well then!

nothing that I didn't know...

General Description
As an Encourager, you are very relationship oriented and respond naturally to the needs of others. You want to be seen as an excellent listener who can respond to the challenge of helping others in practical ways, including solving personal problems.

Typical Areas of Strength
Encouragers, like you, are typically energetic, friendly, encouraging, patient, understanding, loyal, steady, dependable, and are willing to listen to the needs of others.

Typical Areas of Struggle
You often shy away from conflict and may avoid making difficult people decisions, rather than hurt the feelings of others.

Your Preferred Activities
Because you cooperate well with others, you function best with access to people who need assistance, encouragement, development.

Your Communication Style
You communicate through carefully chosen words, gestures, body language, facial expressions, and listening skills to communicate your concern.

on the screen: Marley & Me

Condemn me if you wish, but I'm a fan of Owen Wilson (not so crazy over Jennifer Aniston, but oh well) and when I got free tickets to watch this it was quite an interesting proposition. The fact that it was in Cineleisure dampened the enthusiasm a bit but hey, it's a free ticket.

Marley & Me is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by John Grogan (played by Owen Wilson) and charts the roughly 13 years that the Grogan family had Marley, a yellow lab retriever.

The story starts with Grogan getting married, and moving down to Miami where they adopt a puppy and that kicks off their adventures. The dog ends up eating and destroying pretty much their entire home, and tensions arise as the family has children and pressures mount.

I know, doesn't sound like much of a story, right? The fact is, it really does have a good storyline and I was riveted for the entire 2 hours of the movie. There are funny moments (with Owen Wilson, how could there not be?), there are dramatic moments, and there are pretty sad moments. And of course, the main star of the show is always... Marley. Apparently played by many different yellow labs (I guess they couldn't age the dog with make-up the way they could with humans), Marley steals the show and carries it all the way through your heart-strings.

I really did enjoy Marley & Me, even though I left the cinema feeling kinda sad. All in all, it's just one of those movies that isn't really blockbuster material, but still really does affect you in some way.

Alright, ratings! I'd give this movie a 7.2/10. Owen Wilson was reliable as always, and surprisingly, Jennifer Aniston gave a great, powerful performance as well, you almost couldn't recognize her from her role in Friends. And of course, there was Marley :)

on the plate: Castell Steak House

how does an amazing, succulent, hot and tender chunk of meat sound to you? It appeals to me, at least

to celebrate Alice's birthday, we headed over to Castell Steak House. Surprisingly, I found no reviews about the place. None, zip! But I had heard a couple of good things about it from some people who had gone before, so it was game on.

the place is tucked away in one corner along Jalan University, and since they built the flyover just at that junction, it's easy to miss the place and not know about its existence.

true enough, the place wasn't very crowded, there was just the two of us and another large party of eleven people or something like that, nobody else was dining (but it was a Tuesday night). We ordered seafood bisque, two steaks and some sauteed mushrooms.

first up, the seafood bisque. It was slightly creamy and had a few chunks of seafood inside, not too shabby but could have been better. I tried to take a photo but since it was too dark and my phone camera doesn't have a flash, there are no photos in this review. Sorry!

the steaks came up next, and this is where the heavens sang. Really. I had the T-bone steak and it arrived with a baked potato and a generous serving of corn (and sour cream and spring onions! yum). The steak was possibly one of the best things I've tasted recently, it was juicy, tender, succulent and was just simply good in all ways imaginable. The steak was grilled plain with some pepper and salt for preparation, and served without gravy or sauce to mask any flavors. So, the flavor of the beef really shone through and boy, was it good. I haven't had steak this good probably since I came back to Malaysia, and that's not a joke.

the sauteed mushrooms came and were bleh, just halved button mushrooms which were sauteed in a cajun marinade, tasted okay but nothing to shout about.

the menu is rather limited in its selection, mostly steaks with some chicken, lamb and seafood for those who don't like to do cow, but then again, that does work in their favor as they can concentrate on what they're good at, and that's really, really good steaks. There is one dish, the prime rib, that really looks interesting, but I don't think I'm gonna try that anytime soon as it's priced at a chilling RM98++ per portion. I saw someone on the other table having it and it looked good though.

so, the total bill for both of us (soup, two steaks, mushrooms and two drinks) came up to RM122, not too expensive for a good steak dinner, but also not something to go to on a regular basis. Unless you're in the business of printing money, I guess.

here we go
Food: 7.4/10 - best steak I've had in a long, long, long time. Natural flavors of the beef shining through and causing taste buds to rejoice
Drinks: 6/10 - my lime juice was good and sour, but not everybody would like it that way I think. Not a large selection but okay
Ambience: 7/10 - nice, quiet place that's dimly lit but tastefully done up
Service: 7/10 - of course, you get good service when there's only two tables that evening. Usually. Not everywhere, but at least here it made sure of prompt and efficient service

Castell can be reached at (03) 7955-0532

interesting... or not... cello scrotum!

found this article posted by a friend on facebook... very interesting article about a malady that strikes fear into the heart of cellists everywhere... ummm... somewhat

Cello scrotum? It's a load of...

awesome Dilbert comic - livestock

just couldn't help laughing at this one for today (25/01/09)

on the plate: New York New York Deli @ 1 Utama

Found this place just outside Cold Storage in the new wing of 1 Utama, where Giant used to be. It looked intriguing, so I thought I would check it out sometime.

I finally found the time to go over there and try it out. Doing some research on the internet (yes, if I am interested in a restaurant I do check it out first) I found out that it's a Singaporean chain. A promising start, especially since Jack's Place and Sakae Sushi, both Singaporean chains are pretty decent establishments. Anyway, the website didn't have the full menu which was pretty disappointing.

The menu was pretty varied, and was interesting for the most part. They serve a variety of Western foods such as pasta, pizza, chops, burgers, sandwiches, and other mains and stuff. I had the Brats with bacon and cheese (sadly, not real bacon, but turkey bacon instead). Didn't look too impressive, and was so-so only. The bratwursts were not real bratwursts (which have real meat inside), but some processed stuff that tasted okay, but it really wasn't what I was hoping for. Gimme real sausages wrapped in real bacon, and some good cheese melted on top, then we'll talk. Okay?














The other dish was the Hawaii teriyaki burger, which didn't look like much (the patty looked really hand-made, which could be more or less appetizing, depending on your preference) and actually tasted pretty good, surprisingly. The beef had absorbed the teriyaki flavor, and there was enough beef to go around for every bite. In other words, a pretty decent and tasty burger.













Pricewise, I'd say this place is pretty decent. Each of our main courses was RM16.50 each, and they do supply drinking water (none of this "no free water here, buy our bottled tap water for RM10 per bottle or dehydrate and die" crap).

They also have this uber burger called the Giant Yankee burger. Supposedly 8" wide, 4" high, and with 2 pounds of beef inside. Really interesting stuff. At the Singapore branches if you can finish it on your own with a bunch of fries, it's free and a root beer float on the house. No such promotion here though. And it costs a whopping RM48.90 or something like that. Saw a group of people at another table order it, and my interest quickly waned as the bread looks really, really thick. I'd rather not be munching on something that's predominantly bread over everything else.

All in all, it's not fantastic, but a decent, comfortable place to hang out and chill (too bad there's no bottomless drinks!) and a widely varied menu, there should be at least something for everyone (especially the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue! I'll be trying those next time, hopefully).

Alright, here's the ratings

Food: 6.7/10 - not great, but not bad either
Drinks: 6.5/10 - a good choice, but too bad there aren't any refillable or bottomless drinks. Huzzah for the plain water though! :)
Ambience: 7.4/10 - a bit exposed to the shoppers passing by, but pretty decent.
Service: 7.6/10 - for some reason one or two of the waiters kept coming to check the order sheet which was placed on our table. Probably trying to check on the kitchen to make sure they were getting our orders ready. If so, good work, guys, but some reassurance that our food was coming would have been great, rather than the silent effort.

More to read about at their official website.

EDIT: I've heard a lot of pretty bad reviews about this place, and a few good ones, so it'll take another visit or two to really get the feel of it. Will keep things posted :p

new year, same old

So, 2008 has come and gone. Big whoop.

Personally, I generally find that with every year, I'm really glad that it's over. Honestly. I don't know if I have ever looked back at a year and found it nostalgic or particularly wonderful or anything. Yes, good things happen, but just as many or even more bad things happen that just tend to spoil the mood. Or maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get to go back to Singapore at all this year. Whatever.

But anyway, not to sound like sour grapes. Every new year brings new hope. Maybe one day I'll get to do the things I enjoy. But anyway, for now, it's back to the same old, same old. Work begins again in earnest in three days. Meanwhile, I'm off to try to enjoy my remaining few days of freedom (well, relative freedom) as much as I can.

On the bright side... last night I cooked a major beef dinner for some relatives who wanted beef (they can't eat beef at home for religious reasons). Beef stew, steak, home-made hamburgers, along with my roasted potato salad and a roast chicken for those who didn't eat beef. Those who know me well enough know that I love eating cow, so it was very exciting. So exciting that I didn't take pictures. Again.

So with them not being regular beef eaters, there were leftovers. So this morning for breakfast, the first breakfast of the new year, I heated up and made a cheeseburger for myself. Not too shabby for a brekkie!