Just Pizza! @ Gurney Plaza

Just Pizza! is a pizza outlet that recently opened in Gurney Plaza (I'm pretty sure that it bears no relation to the US pizza franchise). Anyway, being a sucker for trying out anything new, we had dinner there one night.

Set meals are available and comes with the standard trimmings: soft drinks, garlic bread, soup and pizza. As we were not feeling adventurous, we only ordered the BBQ chicken pizza set that night.

I was mildly surprised when my soft drink arrived - we actually get one canned drink + a tall glass of ice each. That's pretty... generous by our local standards, hehe.

Garlic bread was served next and it tasted pretty good. There was a generous amount of baked cheese spread on top and it was done just nice - not too salty, still warm and with melt-in-the-mouth texture ;)

We had 2 choices of soup - tomato and mushroom, so we decided to go for both.
Unfortunately, both were a bit too watery for my taste... I thought that the soup lacked the creamy rich texture we normally expect.

Finally the pizza arrived :)
I'd give full points for the appearance alone - lovely colors, so attractive :P
Look at the generous toppings - I especially loved the liberal amount of cheese! Also, the thickness of the crust is around 1 cm so each mouthful had the flavors combined tasted just nice.
The BBQ sauce was too sweet though... not suitable for ppl with high blood sugar :(

There are a lot of pizza varieties there so I'm looking forward to my next foray there! ciao!

cherry blossom @ sungai ara

Lunch at Cherry Blossom.

As usual we ordered the green curry chicken

Deep fried vegetables - yummy!

Mango kerabu

欢喜地 gurney plaza

New place offering the standard Cantonese fare, that opened recently in Gurney Plaza.

They have value-for-money set meals on weekdays - pretty decent grub ;)

Didn't take too many pictures so there are very few pics - ladies be warned, it's a fairly large portion!

Desserts as well.

pork ribs at vintage bulgaria

feeling hungry right now.

playing around with pottery

We've been taking pottery classes for some time and the time has come to reap the fruits of our 'labor'; finally we get our chance to fool around at the wheel ;)

Last week the basic ceramic bowls were already created and left to harden slightly. Now it's time to, ahem, refine the shapes.
Before transformation - a set of sorry looking bowls.

Some random picture inserted here :x

Finally, our completed babies - a marked improvement

Earlier we 'sent' a few items for glazing and this is the finished product. Nice teacup set. Not-so-nice plate set.
Still a long way to go, towards mastering the art of pottery. sigh.

The Sire museum restaurant, King Street

I happened to be browsing through some old photos and came across some photos from an earlier visit to The Sire, that I personally find to be worth sharing.

The Sire Museum Restaurant is a fine dining place that doubles as a museum showcasing Baba and Nyonya culture. It is located along King's Street near the AIA building. At first glance, the place looks simple and unassuming. But once we stepped inside, we were blown away by the lovely, spacious interior.

Besides the main dining area, there are also seats available on the 1st floor.

At the end of the entrance corridor, there are steps leading to the dining area upstairs.

The drinks bar.
On one side, there are living, breathin' creeper plants grown right on the wall, that makes a very interesting showpiece. It's rather rare especially in PG ;)

Since it's a museum restaurant, there were plenty of knickknacks for us to explore. Beyond the dining area was a very well-maintained museum of sorts, dedicated to highlighting the Baba and Nyonya lifestyle in the good ol days.

There were 4 levels. The ground floor even had some sort of indoor pond - was it meant as a koi pond? By the way, I read somewhere that the entire Baba collection belonged to the late Yeap Chor Ee.
I have a thing for spiral staircases - don't you think that they are really fascinating?

I really, really love it...
From the 1st floor, I was struck again by how spacious the place is! It's a big contrast with the modest exterior...
There are loads and loads of Baba artifacts, beautifully preserved. The pic above is part of the wood carvings on a traditional 4-poster bed.

A lot of the furniture had mother-of-pearl decoration in flower motives.

Enough bout the interior layout, let's move on to the food! :) For drinks we ordered coffee with Irish whiskey / Bailey's. The coffee was strong and aromatic, with a generous splash of liqour - not for non-drinkers!


Grilled red snapper - the flesh was succulent and sweet. A must-try!


The seafood spaghetti. Some might find it to their liking but I thought they went a bit overboard with the herbs and spices - my taste buds were overwhelmed with the strong and spicy gravy.


The mushroom soup with generous servings of chopped mushrooms. Complemented perfectly by the toast with cheese.

For dessert, we had the apple creme brulee served with ice-cream. Now I personally am not a great fan of creme brulee but I found this one to be served just nice - not too sweet and rich.

Ended the night with great satisfaction - I'd definitely bring my friends there for a more extensive meal next time!

hard rock hotel, batu feringghi, penang

Hard Rock Hotel was officially opened on 19 september this year. Two weeks later we decided to try out one night's stay, just for fun. After all, it's the very first Hard Rock Hotel in Malaysia :P

Upon arrival the first impression I had of the hotel was the minimalist design and layout of the hotel lobby (below).

Being welcomed by the Beatles once you step into the hotel.

People could sit and relax while listening to the in-house band jamming every night.

There are a number of Lagoon suites, each with their own lounging deck and direct access to the swimming pool.

Bird's eye view of the suites from our balcony (yes, it's facing the sea!)

Saw a couple of beach cabanas - ideal for lazing the day away :)

Side note:

The hotel is occupying the same spot as the former Casuarina Hotel. As I recall the most memorable thing about Casuarina was its long stretch of sandy beaches with plenty of trees and shade. I was a bit let-down to see the gigantic swimming pool occupying most of the space, with a few sorry-looking palms here and there. Furthermore, the gardens weren't exactly... neat. Should have put more effort into the landscaping.. >.<

Enough of the hotel compound... it's time to check in!

We received a special gift to mark the hotel opening. It's a 'platinum record', beautifully framed and with it's unique serial number. Fabulous ;)

Even the bed sheets had guitar prints. Oh. and did I mention that the bed was really, really comfortable? :P

The hotel bathroom. If viewed from sideways, the space seems to stretch into infinity...

Back to the lobby... saw the quirky signs for the washroom. Very cute.

The King of Pop, sitting outside the entrance of Hard Rock Cafe.

I wanted to take a lot more photos but unfortunately my camera battery ran out.

Overall we left generally satisfied with our one-night stay. Next time it would be to catch the Hard Rock Cafe in action (it was fully booked so we decided to come back on some other day) !