Dining With Jewelle

When I upgraded my RAM (or was it memory…) - well, something in my laptop, the technician also installed some games for me.

I think I asked him for a scrabble game and he proceeded to install a software with a whole load of more than 30 games which I hardly every played because it’s mostly those tetris-like game.

I do enjoy the occasional Diner Dash and Pizza Frenzy. But since playing game is only an option if the net is down, nothing good on TV, hubby is not around and there’s no good book, I don’t actually indulge in this past time as much anymore.

Or maybe it’s just because the kind of games that I have installed are not quite the type that I like. Perhaps I should go to a free online games site like the YupGames and download games like the Capitalism or Chocolatier - both business related games.

In fact, I’m quite interested in their “The Apprentice : Los Angeles” and I might check this out, since it’s free!

But the thing is, these kind of games can’t be played in my odd half and hours free time! So obviously, although I sort of enjoy the game, I can’t play chess online too.

Looks like, I just have to stick to quick games like Sally’s Salon or Paradise Pet Salon then.

When hubby and I were comparing one particular sushi offered by Kaizen and Excapade, I was perplexed when he insisted that these are not the same type of sushi :

Now that I compare the pictures, I could see that the colour of the roe are different. So perhaps hubby was right, these roe did come from two different type of fish.

Another reason why it’s useful to take photos of your food!

Whenever I read news of anyone converting to the Muslim religion, I usually thought of an old friend of mine. I lost touch with her since she left Sabah in 1996 and married her old time boyfriend, who was also a fellow university friend of ours and who as you may have guessed, is a Muslim.

Although we did e-mail each other a few times years ago, I have not met her since. Hopefully, since they are now living in Kuala Lumpur we’ll get to meet her and her family one of these days.

It’s quite a pity that we have grown apart over time despite going on many trips and even sharing hotel rooms together during the 3 years back when we were students.

In those days, we were in the same group for most activities. Whenever we went for any all-girls trip, we usually shared the same room. During our London study trip, the 3 of us Sabahans were in one hotel room and for some reason, one of the most vivid memory I have of this was her having some kind of an argument with her boyfriend-then-hubby-now, on the phone. I bet she won’t even remember the image that I have of her sitting by her bed, trying to pacify him over the phone over something while me and the other friend pretended to be deaf! Isn’t memory a funny thing?

When we and another 2 close Sabahan girlfriends went for our Europe tour, we were room mates again for one whole week. I don’t remember any drama here but I recently found a postcard that I sent to hubby from Brussels (Belgium) where I wrote that I was not happy with our hotel room as there was nothing to do and see nearby!

This friend of mine was actually based in Europe a few years ago when her husband was on a job posting there. It’s too bad that we couldn’t make it there then as it’d sure be nice to go on a trip together again over Europe with our family!

At least this time, with the help of hotel booking sites like the EasyToBook, making researches about hotels in any parts of Europe, London, Rome, Dublin, Barcelona or Prague, would be a breeze. In fact, if you’ve never used this site, not only can you check for rooms availability, you can quickly find hotels based on the quality (1 star to 5 stars), find individual hotels by the name, get a hotel review plus the relevant city guides and map.

The most useful feature this site has is when you select any hotel, you’d get not only the hotel’s information; pictures, reviews, list of facilities and map. You also get a quickscan list of nearby hotels, attractions, business facilities, landmarks, shopping, restaurants and transportations complete with an approximate distance to all these places from your hotel.

Did you know that there is a hotel called the Covent Garden Hotel which has a posh cinema that is equipped with Italian seats, despite only having 58 rooms?! That’s how extensive the hotel review was.

For your information, you could use this site to search for hotels in New York too.

Anyway, back to that friend.

Her husband, being in the airline industry, has been based in a few other places around the world over the past 15 years - lucky them. I sure hope that one of these days, they’ll be based in New Zealand so when our overdue trip there is finally realized, we could go on a family road trip together - she with her family of five and me and my family of four (or five by then!).

Wouldn’t that be fun!

Last weekend, we decided to try the Kaizen Sushi Restaurant in Kiarong.

Both of us have never been here before as to hubby, there is only one place on earth when it comes to Japanese food!

Despite it being a fasting month, the place was busy. There were a few tables occupied but I think we kind of broke the elegant silence the moment we came in with our two very exuberant girls -hopefully we didn’t annoy any of the other patrons too much!

The menu was very thick and I barely had time to really look as I was feeding Qi her lunch and at the same time, trying to quell their excitement with the train. Perhaps even the kitchen staffs could hear Eu when she loudly exclaimed “I wonder what’s in the mysterious red box!“. Many, many times.

After flipping through the menu scores of time, hubby ordered these :

As we were looking for a parking, we passed the back of the restaurant and saw that a kitchen staff was descaling a huge fish, salmon according to hubby. So the salmon sashimi that we had was fresh of the fish. Hubby claimed he could taste the freshness - I couldn’t taste anything too different but if the expert said that it’s good, I believe him.

As hubby is into salad these days, Kaizen received an extra thumbs up when hubby found that they offered this :

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t look that appetizing to me at all. So this is how it looks like when the salad and the salmon slices were all mixed up :

I supposed the look can be deceiving because according to hubby, it’s palatable - except he’d want to try it without the salad cream next time. Needless to say, I didn’t try as it’s not my kind of thing at all.

I decided to try out their noodle and tempura dish set :

Hubby was impressed with the selections, quality and prices and I think as far as Bandar is concerned, it’s no longer an Excapade Restaurant territory for him.

As for me, my noodle was suprisingly very good. I’ve never had a soba noodle before and I’m not sure if Excapade have this type.

But the best part of my set meal was definitely the tempura. I never knew tempura could taste so good! Bittergourd, brinjal and another vegetable I couldn’t identified tasted so divine that I polished the whole vegetable tempura myself. Eu had the prawn and she said they’re delicious too. At least now I know what I can look forward to whenever I find myself dragged to a Japanese restaurant.

As for the ambiance, I like it. It’s cosy and the staffs were efficient. As I said, it was nicely quiet with not even any annoying non-Japanese songs in the background.

Until we arrived.

Eu, as usual, managed to distract the staffs with her “I LOVE salmon!” or “Here comes the mysterious red box again!“, all ending with exclamation marks. No gentle speech for her. Qi, as usual, flirted with anyone who passed by her chair and I was just happy that she didn’t burst into her boisterous “Go Diego Go!” song which has been her anthem for the past few weeks!

I wondered if the table next to us left because the kids were being too happy!

But I’m happy to concur with you, Sushi Fan. I think Kaizen is definitely another Japanese Restaurant I wouldn’t mind coming to - if I really have to.