Day 2 in Kota Kinabalu on 1 Jan 2010 (Freshwater Fishing Competition in Sabah)

Despite sleeping past midnight, we got up at 6am the next morning for the freshwater fishing competition I had signed up for. Cititel Express's breakfast (buffet) cost RM12 but we decided to explore the hotel's surroundings for grub instead. We came across this coffeeshop on the left side of the hotel (the side where the bak kut teh coffeeshop is).

The stall owner was from Sarawak. I decided to have the Wantun Mee (yes, spelt this way) for breakfast. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. For such a cheap dish (RM 6), the noodles are springy with just the right amount of seasoning (wasn't thirsty after eating) and the wantun's skin were thin and smooth. The meat inside was fresh too and the soup was delightfully warm and sweet.

We reached the freshwater pond at Parpar after an hour's drive out of KK city center. My tag was 38 which meant that I had to stand at the spot marked with the number 38. The cost of entering this yearly competition was RM100.

The competition was supposed to start at 8am. The prizes were a chainsaw (1st place), grass-cutters (2nd and 3rd place) and a bicycle even (5th place). The winner would be the one with the largest fish caught so this was a competition purely on luck....or so I thought. Anyway, that's me in my usual fishing attire standing at the marker.

If you note the time-stamp on the picture above and the next picture below, there is a time-difference of 3 hours odd. I'd been fishing from 9am to 12.10pm without a single bite at all. I started off with bottom fishing but after one and a half hours and not catching anything, I decided to change to float fishing instead. Bait remained the same - chicken guts. For another one and a half hour, despite some frantic activity around the float each time when I cast after re-baiting, no fish actually took the bait. And THEN, at 12.15 or so, the float went down and stayed down. After 3 hours of no bite, I figured it would probably pop back up but when it didn't and I testedthe line slightly, I realised that I had a fish eating the bait. I jerked to set the hook but stupid me, I had too much slack line out. Mistake No 1. And I thought I had set the hook well because the fish started to run and the line peeled off the reel. Normally, I wouldn't bring a fish in so quickly to the bank (as in the case of Sawai Lake in Phuket where I had just fished in late Nov) but this was a competition and there were like 40 over lines in that pond and I was terrified of losing my fish and crossing lines so I brought the fish in to the side without letting it tire. Mistake No 2. The picture below is the only picture I have of how close the fish was brought to shore and ALMOST netted. The person next to me was about to net the fish but when the fish saw the net, it spooked (of course) and went for a second run...I was fighting to bring it back again without letting it tangle lines when.....SNAP, the line went slack...I lost the fish. Everyone said sayang, sayang, which meant, what a damn pity, because it was the largest fish, if not at least the second largest fish (1st or at least 2nd prize).

I have to confess that when I lost the fish, I wanted to weep. The whole crowd at the pond had been clapping, cheering and watching me fight it. And everyone saw how close I had come to winning. I don't blame the guy for failing to net the fish, I've been fishing enough to know that fishes spook and run when they see the net, I only blame myself for the mistakes I made above. This competition is going to be one that haunts me a long long long time....Anyway, right after the fish got away, there was this awful silence at the pond while everyone watched me to see what I would do. Well, I turned away (feeling really sick and in disbelief) and watched my fingers go through the motions of picking through chicken guts and re-baiting. The competition was supposed to end at 12.30am so there wasn't much time left but some datuk (a minister or some sorts) came and made grand speeches and they extended the competition time to 1pm. I figured that I might as well just do my best - after not having a single fish for 3 hours, I lose the biggest one, and well, if I didn't try I would end up with zero, so what's the harm in trying...I casted out again and waited...10 mins later, the float went down, and mother, did I strike damn hard to set the hook this time. Everyone stopped talking and watched me bring in this fish....which put up absolutely no fight cos it was just a tilapia...I gave it to some other dude who helped me unhook it. The fish I lost was a patin and I was in no mood to keep the cheapest kinda fish.

I reached the hotel by 2pm, tired, heart-sore and feeling really lousy. Nothing anyone says or does can ease that awful feeling of having lost a competition, I guess. I tried to console myself that it was an experience and lesson for me despite not winning but my emotions would not be soothed with self-talk. So I went for the only thing that could give me comfort...Yes, durians. This is the first durian I had this KK trip, a 3kg bitter-sweet durian. Despite the appearance, the meat was good. By the way, the durian stall is underneath the overhead bridge at the Segamat area next to KK Plaza and is open from 5pm (not sure, if it's daily but it should be)

The durian seller had some kampong durians which were quickly snapped up. My companion managed to get 1 (RM 12 each) though which we fell upon, attracted to the unique red color of the fruit...And to our utter dismay, the meat was absolutely horrible. And I mean, horrible. The Slog Reviews: -1/10. Talk about an extremely tasteless bland sticky mash. Ugh. I took one bite and spat it out. We gave the rest to a Korean couple next to us.

We were too stuffed from the durians to go for dinner so my companion suggested going to 1Borneo. I'd been there before the last trip but I didn't remember the way there cos we had used the shuttle bus so we got rather lost on our bike. Luckily, my companion could speak Malay v well so he managed to get us there from KK City Center. 1Borneo is located near UMS, as any local there will tell you. This is a picture I took en route there.

Christmas decorations were still up at 1Borneo as you can see from the picture below. We walked around the shops without buying anything...the closest they have to anything branded would be Mont Blanc...and left about 8pm.

It was raining that night so thankfully we managed to reach Sedco Square before the rain started up again. We decided to try a different restaurant and after deliberating between Hua Hing Seafood restaurant below and Sri Mutiara, we decided on Hua Hing Seafood. The lady boss (do ask for the lao ban niang), a youngish attractive lady provided superb excellent service when it came to picking the seafood.

The Slog Reviews: 9/10. If you go Sedco Square, I strongly recommend you eat at Hua Hing Restaurant and ask for the female young lady boss to assist you in choosing the seafood. Not only is she friendly, able to speak English (and Chinese), but also honest (she weighs the seafood in front of you). She makes great recommendation and doesn't hard-sell any of the more expensive seafood to you. As per the picture below, I had a crayfish (mini-lobster) unlike any other sea creature I've seen before, a plate of two female crabs with roe (the lady boss picked them upon my request for crabs with eggs), a plate of veg and hotplate beancurd AND all that for only RM 114. Unbelievably cheap!!! That's only SGD 40+ for fresh live seafood...unbeatable price, service, taste and value.

The lady picked this little fella out for me from the tank - it stood out from the rest of its bros because of its color - the rest were black and white spotted. Cost was RM 10/100gm and this fellow cost RM 53 (SGD 21). This is the last pic of it alive on the weighing scale.

And yes, this is a picture of the little guy above split in half and cooked in the restaurant's recommended style of buttery cream-like sauce. The sauce was slightly oily but combined with the firm whitish sweet meat of the crayfish;....can you say heaven...

This is a close-up picture of the meat removed from the shell. Sigh, what wouldn't I give to be able to go back to KK right now and have more of this?

And finally, these 2 small female crabs steamed in egg white and some wine sauce. The cost was only RM 36 (less than SGD 20) for the 2 crabs which were cooked to perfection. The egg roe (the orange bits) were very tasty and I have to confess, I polished off this entire dish on my own without a pause, glad secretly that my companion did not enjoy crabs - yes, it was that good.

The Manhattan Fish Market at Jusco Tebrau City and Durians

My petrol was at the 3/4 mark (anything lower than that, one risks a fine of SGD 500 if caught at the Singapore custom going into Msia) so I decided to go into JB to pump petrol and to make the journey worth-while, have dinner and do some grocery shopping there as well. Thankfully, at 6.30pm, there wasn't the usual jam (that is usually from 7pm to 9.30pm) and I cleared both countries' customs in about half an hour only. There was a jam going to Jusco though, with all the reckless malaysian motorcyclists squeezing and speeding between cars. If one isn't used to driving in Msia, it can be quite intimidating because of these motorcyclists whizzing past noisily on both sides of your car.

I got to Jusco, Tebrau City around 7.15pm...I was so hungry by then (I don't think I had a proper lunch cos I went to the gym at the office) that I went for the tried and tested - The Manhattan Fish Market restaurant. While waiting for the main course, I went to BreadTalk next to the restaurant which was having a happy hour sale (4 pcs of bread at RM 10 only which works out to SGD 1 per pc). I bought 8pcs of bread, most of which the original price was RM 3.90. I'm not sure how the nacho cheese one will taste though but it looks mighty good!


When I got back to the restaurant, our appetiser, Crispy Whitebait, had been served. The cost of the appetiser was RM9.90 only (SGD 4 only!). The Slog Reviews: 3/10. Yeah, it was that bad. Although the whitebait was crispy and not burnt in anyway, there was hardly any taste to the whitebait. The coleslaw at the bottom of the pan was equally bland or sour (if one added the lemon). I would suggest having the fried country mushrooms which is priced at RM9.90 too.


We shared the Manhattan Seafood Platter as our main course. The seafood platter consists of one large slice of deep fried fish fillet (on the left), oysters (4pcs at the bottom), flaming prawns (4pcs), chips, garlic rice and because we didn't want calamari, they gave us more deep fried fish fillet chunks instead (4pcs on the right). The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The cost of this dish was RM42.90 (less than SGD 20 only!) and there was more than enough food for 2 hungry pp. The large pc of fish fillet on the left was soft and fresh on the inside, nicely crisp on the outside and the sauce on top added flavour to the fish. The cream on the prawns was as delicious as ever (they cooked the prawns in front of us), esp when mixed in with the garlic rice at the bottom and the fries firm and not too oily. I don't take oysters so I can't comment on that but my companion had no problem finishing all 4 pcs. The total cost of the appetiser, the main course, a mango juice drink and another drink was only RM 84 which works out to be slightly less than SGD 40. There is absolutely no way one can eat so much for that price in Singapore.


After dinner, we did some grocery shopping at Jusco supermarket and walked around a bit. I forgot where I parked my car at the massive carpark so we wasted about 15mins walking up and down looking for it. Parking at Jusco Tebrau City is only RM1 for the whole day - its just unbelievably cheap compared to Singapore. The durians were going at half-price after 9pm at the supermarket so I bought back these 2 packets of XO durians at RM27.90 (about SGD 12). The Slog Reviews: 7/10 - The durians were fresh and quite tasty but the seed was very large and meat little. SGD 6 per packet for 3-4 XO durians is a tad pricy.


Customs check on the Singapore side was very strict tonight, all the cars with Msian numberplates were stopped twice and even for my car, the officer rummaged through the groceries, maggi mee, durians and all.

Prawn Mee at Chomp Chomp and 717 durians

Yesterday, I had dinner at Chomp Chomp Food Center located at 20 Kensington Park Road near Serangoon Gardens. 99% of all the hawker stalls there have posters/prints of favourable newspaper reviews on their stalls and as testimony to the truth of these posters/prints, 99% of the seats were filled even as late as 8.30pm on a Tuesday night. After walking two rounds of the hawker center, we managed to find seats (had to share a table with couple of other gals) and ordered the usual sugarcane juice (SGD 2 for a small cup which wasn't really small) from the drink stall in the middle of the center (the juice was fresh and there wasn't too much ice).

After much deliberation and in consideration of our dessert later, we settled on having the large prawn noodles (SGD 5) from the only prawn noodle stall. The Slog Reviews: 5.5/10. While the prawns were indeed much larger than the usual tiger prawns, the meat was rather tasteless and a tad over-cooked. The chilli powder (in the spoon) and the great customer service from the aunty made up for it in some way but having prawn noodles shouldn't be a first choice at Chomp Chomp.

My food-fussy companion did not eat most of her prawn noodles and ordered not only porridge (sorry no picture as she dug in too quickly) and also a plate of 10 mutton satay sticks to share. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The mutton was marinated very well and bursting with juices. The pandan leaf used to wrap the rice (ketupat) was fresh and gave the firmly packed rice a nice fragrance. I have had better peanut sauce (this one had a dash of limey stuff at the side) elsewhere but this one was fine.


After dinner, she had room in her little belly for durians so we went to 717 trading at Highland Center on Yio Chu Kang Road for durians. The last time I'd been to this place for durians was early 2008 and it was a remarkably bad and expensive experience then. It was so bad that we drove down to Geylang right after that and had a S$20 durian there which was a million times better. However, I'm all about second chances and this was the closest so 717 it was. This time, the durian seller ( a Malaysian youngish really thin and friendly chappie) and the two D24 durians we had left us with a really good "I-want-to-return" feeling for both of us.

This is the first durian that we had. I wasn't keen on D24 durians which the durian seller was pushing and wanted the Mao Shan Wang ones instead. However,at my insistence, the durian seller opened one of the MSW durians and he was right in that the durian meat of the MSW durians was soggy (overripe). He put it aside and opened this D24 durian which to me looked yummlicious. And it was. Every single bite. Thoughts of weight, figure, self-control flew right out of my companion's head when she started eating...I swear, her eyes were closed at some points in pure ecstasy. The Slog Reviews: 9.5/10. :)

The cost of the MSW durian would have been SGD 15/kg - I am not sure how much the cost of the two durians were but they came up to a total of SGD 26 with a SGD 2 discount. Definitely very pricy for about 6 seeds per fruit but ahhhh,nothing beats the taste of really good durians like this. Here's a picture of the second durian which tasted almost identitical to the first one. If you look closely, fellow durian lovers, you can see the little wrinkles in the skin of the durian seed - and yes, biting into and spliiting open the thin chewy skin and having the rich meat underneath spill into one's mouth is an experience that we can relive over and over again :)

The Manhattan Fish Market, A Lam Seafood Restaurant and Durians

I had lunch at The Manhattan Fish Market today at Jusco Tebrau City, JB. I had my favourite course - The Flaming Platter for one which consists of one piece of grilled fish, rice, chips and three "flaming" prawns. The cream on the prawns is simply delicious, I must say. However, the prawns were quite soggy and tasteless, as were the fries. Still, the cost of this course at RM 27.90 is a steal (compared to SG). The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10.

For the flaming platters courses, the waitress/waiter will bring the dish to your table and use a device which emits blue flames to cook the prawns before you for about 1 min. It's quite a sight to watch and how burnt your prawns end up depend on the skill or mood of the waitress/waiter.


I did my nails (classic manicure and pedicure) at the nail salon (De Unique) on the second floor of the mall. The nail salon is nicely decorated (recently renovated) with proper nail salon chairs (comfy with pull-out sinks), good service and the girl who did my nails was well-trained and professional. However, I didn't like that they didn't have any machines for blowing dry my toe nails, and only for the fingernails. The cost of the classic mani and pedi was RM 82 which I felt was on the high side (compared to the usual one I go to at Nusa Bestari) but then again, this is one of the more popular malls amongst Singaporeans.

After shopping at Jusco, I used my handy compasseo GPS (purchased from Carrefour last year at SGD 235) to locate the famous Orang Asli Seafood restaurant at Tmn Perling.


It was about 9pm by the time I reached there. The street lamps along the main road leading to the restaurant were not switched on and the minor road leading to the restaurant was more like a dirt track without clear road markings, very narrow and mostly unlit. The place still had quite a number of large families at that hour having dinner - most of the tables had crabs and cereal prawns. Like Sedco Square in KK, the fishes, clams, prawns, lobsters, crayfish and crabs were kept live in tanks for customers to pick and choose. We had five dishes in all - kailan veg, small clams (commonly known as lala, see top right pic), lemon chicken (top left pic), steamed prawns and 2 steamed crabs. The cost of the meal was RM 150. The 2 crabs cost RM74 and the prawns, RM 20. The Slog Reviews: 7/10. Nothing special about any of the dishes which though fresh, did not thrill the imagination or taste-buds. The restaurant is also quite a drive away from the city but makes a refreshing change for dining as it is situated facing the Johor Straits. Note the dangers of driving there though because of the road conditions


After I got home about 12 midnight (there was a slight jam across the causeway due to the Xmas weekend), I opened these two durians which I bought from a illegal durian "stall" . An oldish Chinese couple were selling durians from Yong Peng out of their van which was parked in a semi-unlit area along a double-yellow line. This mode of selling durians/other fruits out of a van along a roadside is quite common in Malaysia. The XO durians were selling at RM18/kg and the ordinary ones at RM13/kg and I got one of each for supper.


This is the pic of the non-XO durian which I opened at home. It was about 2.5KG and a tad over-riped.

This is the XO durian - it was very over-riped but oh so bitter which is exactly what I asked for. The bitter bit, that is. The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10. The cost of the durians are on the high-side but then again, it isn't exactly durian season now (that's during June - early Aug).


I also got to try for the first time in my life, this unique fruit found only in East Malaysia. I am not sure what it is called but it tastes rather sweet and very much like our smooth-skined longan. While the skin of the fruit is a strange color (greenish-black) which is rather unappealing, the meat inside makes up for it. The skin is quite thin - if one's nails are long enough, one can use it to pierce the skin. The Slog Reviews: 8/10.

Durian Cake from Hotel Rendezvous and Sherlock Holmes (2009) movie

My sister and I decided to buy my mother a durian cake for Christmas this year. We had planned to get it from Goodwood Park Hotel which is famous for its durian cakes but while walking to Cathay Cineleisure today from my office this afternoon, my friend and I passed by Hotel Rendezvous and we saw this near the entrance of their cafe (Straits Cafe).


He waited patiently while I excitedly dashed in to query about the availablity and price of the hotel's award-winning durian fudge cake. The cost for the 1/2 kg was SGD 26 while the cost for the 1 kg was SGD 46. Terrified that the cake would be sold out, I paid for the 1 kg cake and asked the hotel to keep it refrigerated for me until the movie was over. My mother was pleased enough with the cake and immediately sliced and served the same.


The Slog Reviews: 6/10. The durian in the cake was pasty and flat. The durian smell wasn't very strong and the rest of the cake was more creamy than "duriany". Maybe it was because of the fresh milk and coconut milk mixed in with it. This ranks way behind the durian cakes from Goodwood Park. Emicakes still makes the best durian cakes in Singapore in my humble opinion - afterall, I had such a cake for my 29th birthday last year.


Moving onto the movie which took up the better part of the afternoon (most companies in Singapore let their employees have the afternoon off on Christmas eve) Sherlock Holmes was an entertaining enough movie packed with lots of action during its 120mins. Robert Downey Jr reminded me of a really old Johnny Depp (when Johnny acted in Pirates of the Caribbean) - both of them do the glazed crazy-eye stare really well. Jude Law looked older in the movie and his fiancee in the movie reminded me of Paris Hilton. Rachel McAdams was as lovely as ever with one of the sweetest smiles I have seen. It is likely that there will be a sequel to this movie where Holmes will face off against his nemesis Professor Moriarty. The plot for this movie though is simple and appears to be more of an introduction to each of their characters. Holmes is protrayed as a detective having superior martial arts and lock-picking skills and a penchant for annoying Watson but he is also shown to have a soft spot beneath. Holmes hides the photos of Irene Adler he still keeps in his room when she visits unexpectedly and when Watson is hurt in the explosion, Holmes impersonates a doctor to visit Watson. Watson is also shown to have an unbreakable bond with Holmes - he puts his life on the line to rescue Holmes from Dredger at the shipyard and despite his resolution not to follow Holmes any longer because of his fiancee, his responsibility to Holmes dissolve that resolution time and again.

The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The movie holds true to the original stories of Sherlock Holmes where the explanations for the "unexplainable" are given at the end and there is invariably a lot of chemistry and biology involved. This movie is worth watching for the action and great acting by the cast. The English accent may be a tad hard to follow though.