Remember when I first blogged about our very 1st experience at Chicago Rib House in Gurney Plaza on this year’s Father’s Day? We were all happy with their food and service though they were not excellent.

Because of that reason, we decided to return the following week just for their ribs! You must have thought that we are nuts to eat at the same place for 2 consecutive weeks but we did as there aren’t much eating places that attracts us around that area. It is either Chilis or Chicago.

So, after the movie we had our dinner there. We ordered a burger and a full rack of pork ribs this round thinking that we can share among the 3 of us. The first time it took about 15 minutes for our orders to come but this round it took more than 30 minutes! The restaurant was not full (about 4 tables) at all with most of the diners half way through their meals.

I think we asked the waiters at least 3 times for our orders but none came back to tell us when they will be served! At that time (Friday at 5pm) is not a peak period either. There were at least 5 to 6 waitresses either walking about or congregate at one corner chit-chatting. About what, I don’t have any idea!

Finally at almost 40 minutes, our orders came. And when I look at that plate of FULL rack of pork ribs I have a shocked!

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If you compare the plate of FULL rack above with the half rack I had the previous week, you can see the huge difference and will also wonder why one would want to pay an extra RM15++ for it! I felt short changed!!!I was baffled by the size. If I have known, we will just order the half rack. Seriously… don’t they have some kind of STANDARD for their food? I’m sure the hogs/pigs are being reared till a standard size before they are slaugthered.

So, I decided to count the amount of bones/ribs in that full rack. There were 8 in total. I thought a full rack has 12 sticks of bones so I decided to make a check on Wikipedia. Then I view back the ribs we had in Cafe Cartel in Singapore. I found they have better standard control as their plate of full rack of ribs are of about the same size even at different outlets. Oh yeah, I forgot to add that it was so burnt that not much meat left on the ribs!

Then came our burger… Well, it does not make me feel any better! For almost the same price we paid for burgers at Chilis, we got this…

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It was the least appetising and most pathetic burger I’ve ever seen! And mind you, this was supposed to be a gourmet burger! If this one from McD, I won’t have anything to say. Even that slice of lettuce looked so limp!

And the taste? It tasted weird!

Will we go back again? I don’t know… probably some day. For now, I think we will go back to Chilis. No more pork ribs outside but luckily I have my own chef at home who can do better ribs than Chicago! And yes, it is cheaper too!!

So, that means Darrius don’t have to go to school but daddy gotta work! How? Well, we met up for lunch lor! hehehehe Initially we agreed to meet at Queens Bay Mall but upon arrival, PiggyBeng called and said he will pick us up and go to Batu Maung for seafood. He said he want to show me a new place which he has just discovered a few weeks back.

It was still early when we arrived (11.30am) so there were no one in the restaurant yet. This place is near near the Batu Maung market and has 2 units of shops space and with A/C too! Clean and brightly lit as well! Thousand times better than the one at Bukit Tambun!

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We made our order and we were served soon after with all the yummy food! We wanted to order those clams but the stock has not arrived so we changed to squids and crabs which was so damn GOOD!

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Choi Tam stir-fried with Salted Fish (Very Yummy!!!)

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Kam Heong squids – Not too bad!

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Sweet & Sour Crayfish (Nice!)

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The Star – Crabs with Salted Eggs (Yummiest ever!!!!!)

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While we are having our mouth full of food, the lil’ Princess can only munch on the label of her toy!

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After our satisfying lunch, PiggyBeng dropped us back in Queens Bay Mall so we can continue shopping! I rather stay out than in the house as I have less screaming to do!

I went on my search for the perfect glasses as I wanted to change the current frameless one to a frame one. After searching for a while we ended up at Opulence and I finally found what I have been looking for… but Baby G was rather bored having to sit and wait for her mama to choose her glasses! She was screaming away though I tried bribing her with a few baby bites but she would not stop! Ended up, the guy from the optical shop has to push her around for me and after a few rounds circling the shop, she finally fell into zzzland while holding on to the plastic I gave her to distract her earlier!

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Sleeping so soundly and sweetly!

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After we settled with shopping, we rushed home so I could prepare the Birthday noodles for PiggyBeng. And here is a the Birthday Boy’s bowl of noodles…

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A Simple bowl of Mee Suah with a Chicken drumstick

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Had wanted to boil some red eggs but we already had a very sinful lunch with all the salted eggs, decided to omit the red eggs out.

We rested for a while after dinner before the candle blowing session. Decided to call my MIL and SIL and thought we could have a net conference but was greeted with an even better news! My SIL gave birth in the morning and that means PiggyBeng shared the same birthday as his little niece! Woo hoo!

While online, I saw my friend’s FB status that his wife gave birth too! They were our hosts when we were in Melbourne earlier. So happy for them!!!

And for the candle blowing session…

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Darrius insisted that it is his birthday too!!!!

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Bought the cake from Bread History… it was a chocolate with cherry cake which tasted quite nice. PiggyBeng said his staff got him the same cake earlier in office! This was chosen by Darrius after finding out the one chose by me, an Opera cake has coffee. Why this cake? Darrius wanted those 2 slices of chocolate on the deco!

And I forgot to take a photo of the whole cake before we cut it so PiggyBeng said we take the last piece for memory sake…

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What a memorable day!

Last but not least, I hope our dear PiggyBeng had a fantastic day!

This year we celebrated Father’s Day 2 days earlier. Why? PiggyBeng dislikes crowds so we have to do it before the actual day. Had it on last Friday.

Last year, due to my morning sickness, we did not get to celebrate both Mother’s and Father’s Days therefore this year I tried to have the celebrations… not in style but for memory sick! Well, I flew back from Melbourne to Penang on Mother’s Day… so kinda memorable rite?

For this Father’s Day (5th year for PiggyBeng) we went to the newest western restaurant in Gurney Plaza – Chicago Rib House. Apparently this restaurant used to be in Auto City on the mainland before they rolled their carpets a few months back! Well, good that they are on the island now! So happy to have more non-halal Western restaurants here!

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So, what did we have?

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Their flame grilled St. Louise Pork Ribs was damn good! I had half rack as I was not that hungry that evening. It came with 2 side dish so I chose their fresh vegetable (broccoli) and mash potato. It was a good choice! Half rack is RM30.90 and full rack is RM40.90 I think! So, best to order full rack and share!

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PiggyBeng had their 1/2 BBQ Chicken (half a bird leh!) which tasted not too bad either! He had fries and coleslaw for his sides. The fries were tasty but the coleslaw looked a little pathetic… I did not taste it so no comment on it!

After surveying their menu, their pricing was not that bad either. Quite reasonable. There are a few more items which I hope to try in the next few visits.

The only thing that was not too attractive as compared to our regular hunt (Chili’s) was that kids don’t get to eat free everyday! Kids eat free only on Monday to Wednesday… and non on school holidays. Unlike Chili’s, kids eat for free 365 days a year which is why they are still the best family restaurant in my opinion. Also, they were out of crayons when we were there and Darrius was kinda disappointed since he can’t have any crayons to ‘conteng’ (scribble) on the activity sheet which was given to him.

What do we normally have you may asked…

Well, to be honest, their burgers ROCKS! We have tried all their burgers on their menu and I particularly love their Peppercorn Beef Burger. When compared with TGIF, TGIF’s food really sucks! And they are not value for money at all! The only nice stuff I can give my thumbs up is their mushroom soup and brownies.

Here is my favorite burger from Chili’s…

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(I’m drooling while I’m typing this!) Normally I’ll have my burger well done as it is advised to eat minced beef when they are well cooked since bacteria might still be ‘alive’ if they are medium done… unlike steaks where we should have them at medium rare…

Besides their burgers, they have other really nice Tex-Mex food too. One of our other favorites are their fajita and quesadillas. *yum*

Even Darrius love Chili’s… coz kids eat for FREE! They have very nice menu for kids and many choices too!

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We celebrated Glennedine’s full moon on New Year eve in KL before we head back to Penang. We did not do it big since we do not have that many relatives in KL so it was just a small celebration.

Since it was New Year eve, most places are crowded and PiggyBeng wanted a venue where it will be convenient for us and for his uncle who lives in Sri Damansara. After checking out a few restaurants, we decided to go for Ah Yat Abalone Forum Restaurant in PJ which seems to be in the central between Cheras and Damansara. At the same time, they were having some abalone promotions so it was a deal.

We arrived around 7pm and managed to find parking at the restaurant’s underground parking. The parking was in pretty bad shape though… the ceiling looked like it gonna fall off anytime! I saw some pieces of cracked ceiling boards and thought about malignant Mesothelioma which can be deadly. Luckily we managed to find a good spot away from those cracked ceiling boards.

Then when we went up, I was surprised to find 2 other restaurants occupying the premise. There was another seafood and a Japanese restaurant. Then when we went in to Ah Yat’s we found out half the restaurant was used for a wedding function… so we were very lucky to get a table and I managed to get us a private room! Imagine those noise coming from the wedding will sure to wake Glennedine up!

And here is the STAR on that night…

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The little kitten slept all the way from our house to the restaurant. She was still sleeping when the first dish arrived but started to cry (due to the very cold A/C) and woke up with eyes big-big through out the meal! So, you can guess how I ‘enjoyed’ my meal eh?

And here is a snapshot of what we had that night…

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The promotion includes Superior Shark Fins Soup, Crispy Suckling Pig, Stir Fry Celery with Duck Meat, Fried Medium Prawns with Special Sauce, Braised Abalone with Mushrooms and Siew Pak Choy, Steamed Brazilian Jade Fish (actually it was local Tilapia lah!), Fried Rice wrapped in Lotus Leaf and desserts of Konyaku Jellies (with longan and goji berries filling), Sweet Red Bean Rolls and Red Bean Soup.

Overall, the food and service was ok. I quite like their private room as it has a toilet attached to it so we do not need to go outside.Therefore, it is really very private!

For Hokkien Mee this time, we ventured to 2 new locations. One is in a coffee shop near Cheras Selatan Jusco/Cheras Perdana. It operates at night only as it is a ‘chi-char’ stall that fried the noodles. The other one is at this AhWah coffee shop in PJ 222 (next to Shell petrol kiosk). It was highly recommended by my brother as they put in  alot of ‘chu-yao-char’ (pork lard crisps) which both my parents loved.

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After tasting both, we found that the one in Cheras Selatan tasted better as they actually made their noodles themselves as compared to the one in PJ 222. Moreover it is way cheaper too at RM10 for a 3 person dish compared to the one at PJ 222 (pic above) which charged RM18 for a 3 person dish. They only gave a few prawns and a few pieces of pork and the pork lard crips were so tiny we could hardly find them!

Well, having so much of these unhealthy oily stuff definitely bad for our tummy so we need to find the best colon cleanser to cleanse our body! Any recommendations?

The reason why MIL gave us a treat was, she strike Jackpot during one of her trip up on the cruise during CNY. It was the first time she got the jackpot so she was very excited about it and kept telling me she wanted to treat me (coz I told her this year her luck not so good so try not to gamble too much). Anyway, it seems her luck is pretty good especially during CNY.

Initially we wanted to go to E&O for their buffet but decided not to since MIL wanted to go shop for a bag and that was why we ended up in G-Hotel. In fact we just had a wedding dinner there the Sunday before so we kind of expect the food to be more or less the same. Thank goodness all the food were different… better than expected as compared to some of the other hotels we went to.

The spread was ok. They have very cute desserts though… And guess who enjoyed the most and get to eat FOC?

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They have very cute petit-four…

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Darrius loves the cherry but not the jelly!

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Nothing beats having a few scoops of ice-creams to wrap up the meal…

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They have increased the price for their lunch buffet. It used to be RM36++ but now it is RM45++ which includes free flow of fruit juice. Luckily MIL is a CIMB card holder so we are entitled to a 15% discount off the total food bill.

From the amount of people dining there that afternoon, we can really feel the economy is doing badly. We spent almost 3 hours (from the time they start till they almost close) there were only 3 other tables occupied (about 8 people) besides around 10 people from the meeting/convention in the hotel.

PiggyBeng asked me what I want to do on my birthday and I said I want him to take a day pff so we can all go out together since he has so many AL balanced accumulated since our last trip to US in 2006. Initially he told me he can’t as he has a lot of work to do but he managed to get the day off just the day before.

Why I wanted him to be on leave that day? Well, I have another motive actually…. I wanted to register my home based business on that day! Yes, finally my cupcake shoppe has proper licensing now under this name…

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We first started the journey around 8.30am as we worried there will be heavy traffic or even traffic jam on the bridge. Well, there was none so we arrived at our first destination for breakfast at Dim Sum City in Bukit Mertajam in less than 25 minutes.

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The dim sum was great, the place was spacious and clean and pricing is quite reasonable. We will definitely return to this place.

After breakfast, we have to zoomed back to Seberang Perai for the company registration. Luckily there was no queue when we arrived though the place was filled with people. We were lucky as we only have to wait for a few minutes for our turn. However, we stillhave to spend around 45 minutes to have everything done.

Then we drove back to Bukit Mertajam. It is Perda again! After we got in, the first thing we did was get our lil’ master this…

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Darrius has been bugging us to ride on this kiddy car since the last time we came to Perda. Anyway, it is free so no complains!

Then we saw this…

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There were having some BP and Colesterol check so PiggyBeng decided to have ours checked…

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We paid RM10 each and we were even given 2 bottle of Vitamin E. Good deal hor? However, the results are not so superb as both of us are over weight!!!! PiggyBeng only slightly but I am almost 5kg over my ideal weight! Boooohooohooo! Luckily both our BP and colesterol level are ok… so that was a relieve.

After the blood test, we shopped around and out of a sudden, the lil fella wanna do this…

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Well… we woke him up 7 early, 8 early so he did not have a chance to download… He was pretty fascinated with the kiddy toilet bowl. After which he demanded to showerin theshower area next to it!!!! This boy ah! Every chance he can play water.

Then it was lunch time so we had our lunch at this place called Splendid but I can tell you hor… it is nothing splendid at all!

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I was craving for some nasi lemak (yeah, I know I am over weight and not supposed to have all these heavy stuff but what to do… there’s alway after this meal mah!) so I ordered one of their set at RM14.90 which came with a slice of cake. The sambal was really out! And that chicken thigh… aiyoh like refried one… PiggyBeng had their curry chicken and the chicken looked like don’t know cooked and kept for how many days lioa!

Anyway, we did not stay too long after that since we wanted to rush back to Penang as we were worried the bridge will be congested… but what a shocker when we passed on it at 4.50pm and it is like that…

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Normally traffic will build up around 4pm on most days (weekdays) but we were really taken by surprise this time. It shows that, a lot of people are out of jobs! Now we just have to be thankful that PiggyBeng is still with a job.

And guess what is my birthday pressie from PiggyBeng?

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Yes yes!!! I got 2 bottles of HONEY! One is Royal Jelly Honey (yellow) and the other is Wild Honey.

So, that wrapped up my big day which send me nearer to hell heaven?

My dad introduced us to a new place in Subang Jaya (Near to Subang Parade) this time which he discovered recently. It is a very popular eating venue among students since it is located very near to Taylor College campus. What is interesting about this place, Uncle Seng’s Noodles, was that the serving is HUGE! For a plate of handmade noodles which cost around RM4.50 to RM6.50 depending on what you oder, can fill a very empty stomach. What is more about these noodles was, they are yummy too! The noodles are very springy.

I ordered their large Curry Chicken with Charsiew and wanton which I intend to share with Darrius (It is cheaper to order their large than order 2 different plates).

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PiggyBeng ordered 2 plates as he was very hungry. He had a Charsiew and Wanton with another Pork Chop one. Both my parents also ordered the Pork Chop ones so you know which is good eh?

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The way they did their pork chop was really good. It has a little wine taste in them which made them so delicious and not to mention the meat was really tender and succulent.

Darrius throughly enjoyed his noodles… same goes with my nephew.

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I did not managed to get the address but it is located in one of the shop lot blocks. If I’ve  not forgotten, there is a Kopi Tiam styled cafe at the end of that block.

With the kind of feast I was having in KL, I wonder what kind of weight loss pill can help me shed the extra weight I piled on!

3.2.2009

It was the Heavenly God’s festival that day so we did not sleep till the wee hours of the morning as there were a series of firework display in our area the night before starting from 11.30pm till almost 2am! PiggyBeng was capturing all the fireworks with Darrius next to him enjoying himself while this mommy was in the kitchen rushing the cupcakes out intended to be given to a few mommies whom we will be meeting.

We started our journey around 9.30am and traffic was smooth. Stopped by Ipoh to have my bowl of noodle while PiggyBeng sip on his favorite Ipoh White Coffee at his favorite coffee shop…

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This coffee shop is much better than the one we always patronized in Ipoh Old Town. It is so much spacious and airy and it has 2 shop units so can accommodate more people. Best of all, they have a few varieties of cooked food available and their coffee is smooth and good (according to PiggyBeng lar since I am not a coffee person).

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What I normally go for when I am in Ipoh is the ‘lai-fun’ which is similar to the Laksa noodles but they cooked in clear soup. And I must have those ‘liau’ or something like stuffed tofu or ‘yong tau fu’ and fried bean skin to go with the noodles which we can hardly find in Penang.

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We continued our journey after our lunch and arrived at the Jalan Duta exit around 2.30pm. We thought there was no traffic jam since it was still early but we were wrong! Our mistake was, we took the road at Dewan Pustaka as we hope to join up to the Cheras Road. The road works at the previous stadium roundabout caused the horrible jam where 4 roads converged into 2! We arrived around 3.30pm and shortly after we unload our stuff, the thunderstorm came! I should have gone with PiggyBeng’s suggestion to exit near Kepong so can shop at The Curve while waiting for the Blogging Mama meet!

So, we waited till around 5pm before we were off again to The Curve. It was still drizzling then but the rain was not that heavy until we hit Federal Highway. The rain was so heavy that we can’t even see the road! Luckily there was still no jam building up yet so we managed to reach in 30 minutes.

First thing of course is to hunt for Daiso! Finally found it but was hugely  dissapointed as all the Bento stuff were almost gone except some very uninteresting bento boxes and insulated bags. *sigh* While in Daiso, we first met up with this wonder woman mama.

It was almost 7pm when we were done shopping in Daiso but the other 2 mamas still have not arrived due to the heavy rain (one stuck in the traffic jam and one can’t get a cab). So we proceed to have dinner at Kopi Tiam while waiting for the rest. Food was ok but forgot to take photos…

Then at almost 8pm this super mama arrived with her 2 princes and maid then followed by this pretty mama who came back all the way from SFO with her girls (the younger girl did not join us that nite) and hubby. This is the first time I’m meeting up with Vien and her family.

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Oops! Sorry, Elina won’t allow us to show you her pretty face!

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Together with the pretty Japanese doll… Ms Belle 

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Hmm… did you notice their clothing colors? Like so matching hor? hahahhaa

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Wow! Look at them! Annie’s boys are soooo cute!

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We finally ’san-band’ around 9.30pm after endless chatters… The rain has stopped so the enormous traffic jam also has eased and we were home by 10+.

What a tiring day!

You can read more about the meet from here and here.

Thanks to Elina, Annie and Vien for meeting up!