Miam Miam

Miam Miam 
Location: Paragon, Gurney Drive, Penang 
Date of Visit: 27th September 2013 
>> This little restaurant was so famous on its opening day that it took almost 2 months before I get to taste this place. The queue goes beyond ridicule as people would line up for hours just to eat at this place for the first month itself. The wait is almost as long as the one at Sushi Zanmai's.

This place don't take any reservations, all based on first come first serve basis. Not even a phone call will cut it. What's the purpose they are giving off name cards with phone numbers when they don't take reservations? The management were quite arrogant whereby they don't allow seating of partial parties. Unless you have full attendance, they don't allow you a seating despite you may have queued for an hour. There weren't any clear indications that partial parties aren't allowed to be seated.

All these problems came by the mouth of patrons who visited the restaurant before. The place offers a nice ambiance, a plus point about this place. The tables are normally filled with younger generation patrons; college or secondary school students. Now, there's so many bloggers out there putting in positive comments about this place which I find it a sham and at one point, reading their posts made me irk as it sounds pretty ridiculous especially when they were praising the place for its tastes.

One may see that I'm posting this post up out of frustration. Boy indeed I was! I'd personally say that this place is entirely off the mark. Not to mention the price that customers have to fork out, its pricey and the amount served aren't pennies worth. According to it's website, the restaurant serves French-Japanese cuisine. However, the menu line up doesn't look entirely French. When you see half of its main course are spaghetti based, you'd think its Italian. What's there to praise from this place? I can't see if there's any.

What I've ordered for my visit was their famous Pot Baked Souffle Doria, the famous French Toast, Classic Vanilla Souffle with ice cream, Country Style Minestrone soup, Miam Miam Spaghetti and Pasta Arrabiata with eggplant, bacon and zucchini. For drinks, the orders were Iced Royal Milk Tea and Cafe Au Lait. First up the firing line was the Royal Milk Tea. Who puts Meringue into milk tea? It doesn't taste like whipped cream, it tastes like egg white. As for milk tea, it tastes like water. Lacks the taste of tea and the milk is thin.

Cafe Au Lait lacked the caffeine kick according to my partner. The portion of the Minestrone soup that comes in that bowl is similar as the one Kim Gary restaurants offers, added with half a slice of bread and you are paying twice the amount of Kim Gary's. It tastes salty but the soup carries heavy vegetable flavors, like how any normal Minestrone should taste. As for the pastas, Arrabiata has a hint of spiciness despite we've double checked with the waitress if it's spicy, which they denied it without checking with the chef.

Again, it packs plenty of tastes that you can't make up. For the Miam Miam special pasta, it's pretty plain and bacony. It leaves an oily layer on your lips per spoonful. For the Souffle Doria, I don't like it. Too much Meringue and the egg white kills the cheesy flavor from the rice baked below. I specifically mentioned  that the desserts are to be served after the main course are done. They serve the desserts immediately after the main course was served. Plain English yet they messed it up.

By the time we dug in to our dessert, the souffle was cold. My ice cream were turning into a pool of cream and the souffle deflated. It was a sight that made eyes sore. Vanilla flavored? Not really. I can't really taste vanilla, it tastes more like custard. The only thing that earns the biggest plus point would be for its French Toast. Viva la France! The glory of this bad bread with maple syrup is superbly delicious, be it served hot or cold. I believe that I've damned enough about this place. Try if you are looking for some French glory but the outcome will be very subjective.

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Fresca

Fresca
Location: The Gardens, Midvalley City, Kuala Lumpur
Date of Visit: 13th July 2013
>> To think of the things to eat for lunch in a place where you are spoiled for choice is extremely hard and having lunch with a bunch of people makes it even harder to find as restaurants and cafes are pretty much occupied during lunch hour on the weekends.

We chose Fresca, a Mexican kitchen and bar which is situated at the ground level of The Garden's shopping mall. Why? There's no why in the selection when you are merely following the bigger crowds choice. However, what I can say about this call is actually a good one. It has been ages since we last had Mexican food and it's extremely rare to get a good place serving such meals. Probably its due to the way spices are cooked.

Mexicans prefer to make salsa while we prefer to make sambal. You get where I'm getting at? As we were shown to our seats, it's quite noticeable that there's not much crowd in the restaurant. Ambiance wise, it's brightly lit as there's plenty of windows around the restaurant and I personally feel that the decorations quite matches how modern Mexican restaurants should be. The menu offers a number of authentic Mexican cuisines.

What we've ordered? For drinks, there's Aqua Fresca Limon, Orange Juice, Apple Juice and the usual caffeine Caffe Latte shot for my mom. For Botanas, we ordered Calamari Fritos which is fried squid rings with homemade tartare sauce. Botanas are Mexican small plate, commonly known as starters for many. As everyone had a heavy breakfast, hence Botanas were kept to a minimum which is quite a shame as there's a huge variety to choose from.

For Platos Principales or known as main courses, we ordered Chicken Burritos served with guacamole, pico de gallo and Mexican red rice; Chicken Enchiladas de Harina served with black beans, pico de gallo and side Mexican salad; Chicken Tortas or known as Mexican sandwich served with pico de gallo and tortilla chips; and of course Ensalada Cesar which commonly known as Caesar Salad. Again, I personally felt that the orders we made were pretty good.

The pico de gallo or known as salsa fresca, is made of chopped tomato, white onion and chilis. These little bowls of salsa are the best highlight from this place. Superbly fresh, tangy and packs a spicy punch. Gotta love it! All food were prepared in the right amount of time as it doesn't take too long for our food to be served to our table. The burritos were wrapped nicely and were panned to a nice colour while the rice is cooked perfectly.

For the Enchiladas, the poblano chile salsa sauce that went on top of the tortilla went perfectly well with the entire meal and the black beans maintained its clean taste. For the Chicken Tortas, the meat were properly marinated and grilled as the juiciness of the meat remained in the meat. Overall, the lunch turned out to be a nice meal and definitely craving for more. If I were to return, I would be dying to try their Curros con Chocolat, which I failed to do so this time.

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Coffee Talk Edition #002

The tiny island of Penang, it used to be called an island of paradise. A food haven, recognized by many locals and tourists alike. The ease of traffic, local delicacies that everyone craved at a reasonable price, the very much laid back pace of this city once we used to enjoy; have now turned into one big pile of chaotic mess ever since it was listed as UNESCO's World Heritage Site. I loved the idea of having this city listed as it helps the local council in saving and preserving as much of the heritage buildings as possible. In the past, before this city was even being listed, most of the heritage buildings are pretty run down or eventually demolished to make way for posh and luxurious condominiums. It's a good call by the state government to eventually save this city from turning into a modern city.

It started positively for having this city listed in the heritage list, for many locals, it's the beginning of an extremely long nightmare. We do welcome tourists with open arms of course but somehow some of these visiting tourists made this place a feels like a living hell. Why would I say so? Why are we locals are so bias about tourists? Allow me to define my thoughts about this. Recently, I read an article on CNN that mentions how a Chinese tourists drew graffiti on the ancient old Egyptian relic that sparks international outrage. It prompts frequent travelers to be more verbal about how travelers these days are getting a wee bit more misbehaved while they are abroad. The locals are not asking much from tourists but to eventually understand what this city is limited of and by being a bit more understanding how they can help in order to make this place a livable one for many. There are a few things I would like to highlight for examples.

Number one: Traffic. Roads on this island are narrow and small especially within the heritage zone. Tourists abroad came with their vehicles and parked on the side of the road despite double lines have been drawn clearly on the both sides of the road with no parking signs erected in many areas of this island. It's understandable that parking spots are hard to come by and you have to be very lucky to get one. If you don't believe what I'm saying, try driving by the Burmah Road heading towards Gurney Drive around 11 a.m. everyday when Him Heang's famous biscuit store are open for business. An absolute traffic mayhem that is unnecessarily made all thanks to eager tourists who want to buy back loads of biscuits that can easily feed an entire village.

Number two: Jaywalking Pedestrians. Look! We know that you wish to snap pictures of those mosaics on the wall. This city offers plenty of scribbles on the heritage wall but the road sides lack of walkways and tourists end up walking to the middle of the road sometimes. We understand that you want to take a few seconds to snap photos and then clear off the road, but on many occasion, they don't. They just continue to stand there and calling for a bigger group of people to pose with the mosaic. There's also tourists who road hopping from the left to the right side of the road and back again in an instant. Some prefer to cross the road halfway then decided to make a U-turn. What are the risks of getting into an accident with the traffic as most of the roads on this island are pretty much used by traffic?

By making these 2 exemplary examples about how tourists made this little paradise island into a living nightmare, I would like to end this round of post to address my fellow readers to be a smart traveler wherever you go. Don't go irking the locals with the nonsense that you portray back home and do it elsewhere. Be considerate and courteous whenever possible. The roads doesn't belong to us, hence respect everyone else who uses it. 

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