I have not been writting any post about myself for many months now (near to one year). Intentionally, this blog is not only a personal blog. I planned to write something that will provide more general knowledge about the evolvement of the world today. However, I find it rather boring. Plus, a busy person like me will not able to spend many hours reading and writting. I can, probably one post within two months then? Therefore, I planned to include my life (stories about myself) as a part of this blog from now on. This time, i will write about foods. By the way, sorry for such a bad quality phone-camera. I will, if I am richer, change a new phone-camera.


Caption: Pizza Uno


Caption: seafood pasta


Caption: pasta carbonara


Caption: Tropiacana Pizza


Caption: whole deep-fried chicken

We shall begin our story with this restaurant, namely the Pizza Uno. The restaurant is located inside this place called the Centrepoint in Bandar Utama, Malaysia. Most of us ordered their Pasta Carbonara for one reason, we always believe a good restaurant will offer good pasta *LOL*. We might be wrong though. Anyway, I am quite dissapointed. I remember the portion of Pasta Carbonara from Pizza Italia was bulk, yet their price and toppings are too, reasonable. We also ordered one Tropicana Pizza. I thik the price was way too expensive - looking at a super less amount of toppings on top of the thinly cooked 10 inch pizza, and for the price that we paid, I really think not quite worth. The only dish I think is worth ordering is their fried chicken. Overall, the foods are OKAY, though my dad said it tastes good. Anyway, my dad is also a very easy-going person when dealing with western foods.


Caption: Malaysian Association for the Blind


Caption: nasi lemak


Caption: Mr. Rahim using the computer for games



Caption: Nicholas playing audio-only softwares

Recently, I have been busy with some PhD experiments. My research deals with auditory perception. I will not elaborate too much of what have I done in the Blind Institution, but I have captured some really cool photos (with their permission). By the way, what really amazed me is when Mr. Rahim proof to me that he can use and iPhone! By just memorizing the icons, he can use the iPhone applications well, and also sending and receiving SMS properly. Blind people definitely have stronger working memory than us. Mr. Rahim spend me nasi lemak for lunch. Yummy!


Caption: d'italiane kitchen


Caption: menu


Caption: pasta carbonara


Caption: my portion of dinner


Caption: this noodle (forgotten the name) comes with salmon and tuna


Caption: fruit yogurt smoothies


Caption: forgotten the name for this


Caption: seafood pasta


Caption: Liz and grandpa


Caption: mom and grandma


Caption: pamesan cheese comes with the noodles

Daryl and Liz have decided to bring us to d'italiane kitchen (Kota Damansara) for dinner. The ambience of the restaurant is acceptable, providing some comfortable and relaxation feeling, the staffs are polite and helpful, and most importantly, the price is reasonable for the portion of foods we ordered. I always like to make some comparisons between the foods I have eaten, particularly italian foods. Firstly, their Pasta Carbonara is definitely cremier and thicker when we compared the pasta carbonara served by Pizza Uno. We also ordered two cups of tropical yogurt drinks. It is tasty and comforting to drink. Averagely, we spend around RM 35.00 per person and I think it is fine for a 4.5/5-star rating for their ambience, 4-star rating for their service and another 4-star for their food.

The only drawback I could suggests (and the same thing happens for our next few attempts) is their time management. I think they should speed up their cooking time. I am sure no one is happy to dine like us, sitting down for 40 minutes to wait for their food. Lastly, their opening time is as follows: 11.30AM until 11.00PM.


Caption: BKT restaurant in Klang


Caption: dried-style BKT

Everyone told me that the Bah Kut Teh (BKT - consist of meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices) in Klang tastes the best. Some of my friends even suggested to try on Klang's Dried BKT. Few of us went to try one weekend. We ordered 3 portions of BKT, varies from dried and traditional (with soup) BKT. Truthfully, I still prefer the old and traditional BKT-style. First, I prefer BKT with herbal soup. The dried-style BKT is very plain and simple, giving me an impression that these chefs only cook it with dried shrimps, some salt, some gingers and garlics, and massive amount of dark soy sauce, and that's about it. Plus, the dried-style BKT tastes quite awful for me. I think they should add more salt to make it taste better. Perhaps, we have visited the wrong restaurant for dried-style BKT? At the very least, people from different shops around that area (Klang city) suggested us to try eating in this BKT shop. Anyone could recommend a different dried-style BKT shop for us?


Caption: Ichiban Ramen restaurant


Caption: Terriyaki and Chicken Katsu Don with Rice

I went to this japanese restaurant called the Ichiban Ramen inside the Ikano Power Centre in Kota Damansara. We ordered their Chicken Katsu Don with rice and Chicken Terriyaki with rice. Overall, we rated the food as 3/5-star, 5/5-star for their staffs, and 4.5/5-star for their cleanliness.


Caption: Porridge Time restaurant


Caption: frog-meat porridge

We also went to this restaurant called the Porridge Time, located in the Tropicana Shopping Mall building, next to the entrance of the washroom. I really love the taste of their porridge, especially the one that we ordered has one portion of, hmm, frog meat. I do not know what is the exact term for this frog meat, but initially, the meat comes from frog so i called it as frog meat. Very much similar to chicken meat, abit tender and sweeter. Hey people, you should try it too, it tastes really good!


Caption: Sugar and Daryl


Caption: Sugar and Liz

Sugar will sometimes pay us a visit, during the weekend and that is when she will stay one night with us. She is a grown up dog, no longer a puppy anymore. She is much more mature looking now. Plus, she has her menstraul-cycle now (her first time). Veteranian told us that a dog can only start mating when they have their SECOND time period. Liz will not mate Sugar with another dog, thus she even considered the spay her. Aww, poor sugar. There are few pros of spaying Sugar; at the very least, she should live longer and free from various dog-diseases (i.e. ovarian cancer). We will all decide slowly about spaying Sugar.


Caption: Sugar walking up the stairs


Caption: Sugar with a very bushy fur, and a super huge buttock


Caption: woof! I'm Sugar, the 7 months old Chow-Chow dog

Guess what, Sugar is a very lazy dog by mean, she will only turn hyper-active if she is fancy to you, usually when (1) you are holding her favourite toy, and luring her to play with you and (2) you are holding a piece of cookie. We spend hours training her to walk up the staircase. Initially, we failed, but since a friend (Miss Khyelin) of mine taught me some secrets of training a dog with a piece of cookie. This method work well. When she ever walk one step further, grant her one-half cookie. Thanks Khyelin, your method works pretty well.


Caption: Sugar and her toy


Caption: Sugar and TL


Caption: mom and Sugar

We also observed that Sugar hates something that is Red in colour. I think this applies to all chow-chow dogs. I am not sure what colour they love the most, but from observation, Sugar loves green.


Caption: the gardens, 1-Utama


Caption: the white piano, the emblem of The Gardens


Caption: they were thinking what foods to order


Caption: spagetthi - this tastes awful *LOL*


Caption: Dori fish


Caption: fries


Caption: calamari and steak?


Caption: thai-style pineapple fried rice


Caption: white cod fish


Caption: fish and chip steak, and satay?


Caption: Yumm, white-sauce pasta


Caption: this piece of calamari reminds me of Paul the Mystic Worldcup Octopus


Caption: mom and grandma, and her favourite birthday cake


Caption: dad, mom and grandma

We went to The Gardens to celebrate for my mom. It was her birthday on that day. The concept of The Gardens is pretty much alike Full House in Niu Ze Xui (click HERE to read more about NZX). Okay, back to the foods. Their foods are pretty much tasteless, particularly their spagetthi noodles. My only compliment goes to their cod fish. However, the portion is just too little by mean that TWO plates of pasta will not be enough for one big eater. After the visit on that day, I still think I prefer dining at d'italiane kitchen. This applies to their food quality and ambience. For food quality, I am dare to rate 2/5-star and 3.5/5-star for ambience.


Caption: Solaris Mont Kiara


Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (i)


Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (ii)


Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (iii)

Oh yah, before ending this post, I would love to share with all of you, in case you have not been to this wonderful place, recognised as the SOHO KL. The term SOHO had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry in the United Kingdom. In Malaysia, the SOHO in Kuala Lumpur is not predominantly as a fashionable district of restaurants and high-rise shop lots, consist of offices and other industries around the area.


Caption: a night view of Solaris at Mont Kiara


Caption: a mini-map of Solaris at Mont Kiara


Caption: beautiful scenery outside the Solaris


Caption: Tenji, the japanese restaurant at Solaris

After dinner, Daryl and Liz decided to drive us to Solaris at Mont Kiara. According to them, this place is a very brilliant place; there were many restaurants, cafes and pubs scattered all around this commercial area. Most people from the Western countries will enjoy their nightlife in this place, mainly for gathering purpose. People, you should visit this place if you have a chance. This is an ideal place to spend some quality time with your friends, sitting down at the cafes, relaxing and chit chatting.

How much do we love our heart? Do we know that the first two symptoms of the heart disease that comes to my mind is, often aimed at the higher cholesterol level and higher blood pressure in our body. However, how much do you understand these two terms? Do we know that the heart disease will not only threaten males? It will also threaten females! The heart disease may trigger the breast cancer illness.


Caption: heart disease

We can read more about high blood pressure here (click HERE for part 1 and HERE for part 2).


Caption: love your heart

Many people talk bad about cholesterols. However, how much do we understand the "cholesterol" term? Cholesterol is soft and waxy substance. There is an article written that 90 per cent of our body tissues and cells, particularly the brain and nervous system, liver and blood contains cholesterol. There are 2 types of cholesterols; bad and good cholesterols. Bad cholesterols refers to the low-density lipoproteins (LDL). The LDL will carry cholesterols to our brain and body cells and this process can damage our arteries. Good cholesterol refers to the high-density lipoproteins (HDL) that carry out of our body. In other words, cholesterol is not a problem, the only problem is the amount of LDL and HDL, because too much cholesterols will subsequently destroy our artery walls and good cholesterols will deposited on the artery wall. This is also a reason of why most doctors will suggest us to reduce bad cholesterols BUT maintain the good cholesterol in our body.


Caption: the cholesterol figure

Higher risk of heart disease depended on risk factors. The LDL will determine these risk factors. When you visit a doctor, he will usually look at your LDL level first to determine the risk of heart disease. They will also create a plan to help lowering down your excessive LDL cholesterol level.


Caption: some foods that reduces high cholesterol risk

There are several factors that raises the bad cholesterol in our body. This include saturated fats (i.e. coconut and coconut oil, butters BUT NOT margarines), excessive amount of sugar, excess carbohydrates, alcohol, stress and the lack of exercising. Factors that raise the good cholesterol ratios include olive oil, garlic, onions, oats, varieties of fruits, pulses, nuts and oils and seeds (i.e. almond, hazelnuts, cashews, appricot, macadamia, pumpkin seeds, walnut, avacado, omega-6 fats), fish (i.e. mackerel, salmon, trout, sardines and halibut), animal products (i.e. chicken eggs, organic white meats and other organic dairy products) and plenty of exercises.


Caption: tasty foods we should avoid

I will continue expanding the food sources here. There are things you may wish to reduce in order to avoid high cholesterol level. Here are some examples; margarines, heated fats, junk foods, processed foods (process foods such as chocolates may produce long term depression), palm oil, fried foods (such as french fries). They all can negatively affect your cardio-vascular health. Also try to avoid excessive amount of sugar, white flour, white bread, white rice and white pasta. They will contribute in high cholesterol level. Try reduce alcohol, coffee and fizzy drinks consumption. These drinks may worsen your stress level.


Caption: a figure of the cell membranes

Here are some stories of cholesterol that we may wish to know. Cholesterol is essential for building up our health. We also need cholesterol for other cell membranes and steroid hormones in our body. Steroid hormones include testoterone, progesterone and oestrogen. The cholesterol level in our body also depend on family background (genetically). This means that a fat father and mother will usually give birth to a fat daughter. To date, there are no obvious symptoms of high cholesterol, a part from obesity (fatness), high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and gallstones. For vegans (vegetarians who cannot consume diary products such as egg and milk), their entire cholesterol were built up by their liver. Thus, they should not consume too much oily or high cholesterol foods although foods may only account 20 per cent of our total cholesterol, the rest is made in our liver.


Caption: relaxation

Remember, we can only find cholesterol from animal products and NOT from plant foods. Few studies suggested that stress may directly increase your cholesterol level. Therefore, please reduce the amount of stress by drinking plenty of plain water and take daily, moderate exercise (i.e meditation such as yoga). It is beneficial to improve heart function, lowering blood and cholesterol level and reduces weight. Breathing exercise is also important, that will contribute to relaxation. Last but not least, stop worrying about the past and future lives in order to avoid over pressure and stress.