Little Taiwan @ MidValley

Shop name : Little Taiwan
Location : Midvalley, 3rd Floor (Rating : 3/5)
Food type : Taiwanese noodles, rice, desserts, snacks, fancy drinks e.g. Bubble Tea

This is a cute little shop on the 3rd floor of MidValley (near the cinema, same row as McDonald's). I've passed by this shop numerous time but never felt like stopping by to try. I finally tried it two weekends ago, but I was too busy eating and forgot to take any pictures. This time around, I make sure I took pictures when the food is served.

We ordered not too fancy drinks, just simple and plain Jasmine Green Tea and Bubble Red Tea. I didn't notice too much bubble though, but the Jasmine Green Tea smelled fragrant and good as a thirst quencher.

I wanted to have something spicy, so I ordered Spicy Ramen. You could the layer of chilli oil floating on top, with lots of "gau choy" (long strips of vege that looks like sprind onions), some beansprouts, corn, and 2 big chicken meat balls. I didn't enjoy it too much, I guess you have to slurp down the soup to enjoy the taste. But it was too oily for my liking.

Another dish we ordered was the fried glassnoodle ("Tung Fun"). The chinese name in the menu was quite cute, literal translation of it would be "Ants climbing up the tree". Of course I could see no ants, and I still can't figure which part of the dish resembles the ants. Anyway, it was a simple dish, although I didn't taste it, I thought it looked good.

We also ordered a side dish, fried dumplings ("wo tip"). This is one of my favourite side dishes. The meat was succulent enough, and the vinegar dip goes well with it.

This shop offers quite a variety of noodles and rice dishes served in Taiwanese style. The side dishes is a must try. We tried the Tempura (chinese name is "tian bu la", which means sweet but not spicy), is a nice try. The fried pieces goes well with the chilli dip, and the taste is addictive! Here're the pictures of what we had, and I'll definitely return to try out more of their side dishes :P

Little Taiwan shop	Jasmine Green Tea & Red Tea
Spicy Ramen Noodles (*chinese name "Ma La Ramen")	Fried Glassnoodles (*chinese name translation was "Ants crawling up the tree")
Fried dumplings with ginger strips & vinegar dip

Movies: Contract Lover

Classification: U
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Running Time: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
Starring: Richie JenBingBing FanYuen WahKate Tsui
Synopsis & review : http://www.cinemaonline.com.my/movie/movie.asp?search=contractlover

I had wanted to watch Ratatouille (yup, I got that spelling right) last weekend, but it was almost full house, so I chose to watch this cantonese movie - Contract Lover. It turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable watch, that I had to recommend this movie to you.

I've always loved to watch Richie's movies, his movies are always humourous and his character is always oh-so-cool :P Another reason to watch this movie is the pretty main actress, Fan Bing Bing. Some of you may remember her as the maid who acted alongside XiaoYenZhi in the popular Taiwanese series.

The storyline is simple and predictable, but look out for the supporting characters who are quite interesting to watch too. The dialogues made me laughed so hard, and before you knew it, the movie was coming to an end. So if you have time to spare, and would like to watch a love comedy, I recommend that you watch this. Also, remember to stay till the very end, as the show snippets are fun to watch too.

The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

Just finished reading this book, The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. Let me quote the book synopsis from amazon -

"Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world, and this tenth anniversary edition, with a new introduction from the author, will only increase that following. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts. "

Paulo is a famous Brazilian author, we wrote this bestseller. This book has been translated and sold millions throughout the world. I was amazed at how a simple story infused with magical, folklore and myths can turn into a bestseller. The book is quite thin actually, you can finish it within half a day.

The story is quite philosophical, the things in life are described inexplictly. It took me awhile to understand what the author is trying to tell, and makes you think about your life. It looks at dreams and challenges in your life, and the presevere and determination to achieve it. It also tells about things that matter to you, the sacrifices you make, and your beliefs.

There's one thing which I remember clearly after reading this book - "How often can money buy your life?". The alchemist in the story had used 50 pieces of gold to buy 3 more days to live. Yes, money is important, but it almost never buy lives. We often view money as something very important and some will even die for it. It makes me rethink the value of money, and how we should use it when it matters most, and not to die/loss sleep for it for unworthy reasons.

If you have read this book before, share with me what you think about this book. And do check out Paulo's website : http://www.paulocoelho.com/ It does look kinda cool :)

Hiking at Bukit Gasing

I'm planning to conquer the highest peak in South East Asia come this September. So I'm not missing any opportunities to stretch my muscles, drench in sweat, and tired myself out till I drop. I've been sticking to my gym schedule, and running up and down the treadmills, on the "Weight losing, fat burning" programs and difficulty levels of "Mountain, Fitness"..haha.. You get the idea..

Bukit Gasing is well known for the nature lovers, it's so near, yet I've never been to it. So last Saturday, I joined N and his colleagues for a hiking trip. We reached slightly before 8am, and I was surprised to see the road leading to the hill was packed with cars packing at the road side (and I thought we were still considered early, shame shame..) There were people who have already sweated out and finished their hiking routine. A group of senior citizens were doing tai chi at small playground nearby.

We're so confident of ourselves, that we decided to take the hardest route. Fortunately for us (maybe just myself), the "hardest" was still fine. It was definitely easier than what I've done before in my previous hiking trips. Yeah, sure, there were some difficult areas, but my gym trainings paid off well (and I'm actually quite proud of it :P)

The entire hiking trip took about 1.5 hours, though it might have been shorter if not because of the number of people in the group. There's a watching tower which you can climb up and have a view of the PJ town, and also a hanging bridge, which is not too challenging ( I think the bridge in FRIM would be more interesting and the view is more spectacular). Anyway, that was just some of the "highlights" during the hike. Oh, there was one guy who looked like he was on some kind of a mission, jogging past us twice during our hike. I heard he is training to climb Mt Everest. Haha...so I guess we're on the right track, yup, surround yourself with positive and enthusiastic people...and feel the "energy".

We did take some photos, but have yet to get my hands on it. Will be posting some of the photos when I get them. Here's the map to the place though.

Makan-makan: Folded pancakes @ Taman Segar Pasar Malam

Location : Pasar malam at Taman Segar (opposite of Leisure Mall), every Friday night

Rating : 5/5

Food type : Snack

We happened to catch the "Ho Chiak" episode on one of the weekends, and notice that the place was so familiar. Sure enough, it was in Taman Segar, one of our usual hangout places. So we decided to check it out. There's this one stall operated by a Chinese-Thai guy, with his assistant. They sell these folded crispy pancakes with various stuffings to choose from eg. chicken floss, banana, chocolate, raisins, mayonnaise, chilli sauce etc. They also sell some smaller softer pancakes, which is stuffed with kaya, bean paste and sweet corn. We had a go at the crispy version, and it was worth the waiting. Mind you, there's a queue if you want to taste this.

It's quite easy to locate this stall. It's a mini-van stall, located on the left side of the street if you are coming from Leisure Mall. And you can also see they've hung up printed paper of their stall being featured on "Ho Chiak". It was situated in front of a bakery shop when we visited it. It's thumbs up, I tried the banana-raisins-chocolate version, and i must say the taste blended quite well.