This is one of my favorite breakfast place in Melaka, that I have put off blogging about it too often.  The Yong Tau Fu noodle comes with a bowl of noodle and a bowl of Yong Tau Fu.  The noodle has some kind of special oil that makes it very tasty.  In addition, those who loves chili can douse with the chili provided.  For those who like me, just love the natural taste, the rich fried onion with oil taste makes the noodle appetizing.  On the Yong Tau Fu, they have all the regular stuff, stuff chili, stuff bitter gourd, stuff ladies fingers, stuff tau fu and my favorite, fried fish ball and fried tau kee. 

The restaurant is located very close to Bukit Cina (map below) on Jalan Temenggong.  It is actually a block to the left of the Gurdwara center.  It is actually opposite Seng Heng, you can’t miss it.  They finish serving by 10am. 

Our surprise/disappointment turn excitement when we saw the map to the new Foh San restaurant plastered on the side.  After a couple of wrong turns, we came to this grand restaurant that we did not expect of.  Foh San has turn from a corner kopi tiam to a double storey 5 shops wide restaurant.  It was massive and great, you can witness it in the pictures below. It was already the third day of opening, and the restaurant was still buzzing with patrons as if opening day.  We had to wait for a good 10-15 minutes before we get a seat, and after that another 5-10 minutes before the table were served and our tea was ordered.

After successfully settling down, we just accept the offer of the first cart that came by, some kind of cheong fun with pork and prawn.  It was much better than the regular prawn cheong fun that they served.  We ordered a few more fried and steam stuff before picking up our tab and left.  The food was cold and the service was horrible.  But we understand as there are just too many people.  I don’t think any restaurant can give proper service and food quality in such capacity…

[Show as slideshow]

Here are a few tilt shift photos that I’ve made from my recent trip up to Komtar Tower.  The view from the 60th floor was breath taking and provided a totally different perspective of Penang.  The day was also very cooperative with very little haze.  We could see as far as Butterworth BORR, Tg. Bungah, Penang Hill and Bayan Lepas.  Georgetown is still mostly covered by pre-war buildings.  High rise buildings are mostly found at the seafront like Gurney and the new Jelutong Expressway.  There is a sense of calmness viewing the city from the 60th floor, its the feeling that you get viewing a landscape or city from a mountain or a high location.  One can get lost in time dwelling at such locations. 

The Komtar Tower viewing platform was previously the Tower Restaurant.  Only in recent years, when the restaurant closes, this place was open up for public.  Sad to say, the place was poorly maintain with a few chairs and tables close to the windows, and the rest of the floor was empty.  This is far from KL tower nor those tower view abroad.  The good thing was that we were the only visitor there, we got the entire floor to our selves, unlike we have to fight for view in KL Tower or in Japan.  I believe the RM15 entrance fee may have contributed to the lack of traffic. 

Once arrive at the 60th floor, we were greeted by a friendly lady which sold us the tickets and gave us a bottle of water and two postcards each.  I guess this is the management’s lame way of making up for RM15 entrance fee.  The place looked liken an abandon empty building and it display the management’s lack of commitment to truly turn this into a tourist destination.  There is a vast potential for such a place, look at KL Tower for one, constant flow of tourist from abroad and locals as well.  When I was in Tokyo, their viewing tower was located at their City Council building as well and was also packed with local and foreign tourist.  If the management lack the will to make this tower a tourist destination with complete facility, maybe the building management should look into tendering this out to other companies that has interest, if not, at least run it as a state own non profit org. 

The place certainly lacks a few fundamental items that are a must have in such viewing facility.

1. A map of what you are looking at, with names of the famous buildings (located at each window plane)
2. A free view finder to get a closer look at the city
3. A few souvenir shops to remember Penang by. 
4. A restaurant for tourist to chill and get lost in time. 

Nevertheless, the view from up the tower was breath taking and provided plenty of opportunity for tilt shift photography or post processing tilt shift. 

Over the weekend, there will be chopsticks delivery, wedding receptions, gold exchanges, and a little shopping in KL. All this leaves no time and no room to bring the laptop along, which means, no web access, no checking of news through reader, no email, no blogging and no facebook.

Maybe one year from now, I can get a WiMax Netbook, so that I can all of the above while delivering chopsticks, attending wedding receptions and exchanging gold during the Chinese Wedding Ceremony.  Yea, I know… lame… 

So, switch off the net when you are busy…

I was fortunate enough to have a team building over at Rasa Sayang Shangri-la hotel in Penang last friday, and to end the wonderful evening we were treated with a sumptuous Seafood Buffet dinner at the Spice Garden. I have heard quite a lot about the seafood buffet, especially the price.nbsp; A lot of my friends and colleagues have tried them. The buffet was around RM155 per person. Only the weekend they have the seafood buffet with all you can eat baby lobster and a hefty price tag. In a nutshell, the buffet was excellent and the lobster was the item that I enjoyed the most. We were there as early as 6.30pm, the time the Spice Garden Cafe open. Within 15-20 minutes, the cold baby lobster was all finish, and was promptly replaced with giant prawns. Seams like no refill on this item. The ‘hot’ baby lobster which are being fried by the restaurant chef are being served free flow. However, there are usually a queue on this item. I find the cold baby lobster taste richer than those cooked with spices, and so I was not that much of a fan of the spice fried baby lobsters. The lamb satay was nice, and so was the Japanese food selection.nbsp; Sashimi was of course a hot item. I did not pay much attention to the Chinese section, very few actually took the offered noodles. The only items worth mentioning were the shark fin soup and soft shell crab. For dessert, the Cheese Cake was great, again, was not refilled when it was finish. I got a tip from one of my colleague when I question her why she went for cheese cake a few minutes after we started. Indeed, when finish, it was replaced with some other cakes, not that interesting. There was crepe, and a good selection of chocolate fondue. In Summary, recommended under company expense, if you were to pay your own, better go to the Feringgi Grill, for better food and ambiance.

[Show as slideshow]

12►