Christmas At The Gardens Mall 2009

The Christmas decor at The Gardens Mall is up. Wuan and I spent some time at the concourse area taking photographs and basking in the festive atmosphere yesterday. The pine trees were gaily decorated with baubles, butterfly cutouts, snow flakes, garlands of ice drops and fairy lights. The colour theme was generally white with the exception of the trees and poinsettias that added splashes of red to break the monotony.

Christmas trees at The Gardens Mall
Christmas trees at The Gardens Mall.

Christmas trees at The Gardens Mall
Christmas trees at The Gardens Mall.

Poinsettia at The Gardens Mall
Poinsettias to brighten up the atmosphere.

Close-up of the Christmas tree decor
Close-up of the Christmas tree decor – butterfly cutouts, baubles and fairy lights.

Earth Hour 2009 And Old Fart Bloggers Meet

Suanie
Suanie so cute.

It is Earth Hour and the living room light is on. Yawn. I am supposed to be preparing for a presentation for tomorrow but here I am blogging about the Old Fart Bloggers Meet at Starbucks at The Gardens Mid Valley this afternoon. This meet was organised by Dustyhawk to get some of the veteran bloggers to chill out together.

Jason, April, Dystuhawk and KY
Jason, April, Dustyhawk and KY.

Wuan and I arrived just before the appointed time. Dustyhawk, Jason Mumbles and April Pole Dancing Queen were already there. Suanie came a while later with KY. The rest who came after that were (not in chronological order as an old fart blogger like me has poor memory) Eyeris, Redzuan dj PhutureCybersonique, Thomas, Albert Glaring Notebook, Fazri Silencers and FireAngel.

Albrt and Fazri
Albert No Money No Honey and Fazri the Virgin.

Chilled out we did, talking about the change of ownership of Project Petaling Street (PPS) among others. Most of us met through organising bloggers meets through PPS. The first bloggers meet that I organised and met other bloggers was way back in January 2005. No doubt it was a small gathering, it was fun meeting some of the bloggers again, some of whom I have not met for a couple of years already. Great work Dustyhawk. Woops, Earth Hour is almost over. That is my cue to end this entry.

Expensive Char Siu Pau At The Gardens Mall

Char siu pau, char siu bao
This is how expensive char siu pau look like.

Would you pay RM6 for these two char siu pau? These steamed buns usually cost about RM1.20 each at roadside stalls and slightly more at dim sum restaurants. Wuan and I had these two buns together with several other dishes for dinner at one of the restaurants at The Gardens Mall in Mid Valley City last weekend.

The bun was fluffy. In fact it was fluffier than most of the steamed buns that I have ever savoured. The filling was another story altogether. The barbecue pork filling was rather tasteless. It also did not exude the aroma one would expect from a good char siu pau.

For the premium that we paid, the location aside, I would have expected something that tasted as good, if not better, as those that I normally buy from the uncles selling them by the road side. On the contrary, we paid more than twice the price for two char siu pau that did not even taste than half as good as the cheaper ones.

The next time I have a craving for char siu pau I will satiate it with one from those roadside stalls. Thank you. There are two places where I usually buy char siu pau from around Kuala Lumpur. One is outside Guardian Pharmacy at Pandan Perdana. The other is Restoran Hock Leong Hin at Jalan Sungai Besi opposite Shell petrol station. The char siu pau from both places are the better tasting ones in Kuala Lumpur.