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) !

japanese buffet at Eastern and Oriental (E&O) Hotel

Last Wednesday we decided to go for the Japanese theme buffet at E&O Hotel. Not long ago, we tried out the weekend buffet there and it was fabulous - so we were thinking this time around there's something special on offer as well :)

We arrived at Sarkie's Corner around 7PM, when the buffet was well under way. Business was very good that night with all tables fully booked.

We made a beeline for the fresh seafood section. At a glance most of the buffet items were similar to the weekend buffet's.

Fresh scallops, mussels, oysters and prawns...

and raw salmon of course. Oh the other side there was a chef making hand rolled sushi but I didn't capture any pic :P

The scallops and prawns were fresh and succulent. superb!

A modest selection of cheese is also available with crackers. We didn't try it this time due to lack of gastronomic space.

Unagi was not bad... quite fresh and without that fishy smell that some people dislike.

Deep fried shishamo, shrimp, sotong and brinjal (and a huge pile of french fries)

The miso soup. Now this tasted horrible - the only black mark on an otherwise perfect buffet

Roast duck and chicken wings.

One of the cold dishes - lamb with mint paste. Forgot the exact name...

Ham, crabsticks, sliced duck breast, century eggs and more..

After gorging on the main dishes it's time to turn our attention to the desserts..

There was a nice combination of cakes, pastries, puddings. But this being a Japanese buffet, I was hoping to see something more unique... am I asking for too much?

Layer cakes that tasted reaaaally similar to Jenny's of Pulau Tikus :P

Cheese cakes..

Even sago :)

==will update more later==