Tasty Toasty cafe, Adrift movie review, 金曲奖 | HANG OUT

Finally, after months, I got to meetup with Sze Chyi (!!!) I can't even tell you how excited I am to reunite with her. She is now on a long 3-months break so I think we could do a few more meetups before she goes back to her uni and I am totally excited for that! Our other guy best friend, Yee Hang will be coming back soon too, so we will definitely cook something up for him. 

As usual, we took a bus to Komtar and then took another bus to Gurney Paragon where we hopped on our Grab to Tasty Toasty cafe. Tasty Toasty is a cafe located by the side of Cantonment Road, just behind the Pulau Tikus wet market. If you are planning to take Grab to Tasty Toasty, you can just enter the Pulau Tikus wet market in the location as Tasty Toasty is not found on the Grab location menu. Once you reach the Pulau Tikus wet martket, you should be able to see the cafe quite easily because it's just located by the main road where all the hustle and bustle happens. 

From the outside, it looks like a pretty small and narrow shop. But once you enter the cafe, you'd be surprise how spacious it is. The design of the cafe is very cosy and modest - white walls with a few paintings hung up, grey walls with a sort of slathered patterns and wooden furtiture and brick-coloured tiles. The customer service was very good as well as they were so friendly and amiable.

never getting tired of this view

Onto their menu choices, they have two different sections of the menus of different food choices to be served at different dining hours. The first section is for breakfast and tea, which is from 8:30am to 12pm and 3:00pm to 6:00pm; the second section is for lunch which is from 12:00pm to 3:00pm (I have taken the photos of their menu, so if you guys want it for future reference, you can save it down into your phone). It was already a little past 12pm when we reached there, so we had no choice but to order from the lunch section although I really wanted to try their prostini (open faced sandwich) at the breakfast section.

morning & brunch

lunch & dinner

English Breakfast Tea (HOT) (RM5)

To be honest, I am never a fan of English tea. If anything at all, I hated English tea. Once, I had Earl Grey tea and the smell was too overpowering that I had headache for the rest of the day. I had a sip of the English Breakfast Tea that Sze Chyi ordered and it's actually not that bad, but for me, Japanese tea and Chinese tea will always win hah.

Caramel Latte (HOT) (RM9.90)

As you can probably tell, the "拉花" (latte art) is pretty hideous, but the taste of this caramel latte is pretty nice. For a caramel person, I would expect the latte to taste so much sweeter, but it tastes more latte than caramel, which is a plus if you're a milky caffeine. Overall, the aroma and taste of the caramel is present, the latte has a pretty thick foam and it has a buttery texture (I reckon it's because of the foam) and it feels smooth down your throat.

Chicken Terriyaki Mayo Bread Chicken Chop (RM18.50)

 First of all, I have to say that the portion is pretty big. Besides, it's pretty savoury. Shortest description ever haha. Legit tastes like a chicken chop. 

Softshell Crab Sandwich (RM18.90)

I love me anything softshell crab, and what the heck?! A softshell crab sandwich?! It is definitey a gigantic sandwich that you probably couldn't bite it in a whole mouthful. The sandwich, the sauce, the veges and the softshell crab tastes so good and juicy together! The fries are very crispy and nice as well. One thing I would say though, is tthat he aftermath of eating this monsterous sandwich is very messy. All the greens were falling off the sandwich and the sandwich bread were twisting around playfully, but maybe it's just the messy me who couldn't handle the sandwich, who knows? It did take longer to be served for some reasons. I was already so hungry that I kept snacking on Sze Chyi's fries before this was served like.. 20 or 30 minutes later? But it did taste delicious so yeah. 

Overall, I would give this cafe a 4/5. In terms of the food choices, you can definitely have something light like the breads, buns and sandwiches for your breakfast or brunch. There are also a handful selection of main courses like the variety of chicken chops and pastas. For afternoon tea, you can order their drinks like: tea, coffee and other more refreshing drinks and some toast as well. 

After spending about one and a half hour there chatting and eating, we took Grab back to Gurney Plaza where we intend to meet Sze Chyi's friend - Yin Yin and her bf at Red Box. We went to Red Box to karaoke together, where we were also later informed that Yin Yin will only join us during the movie at GSC because she was feeling unwell. Singing karaoke has been one of our favourite hangout rituals because it's just so therapeutic for our souls. I really like the karaoke room at Red Box, Gurney Plaza as it is so much more spacious and feels extremely exclusive with the wardrobe wallpapers surrounding us as compared to the Red Box at 1st Avenue or even the Neways. There were only 2-3 of us in that room, and we only paid student price (RM23), which is crazy! Definitely recommend it to you guys! Fyi, for the RM23 student price, you get 3 hours of karaoke session, 2 choices of drinks and a plate of fried wedges with cheese. 

After all the singing, we met Yin Yin and her bf at the entrance of the GSC cinema to catch Adrift together. Adrift is a movie that Sze Chyi and I really wanted to watch because it's starring her favourite Will Traynor and my favourite Hazel Grace.

The movie is based on a true story about two travellers who met each other, fell in love with each other and decided to sail back to one of the countries one of them used to live in. When they were sailing, they encountered a terrible storm on the sea that later hit both of them with tragedy. 

I think the movie captures the hardship of being adrift and the hope and faith for survival perfectly. I love that there were flashback scenes that tells the audience about the backstory of both of the main characters and their romance stories scattered in the movie amidst telling the story of them being adrift. It just makes the movie more impactful when it hits you with how different life can be one day from another and gives a very contrasted a clear comparison between their ups and downs. The ending definitely caught me off the guard and left me with a pang of bitter aftertaste. So much as the movie has moved me, I think the storyline is not particularly rich. It mainly focuses on the two main characters and is rather slow-paced, raw and beautiful in every sense. The acting of both Shailene Woodley and Sam Claffin is very natural and mature, which gives this movie a very real and down-to-Earth sense. Overall, I would give it a 8/10.

After the movie, we surprised Sze Chyi's friend who was working part-time at Gurney Plaza and chatted for a bit. Before going back, I brought Sze Chyi to the Liang sandwich bar endorsed by Jay Chou that caused a huge stir among Penangites for the past few weeks. I recommended her the Scallions Sandwich (香葱抓饼). It's the most basic flavour which falls under the "basics" category, but I just love the crisp and taste of it. It costs RM3.90, which isn't that expensive when it comes to something endorsed by Jay Chou. I'll be writing on a post later (probably next week) solely on whether Liang sandwich bar is "WORTH THE HYPE or NOT WORTH THE HYPE", so stay tuned for that if you're a huge Jay Chou fans and you are planning on a visit to Liang Sanwich bar! 

Later that night, I watched the 《金曲奖》, which is a prize-giving awards show for singers who sing in the Chinese language held in Taiwan. I was really happy with the 最佳女歌手 winner because it's Lala! Her songs are absolutely nice to listen to, especially the recent one 《言不由衷》and the older ones like 《你敢不敢》 and 《浪费》. Although our all-times favourite JJ Lin didn't hail as the 最佳男歌手, I think it's a tight competition as Eason Chen is just as good! 《金曲奖》 2018 was amazing, from the grand settings of the venue, all the very grand and majestic performances and the absolutely crazy talented graphics! I loveeee the graphics as they were all very cute, artistic and quirky!

That's all for this post. Hope you guys are having an amazingggg weekend. See y'all next week! Here's a photo of me in my very ahma clothes at my natural habitat to end this post. Btw, I'm reading Crazy Rich Asians now, fingers crossed I'll be able to finish up and share with you guys my review and thoughts about it soon!

Love, J.

NEW IN PENANG: Black and classy restaurant that serves hand drip coffee & Japense food | FOODIE HUNT

As you can probably tell from the title, it's a new restaurant in Penang! Well, it WAS new.. but I procrastinated a little so it's not that new now, but you can still go there and try their food if you haven't cause there are some really yum foodddd. The café is called 星乃珈琲店 or Hoshino Coffee in English. It's a franchise that has already spread all over some countries in the Asia continent such as Singapore, China, South Korea and recently in Malaysia. Located in Queensbay mall near the clothing retail shop - VOIR or near the monkey bag shop - Kipling, you'll sure to notice it right away even though it's tucked at the far corner of the mall as the queue is always so crazily long.

As soon as we reached there, the queue was MAD. You can definitely tell that it's a new place to eat because it's face it, Penangites are food adventurers who constantly hunt for a new place to eat like scavengers. So if you see a place with such a crazy line, probably it's still relatively new or... the food might just be too good! The food display at the window (or course they're not real) looks really tempting and delicious (!!!) After about half an hour, there were finally empty seats so we got in!

The interior, the food choices and food presentation instantly radiates the "Miam Miam" vibes to my family and I (one of the French restaurants at Gurney Paragon, now already closed down) The café has a very majestic design, incorporating the deep brown wooden furniture and grand cascading chandeliers with really huge glass windows. They also have little knicks and knacks of little antique-esque items on display that makes the whole café looks so classy and retro.

 

Looking at their food choices in the menu, I would say they have such a wide array and good selection of desserts and main courses for you to choose from. This is the perfect place for you if you like Japanese food and Western cuisine because they offer a lot of Japanese-Western fusion. Some of their signature dishes/desserts are the hand drip coffee, French toast and Japanese soufflé. So we ordered that and a couple of other dishes. Let the pictures do the talking! 

Hoshino Blend Coffee (RM12.10)

Hand drip coffee is one of the ways to brew coffee, and is almost the same as pourover coffee. The process basically involves grounding the coffee beans -> fold a filter paper and put it above of the brewer at the filter funnel -> wet the filter paper with hot boiled water -> put the coffee grounds on the filter paper -> pour hot boiled water over the coffee grounds -> let the hot water run through the coffee grounds to extract the flavours -> voila! For visual, you can watch the YouTube video HERE.

I would describe the taste as a very diluted expresso? It's not very flavourful, has a light taste of the coffee grounds and it's bitter. It's almost like you're drinking water but you can taste and smell the aroma of the coffee grounds at the same time. I reckon you can add sugar or creamer into it, but I think this is the exact beauty of hand drip coffee, though I have to say I prefer stronger and chocolatier/milkier coffee like mocha, cappuccino or latte.

Iced Fruit Tea (RM17.90)

This jar of fruit juice looks soooo beautiful at the display so we decided to order it. Yup, that's one of the problems of 21st century people, we tend to judge a book by its cover. Not to say that look is everything, but if you're good looking, it's easier for people to kasi chance if you know what I mean. Turns out this iced fruit tea does not look as good as it did at the display :( Maybe it appears duller and darker because the fruits oxidised? Also, it tastes bitter and not really fruity. Just splashes of bitter, healthy-feeling liquid free of sugar. I think the sugar concentration is probably -1% In my opinion, not so great lah. 

Matcha (contains Azuki) (RM17.90)

Matcha! Our all-times favourite! It's written on the menu that it contains Azuki. After asking Mr Google, Azuki (or more commonly known as Adzuki) is a type of red bean that is grown in Himalaya and East Asia and is always used to cook and made into sweet red bean paste. After being made in the sweet red bean paste, it is deemed as a perfect combo with matcha. Luckily, it doesn't disappoint. It's not too sweet yet not too bitter, just the perfect taste of matcha that I love!

Chicken Teriyaki Spaghetti (RM21.70)

This is the five star dish I'm going to recommend you guys. It's so innovative that they fused the Eastern and Western essence together in this dish - Chicken Teriyaki from the Japenese culture and the spaghetti from Western culture. At first it might seem weird, but omfg, this is one of the most delicious spaghetti I've ever tasted! The sweet Teriyaki sauce makes the pasta juicy and savoury. Best dish ever existed!

Seafood Paella (RM26.60)

This is my first try of a paella, so I don't really have a benchmark for how this should taste like. Overall, I give the food presentation a 6/5. The rice tastes a bit curry scented and anything seafood captures my heart like how Korean oppas do haha. Really enjoyed the seafood feast we had!

The original French Toast flavour was priced at RM17.70. We ordered the seasonal Strawberry French Toast and it's priced at RM19.70.

Originally I wanted to order soufflé because it's so soft and fluffy! What to do, my bro really wanted to order the French Toast so I had to compromise. French toast is one of their signature dish. Again, the food presentation is soooo pretty! The texture of the bread is soft and fluffy, and the Strawberry syrup and the pop of whipped cream makes it all melt into your mouth immediately. For the price though, I think you can order the original French Toast instead of the strawberry one, cause the strawberry one is close to RM20, which is quite pricey. You might as well add another RM2 to get yourself a main course, like the Teriyaki Chicken for example. 

Overall, I would give this restaurant a solid 5/5! I do have to warn you guys that the price of this restaurant is slightly higher but judging by the decor, food choices and the fact that it's a franchise, the price range is fairly reasonable. If you are on a budgetted food hunt but you still wanna give this café a try, I would suggest you to pass the drinks because they are not bad, but certainly doesn't make me feel that: owhhh, I need to order this the next time or I need to recommend so badly to everyone.  

Besides, the portion of the food is pretty decent. All the desserts and main courses are very flavourful and well presented. If you're looking for a place with a quiet and comfortable ambience (did I also mention that their seating provides absolute privacy for you and whoever you're coming with?) that serves excellent Japanese-Western fusion, look no further because Hoshino Coffee could probably be the perfect place you're looking for. Happy food hunting! :)

Love, J.

How the most unexpected best day of my life happened?

As a crazy planner myself, I would always write all the meetups, hangouts or trips with friends and family in my planner. Of course, most of the time I would be the one who is taking the lead to plan all the activities or stuff that I would do when I hang out with them. I recalled once that Saira saw me plan all these activities when it's near exam, and she mummered under her breathe: you and all your plans! That's right, I'm such a crazy planner (for most part of my life except for academics and important stuff heh) that I can probably tell which days are going to be fun, exciting and happy and which days are just going to be above average, predictable and meh. Maybe this post is just to remind me that how sometimes unforseen serendipity occurs not my planning, but by chance.

So the story goes like this. On 23rd March 2018, one of my best friends, YK and I planned to have a meet up together. Since we are both huge movie buffs, we decided to give the recent Oscar's Best Pictures winner - "The Shape of Water" a go as we have heard so many good things about it, though most of the times award-winning movies are pretty boring and slow-paced, more... artsy I would say. Personally, I don't mind a slow-paced movie, as long as it has a good plot with good acting. Since he is studying in UK, I took care of the movie tickets, and I was sooo happy because GSC decided to give a complimentary "The Shape of Water" poster when we purchased two movie tickets. 

He touched down on 22nd March and our meet up was on the next day! I am still so touched that he would agree on the meet up, despite the jet lag and time differences he had to adjust to when he reached Malaysia. At first, his mum and brother planned to go Queensbay, so we decided to go to Gurney by Uber after his mum dropped us off at Queensbay. He came to pick me up at my granny's a little earlier and told me that his mum and brother will be coming together with us to Gurney instead cause his bro wanted to buy something. 

I was obviously caught off the guard but carried on with the plan anyway. Although we have been very close friends since primary school and our family knew each other very well, I was still a little worried that things might get awkward since I haven't really talked to his mum or brother in a very long time. He gave me a little sourvenir he bought from UK and I really appreciated that (cause usually he's so 无感 and forgetful, I'm surprised) Despite the nervousness, it was still a pretty awesome ride on the way to Gurney as YK and I talked and talked about everything. Typical us! 

When we reached Gurney, I went seperate ways with them as I already had my lunch. I also imagined how awkward it would be for them to look at me while I got my eyebrows trimmed at Shu Uemura. I went to Shu Uemura to get the Laque Supreme lipgloss for my bestie Sze Chyi in the shade BG04 because: 1. She was studying in uni elsewhere but it was her birthday month. She was entitled to a 10% discount for everything she buys in that month, hence I need to get the BG04 within the month of March for her. 2. She was also entitled for a free 3D eyebrows trimming/shaping service that cost around RM40 or RM50 (IKR, what?!) In order to make the most out of all the promotions and free service she was given as a Shu Uemura member during her birthday month, the trip to Shu Uemura was mandatory. 

The Shu Uemura makeup artist told me that I was lucky enough to come that day as BG04 has been sold out for quite awhile, but was suddenly restocked on that day! A huge bunch of keen customers had already made their reservations but I was lucky enough to walk-in and just take BG04 away with me with an additional 10% discount! The makeup artist also provided fabulous 3D eyebrows trimming service. At first, I wasn't particularly excited about this as I have got my brows trimmed in the past, but I gotta say I can definitely see why they charge so expensive! The Shu Uemura makeup artist shaved my eyebrows professionally and helped to fill in my eyebrows with their signature Shu Uemura eyebrow pencil (old school but I love!) with the two archs of perfect angle. Never have I in my life seen me with such neat eyebrows with such a perfect arch fit for the shape of my face. 

I put a little colour with the apps on my phone so I don't look so ded. There, there.

Shortly after that, YK and I met each other at the GSC cinema booth to redeem our tickets and the complimentary poster! I asked him if I could take the poster and he 比较无感 and told me: yeah sure, just take it. I WAS SO EXCITED when I saw the poster because it looked soo freaking magical.

Anyway, we headed to Popular to kill time before our movie started. We talked about books and other stuff about life. Coincidentally, I bumped into one of my lecturers from English Department - Pn Kam and we talked for a bit. Pn Kam was strolling in Popular as she was waiting for her daughter. Her daughter was rewarded by her primary school principal for passing her UPSR  exam with flying colours and was treated to a movie along with her other friends. I actually felt pity for YK as he just stood there stoically without knowing how to respond as Pn Kam and I discussed about her daughters and IPG stuff but eventually he did find a way to escape.

After I bid Pn Kam goodbye, I continue my quest for searching for a good book! Basically, a lot of people think that I'm an avid book reader, but I wouldn't call myself that. I am enthusiastic in reading books and keeping up with new releases yes, but I think I have become such a procrastinator and possessor that I feel like I'm more of a book "hoarder" to be precise .-. As your girl here have limited financial ability, I usually take photos of the books that I wanna buy (sometimes even repeatedly because of the high frequency of my visit to bookstores but the low frequency of me spending on books) So here are... ahem... a few books that I am interested in buying/reading. Let the collage do the talking!

Update: I bought Homo Sapiens, We Are Okay, The Hate You Give & Everyday later with my RM250 book voucher. Will write about these in another blog post.

So yeah, now you guys know why my photo album is always full of photos. I literally have so many unnecessary photos in my album that I should probably never have taken in the first place :/ I LOVE GOING TO BOOKSTORES. Seeing so many good books in a day made me so so happy (what a typical thing a nerd would say)

As the time slowly ticked away, it was finally movie time! (picture source: Google)

Movie review: YK gave it a 7.5 and I gave it a 8.5 over 10. In short, this movie is a story about love and acceptance. Just because you're different, doesn't mean that you don't deserve to love or to be loved. I can see why YK gave it a 7.5 as the movie was sooooo slow-paced. The storyline is a bit  weird and has a lot of metaphorical meaning, but I really love the magic of this movie. It's so beautiful, delicate and ethereal. I LOVEEEE the retro vibes to it, the soundtracks are super nice and soothing as well. For a person like me who literally breathes in all the feels, I love how relaxing and aesthetically pleasing all the scenes are in the movie and the core message it's trying to convey to the audience.

After the movie, YK started to feel a little uncomfortable in his stomach. We decided to have dinner at seperate places from her mum and brother, so we went to one of the restaurants outdoor called Chili's Grill & Bar Restaurant. When we entered the restaurant, guess what? Surprise, surprise, his mum and brother were sitting there snacking off the burgers haha. I asked him if we should sit with his mum and brother but he just said: no need. After saying hi to his mum and brother, we just walked to one of the tables behind his mum's and brother's like nobody's business. I ordered one of the beef patty burger (RM30+) while YK didn't order anything. 

Food review: Honestly, the price made me go like WTH?! but the taste of it (!!!) OMG I gotta say that this has got to be the most authentic and tasty beef patty that I've ever tasted in the island. It was so juicy and delicious! 

After dinner, it was time to go home. This was the part where it made this dayyyy so much better than it already was. On the journey back, we actually talked about Sacred Heart and our primary school stuff and that topic got her mum and brother interested. We gossiped and reminisced, talked about all those primary school friends which made us all a little nostalgic and I even told his brother ghost stories about Sacred Heart haha. And I swear the whole journey was soooo freaking awesome. Having some quality time to chat with her mum, her brother and him actually makes that night so much more special and intimate. I'm a person who LOVESSS late night chat, especially the ones in the car because it just gives you the time and space to completely unwind and just chat.

By the time we reached my house, we were all in laughs and guffaws! I waved goodbye to them and ended one of the best days in my life. At the end of the day, I guess being an ENFJ, I really love surrounding myself with people whom really makes me feel the best. YK has always been one of my closest friends and I was really happy to still keep in touch with him and the family. To sum it up, I think that it doesn't need BIG happenings in your life to make you feel contented or euphoric, it was every little things that happened that day made it THE BEST DAY accumulatively.

1. The sourvenir from UK (sourvenir from my fav country from my fav person!)
2. I got to give myself a little pamper session (which is sooo rare) at Shu Uemura courtesy of my bestie, and got lucky too!
3. Finally watched the 4 Oscar's Awards winner movie that I had been soooo excited for with my bestie.
4. Got to see so many books at Popular and even bought myself the magazine that I really wanted to have cause Chloe was on it haha.
5. Connected with old friends and his family - just chat and understand what's going on in each other's life!

happy stuff in a pic

No matter where you are, hope this post makes your day just a little happier. I hope you're having one of your best days too! Love, J.