Saturday 29 December 2012

The Best Garlic Rice in Penang

Up to date, Chai Diam Ma still serve the best garlic rice in Penang.


We love this dish so much that we keep on going back to this small little shop whenever we have time. (Well, time is a super important factor in this case. The speed of them processing the food is incredibly slow, where you have to factor in 1 hour of waiting time even if you are the first customer of the shop!)

Shop Exterior - you have to pay attention when you walk along Queen Street


Besides Garlic Rice, I have tried their various udon and macaronies too (but yet to try their sandwiches and pizza) but I'm not impressed. However, I love the ambience, and the Garlic Rice make sure I keep on returning to this restaurant.

Vegetarian Udon

Bacon Udon

cute arts on sales

Very nice to see, too hot to sit :)


Cozy corner

They even have an art gallery upstair

Saturday 8 December 2012

The Happiest Place On Earth

This is my 3rd visit to a Disneyland. First in California, second in Hong Kong, and here I am, back in California Disneyland again.
I am not so keen of re-visiting this place. One have learnt too much truth to actually think that this place is magical. When you see Chips and Dale walking around, I bet you are not as excited as the kids as you know someone is inside, and that someone may not even love chipmunks.

I really wish to spend more time exploring LA. However, since I have promised the little girl if she accompany me to US, I will accompany her to the theme parks, so here we are, taking photos with Mickey and friends as everyone does.

Well, based on what I said earlier, you may think I wouldn't really enjoy myself in this theme park. Haha! you are so wrong! I love every moment of it! How could you not fall in love with the happiest place on earth? Laughters are everywhere, the kids are putting smile on everyone's face, the aura in this place is pure happiness.


To ensure we don't regret in the future,we decided to get ourselves a USD125/pax park-hopping-1-day-ticket. Our first target is the Car Land at California Adventure Land. Unfortunately the Radiator Spring Racers was broken and the FASTPASS were concluded for the day early in the morning! Well, still, Car Land is a great place since I love Radiator Spring. I even met Mater and it's fun! (We did came back to check for Radiator Spring Racers later in the afternoon and the queue was 2.5hours long. Sigh...... I don't have time for this.)
We then got ourselves enough dosage of 3D/4D, roller coaster, and got ourselves real wet too before we head to Disneyland Park. 
For Disneyland Park, we have only one thing each in our must do list: I MUST be on the Star Tours while Ching Ching will not leave Disneyland without the Space Mountain.
Our strategy was to get the FASTPASS of these 2 rides first, then have some shopping before come back to these rides later.













After getting our Star Tours FASTPASS, we ran to Space Mountain only to find out that the FASTPASS were concluded for the day too! We were so disappointed! The queue was so long and I don't think I would like to spend one or two hours standing in the queue doing nothing in Disneyland. The Disneyland worker taking care of the Space Mountain FASTPASS must have felt our "pain", (or we must be just too cute to be ignore :p), he decided to show us a magic, and pulled out two overdue FASTPASS from behind of my ears, and let us walk down the Space Mountain FASTPASS lane immediately! So touched!

As a die hard Star Wars fans and a person that grow up with Disney cartoons and movies, Star Tours is like a dream come true for me. The ride itself got nothing to shout about (3D / 4D rides no longer impress me nowadays, a bit boring actually :p), however, walking in the queue while "boarding" felt like boarding on a space ship that got something to do with the Rebel Alliance, besides, R2D2 and C3PO are talking (and beep-ing) non-stop, assisting you during the boarding. After the ride, you will come to a store selling everything about Star Wars, from T-shirts to models, from  light sabers to phone covers, caps, mugs, pins, stationaries, lego, jackets etc. The Force is strong in here. I almost went crazy!
Since I do not have specifically any other rides in mind, I spent almost an hour in the store admiring all these cute figures and got Wei, En and myself some cute T-shirt.


Having fun with Mickey-Ears-R2D2-hat
I'm having Jedi training 





















After having fun with everything Star Wars, of course, we still find time for pirates and wandering around the park. Our last itinerary in Disneyland was the parade at Main Street U.S.A. (no fireworks on the day of our visit). After the parade, we rushed back to California Adventure Land for World of Colour. There were already a lot of people gathering at Paradise Pier. We have to squeeze ourselves in to get a spot that both of us at least can see the Mickey's Fun Wheel. (Make sure you got yourself a FASTPASS for better viewing location. We were too busy having fun, forgot to collect our FASTPASS for World of Colour and ended up got to stand at some lousy location).
When the show started, everyone was awed. The vibrant lights illuminated fountains dance to mesmerizing music. The classic characters of Disney and Pixar appear magically on the mist screen. That's really a magical, vibrant 25 minutes! Don't miss this!


Sunday 2 December 2012

为了Julia Child

其实,在Julie & Julia之前,我根本从来没有听过Julia Child的大名。看了电影后,也不知道是不是为了Meryl Streep的个人魅力,还是为了Julia Child的真性情,反正我就喜欢上这个大情大性的著名美食家。这一次到美国西岸,做功课时无意中发现了一家名为La Super-Rica Taqueria的墨西哥餐厅,说是Julia Child当年的心头所爱,我就毫不犹豫地把它列入我的行程。我食量小,所以偏爱taco这种小吃,吃起来完全没有内疚或罪恶感。再加上美国西南部本来就受墨西哥文化影响,把墨西哥食物当午餐是再正常不过的选择。

我们在Pacific Coast Highway一路走走停停地来到了Santa Barbara。正好肚子有点儿饿了,人有点儿累了,正是最适合让好食物来暖肚的时刻。GPS把我们带到一家毫不起眼的小店,那时候已经过了午餐时间,也不觉得也别多人,但总是陆陆续续看见有人捧着一大盒的食物从里头走出来。我带着探索的兴奋,走进了这家远富盛名的老字号。

食物正如网上所说的那样,多样化、精巧、便宜。我在写着菜单的黑板前发呆,最后决定把抉择的责任交给看起来最老经验的掌柜。他很尽责地介绍了几个非吃不可的经典,我凭感觉随口说了两个,就会去座位等他叫我们的号码。号码响起后顾客得自己到柜台取食物。由于没有为顾客提供服务,我们省却了给贴士的烦恼。真好!
才美金7.88
这是非常正宗的墨西哥菜,肉味洋溢。我最喜欢的是他们的salsa,香菜、番茄等很有层次地为酸辣之外增加鲜香口感。绝对价廉物美。最重要是分量适中,我们轻轻松松就可以把它吃完,不必互相推卸责任。

厨师很熟练的准备着食物
想象着,当年Julia Child就坐在这靠窗的位子,
享受着飘溢的香味和人来人往的热闹……