Tea Garden Paradigm Mall PJ

A good friend and colleague resigned from the company after 20ish years. That's very brave of her, the time I resigned from my first job, I have been there for more than 10 years, that took a lot of courage to resign. Hahaha! I am hoping she will fly and soar in her new job.

Anyway, since she has been in the company for so long, she had almost daily farewell lunches with many colleagues from multiple departments. And finally, it's our turn, this farewell lunch didn't include our bosses. Normally for our farewell, welcome lunch, we would gather in Paradigm mall or Subang Parade to avoid the parking issue. At least, confirm can get parking. We couldn't waste time finding parking, still have to rush back to work. Many of us had meeting on 1.30pm or 2pm. Well, I had meeting on 1.30pm, and I told my boss I will be late. 

The place that was being chose was Tea Garden in Paradigm Mall. My colleague had chosen all kinds of Kopitiam for her farewell meal. She mentioned that the variety of foods and the affordability are the main reason. Previously, sometimes we would choose Chili's or Serai. It's a bit more expensive than Tea Garden. 

Well, since she was in the company for more than 20 years. So many people wanted to join the farewell lunch. Finally, since she was resigning, she left for Paradigm Mall first and got the QR code for us to start ordering. The rest of us left for Paradigm Mall after the designated lunch time. Me and my other few colleagues decided to just take Grab to the mall. Don't need to waste time even to find parking. Hahaha. So before most of us actually reached Tea Garden, the dishes already started to show up on the table. We took 4 tables in Tea Garden, but one table was quite far away, we didn't reach early enough to secure all neighbouring tables. 

Quite beautiful to look at

Another angle

porridge set

chicken rice

fried yee mee (i think!)

radish cake

It's a joyful and sad farewell lunch. We ordered a lot, and ok, it's not even more than RM1k. I think Tea Garden will be the place to go for future lunches for the time being. 

the bill

Chic Cafe Klang • Botanic

On the Hari Raya Haji holiday on 27th May, I went out for dinner with a dear friend. We stayed near to each other, but we didn't go out together as often. We were busy. Since we both did not have any activity on that night, we decided to have dinner together. We planned to have dinner in Botanic Klang. There are a lot of restaurants in Botanic. 

We decided to go to Chic Cafe, after all it's the first one that came out from google search. Initially I thought that it's a western style cafe that served pasta, steaks, some local favourites, etc. We only realized it's a Japanese style cafe when we reached there. There are so many restaurants nearby that area, there's even a lok lok restaurant next to it. On the corner lot, there's a bak kut teh shop that was full of customers although it's not even 6pm. Very lively area. 

When we entered the cafe, the waiter told us that we can have free rice or noodle top-ups. LOL. Before we ordered, we saw what other tables were eating, and the portion is not that small. So we ordered a rice set (丼)  for sharing. Apart from carbohydrate, of course we needed some protein, we also got the karaage chicken (fried chicken). And a pot of peach + pear + apple fruit tea. 

rice set

The cutlery and dishes in the shop are so cute. Even the sauce that came with the fried chicken was served with a duck shaped dish. Since we were sharing the rice set, we ordered a six piece karaage chicken set. Kind of regret, I over estimated myself. Although the food was good, we had to rest for a while to finish all. We should just order the three piece chicken set. There're variety of sauces, but if we got the multi sauces set, it's more money spent, so we just ordered with one type of sauce. Well, the fried chicken is good enough without needing the sauce though. 

karaage chicken with sauce (the duck shaped dish is cute!)

The fruit tea pot was good too. The combination of peach, apple and pear was good. It's nice after eating a big bowl of rice and fried chickens. Hahaha!

peach tea + apple + pear pot

Me and my friend stayed for around 2 hours. The business was so good on that day, we saw that there are customers queuing outside, so we left. It's a good 2 hour get together with great food. 

Gardenage Kota Kemuning

Happy Lunar New Year! It's coming to an end though. My friends were quite busy at the start of the new year, so we waited until 12th day to meet up. This time around, we choose a cafe named Gardenage in Kota Kemuning, it's the first for me, while my friends went there before. All mentioned the place environment was very good. 

As per the restaurant name, it is so green. The front part of the restaurant was filled with plants, there's a hanging wisteria like plant (albeit it is green), I couldn't resist the urge to touch it to know whether it's a fake plant or not, well, it feels like true leaves. The plants are so beautiful.

The environment inside the restaurant is very cozy too. We had our lunch besides an aquarium. So calming. 

inside the restaurant

I ordered salted egg pasta, my friend got spaghetti and risotto. All tasted good. I saw kombucha in the menu too, I ordered kombucha pink guava.  

food we ordered

Below is the salted egg pasta with karaage. I like karaage, although it's difficult to get fried chicken that is not tasty in Malaysia, karaage type still one of my favourites. 

salted egg pasta with karaage

I have wanted to try kombucha for a long time. However, not many restaurants carried this and when it's available, normally it's for dinner. I would have sleepless night if I drink tea at night. Kombucha is still tea after all, although it's fermented. Well, I couldn't taste the tea though, not a bad drink, but not so like tea as I had imagined. 

kombucha with pink guava

Well, I could sleep after this kombucha drink at noon, ok, I think the caffeine is fermented away? Maybe, I don't know. Only one of us had caffeine drink. Not so young anymore, cannot drink caffeinated drinks like we are in our 20s. 

latte art

My and my friends had a very nice chats, although we stayed near to each other. With own commitments, it's difficult to meet up. I really appreciate all the meet ups. 

Backstreet Café (Banting)

14th November 2015

I am not a 'foodie', so I wouldn't normally venture out to a new place in town to try out new things. However, I do appreciate the gathering time with friends, so when a friend suggested to meet up in Banting, we scrambled our brains to think of a place to meet up. We even considered meet up at McDonald. Hahaha. We are not teenagers anymore, so we didn't keep track of the happening stuffs in our own place, then our younger siblings suggested the Backstreet Cafe near the Banting Bus Station. All four of us had never heard of this place until yesterday.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised with this cafe because it's in Banting. In just a few years ago, we needed to go to Klang to dine in this kind of cafe. Me and my friends chose this kind of eatery for the ambience, not for the food though. For food, we would go to the Korean restaurant, we are a fan of Korean food.

This cafe owner painted the walls with chalkboard paint and the menu was written on the wall. I think it's chalkboard paint because the trend was in rage lately. Maybe it's just normal paint in black colour. Anything is possible. 

Backstreet Café

Backstreet Café

Cafe 1986

26th July 2014

Me and a few friends were not able to meet up during Chinese New Year, so for the Hari Raya Holiday, we finally made a plan to meet up. Initially, we planned to go to Pavillion or One City, however decided to just choose a cafe nearer to home because we just needed a place to eat and talk. A friend suggested Cafe 1986, since no objection, Cafe 1986 it is. 

Before I left for the place, I googled and searched Cafe 1984, and the top results were all related to George Orwell's 1984. Hahaha, I typed wrongly, it should be Cafe 1986. I guessed the Cafe 1986 came from the year the owner was born. Anyway, if the owner put named his cafe as Cafe 1984, I am pretty sure it won't show up in the first 10 or 20 pages in Google Search.