Hard Rock Hotel Penang : Way past expiration

Not that I don't appreciate good musics from the early days of Rock n Roll but when I am in my office and sobered up from the rocking gastronomic experience which one would experience if one stays in a hotel where rock memorabilia is the order of the day, reality hits home. I was and actually still an avid fan of rock n' roll music and being close to all the memorabilia especially those in my teen age, it makes me wanna rip those showy guitar of the wall and rip some rift (not that I know how to play one).

Anyway, as I was trudging the hallowed hall of Hard Rock Hotel in Penang, (although new, the memorabilia is authenticated from legends) I bombarded the crew (the staff is called as such) there with rock trivia just to see how trained were they. I found myself to be very old with their answer. Most of them don't know the band which I am so in love with long ago like Guns n Roses, Nirvana and Bon Jovi. Don't let me start on how they have never even heard the songs of the Cure, Rolling Stones and Aerosmiths. The only one which transcend the age limit is Green Day who seems to have a second revival of sort with their current albums and was famous for Nookie during my time.

So, as much as I want to say I enjoyed myself there, Hard Rock Hotel Penang did makes one feel old and it is amplified with the staff there being young. Too young for my liking...

I love walking by the beach

If you have followed or stumbled on a few of my posts in this blog, you would know I love walking by the beach and I can actually walk nearly 1 or 2 km by myself by the beach. My wife usually follows until half a mile then drop back as I go through my pace.

As Hard Rock Hoetl is really just down the road from the famous Batu Feringghi beach in Penang Island, I walked twice the whole stretch as I want to go and see another favourite resort which I have stayed twice with my wife. The resort is the Lone Pine Resort which has more than one pine but the ambience there was always relaxing and it was a constellation of old bungalows. Now they are renovating it and adding more modern buildings. I hope there will be some bungalow still left when it is finished in September 2010.

Am having trouble with uploading the pictures of the beach and the place. Will update it late...

Hard Rock Hotel Penang : Wish you are here....

Am on holiday locally in Malaysia but with a foreign flavor.

I am at Hard Rock Hotel Penang. Was invited by my brother last October to accompany him here 3 days after it opens but was preoccupied with something else. Now it is our turn to have a rocking good time...

Regular programming will resume when I get out of any sleepy haze which comes with holiday...

Oh, and the theme here is mostly tribute to Elvis, the King and the Beatles...

During dawn just now, the only peaceful time here...

Where to get good steaks in Kuala Lumpur : Meatworks

When it comes to steak in Kuala Lumpur, I have been looking for a good one for quite sometime....

The problem with me is although I not really a fussy person, as I always order my steak medium rare, as I am a Muslims and always want all my steak to be certified halal. Which is not that easy in this supposedly Muslim country (yes, I am slagging my own country, like millions of other people in the world).

So, when a place called Meatworks, who is supposedly owned by a Minister's children opens up and it serves only halal approved meat, I just got to try it out. And tried it I did. Last Friday (did tried it a few months back but the offerings were not as it is now)

I was supposed to attend an event but was rejected at the last minute as the attendance was too overwhleming (some who followed me on Twitter might know this)

So, the restaurant is called Meatworks and it is located to a new trendy side of town, Soho KL.

The front

The counter where the meat are displayed

This is their biggest offering : 1 kilogram rib-eye

What I ate...

..medium rare....(a bit charred)

...in contrast with what my wife had

My verdict : The offerings are good at Meatworks and quite reasonable too. As a carnivore who never have enough of meat, I consider the best way to taste meat is to cook them without any sauce. Then you can dip it into anything that you fancy. The sauce was a bit sweet but standing by itself, as I love charred steak, although I did order medium rare, it was good.

Go to Meatworks for great steak and not for taking dates to...

Taking picture or posing for a picture?

Random pictures of people taking picture, either near KLCC or within KLCC....

And can someone answer me that question, taking picture or posing for picture?

The twin tower of KLCC is on the right side of my car and this is a fav spot for tourist to take picture of it

And this guy is actually the one taking the picture, but...

Christmas joy shown by a kid

Was at Pavilion last Sunday and saw a bunch of people watching a kid dancing to the tune of Sway played by a few musicians. The abandon that she shows, just show the pure joy that only a kid can feel.



Smell like kid spirit...

p/s : First time trying to upload a video on this blog. Hopes it work...

Nothing bring people together like Friendsters?

No, this is not an attempt to promote Friendsters. I never even owned a Friendsters account. And may never own one. Especially with too many new social networking site being offered every other week. For the past one month, I have been to 2 new social networking websites launches. Actually both are applications which are taking advantage of the social networking craze currently in progress.

I did want to attend the launch of the all-new Friendsters as a few bloggers were heading there to see what it was all about but I was stuck at another event just a few blocks away. I was even supposed to go to a charity dinner after that but forgo it after checking with a friend who was at the dinner who told me it was just about eating the food more than anything. I did pay for the charity dinner tickets and I consider that as charity in itself.

As for the Friendsters launch, as the event I was in only served finger food (which did has a great scallops offering), we were still hungry after we finished with it. So, I Blackberry messaged one of the attendee at the Friendsters event and found out that some of them were still at the Starbucks of the mall where the launch took place, which was Berjaya Times Square.

We joined them and were surprised with the bloggers the who include Euveng a.k.a. Evo, Botakai, Mynjayz, JunJunRiko, ShazFX, Dila, Bryan of Bryanlyt, Pink Pork Chop and his brother with a few others. My wife, who once was quite sceptical of bloggers is nowadays quite happy to hang around them. She said she feels young hanging around some younger crowd (not we are THAT old... :P)

What was great is that the fact that as bloggers I can now consider them as friends. The best part of it, as someone who don't go out much, I can count on this guy to flex some brain muscle. Bantering with them about everything under sun and getting some blogging tips. And some photography tips too as these guys are those serious photographers whose cameras are heavier than their head.

So, though Friendsters are not in my plan in the near future, the friends from blogging are definitely are...

p/s : You do know that Friendsters which are based in California has been taken over my a Malaysian company right? Specifically MOL, a company under the Berjaya group which is owned by this conglomerate named Vincent Tan. What he wants to do with it is anyone's guess as he also owns the franchise of Borders, 7-Eleven, Starbucks and a few famous franchisors in Malaysia and a few South East Asia countries.

Local fruits : Rambutan

My mom owns a furit orchard some 30 km from town and every time the fruits are in season, my wife is more excited than me to savour the delicious fruits that Malaysia has to offer. When the season is good, we would even do some barbeque and invite clients as a way to thank them for their support. The last barbeque we had was nearly 2 years ago as these past seasons, the offerings were not that great. Maybe when it is one of those good season, I might do a blogger gathering there...

For the past one month, every time we went back to my hometown, we always made it a point to take some of these fruits home.

These are rambutans, which is best described to be a bit like the more well-known lychee. They have 'hair' on their outer skins but inside, they are exactly like lychee, except for their walnut-looking seeds. They are very sweet that doctors are known to disallow their patients who suffer from diabetic from eating them.

I am not really a fan of local fruits as I don't even eat the most famous of Malaysian fruits, durian. It will baffle a lot of those who are just getting to know me. However, once in a while, I love the rambutans that I eat them even before we reach home.

Though they usually comes in red, like the first picture, the yellow rambutans are much sweeter and rarer but are my favourite rambutans.

And ants too....

Zombieland : A Review (better late than never)

I just love Zombieland. It opens today in Malaysia, which is quite late than the release that they had in the United States but take my advise, the gore and the excitement which you feel if you watch it on the television is nothing compare to the feeling that you will feel if you watch it at the cinema. Thanks to Advertlets, managed to catch it earlier.

If you still have not watch it or better yet, never heard about it, GO WATCH IT!!! (and where have you actually been?)

The screening was full of zombies

The next part of this post will be full of spoiler.

There will be no names. They just used the names like Tallahassee, Little Rock and Wichita. Oh, I forgot, the star of the movie : Columbus, who is a cowardly, nerdy, so-not-popular and loser kid, who became the unlikely hero in the movie. He was also the narrator and the one who has all these rules which you should follow if your world ever be overran by zombies. The rules start at four rules then as the movies go along, it seems that there are more than that. It was even changed accordingly to the situation. Especially if you can get the girl because of it.

With no expectation, you will get a fun and funny movie. With a bit of expectation, you will get a movie with an erratic storyline, no real ending and some one-liners.

The movie start off with Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) alone, then he picked up Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). Then they were conned by Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who were con-persons themselves even before the zombie apocalypse. Thrice they were conned by these girls!

If these are mankind last hope, you better pray hard

One part of the movie, they decided to stick together as they were heading to a safer place supposedly in the east. Then they took shelter in Hollywood and of all places they went to Bill Murray house who was in the movie as himself. That is before he git shot. Dead. Which was a hoot by itself.

"Any regrets?"

"Maybe Garfield"

There were a few pop culture reference and generation gap comedy. If you chuckle and in the know, then consider yourself old.

The climax was at a theme park where the girls managed to get all the zombie in one city to come to them. Bad move on their side but Columbus managed to prove his worth and get the girl in it. Watch out for the clown.

"You thinks It was scary?"

The credits were only given to six actors and the others were nameless zombies who got whacked one by one. No tears were shed in the watching of the film.

Except if you love Bill Murray that much...

GO WATCH IT!!!!

p/s : Even my wife who hates horror loves this movie...

p/p/s : In some parts, if you have a weak stomach, you may lose your lunch (or dinner)

Zombieland is all about fun!

Just came back from Zombieland and the only word I can describe about it is FUN!!!!

My wife hates scary movie and she didn't even want to watch Orphan early this year but she was not scared when this picture was taken.

Will blog about the movie later! Go watch it!!!