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.