Perpetual Tockism

If there was anything that could match Bubbagum’s signature shrimp dishes, without the hefty cost and all, this would be it. And if the shrimps were already this good, Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen is more so famed for its Southern Fried Chicken, according to a friend who resides in the US. This fast food concept restaurant is however new in town, opening to the public just a mere 24 hours ago much to the delights of TTDI residents.

It just so happen that I was blessed to be invited as one of the test tasters for a private function last Sunday. Go me

 

Among the variety of food they serve, I personally liked the shrimps the most. Each bite-sized morsel is a tasty piece of bouncing flesh, without too much batter just to make it look big.

 

Peeling off the fried better outing, you can see the freshness of the shrimps themselves. I don’t think there is any need to describe the springy-looking, succulent shrimp in greater detail. Firm and bouncy, each bite is truly a delight to be salvaged.

 

My, how I’ve missed my fix of Southern Fried Chicken! Back in my London days, I used to have this fix every now and then for SFC thanks to its really cheap price and it’s always guaranteed to be tasty! Definitely a must try, very different compared to KFC’s or McD’s! I think the mix of herbs partly attributes to the sinful taste, though I can’t really be sure… They do keep their seasonings a secret

 

A bite of my drumstick shows the tenderness of the flesh, just how I like it; so juicy and tasty that a combo set just isn’t enough to satisfy you. I thought it was a tad salty but as I remembered it, SFCs were always meant to be this way

&nsbp;

Besides shrimps and chicken, Popeye also sells Fish strips. Interestingly the fish used seems to be Catfish, pretty uncommon seeing that most fast food restaurants uses processed fish patties instead. Now this one’s a unique one; I personally love the soft and moist taste of catfish but it may not be for everyone. The translucent meat is very appetizing to me, being obviously a huge sashimi fan! Comes with a small portion of tartar sauce.

 

Signature side dishes in Popeye’s include their special mashed potato that comes in some unique sauce I haven’t encountered before. Unlike the normal thick pepperish sauce usually found in other fast food restaurants, this one seems to be a blend of spices including chilli to produce a savoury, not so thick gravy poured on top perfectly mashed potato to give you what you see above. Thrilling, I would say, certainly another interesting taste to explore.

&nsbp;

Coleslaw. Now. This is AWESOME! I’m sorry la but I’m not particularly a fan of coleslaws, but the moment I had this one I knew I found my favourite! It’s not that it uses a different mix of vegetables (or maybe it does) or that the sauce used is any different compared to others, but the simple fact that they put in finely chopped pickles into the mix to give the extra oomph in taste! Don’t worry though, the sourness in the pickled mix is so very subtle, lending a stronger hand towards the sweetness of the coleslaw, just the way I like it

 

Interestingly enough, what made Popeye stand out from the rest in the states was their unique “Biscuit”. Now noticed I had the word cleverly wrapped within quotes, and for a very good reason too. This is mainly because, get this, I don’t know why it’s called a biscuit in the first place. Looking like scones and having a very undefined texture (sort of like a baking work gone wrong) this “biscuit” looks as if it’s a hybrid between bread and biscuit, a texture that most will not have tried before. You should give it a try because I’m obviously not doing very well in describing it. Could you do better?

 

A look into a half-eaten “biscuit” shows that the inside doesn’t have the usual biscuity look. Lol.

 

Let’s move on to the burgers. For me the burgers is none other than our three main ingredients slapped into two pieces of conic bread, filled with assorted vegetables and sauces for the main sake of being mobile. As you can see the options are clearly printed onto the packaging.

 

Upon opening you’d see an oddly shaped bread, which I think is meant to make biting easier for us. Decently sized too as you will see later.

 

This one here is the catfish burger. Three slices of pickles, mayo and a fillet of breaded fish is all you see, though one might say, it’s simplicity at its best.

 

The fillet looks pretty fresh, as I made a slight cut through it. I really love it like this, though if you ask me I still cannot choose between the Fillet-O-Fish and this one. Maybe I should do a personal review on the both of it one day. Haha. Oh, don’t get me started on KFC’s burger selection, the only one worth mentioning is the Tower Zinger, the rest just suck I’m sorry.

 

Picture tells it all. NGAUM!

 

Some may find a half-eaten burger digusting but I must insist on show you how even the burger is as you take a bite off the longer end. Does it look appetizing to you? I think it does! Just test to see if you’ve drool all over your face by now haha.

 

This is the innards of the shrimp burger. Ok la got lettuce Otherwise it’s really that simple, as if it’s just meant to be a mobile version of the usual combos.

 

I’m a pig and I go NOM NOM NOM!

 

To end the meal, they serve desserts that you won’t find in normal fast food restaurants (and we’re talking about those within the same pricing okay, no Wendy’s or Carls Jr!) The one above is my favourite, strawberry cheesecake. Loved the texture, loved the taste, perfect ending.

 

I’m no fan of chocolate so I left this one out, but apparently it’s good as well.

 

After tasting through the somewhat limited variety of food I had to give suggestions and apparently they take all suggestions seriously. The partners insist that feedbacks are very important even in the fast food industry, to perfect the dishes and cater for their customers. Service is also excellent and comments were made on that. Then again, it’s really new. Let’s wait and see after a period of time goes by, shall we?

 

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: the pricing. Check it out, pretty decent if you ask me. Cheaper than KFC? McDonalds?

 

The second menu.

 

A snapshot at the counters shows hygiene was kept at an optimum level. Hopefully this will remain true over time, and I’ll make it a personal task of mine to do random spot checks, not unlike what Michelin inspectors do. You don’t know what Michelin inspectors are? I suggest you do a google on it because chances are, you’re missing out a lot on the gastronomical world.

Random fact of the day:

Kai Mayfair’s at London (near where I used to live), touted to serve the world’s most expensive soup (Buddha Jumps Over the Wall) at £108 (RM606) per bowl, is a Malaysian-owned restaurant who had just receive a Michelin star award after vigorous inspection by the Michelin team. Kudos to Bernard Yeoh and Head chef Alex Chow for achieving such a prestigious award, which is really, really tough to get! Read about it here.

 

Quite an bold and attention seeking design on the top board to entice your eyes to view it worked pretty well. Strong colours helped of course

 

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The rest are miscellaneous pictures depicting the restaurant’s interiors, feel free to view them.

Baby chairs for family use.

 

Quirky but nice toilet signages!

 

Beautiful poster for your eyes to feast on.

 

The view inside the restaurant. Non-smoking.

 

And the outside. For smokers. I think you can sort of guess the location of Popeye now. Easily found opposite KFC. Talk about rivals!

 

Thanks Dato’ for the invite! Hopefully there’ll be more like these from now on… Though I doubt I’d get anywhere near KY’s fehmesness in a loooong long while, hor?

Do visit his blog for lots food places to visit, his maps are a thing of genius haha.

 

Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, serving Chicken and Seafood. Do give it a try with your friends and family, certainly something unique to experience. Located at Taman Tun, same road where Secret Recipe is along Jalan Fuad, you’ll find it hard NOT to find

Guess where I was a few Saturdays ago? EVERYWHERE! Well, to be specific I was in Subang to pick Zoe and Hannah up for an event we all know as the Malaysian Dreamgirl Audition; 2nd series. I’m no stranger to the show, being somewhat involved in it the last time round, so it was an uncanny situation that I was to accompany two girls into the audition this time round.

In any case after much delay (we woke up late!) and who could ever forget the venue mishap (KLCC eh? Thanks Zoe ) we finally arrived at Impiana Hotel.

 

We knew we were at the right place when we were greeted by the banner at the lobby of the hotel. The venue was, needless to say, a great improvement compared to its predecessing audition at the PWTC last year. Making our way through the posh and lavish interior, we managed to find the stairs going up, all this while waiting for the nervousness to start sinking in.

 

Familiar faces there were Andrew of Drewnity and Simon of the Seow. As soon as the girls made up to the auditions, Andrew came and took a picture. Both of them happened to be one of the few official bloggers for the MDG 2. I also met Diese there. Do follow their blogs for further updates, you know you want it

 

We met Dennis too! Now Dennis here is my current fav, this wasn’t the first time we met and he did recognize me although it’s been quite a while! I guess stumbling into each other at the LRT last year while I was with the ex did help juggle some memory at some point. But even so, I thought we clicked really easily and before I know it I got into a bet with him regarding some crazy ass girl and lost, but I say, the Starbucks investment was well worth it Til date we are and still do keep in touch!

 

Now this here Walter is also a familiar ol’ face He’s the first to uncover my secret identity within MDG and very sneakily hinted that time while I was at the MIFC event. He’s a great friend and a fellow gamer too. Designer at heart (he designs everything from the website to the banners in MDG!) Walter’s kindness deserves every MDG finalist’s appreciation; the crazy bitching that goes inside the house can be such mayhem that you’ll even lose your sanity!

 

Finally the online judge himself appeared. No longer a main judge in the competition though he was touted to be a very controversial judge in the last one, Kenny Sia is pretty well known with anyone who followed MDG 1. Zoe, a moderator at KNNCCB (:P) and Kenny caught up with each other after Kenny appeared suddenly at the waiting room, spotted her and said “Hey what are you doing here! (that was for me actually) And you, you’re too young to BE in this show!” and I swear I saw poor Zoe getting all embarrassed as everyone turned to her direction lol. Pretty funny if you ask me

 

The waiting period was a long one. Poor Hannah had to be in the room while Zoe and I got some grub at Subway nearby. We bought cookies for Hannah but thanks to Zoe’s kindness to her best buddy by starving the poor woman, she ate all 5 cookies up herself (ok fine, 4 and a HALF!)

Camwhoring ensued. I was in it too but I dowan show la

 

It was then when Hannah spotted something. I was amused when she got all excited and reached for my thingie. er. camera i mean. and took the shot above.
What’s wrong with it you say?

That’s what! I hope she wasn’t a contestant or something. Poor girl will surely be featured in the video if the slit got caught in video! lol

&nsbp;

Our plan to go to Youth 09 was dashed as time passed by, something I was so looking forward to. Was supposed to meet up with Hitomi there as well. Soon Hannah was called along with the batch and they waited at the waiting seats, while Zoe joined a few guys who came visiting (Joshua and Aaron). The scene wasn’t as crowded as last year admittedly, but I heard that they had pretty good candidates from the auditions outside of KL (ie Penang).

 

Instead we got invited for dinner by Nicholas Chay, in some seafood restaurant at Subang old airport. It was with Christine Diansuri and Nicole Kiss whom we made waiting no thanks to a bad incident involving me not being able to find my car at KLCC Sorry guys! Eventually though we reached and had a sumptious dinner with the whole gang, located at a place near La La Chong, called South Sea Seafood.

The crabs were amazing, but little did we know that they offered us Sri Lankan crabs without even asking us, and hence paid a hefty sum for it We decided then that we should boycott KY for not telling us about their cheating nature before hand, le sigh!

 

Though I suppose it may be quite worth it, thanks to the dishes we had. All yummy, the girls had no problem finishing them up. Everybody was using their hands to eat the crabs, finishing up the fried rice, steamed seafood egg and spinach which I thought was a lot of food for the four of us! (Nicole and friends left because we came really late. Can’t blame them :/ Thanks to Christine for staying on with us though)

 

All in all the day was really fun though exhausting. I’ve lost the number of times the girls slept in the car, me getting all stressed up because things weren’t going the way it was supposed to be, bloody rain causing jam and unnecessary hinders and Zoe’s missing tongue stud (the waiters took the plate where she placed it on away) sort of soured the experience.

Upon hindsight, though, it was a pretty cool experience! Being with the girls from morning till night, watching them do random catfights and allowing my nails to be painted (Nick Chay also kena) was stupid but some how made me light-hearted Fetching Dennis and friend home also added to the happiness

It was so fun that we didn’t go straight home after dinner; we managed to catch Bedtime Stories thanks to Nick Chay which sorta ended the day with a great happy (and funny) note, what’s more with Hannah going all high and crazy in the car as we fetched them all back home… Just watching them made me happy and all worries about giving them a bad day (in terms of time organisation) evaporated completely… how nice

 

I guess I really can’t wait for the next outing, really

Coming up…

Series of Compilation for reference	Back-dated posts til date!
1. Compilation of Holidays 2. Compilation of Hawker Food Series 3. Compilation of Posh Food Series 4. Compilation of Achievements 5. Compilation of Self-Organized Activities 6. Compilation of Nuffnang Events 7. Compilation of Gadgets 8. Compilation of Computers 9. Compilation of Ideologies & Good Will	1. Rest of Bali journals 2. Rest of Ibiza journals 3. Popeye’s Chicken & Seafood @ Taman Tun 4. Dinner with Cheesie 5. Golfing with KY & Horng 6. My beautiful ornaments 7. Nokia Insider: Launch of Nokia Xpress 5600 8. Clubbing @ Ruumz & Metropol Launch 9. YCM with CEO of Societe Generale IB

As Chinese New Year looms upon us all, major shopping malls have just stored away their Christmas decorations, to be replaced by even more fancy CNY festive decorations! One such scene is the scene you got above.

 

It wasn’t long before I got caught into this one in, shouting among shouts abt their new pizza called the Golden Fortune Cheesy Crown. LIKE WTH RIGHT!
It didn’t take me long to get seated and the next thing i knew, the waitress was called, pizza ordered and there I was alone thinking how was i supposed to finish a regular pizza all by myself.

 

This was a sneak preview on how the pizza looks. Needless to say it opened up the dam in my mouth.

 

I stole this menu to put it up in my office cubicle, cause it’s all cute and that. Don’t you think so? That tantalizing shot of the pizza coupled with the design of the meny, so CNY-ish!

 

I even tested taking photos while waiting, just so that there won’t be any awkwardness with people staring later, wondering what on earth was I trying to do. On hindsight my actions could have made them think that I was stealing their pizza idea!

 

Finally the arrival of the main guest commenced, and there I was staring down at it. Somehow I really, really missed those days when we were served pizza inside these black pans, now that’s what I call authenticity! Then I reminded myself this was a flat crust pizza. DARN. I really love thick pan crusts. While most people throw them away I actually gobble these down in glee!

 

Just for comparison sake I took one piece out of the circle, and hold it up against my palm. As you can see, regular ain’t so regular after all, the portion was pretty small! But I was still fascinated by the shape of the whole damn thing lol. Filled with chunks of tuna, crabmeat stick and other seafood-y stuff, how appetizing to!

 

At least one thing’s for sure, their tempura prawns were generously scattered throughout the pizza. If there were just a miserable small number of it, us as the customers would have noticed and suddenly prosperity wouldn’t have sounded like its meaning should have now, would it? lol

 

Without further ado I took my first bite at it. You know what blew me away? The tangy mayonnaise, pineapple and the prawn tempura! What a combination of flavour! I was so certain I could finish the whole damn thing, nevermind that the base wasn’t made out of the typical tomato-based sauce, or that the little cheese-pouch crust looks too heavy for full consumption by just one person!

 

But it was, and soon I started trying out how to finish them without feeling over-powered by those powerfully packed pouch of cheesie goodness. This includes adding chilli on top of it. This wasn’t too bad, kinda adds to the sweetness actually. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but I do like a wonderful mix of flavours to tantalize my taste buds!

 

Though that didn’t fully do the trick for me. Soon I was getting bored with the taste and texture. Too much of the same thing does that to you. I proceeded to just take really yummy shots of them individual pieces without eating them.

 

Already in my head I knew I had to take these away, and maybe consume it in the office. Which I did, but unfortunately even time didn’t help; the bungkused portion was eventually brought home and stuffed in the fridge, which still remains in the same position until today. Guess it was reaaallly too filling for one person, and now that i’ve tried it, albeit too much, I probably wouldn’t wanna taste it again anytime soon.

Lesson learned? Do NOT attempt to have a regular sized pizza on your own because it’s not that you won’t be able to finish it, you’d just feel so “muak” for eating the same thing over and over again that your body will reject it simply altogether lol.

 

That was about it really. I love this place though, one of the few Pizza Huts in town to actually look classy.

 

Then again, everything at Pavilion was classy. Just tag the word “Signature” on it and you get a 6-star design with all our fast-food restaurants established in it. Kinda interesting if you took note of this fact a while back And you would do good to notice that McDonalds couldn’t be part of this plan, I wonder why

 

In any case, the total amount spent was RM30-ish, definitely way over budget! I was fine though, cause I really just wanted to give it a test try, and doing it alone was kind of cool, with all those waiter and waitresses staring at you thinking if you were some kind of bigshot. Even other customers couldn’t resist taking a peek on this guy who was camwhoring while enjoying his food, as if he was in his own world. Which I was really

There’s just something about CNY that affects everyone, and for this case, it was for the better. And with this entry, it’ll mark a season of CNY dinners for time to come. I’d like to wish everyone good luck in trying to slim down before putting on noticeable weight at the end of the day!!