May Top Droppers

I'm really sorry for month old entry, as I've been quite busy. That's one thing, the other thing I apologise for is that I didn't keep track of who's the top dropper for June, and therefore I must skip June's post. For May's top droppers, I'm giving 1000 ECs each for 1st and 2nd top dropper for compensation (LOL).

Here are the top 9 droppers for May:


Mariuca's Perfume Gallery (1000 EC)


Mumblings (1000 EC)



Meow Diaries


Wishing On A Falling Star


Lisgold


Spiff, The Spaceman


MakesYouLaugh


Biz Boink


Woodworker blog

Why nine? Well, I can't find one of the droppers while googling or searching Entrecard. Anyway, big thanks to everyone who has been dropping here. July's top dropper will be acknowledged hopefully :).

Ciao!

Time to Dim Sum, Affordably

Guy at the back looks like he's really enjoying himself.

Last week, Choul had an off-day, and she proposed to have dim sum at a place she knows in KL. Well, my experience with dim sum is easy, they're delicious and they're expensive. I've went to a restaurant in Mandarin Oriental and another one in Star Hill. Both are great, but I wasn't the one paying LOL. The place Choul recommended we had early lunch is Minmax, which she says is halal and affordable, perfect combo :D.

Not the best shot, but you should get a general idea of Minmax's ambience.

I really don't know how to review food, as I'm a pretty tolerant guy when eating. I wouldn't know if the taste is off or not up to standards unless its extremely different (eg. chicken chop tasting like durian, or pizza tasting like chocolate, therefore I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Whats on the menu? Check out the snapshots of the menu:

What we ate:

Honey-roasted Cashews of Utter Addiction

Steamed Har Kau

Steamed Shark's Fin Dumpling

Deep Fried Water Prawn Roll with Cheese

Deep Fried Soft Crab Special

Pan Fried Shanghai Dumpling

Pan Fried Rice Noodles with Shrimps in Soya Sauce

Obligatory dips, soy and chilli sauce? Probably.

What you see on the table

So, did I make you hungry? I am extremely hungry after posting this entry with an empty stomach. Dang.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I should comment something about the food. Well, its actually quite good. I thought I'd like totally know the difference in quality but I couldn't tell, as I was enjoying myself. I order more fried dishes, and I regretted that since I just realised while eating that day that I prefer steamed dim sum dishes. The only dish I didn't like was the Deep Fried Soft Crab Special. To me, it tasted like I was eating bite-sized sea-flavoured pastry. Such a huge difference from Sushi King's Soft Crab sushi. Speaking about sushi, the prices resemble sushi restaurants, where they count per type of dish.

Ahhh, good times.

Overall, its a good place to get affordable dim sum, and times of sudden cravings.

Urbanscapes 2009 - No tix, but still enjoyable

Urbanscapes 2009 was the talk of the town. It was THE place to be if you're cool and hip (maybe slight sarcasm). All the creative people were meeting up here, displaying their arts, crafts and works, showcasing their talents and selling their products. And I didn't know about it, until Choul mentioned it to me and asked me to go there on the 27th. That was early June, so you know how eager she was. I was enthusiastic myself since I want to see what Malaysians have to offer, especially in the design arena.

Urbanscapes was hosted by KLue in KL Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) and it was way over there in Sentul. The last time I went to Sentul was to watch Nokia's Starlight Cinema, and even then, I was driven there, so I had no idea how to go there. Until Google Maps helped me. Thank god for that. I did get lost a bit but got back in the right track by asking directions from a taxicab driver in a hurry at a nearby petrol station. We planned to go earlier but we ended up arriving at the place around 6pm, as we had to attend a neighbour's wedding. Lucky for us though, as we heard after that the afternoon heat was intense that day. Some even felt the heat creep under their skin (eg. Rames).

We parked close to the entrance of KLPac, the first parking space we saw. I heard that there weren't lots of parking spaces available so I rushed to grab any space I see. Turns out, the place we parked was quite a walk from Urbanscapes. On the way, we stopped to see some "ruins" and we took the opportunity to do our own photoshoot there. There were other people taking pictures there too, since it was too cool to resist. There was even a band singing there.

Next, we walked further inside to arrive at our intended destination, the X-Marketplace. Why X? Well that's because its sponsored by Celcom, and Celcom likes to X everything they organise in similar fashion to their product, X-Pak or X-Pac. I wouldn't know since I got the yellow guy to back me up at times of need (or not).

What can I say, there were plenty of tents, inside them, small makeshift stores for the up and coming local designers and creatives to pimp out their works of art. Setting up the shop must have been a challenge as well, since you're in a contest of trying to be most eye-catching so that people stop over long enough to check out their products and perhaps have some people take photos of them (guilty as charged :P). Lets just say, there were lots of tents as there were three different sections, well maybe, two and a half, since about half of them were food and beverage stalls.

What I didn't like was having alcohol served openly in the area. While I don't really care if people consume alcohol, this place was not suitable, in my opinion. Firstly, its an environment where the young and old can come and check out designs, not drunks and empty beer bottles, and secondly, I think I saw young, minor people in there drinking. Somehow it didn't feel right. Just my 2 cents.

Next up, we went to check out the main hall where the aircond was godsend since I was sweating the evening away. There were some other stores and props, including a display of small fishes in colourful bowls and an artwork which resembles hundres of Slurpee cups mashed together. I have no idea what's the purpose but hey, whatever floats the design boat. I felt a bit out of place since we didn't have the armband to show that we have tix. Everyone had them except for us haha.

We saw an LCD screen displaying a line of text. That made us curious and as we got closer to the screen, we found out that its a big tweet board. Whatever you tweet, as long as it includes the word "urbanscapes" will be displayed on the screen. Needless to say, I was there for quite awhile waiting for my tweet to show on it. Just fired up Opera on my mobile and tweeted. Choul tried it but unfortunately, her tweet was never showed. We even double and triple checked. Her tweet just didn't show on the screen. Poor her.

As we were heading back only to be awed by a group of firedancers showing off their fiery acrobatics. It was fun and all but what excited me was how this would like in camera if I tried that slow shutter speed technique. I had a fair number of shots and even with my shaky hands, I did get some cool pics. Then, we walked back to our car, which we then realise how far a walk it was.

Overall, a pleasant experience, I always enjoy something new to check out. Thanks to Choul for pointing me in the direction of Urbanscapes 2009.