it was a pretty historic thing for me!

Chef Fai and his offerings

We were presented with 4 dishes — sashimi moraiwase, sashimi salad, dragon roll and tempura. Apparently the sashimi moraiwase is really worth the money because the cost of the ingredients isn’t cheap, and the profit is only marginal. KY enjoyed it tremendously, as he wolfed down most of the stuff on the plate.

A sinfully delicious dragon roll

My favourite has to be the dragon roll — not only because it was something that I could consume without over analysing, but because it was truly and satisfyingly delicious. I don’t remember the exact price, but it’s worth it.

A beautiful sashimi salad before the sauce is poured

The sashimi salad was rather awesome. Again I don’t recall the price, but I remember it being worth the money as they throw in bits and pieces of tuna, squid, lobster meat and salmon alongside the fresh and crunchy greens, topped with a couple fat slices of raw salmon. Okay so maybe my first experience of eating raw fish happened at the first time I ate at Rakuzen where we had the same dish, but that doesn’t count because I didn’t know I was eating raw stuff.

Hello there!

After a while, I psyched myself up and ate the little bugger in the photo above. As I chewed it for the first time, I felt a bit sick in my stomach, but quickly reminded myself that it was all in the head. Which it was, because it didn’t taste half bad as I’d imagined. Everyone around me always gushes about raw salmon being creamy and buttery… I even had a second (small) piece later on just to make sure that I remember the taste and feeling.

Okay lah, I am still alive, didn’t have indigestion or anything. But it’s not something I’d order for myself in the future lor. Which is a good thing, because this stuff ain’t cheap

My friend Richard told me that he’d sometimes go to Banting for work, and occasionally would detour to the nearby beach to see the sunset. Since I’d (obviously) never been there before, I bugged him to take me there, just to see what it was like. Perhaps I had wrongly envisioned the perfect beach ala Redang, but it was a fun trip nonetheless.

Morib is a kampung located about 10km from Banting (which I often confuse with ‘Bentong’). Can’t remember how long it took for us to reach because I was not the one driving — besides we were chatting throughout the journey. We first reached the main Pantai Morib, but I was severely disappointed when I saw it to be too commercialised, not unlike Tanjung Emas in Muar. So we decided to go to the nearby Pantai Kelanang, and…

Life and Death. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

A bit sien right? Air surut, lots of dead mangrove roots… left me feeling a bit down rather than calm. Couldn’t wait to leave Pantai Kelanang, so I hassled Richard to take me to Pantai Bagan Lalang instead. Halfway however, we reached another beach which looked nicer. So we stopped there for a bit instead.

Much better… muddy, but hey, it was air surut. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Turns out that it was another side of Pantai Morib. No dead mangrove roots, best!

Me! My normal glasses broke so I am stuck with my emo ones

Self promotion

We’d wanted to go to Klang for a seafood dinner, but as we passed by the roundabout where the nine o’clock would take us to Pulau Carey, I hassled Richard (for the 10,000th time) to take us there instead. I’d never been to Pulau Carey but now I can say that I have! That is one time more than a lot of you!

Well, we drove about 1km in, then decided to turnaround because it was getting dark, and there was nothing in sight except for palm trees. At the bridge going to Pulau Carey was a restaurant by the river called ‘Kang Guan’, and we decided to have dinner there instead. Richard said that it’s a very popular seafood restaurant; many companies have their company lunches and dinners there. Non-halal, but no pork served. The view (if you could get a table closest to the river) was splendid.

Old man and the river. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Sun setting, overlooking the bridge going to Pulau Carey. Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

Can you hear the ‘plop’? Click on the photo above for a slightly larger version

The food was not awful Even after all my nagging and hassling, Richard kindly paid for dinner. Only a 12-year friendship could endure me, heh.

*For the Bahasa Malaysia-challenged, ‘pantai’ is ‘beach’. ‘Air surut’ is ‘low tide’. ‘Pulau’ is ‘island’. ‘Sien’ is not BM, and there is no appropriate translation to describe the essence of the word.

It was my first and last time going to a PC Fair — I could not breathe properly in the halls because I’d never seen so many people at one go in my life and they all walk too slowly and everybody was squishing and I wished I had a machine gun.

So I hang out at the park a bit while waiting for my friend to get his stuff. Took a couple of photos:

That was just 1% of the people there. Click the photo above for a larger version

The photographed-to-death Petronas Twin Towers. Click the photo above for a larger version

Isn’t the Nokia N82 lovely and takes such nice pictures?

Erna happened to be at the PC Fair, and she bought something that gave her an Eee Pc. So she is looking to sell off her Nokia Wireless Keyboard. So she loaned it to me for a test period, to see if I really want it It was in short, rather awesome, but I am still thinking if it belongs to the ‘need’ or ‘want’ category. I have, of course valid reasons for both