Perpetual Tockism

I had the pleasure to accompany Cindy Tey, otherwise known as Jade Zheng, to a blogger’s makan and minum session at G.A.B. (that’s Guinness Anchor Berhad) and though we had a heavy downpour , I still managed to arrive at her place in time and send the both of us to G.A.B. factory located at the left side of the “fake” penang bridge going towards Kepong/Sunway (really, you can’t miss it!)

The large signboard that stood out among the other kilangs in the vicinity

 

Inside the vast compound there were a few buildings, each with their specific functions.

We were led to Building 2, which wasn’t the building where they brew fresh drafts of beer (I was honestly disappointed but Jasmine who works for Heineken said she might do a tour one day!) but where they placed an English-looking pub-esque bar for their staff and guests to have a pint or two after a hard day’s work.

Just looking at the bar above brings back nostalgic memories of my days in London

 

Then there was this really nice Saxophonic looking dispenser, it looks so cool that I couldn’t resist putting it up here without any reason whatsoever lol.

Anyway on with the show!

 

Have you heard of the joke where for every pint of beer you drink, your partner looks better and better?

Well, apparently it’s true according to certain researchers! However in this context, and I testify for it myself, Cindy never changed throughout my Heineken-filled night; she looked as gorgeous as ever from the beginning to the end!

 

Us with our pint of good ol’ premium Heineken, world-class stuff

 

The Heineken Affair

One of the latest initiative by Heineken all around the world is their launch of their latest online gaming project called the Star Finale 2009 that I found really exciting!

Those who’ve heard of their past gaming initiatives will know that this is by no means new, in fact, the last event I’d been to was soccer-related in a bid to win this 3-player online game in order to win a trip fully sponsored by Heineken to Krabi!

My team which consisted of Andrew and Joshua lost out to KY‘s team, made of Suanie and Horny Horng (and it was all my fault *whimpers*) who later went on to win the game, which will mean they get sent to Krabi to watch one of the biggest Champion League game (Suanie would probably just enjoy the stars drinking Heineken, dunno what she’ll want to do with those balls anyway )

I, meanwhile, would prefer to eye myself on the Star Final: Journey to the finale! and win it with style

Creating and customizing your own ship, allowing it to journey for at least 5 days and at the same time able to drop messages for your fellow friends or enemies to read (HAHA SLOW POKE!) and imagining their creaming faces when they receive them, and to top it all… combining into one super large fleet of forces all heading towards the same path, lead by our Nuffnang leaders Tim and Ming to collect major points, doesn’t all that sound so exciting for you?!

Well it does for me, so why don’t you all go ahead and head to http://starfinal.com and register first, and when Tim finally starts his fleet we can all join forces to create the largest fleet ever to cross the ocean! (Don’t forget we’re competing with other countries as well! As far as I know Italy is already having more than 200 registered users since the site launched 3 days ago)

 

Many of us were quite excited as it was explained to us. It then occurred to me that this could be the reason for us being gathered together that night, but Natasha of Compass Communications tells me that it really is for providing us free food and free flow of Heineken all night long. Go figure *winks*

 

And oh looky what we have here. Like watch cinema is it, the two of you! sheesh lol.

 

Beer Tapping

The rest of the pictures are of us learning the proper way to beer tap, taught by our friendly expert bartender. Enjoy!

Cindy tapping it good. The secret really lies on getting a very cold frosted pint mug.

 

Audrey finding it hard to reach for the levers. In actual fact you have to know when to start pulling the lever, and when to stop.

 

Done correctly, you won’t overspill the foam which is a skill that takes months of experience to achieve!

 

Robb shows that you need muscles to pull off a good tap. Unfortunately for him he’s giving the wrong focus here; concentrate on the tapping man, not the showing off!

 

Tim takes his stand; he was supposed to be the saviour of the male species since the girls were doing far better than the guys. Unfortunately he didn’t know another secret of tapping was to put the frosted mug in exactly 45 degrees to reduce the foam!

 

You’d think Gareth the White Man would pull it off like a natural. Think again, his overconfidence literally overflowed as he confidently took a gamble at pulling a quick draft equated to spilling more than a quarter of its contents.

 

And so the newly-botak Kenny took the stage. With all eyes concentrated on him, he tried pulling off all the secrets that he learned while watching the rest make a fool of themselves.

 

It was an epic failure. He forgot that the final secret to tapping is that the pressure used to START moving the lever up and STOP by placing the lever back in place has to be very precise in order to create no foam in the beginning, and a little foam at the end.

Kinda like the opposite of what he achieved. LAWL.

 

A Blogger’s Disease

is the inability to control themselves when the cameras are out and hunting. The rest of the pictures constitutes glamorous camwhoring and classic posing, feel free to puke at disgust in our vanity and self-absorbed nature.

Red-faced Christopher Tock with Cindy

 

Audrey and Huai Bin doing the Mary Poppin’s children pose + Ella ella ella moments

 

Robb the hottie with Cindy

 

KY, Mellissa (who’s leaving us tomorrow night to Aussie *sobs*) and Cindy Tey (CT- same initials as me!)

 

Gareth ShaolinTiger and Audrey. I was laughing as I took the photo. What, not funny meh? HAHAHAH!

 

How he got botak. Not every time you can catch him like this… unless he does it every year, that is.

Don’t think he will.

 

Ewe Tiam, as I fondly know him as (Tim to the rest of you) and CT2 (CT-squared, geddit? HAHA!)

 

One classic Chris Tock signature toilet-pose served right up yours, like it or not.

 

Before we adjourned, Cindy decided to be naughty and took a glass of Guinness Draft. Not a very nice thing to do since our dear Jasmine, Heineken’s BRAND MANAGER (lol) was right beside us

 

And finally our very own Simon Seow who magically pops out of everywhere, til the point when one never gets surprised anymore to see Simon wherever we go. lol!

 

Ok thanks bai think that was worth every second grinded into this post.

Thanks Nuffnang for everything, and congratulations again on your 2nd Anniversary!

From the moment I followed the birth of your idea, followed by the manifestation 2 years ago and finally coming to the 2nd year of not only getting international recognition as a multi-million, multi-national business, you clearly influenced the advertising world in Asia and drove them into the new digital age, while making sure to take care of the online community that you’ve slowly built from a base from mere hundreds into what it is now, what, say a 80,000 network of bloggers across Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Australia?

 

Kudos, people of Nuffnang. You should be proud of yourselves, just as I am proud of you, probably along with many others out there

WARNING: Creating this entry before having breakfast has caused me serious internal damage, eternal stomach growling and pains together with loss of water through drool. Please proceed with caution

Nicholas decided one day that he wanted to show off his father’s awesome cooking that he’s been telling us about, and fortunately for us the fateful day came. It was to be a small group gathering filled with food, mahjong and poker cards, just the way I like it

Huai Bin wasn’t sure where his house was in Desa Park City, and since I had the privilege to accompany Nicholas home once for some skiiing session (wtf) I offered to guide him there and so he came to my house to tailgate my car. It was pretty darn funny cause he turned on his emergency lights all the way while tailgating, making me look like the leading car wherelse he was the VIP being chauffered around. Guess HB always has his special way of doing things out of the ordinary eh?

 

Needless to say as soon as we arrived, Nick’s mom threw her best hospitability skills which were awesome and made us feel at home, which wasn’t hard cause all she had to do was to push them beautiful and aromatic dishes our way and made us melt. This Homemade Spring Roll was one of them, and I have to tell you it’s one of the tastiest springroll I’ve eaten for some time!

 

But the dish-of-the-day was actually the Chay’s Chicken Curry which was also made by Nick’s father! Apparently his pride and joy, the curry which was not so often made is tantalisingly delicious, and what’s more, it wasn’t made with santan so that those who face obesity issues or suffers from IBS will get to taste it! Unfortunately I couldn’t tell what he substituted it for, until I was told by Auntie that Uncle used evaporated milk and it all suddenly made sense

 

I think this was the Fried Prawns in Salted Egg Yolk, because that was how I remembered the dish. Needless to say every bite was crisp and done in all tastefulness, leaving you no other desire than to want more of it.

 

Of course the Golden Roasted Duck is a must, giving a variety of dishes to choose from. Nick’s parents really did so much for the bunch of us!

 

Finally came the Sesame Glutinous Rice, which came with a somewhat heavy aroma of sesame seed oil which I adore. Though admittedly it was a little hard, no thanks to taking them out of the steamer far too early so that the moisture dried up, we still had it because it went so very well with the curry. What a perfect combination!

 

Andrew was already there when Huai Bin and I arrived, so the first batch who had the scrumptious meal was the 3 of us plus Nick’s friend and mom! Auntie didn’t even allow us to be shy, telling us that there’s many more where it came from. How could we resist? Thumbs up from all to Auntie and Uncle Chay!

 

I repeat: H-o-w c-o-u-l-d w-e r-e-s-i-s-t!

 

Oh before I forget, there was this huuuuuuuge portion of Heavenly Fried Mee Hoon right smack in the middle of the table. How la, my diet routine has been destroyed forever!

 

I was so shy, my first session consisted of the following few dishes on my plate. I think my “shyness” left me when I found out Auntie had many more food at the back of the kitchen

 

And of course, how could I not bring Shitzoe to happy events like these? Say Hi to Shitzoe everyone!

 

After having our lunch of the century (I’m not exaggerating, I think the food could have lasted us THAT long lol) the bunch of us started playing cards, while the second batch of guests came, including KY, Cheesie, Suanie, Mellissa, Tzia, Yee Hou, Deb Fong (here’s her version!) and my darling Firdy.

 

All in all we had a blast of a gambling session with constant flow of drinks thanks to the Chay family, and eventually left in groups. Thank you Nicholas Chay, my ever loving shirt tuck-out, not-so-hamsap hensem guy who I admire a lot and one of the better badminton players I’ve met, for inviting me to your little party

Anyway Firdy and I were the last to leave and with that, it marked another end of the Chinese New Year of 2009

Some time ago Ringo and I went to Pavilion for a taste a fusion of Chinese, Japanese and Taiwan cuisine at DainTi Hill, located on the 6th floor of Pavilion, a place for many gastronomic adventures (though also quite taxing to the wallet!)

She was just out from some make-up do and looking gorgeous as ever (and in this picture, she looks so much taller!) so there were no surprises when I noticed some head turns coming from guys and girls who’d come our way.

 

The place looks beautiful as you can see, striking a futuristic ambience between the shadows and glowing lights, the contrast apparent to those who enter the premises. Truly a masterpiece to behold while waiting for the food to come!

 

I heard lots about this little pumpkin dish, despite it being served cold. The texture was highly interesting, porous in the inside to create a spongy-like feel while not being too thick, and yet coming of as smooth as cream. The taste would be heavenly to pumpkin lovers, we both certainly liked it.

 

Then came the soup. I think if it wasn’t for the appetizing style of the which it was served, the soup wouldn’t have lived up to its standard. It was okay though, a really pretty thing to look at. We were fascinated by it for a while before our next dish came with a sizzle…

 

Slices of sizzling pork on top of white japanese rice, all hissing inside the hot stone bowl (it was really hot!) seem to create a heavenly illusion to the whole experience. No words were needed to describe the savoury aromy arising from the steaming pot of marinated sizzling pork strips in curry, as if they were meant to induce pools of drools within our mouth.

 

Ringo didn’t hesitate anymore and digged in. The portion was pretty decent and hence we shared it between the both of us.

 

While waiting for my turn, I had the opportunity to check out the quirkiness of the design in DainTi Hill, and fully appreciate the beauty of its intrinsic design. Being an interior designer myself (just a hobby, not pro at all) I thought I would learn a bit or two by the creativity shown in its different sections of the restaurant. You can view more pictures by visiting here.

 

We opted for dessert ice-cream as it looked really good from the menu. Choosing between red bean and mango, we decided to go for fruits to end the night, though later I quite wished we had had gone for the red beans instead. It came as appetizing as it looked from the menu, and tasted as sweet too! In fact I had mine with extra sugar water that was provided in a separate dainty jug.

 

Ringo didn’t really like it as she was more into savoury food than sweets. That didn’t stop her though, and though we couldn’t finish the ice shavings, all pieces of mango were eaten away as well as its core (also stuffed with more mango goodness!)

 

And that was really it! The price was a little hefty with the small number of dishes but I would have guessed any restaurants situated on the 6th floor would have similar pricing. All in all the ambience and styling of the food was excellent, though the taste didn’t quite measure up to par, gives it a rating approval from Christopher Tock of 7/10!

Watch Out Malaysia!

Even the Gutterpost blog that withstood Edison Chen’s infamous scandal is now affected by Elizabeth Wong’s nude picture hype (which I believe is overrated, and is NOT a scandal in the first place anyway).


This goes to show how much the world is taking notice on this despicable turn of events happening only in Malaysia, my dearly beloved country.


Click here from a quote excerpt used by Times.com and read this for a fantastic say pertaining to this piece of disappointing news.

 

The serenity of this lone water droplet reflect the kind of person I am right now, a little shift of equilibrium is all it takes to break the serenity

Take with my Lumix LX2

 

Or should I just turn into Ultima Man

HIIIIIIIYAK!

this is a dedication to a moment of silence for my dear comrade, the late Markus Ng. His memorial link can be found here, and there is also where you can find out the reason that led to his passing away, as well as a touching memory from his brother to him together with lots and lots of testimonials from hundreds and hundreds of friends in all walks of life.

Flowers from Nina, Wan Zu, Usop, Justin, Farhana, Izza and I to Markus’s mourning family.

 

If my pain was already at an unbearable point, what more can be said about Markus’s family of 5 that he left behind, and just thinking about it, there is no way I am able to put myself in their shoes without going through several deaths.

And they were already so much more braver than I am, even to the point that I took some consoling efforts from Peter Ng, my junior in Imperial College London.

 

Malaysia, nay, the world, has lost one of her best hero who has returned to God’s loving arms. I love you Markus, and I will hence carry forth your passion even if I feel bitter that you left me to do the job alone.