Iketeru, Hilton Kuala Lumpur

 

Dinner tonight will be in the exclusive Japanese restaurant-Iketeru. The restaurant is located at Level 8 of the Hilton Hotel and it is helmed by the affable Japanese executive chef, Ricky Kamiishi.

The dinner is to celebrate the department's success of one year and to kick start the next challenging year. I am always excited to try out new places as part of the gastronomy experience, especially when it involves certain refinement in the preparation of the food.

Wearing dress from LawaLawa, a new shop that I stumbled upon in Publika. Dressed to occassion is something I love to do!!

Iketeru is decorated to a refined taste. There is aquarium and patrons have the option of dining in front of the chefs, or even private room. Since there is a group of us we did have an allocated private room. It was so zen-like!! Obviously when you go to Japanese restaurant you would have expected this anyway...

Chopsticks and well set napkins on the dining table. I am officially obsessed with dinner table settings....

 

As soon as were were seated by the lovely waitress, we quickly ordered. To be honest the only thing I love about Japanese food is their sushi. There rest I am not that bothered. I remembered having sushi for my daily breakfast when I was doing Yunnan audit mission. So first thing to order is SUSHI, definitely!!

I then went clueless on what to order for my main. So I asked the waitress to help me out.....and she suggested yaki soba. It was good actually but yup I am still in love with sushi.

This is small selection on the house for people who are fasting..that's me!!

Salad with mushroom

With Rose, she took me out for lunch on my first day in the department

 

The team!! From the look of it, everyone is all excited for the coming year...haha. (ps- I am far at the back the size of an ant)

The evening ended well with all the team sharing their life experiences...not the young ones though as they still need to experience the life ahead of them. There will be reward waiting for those who are willing to work hard... Bring on the new year!!

Caramel Room, The Berkeley, Knighstbridge

Afternoon tea is an old English institution. The typical traditional tea is served in a pot, scones with cream and jam, finger sandwiches and dainty cakes... nothing could be more British than afternoon tea in London. However, there are now different variation to these tradition and one of them is at The Berkeley. The price is GBP60 per person. A tad pricey but it is worth paying especially when it involves miniatures cakes of shoes, bags and dresses from renowned designers...

Since I will be moving back to Malaysia for good, my dear friend decided to treat me to Caramel Room. It is for all the fashion fan out there. The éclairs, cakes and fancies are all inspired by the latest fashion collections, and are served in miniature mouthfuls for the figure-conscious.Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and the Beckhams have all been spotted here.

Afternoon tea fashionista style!! On top tier is the Mulberry’s white chocolate crème de menthe & raspberry mousse

The Berkeley, Knighstbridge- the most famous ad

Dressed to the occasion. Dress from Mango

Tea set from Paul Smith

The afternoon tea is so chic. You have a wide variety of choices from sandwiches, biscuits, cakes and endless list of tea. We are spoilt for choices..

Salmon and crab

Cheese cake

Nautical Fendi red & white striped vanilla cake filled with fraise de bois crémeux accessorised with oversized yellow button

Left:Miu Miu 1950's inspired vanilla bikini biscuit with red hot icing and playful white bow
Right: Valentino lemon and raspberry cheese cake with signature flowery detail

The three of us could not stop eating... It was such a good experience and a bit of advice to all fashionistas out there this is MUST TRY!!

Goodie bag

Christian Louboutin's must-have neon-yellow high heeled chocolate biscuit with signature red sole

Three happy ladies

Kruger National Park, South Africa

Kruger National Park!! The ultimate reason of flying all the way to Africa. The game reserve which is famous worldwide.Kruger is  the first game reserve opened in South Africa which houses all the wildest animals that you could ever imagine.

We traveled on the road for almost 7 hours from JoBurg to Kruger. The thought of seeing those animals is just overwhelming and excitement is building up as we head our way towards one of the most famous national parks in the world.

We slept at one of the nearest place. Building up our tent and relaxing over the night.

The next day, we depart early in the morning. We managed to see the main animals except for lion. The best is when we saw the leopard. It was a teenager leopard eating an impala. We managed to see this is as the park rangers informed each other too. We were the second jeep arrived at the scene. After that, there were queues of cars waiting to see the leopard eating the impala. It is such a rare sight as leopard are known to hide away from other animals. They are usually the lone ranger and usually hunt at night.. To see one just made our day!!

We were going round in search of lion but failed miserably. The Big 5 -lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino. So the only one we did not see was just lion. Perhaps one day...

National Geographic moment- I saw it with my own eyes!!

Elephants

Warning- Animals FREELY crossing the road

Group of rhinos

Impala

Leopard chilling out

Game on!!

The first animals we saw - The Buffalos

A word of caution, once you have seen the animals in the game reserve you will never want to go and see them in the zoo again...It would never be the same.

Copenhagen, Denmark

This is a short weekend trip to one of the Scandinavian country, Denmark. The trip was planned in advance aligned with the August bank holiday in the UK. The direct flight is taken from London Gatwick to Copenhagen. This trip is taken with my friends whom I met when I was in Manchester.

The tourist spot of Copenhagen- wearing lovely dress from Camden market with borrowed cardigan

You don't need more than 3 days in the capital city of Denmark. The tourists spots are easily covered within  days. Vesterbro, Frederik's church, Tivoli Gardens, Little Mermaid, the palace are the main areas that we went while we were there.

Vesterbro, Copenhagen

The famous Little Mermaid- at this moment it has been moved to Tivoli

Amalienborg Palace- one of the greatest works of Danish Rococco architecture and was constructed in the 1700's.

All these places are within walking distance. So you don't really need to buy any tickets. Just get a map and then off you go..

It was drizzling, lucky I had my yellow brolly

All these is covered within a day in Copenhagen. The rest of other travel journals relating to this trip will be updated in different blogs..

Little Kitchen 5- Thai Laksa Noodle

This weekend would be the last opportunity to cook for lunch as next week will be the start of Ramadhan. One month of fasting which I am looking forward considering that this would be this first one after 6 years abroad. Fasting month abroad in the UK was quite tough especially when last year it was summer.

Let's move on to this week menu. I was watching Jamie Oliver 15 mins meal last week and was inspired with the Thai Laksa Noodle that he made. It looks super easy especially when it says only 15mins, is it for real??!! It is time to put it to test.

The recipe are as follows
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/thai-chicken-laksa-mildly-spiced-noodle-squash-broth

Since I am shopping in the nearby Tesco, there are a few ingredients which are not readily available. I had to replaced the butternut squash with pumpkin. Coriander was replaced with celery.
It took me more than 15 mins though but still less than 30 mins which is still good time to prepare lunch compared to cooking nasi lemak. Note of caution, the 15mins does not include preparation time, shopping time and also cleaning up time...

Thai laksa in the pot

 I used rice vermicelli instead of medium sized noodle. It is better to use medium sized noodle as it would soak the soup as much.

Yummy chicken with honey and sesame. The next time I would add a bit more salt to the chicken

Served with lemon wedges and garnished with celery

Ready to be eaten

The verdict- easy to make and it has a nice fragrant taste to it. You can taste the lime, the fish sauce, the pumpkin in the soup. I was serving it to my dear sister who actually agreed that this is a nice meal. Trust me, it is difficult to cook for family as everything will be compared to my mother who is the queen of the kitchen. So, I am taking my sister's comment into my heart and planning to cook more of this Thai Laksa for my future guests.