I was disappointed with the quality of the picture I took of Thanksgiving Dinner. A slow lens and not much light overwhelmed the image stabilization of my Nikon Coolpix P6000. That’s why I did not post a picture to Flickr and only put a small version on this blog.

Mini Tripod

Michael Willems suggested that I can try a mini tabletop tripod. I have one but I’d forgotten about it. Thai camera stores give away some cheap accessories when you buy a camera: I got the mini tripod and a flimsy case when I purchased my old Sony DSC-W35.

I dug it out and took it with me to lunch today: Delifrance at Central Lat Phrao. It’s small enough to stick in a back pocket – and thus small enough to lose easily.

Here’s a picture of my sandwich lunch:

It’s definitely sharper than my handheld efforts. I used the closeup setting on the camera and the two-second self timer. I even got a somewhat blurred background sans Photoshop.

The angle is too low for plated meals and I had to be careful to keep the tripod level. Each leg can be bent independently.

That was a good free experiment. I’ll continue to take it with me and maybe I’ll get better at using it.

Ayala Land’s Ayala Triangle Gardens showcases a gamut of Christmas activities in addition with the land’s more than a hundred trees, public art displays and courtyard.

LIGHT AND SOUND SHOW: From November 20 to December 23, Ayala Triangle Gardens will feature a nightly holiday light and sound show by acclaimed theater lighting director, Voltaire de Jesus and multi- awarded sound designer Jethro Joaquin. The show will run Mondays to Fridays for every 30 minutes from 6:00 to 7:30pm.

ART:

Christmas-inspired Sculpture pieces by Ovvian Castrillo-Hill entitled Rebirth, will be shown at the AyalaTriangle Gardens from November 20 to January 15, 2010.

Enjoy the cool Christmas breeze with kinetic Sculptures by Ral Arrogante entitled Christmas Breeze, will be on display at the Ayala Triangle Gardens from November 20 to January 15, 2010.

FILIPINO TRADITIONS:

Expect Courtyard Christmas Carols on November 25, December 2 and 7, and Wednesdays at 5:00pm.

There will be traditional Simbang Gabi on December 15 to 18 and 21 to 23, weekdays at 5:30 pm.

Relax with a cup of coffee or something light to munch on at the Ayala Triangle’s Courtyard Cafe featuring The Big Chill, Delifrance and Amici. Stores will be open on November 20 to December 23, Weekdays from 11:00am to 8:00pm.

STAY CONNECTED!
Ayala Triangle Gardens is a Wi-Fi Hotspot, powered by Globe.

ART FOR SALE:
Globe will provide information via SMS and MMS for the arts displayed in the Gardens through Art Talk. Art pieces are for sale and can be purchased with BPI Credit Cards.

The vast majority of our population are coffee drinkers. Ironically, not many can tell you what constitutes a good cup of coffee. Ask anyone around you this question may cause them to stare into a void blinking uncontrollably. Some may be able to utter something like “got to smell nice lah!” referring to the aroma, alright, fair enough, or “must be black enough” referring to the colour, er…, or “has to be very kau” referring to the strength… I guess. Well, that’s about all you may get.

Prior to recent years, before Délifrance, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Starbucks Coffee and alike set their foot on our shore, most of us or our father or grandfather or great grandfather has never savour a real good, premium gourmet coffee before. Our colonial master, the British, do not fancy coffee. Hence, coffee appreciation among the upper class was nonexistent. There was no demand for exotic coffee from other part of the world. Even good quality, high grade premium coffee beans from our neighbour, Indonesia, has altogether bypass our region heading straight into the European market. We are literally clueless about the world of coffee for generations.

Malaysian, however drinks one particular type of coffee, which grown on our own soil. It is mostly found in some part of West Malaysia. The coffee is a high-yield crop known as liberica species. This coffee, if consume without any special treatment, is highly unpalatable. In another word, the liberica species is rather inferior compare to the arabica or even the robusta species. You can safely guess that it is not highly sought-after among the coffee lovers. However, the liberica coffee still managed to find its way into the local coffee house, fondly known as Kopitiam to most of us. If ever we have any coffee experience at all, it is the Kopitiam’s coffee experience.

In the early days, people of this land were not particularly rich. The proprietors of the kopitiams realised that most of their customer will welcome anything that is affordable or cheap, hence serving good quality coffee is not the priority then. To reduce cost, the proprietor of the kopitiam has to source for the cheapest coffee bean available and the liberica beans happen to fit that requirement. As mentioned earlier, the liberica coffee is highly unpalatable, if they served it straight, it will definitely fail to impress their customer. To solve this problem, some clever roasters (those days, almost all kopitiam roast their own coffee just right behind their coffee house) has devised a method that involved adding sugar and butter (margarine is use today to cut cost) during the roasting process to create a drinkable beverage that is dark and heavy bodied taste, in some case, coffee may also roasted together with grounded wheat, salt, oat, burned corn etc, for cost cutting purposes. This method is widely adopted by almost all roasters in the region.

The roasted concoction mentioned above has creates a beverage known as kopi (coffee in Malay language). If you order a cup of kopi in a kopitiam, however you will ended up with a cup of milked coffee instead. How is this come about? This is a hint that initially the proprietor of the kopitiam did not feel comfortable with the concoction they have created to be served straight black. To hide any undesirable flavour in their kopi, they added lots of condensed milk (fresh milk is expensive). Hence, by default, kopi is served with milk. If you desire black coffee, you should order kopi-O, O is black in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect. Again, be aware that it is sweeten with sugar, the proprietor still find it uncomfortable to serve you a straight black unsweetened coffee. You must order kopi-O-kosong, kosong is “nothing” in Malay language, to get your black unsweetened coffee. Just a word of caution, if you are use to good quality arabica coffee and cannot settled for anything less, just avoid kopi-O-kosong.

There is a co-relation between economy performance and gourmet coffee consumption. The largest gourmet coffee consuming countries are all developed nations. The best crops available will always ended up in the hand of the one with the greatest economy muscle. For example, when the Japan’s economy reaches its peak in the 1980’s, almost all Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, one of the world’s most expensive coffee, were purchased by the Japanese, the rest of the world has been deprived of the Blue Mountain coffee for more than a decade. Looking at our nation, we did not experience an exciting economy performance for most part of the 19th and 20th century. To most ordinary folks, meeting end needs is more important than savouring a good cup of gourmet coffee. With only the liberica coffee at our disposal, we have slowly, from one generation to another generation, got acquainted and developed fondness to the unique taste of our kopi. I personally believed that we love kopi not due to its quality or exquisite taste, but rather it is an acquired taste.

In the 1980’s, our country has propelled itself towards an industrialised nation. The economy prospers over the next two decades and the quality of life had improved tremendously. Travelling abroad for business, education and leisure were at an unprecedented scale. It was during this period that we got exposed to what people around the world have taken for granted, a taste of a truly great cup of gourmet coffee.

One company that has played a pivotal role in introducing gourmet coffee in our region is Délifrance from Singapore. Délifrance started their first café bakery at Clifford Centre, Singapore in 1985. In 1990, their first café in Malaysia started in Lot 10 shopping centre, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. To many Malaysian my generation, Délifrance was the place we had our first sip of cappuccino, café latte, café mocha or Americano. It was also the place that sale the most expensive coffee around town and it got a lot of people the shock-of-their-life-time experience when their espresso served.

After Délifrance, came along The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Dome Café, Starbucks Coffee, Gloria Jean’s Coffees, to name a few. These players, with their unique trend setting concept, style and taste, have managed to garner some followers. However, gourmet coffee appreciation is not widely spread in our society yet. Due to the high price these establishment charged, it is only confined to city dwellers, mainly high income group. Unlike Taiwan and Japan, where gourmet coffee are served in coffee house every corner island wide and enjoyed by every level of the society, Malaysia still lagging behind by maybe one whole generation. Another problem is Malaysian cannot shake off our taste for the kopi. Like a breast fed baby boy, who never tasted anything other than his own mother’s milk, will take some months, or years, to get use to other type of foods. Worst still, with the mushrooming of our home grown brand, the Ipoh Old Town White Coffee chain, 120’s outlets to date, and their clones, it will take Malaysian more time to reach the same level of coffee appreciation like other countries such as Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, The States, etc.

To end this post with a less depressing note, there are some individual in Malaysia who are doing their bit to elevate our level of coffee appreciation. It is a daunting task looking at the unfavourable condition here. However, with their passion and love for coffee, it is worth every effort discovering a new coffee loving soul. I will be searching for them and will highlight their stories in due time.

which happens during lunch hour and on weekdays only. this place was surprisingly crowded ; quite an unusual scene. economic downturn is pretty much affecting everyone that almost all restaurants are having lunch set promotions. even itallianies.

transformers 2; hoping that its worth skipping a few hours of office hour *hides face*. but we skipped lunch time and came in early! ceh nak sedapkan hati pulak>.<

]]> http://simplicityserene.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/back-to-school-2/ Fri, 22 May 2009 16:20:44 +0000 kuangserene http://simplicityserene.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/back-to-school-2/

May 22, 2009 – Friday -

I shall now declared, Internship at Resorts World at Sentosa come to an end. Twelve weeks of internship just ended like this. Today, there was another farewell party by my procurement colleagues. Supposingly, we were having lunch at Vivo – Marche. Due to the heavy crowd for the bus out to the island, we had our lunch in Sentosa. We’d delifrance for lunch. Thanks Eileen for the set meal.

As an appreciation to the staffs at RWS, I bought J.Co baby donuts for them as an appreciation. Actually wanted bought all of them a pen, but not in time to get for them. Shall belated and mailed it to them. =) Thanks uncle philip for your honey. Appreciated it too. Thanks =)

Soon, four plus, I received lots of blessing from everyone and everyone make the day so memorable for me. It really touches for all the actions. Truely appreciated. Thank you !

- Resorts World Interns -






- Name Tags of 11 interns-

- Name tag of 12 interns -

Evening, I met up my usual cliques for dinner. The Shodoku – The street of Japanese at Raffles City. We had enjoyed ourselves. Jaime and Eileen were so shocked that I actually initiated to have Japanese cusine. I did had Sakae the last night with him. ahaha.. Been having all the good food. Gotta start my diet once back school on monday. Shall joined Candy, Jaime and Eileen for gym when back school.

Shall start my training =)

I shall go sleep now, tomorrow gotta work. Night everyone =)

This is the first time T, L, JK and I meet up for lunch! As T is at Hong Lim Complex and JK is going there for work related purposes, we decided to go Chinatown Point for lunch. Super hot weather, so Hong Lim Food Centre is out.

After reaching Chinatown Point, we cannot decide what to eat. T is on a budget, L and JK anything. Then I suggested Delifrance new menu, T do not like. Suggested Swensen’s, T say boring. Give up! We went to eat McDonald’s in the end. Haha… Zzz…

Oh! McDonald’s got this new lunch menu that is between S$4.50 to S$5.00. So, quite worth it. Please go check it out for quick and easy lunches!

After that we went for dessert!!! Yeah! =P

Almond Cream

Almond Cream

This is mine. Of course. Keke… Somehow, I think that Almond Cream is nicer and nicest here! It leaves no powdery taste on my tongue like the stupid Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe, Marina Square.

Mango Sago

Mango Sago

L says that everytime she eats at Dessert Hut, she has to eat both the Yam Cream and Mango Sago. So, it is always 2 items for her. Haha… So sweet tooth right?!

Yam Cream

Yam Cream

T did not know what to order and after trying L’s Yam Cream (which T is very particular about, as per everything else…) she took L’s and got another order for L instead. Haha…

Tau Suan

Tau Suan

JK ordered and finished his Longan with Almond Pudding before I can even take a picture of it. Luckily I was offered a second chance when he ordered Tau Suan! Yum yum… Got a lot of “You Tiao”! *Blink blink*

Overall, everybody enjoys our trip to Dessert Hut, almost except for me because of J’s phone calls… Zzz… Disturb my eating! Haha… Just kidding lah. I will pick up your call anytime, anywhere. Love.

*By the way, all these pictures are taken with L’s mobile because I forgot to bring out my SLR in the office! =P Very nice right?

I know we started the week right by attending Holy Mass this Palm Sunday.
Observing religious teachings of penance & sacrifice is always mandatory
these days but resistance is futile when it comes to gastronomic cravings.
My family & I are obedient in Catholic tradition of avoiding meat
during Holy Week particularly on Holy Thursday & Good Friday.
It’s the least thing that we can do for our worldly sins.

Few steps outside the Chapel of the Holy Family in VirraMall, Greenhills,
there’s a kiosk of sweet temptations you can’t resist.
It’s the CRAZY CREPES that offers the best tasting crepes in town.
With fresh fruits & whipped cream & affordable prices of PhP 60 to PhP 105 ++,
with option of having your choice of ice cream,
how can you say no?

crazycrepes.com

My son Gabby enjoyed MANGO NUTTELA, PhP 105.

my 4-year-old son Gabby is now becoming a FOODIE himself

He personally chose his crepe from all of these variants.
These were not even close to half of the menu…

choosing the (which) ONE is the hardest part

But Tina & I usually start the day with coffee; since we barely eaten breakfast yet,
we passed on our Starbucks addiction this morning over this…

brewed coffee kicks in the day for me

And ordered these …

Delifrance's SEAFOOD CLUBHOUSE

SHRIMP PESTO

SEAFOOD MARINARA

got to smile for the cam before taking the first bite

We went around bargain stalls, & enjoyed the lunch time,
everything was A-OK until Tina suggested we go to KRISPY KREME, Greenhills.
No, there was no fight between us three,
we’re so happy awhile ago until I was annoyed with the crew of the said doughnut branch.

I WISH KRISPY KREME GREENHILLS BRANCH NEAR SHOPESVILLE READS THIS.

I told the staff at the counter our orders, which included…

For Tina…

dulce de leche

Gabby chose to bite on…

chocolate glazed doughnut

My order…

chocolate glazed with sprinkles, iced mocha

The cashier who tendered my order told me to wait at our table for my iced mocha which supposed to be served expectedly, in less than 15 minutes. So obedient as I am, I carried my tray with our orders to my family & waited for my iced coffee.

Tina & I were so keen observers & very particular at SERVICES rendered by staff, crew of any establishment. In this branch of Krispy Kreme, a lot of the crew on duty (Palm Sunday, lunch time) were mostly chatting, roaming left & right, as if no work should be done!

We can’t help but to compare them with the pleasant staff of Krispy Kreme Glorietta branch who were so accomodating when we bought KK mugs & doughnuts before. The crew of KK Trinoma was nice too.

Ofcourse, the always COMMENDABLE BARISTAS of STARBUCKS COFFEE who are always ATTENTIVE to our orders, regardless how we want our drinks to be prepared. They’re so courteous & professional too!

Going back to KK, Greenhills, after more than 10 minutes of waiting, my LARGE ICED MOCHA hasn’t been served to my table. My son Gabby wanted a straw for his soda in can so together we went to bar & asked for my iced coffee. And the chinky eyed lady barista had an unmindful face to hear that I was politely asking for my drink. I saw in her face that she was even hesistant to give a STRAW to my kid, for goodness sake!

My intuition was correct! They did not know that there was a PENDING ORDER they need to prepare! Ayan, kasi, daldalan ng daldalan while working!
In our medical & teaching professions, SERVICE always comes first!
CLIENTS are our priorities!
I DON’T KNOW WITH THESE PEOPLE of KK, GREENHILLS.

What irritated me the most was these baristas at the counter were NOT EVEN APOLOGETIC when they learned that they forgot to prepare my drink! I WAS ABOUT TO BURST INTO ANGER but I remember 2 important things : THAT TODAY IS THE START OF HOLY WEEK and FORGIVE ME FOR BEING CYNICAL but I
THOUGHT THAT IF I DID NOT CONTROL MY TEMPER, they could have done something DIRTY to my drink.

SO I KEPT MY ANGER IN SILENCE AND HID MY DISAPPOINTMENT with those coño-looking-unfriendly baristas of KK,Greenhills. I went out of the store without a smile on my face, as if the doughnuts were SOUR!!!

THIS IS INEXCUSABLE !!!

I swear I won’t bring my family again in that branch of KRISPY KREME.
We’re happy with KK staffs in Glorietta & Trinoma, but for that Greenhills branch,
you already lost three doughnut-loving patrons!
You have to serve your clients SWEETER THAN YOUR DOUGHNUTS!

FYI, abroad, especially when we were in Auckland, NZ, whenever a customer is not satisfied with his order, he is entitled to an immediate replacement & a much-needed apology.

Like when my cousin ordered french fries in Mcdonald’s Auckland, NZ, he told the counter that his fries were too salty, he got a FREE big mac and an apology. When his wife’s pizza hut boxes came in 5-minute-late than expected, she was given another box of pizza for FREE! And when our pictures got exposed when developed, a day after I complained via phone call in Kodak, Downtown Auckland, they sent me 3 extra 36-shot rolls via courier for FREE without even asking the receipt number or proof of purchase.

These KRISPY KREME, Greenhills branch people should be trained for their jobs.
Whatever you do, do it with utmost RESPECT & DILIGENCE!
NEED I SAY MORE ?

Coming back to this table, with this screen in front of me, is a familiar yet strangely new experience. For a very long time, I think, I haven’t gotten the chance to just sit and be alone with myself and a huge mug of chocolate milk. I like this. It makes me feel like a 19 year old.

Guess what, I’m 19 already. And I realised that I’m only going to be a teenager for one more year. That’s not a lot of time. And I’m a bit scared, because I am THIS much closer to being an adult and doing adult things like paying bills and worrying about my CPF. I am not ready for that.

This attachment has made me think, through the endless hours of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V (Fel I totally understand you), that maybe I don’t want to start working just yet. In case you didn’t know, my plan was to start working after my poly education. This attachment is the exact kind of job that I don’t want to be doing for the rest of my life: pointless and endless. I am a little worried. When I graduate, the economy will probably still be bad, and no one would want to hire someone as nooby as me. I don’t want an office job, with all the politicking and backstabbing. I DON’T WANT.

I’m going off track. I meant to post pictures. So here you go.

Me & Junyu, Ben & Jerry’s @ Dempsey Hill

Tried my hand at painting :]

Awesome stuff from Delifrance

More photos, but I’m REALLY lazy to upload them all. Another day.

Can’t wait for tomorrow, I get to see the girls!

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