It's Over!

Water running from the COLD tap is hot, but not scald-yourself-pink-and-silly-scorching hot. So it's official. Summer's finally over in Dubai!

When The Smog Is Going Down

Aiya... haze, haze, haze. Haze in KL, haze in Singapore, and most of all, haze in Dubai almost everyday throughout the whole bloody year.

On most days it's just blah and grey. But sometimes, it gets so bad that the dense dust particles in the air block out most of the light from the sun, leaving the whole world looking yellow.

THE WHOLE WORLD ISN'T SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE IT'S GOT JAUNDICE!!

Give me back my blue skies and clean air, please...

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?

London, baby!
Home of Harry Potter and Queen! Not the Queen, (though yes, the Queen too…) but I mean, rock-your-socks-off-Freddy-Mercury-Queen...


Day One – London
We arrive in London really early in the morning, so we aren’t able to check-into our room till later in the day. Our first stop is Millennium Gloucester Hotel, to drop off a bag for my brother. Now that he’s on the A380 fleet, he probably flies to Sydney and London more often than anyone else I know. He was supposed to arrive in London the same day as us, but unfortunately his roster was changed, and he had a flight just before, and just after us.

So I leave him a bag of stuff to bring home for me, and he leaves me a bag of goodies with our ‘hotel’ reception, filled with stuff from home like ‘beh teh so’ (heong pneah), mooncakes, instant chrysanthemum tea, etc. I also asked him to pack in 2 cans of ‘Jia Jia liang teh’ for Ben, but he thought he was being kind enough to bring us 5 cans!

We have to drink all of them as quickly as possible cos it’s the start of our trip and already the weight of our haversacks are killing us.

Luckily our ‘hotel’ allows us to stow our bags at the reception before check-in time. So, although tired from a restless and uncomfortable 7-hour flight over, we head out to visit Buckingham Palace. The State Rooms are open for public viewing each summer, when the Queen is holidaying in Scotland. So we can’t really say we’ve been to London to visit the Queen.


We're amazed by the beauty and grandeur of the palace interiors. Absolutely breathtaking! Photography isn’t allowed in the palace, so, sorry, no pictures of the exquisite details of the famous paintings, porcelain and decor. For the first time ever and only this summer, a special tour is also held called ‘A State Banquet’. This features the setting of a state banquet in the ballroom when heads of state visit and dine with the Queen. Not very interesting though.

We weren’t expecting the weather to be too cold, but it is cold, and windy, and we’re shivering our underpants off as we walk through parts of the lovely gardens at the end of the tour.


It’s not yet noon and we’re starving. Our booking for lunch at Le Caprice is only at 2.30pm, so we walk about looking for a light snack. On the way, we pass this grand-looking but very odd ‘church’.

It says, "Cleanse the leper. Heal the sick. Raise the dead."

We decided on lunch at Le Caprice, a very popular restaurant in London, because it was recommended by an acquaintance of Ben’s.

Tired and hungry, I suggest we try to get an earlier seating as I read that they sometimes take in walk-in guests who can enjoy their meal at the bar. So we walk to the restaurant which is situated just behind The Ritz, and are greeted by the friendly managers who are already expecting Ben, the chef from the Burj Al Arab.

Immediately, they give us a place at the bar even though we’re two hours early, and welcome us with two complimentary glasses of champagne. Not a good idea to drink champagne when you’re this tired and hungry though. Really not a good idea.

Ben orders one of the daily specials for his starter, a fillet of mullet, which is filled with bones, lots of bones! He keeps asking me for tissues to spit blobs of half-chewed fish and bones into. Very disappointing. Luckily, he suggests that I order the Tortellini with sweetcorn & girolles since I like mushrooms, and I love it! So does he. It is really, really good. The flavour, the texture, just bloody good.

Then Ben notices that one of the guys seated next to us has ordered Eggs Benedict which looks really appetizing, and looks around to realise that almost every table has ordered it too. So he orders one, and it more than makes up for his first starter. The egg poached to perfection, the muffin toasted to a lightly crisp piece of heaven. Just DELISH!!

While seated at the bar, we are hugely entertained by watching a bartender with hands more skilled than David Beckham’s feet. He works so fast, we keep having to make double takes. Like first he’s brewing a cappuccino, then taking down a new order while clearing soiled cups and glasses and preparing a pot of tea and next thing we know, there’s already cocoa sprinkled on that darn cup of coffee. I almost suspect he has a wand hidden somewhere while he secretly utters magical incantations. Expecto cappuccino!

He prepares little pots of fresh peppermint tea so often that I decide to try some after our meal too. It’s refreshing and especially soothing since I have a bad headache from a very bad combination of lousy flight + lack of sleep + sightseeing overkill + champagne on an empty stomach.


After lunch, we make a super-quick stop at Oxford Street so Ben can see what the fuss is all about at this famous shopping area. Like an upsized, open-air Mega Mall, with huge-ass versions of H&M, Topshop and the biggest Apple Store ever!

Finally, we head back to our ‘hotel’. Inverted-coma-ed because we’ve never experienced a hotel stay like this before. Grandly named the ROYAL Norfolk Hotel, I chose it because of its very strategic location and the pictures of the room looked ok on the internet. I was also very happy that the manager allowed Andrew to leave a bag at the reception for us for 3 days.

So, as I was saying, I selected this place because it’s so close to Paddington station, which is where we’ll depart the next day for Maidenhead. It’s so close, you can even ‘experience’ the train every ten minutes. The railway tracks are just below, as pictured here. I don’t even have to zoom in on it, this is the exact view from our room on the 3rd floor.


The en-suite bathroom is so small, you get blue-blacked elbows just trying to brush your teeth. But at least, the room is clean, the bed is comfy, and no ghostly encounters or worst, cockroaches! We manage an uneasy afternoon nap with the persistent drone of construction works going on downstairs plus the frequent rattle and clatter of passing trains.


And of course, I no longer need to tell you all about our dinner at Ramsay’s that night. Except that we think we may be the only ‘regular Joes’ who’ve taken the tube and walked 15 minutes to one of the best restaurants in the world.

Complimentary breakfast the next morning is made up of soggy toast, very salty bacon, eggs and the smallest but toughest wieners in the world. ;p But it’s hearty and enough to fuel us on our onward journey.


Day Two – Maidenhead
After breakfast and checking out, we visit Harrod’s to look for the cheese that Ben enjoyed so much the night before. We’re not allowed to walk around Harrod’s carrying our two haversacks and large bag of goodies (plus a very heavy copy of Gordon Ramsay’s latest book, 3-star Chef). So we have to check it in at their Left Luggage Room, reluctantly parting with £9 - 3 pounds for each bag!


Harrod’s is so huge, it’s a good thing we only have time to browse the Food Halls cos we’re already lost on the first floor and can’t even find an exit. Like the Takashimaya basement multiplied by six, it’s food, food, food everywhere. Looks nice in pictures, but not that intriguing lah. And they don’t carry the elusive Plaisir au Chablis. Too bad.


We take the First Great Western to Maidenhead, and check into Ray Corner Guesthouse. The owners of the guesthouse, Sue & Graham, are very friendly. They’re very excited to hear that Ben’s a chef, and tell us about what they know about The Fat Duck, peppered with a bit of local gossip here and there.


The room is clean and very well maintained. Again, we have a window overlooking the main road outside. Most small hotels and guesthouses here do not have air-conditioning because it’s cold most of the time, and even their summers aren’t that warm. So we have to leave the windows open for some form of ventilation, which means being disturbed by the sound of passing cars, buses, people, dogs…

Before this trip, I read a lot about the Thames Path that stretches 180 miles along the River Thames, passing interesting places like Windsor, and small towns like Maidenhead and Bray. The guesthouse is within walking distance from this path, and I had planned to walk to the nearby village of Cookham to admire the ‘countryside’ and scenes of farms, cottages, etc.


This afternoon, I suggest we walk to Boulter’s Lock, and maybe visit Ray Mill Island there, which I read is a lovely nature spot with wild ducks and guinea pigs. Again, I guess I’ve been fooled by pictures on the net, cos nothing seems remotely ‘countryside’ about the views along this part of the Thames. Perhaps it may be so closer to Cookham, but we don’t have the energy to find out. We stop at a small café for coffee and Fish n Chips.

Again, I’ve already described dinner at The Fat Duck, plus lunch at The Waterside Inn the next day.

Day Three – Bray
After lunch at The Waterside Inn, I decide it’s not worth the money to take a cab back to Maidenhead, and then take a cab back here again for dinner, and then a cab back again. There also isn’t enough time to travel to and do a bit of sightseeing in Windsor, which is about 15 minutes away by taxi. So we make the very unwise choice of staying in Bray till it’s time for dinner at The Hinds Head at 7pm.


Bray is a one-street village. No kampung-style cottages lah, but their High Street (usually the main street in any town), pictured above, stretches for just about 250 metres. There are nice homes and cottages just beyond this street, and we go looking for the church that looks like a part of a castle from a distance.


St Michael’s church was built in 1293. Like most super-old village churches, its grounds are dotted with really old gravestones of loved ones past. We try to sneak a peek inside, but come to a locked door, from which I manage peer into its interior.


Apparently this church has a number of ancient sculptures, including a Sheela na Gig. [A Sheela-what?!! Read about this very interesting artefact here]

The Jesus Hospital is an almshouse, founded in 1609 by William Goddard (whose full-sized effigy stands over the entrance) to house 34 of the aged poor of Bray and 6 of the ‘Worshipful Company of Fishmongers’ to which he belonged. [Ref: Wikipedia]

We search for Heston Blumenthal’s lab/kitchen, like two clueless souls on a ‘Da Vinci Code’ trail. After walking up and down the High Street till the people at TFD think we’re stalkers, we’re so bored and finally sit on a bench at an open field nearby, waiting for time to pass.

The next day, Sue tells us that HB’s kitchen/lab is actually at the carpark just across from his restaurant because the locals won’t allow him to extend the kitchen at his restaurant!

We suspect Bray may also be home to some hobbits.

Bored and as dull as beer-without-hops, we go to The Hinds Head an-hour-and-a-half before our dinner booking, and Ben enjoys a nice pint of Fosters in the pub. We hope to see HB popping in for a pint so that Ben can pick his brain, but remember that the waitress told us the night before that he’s travelling for some new stint.

Dinner is worth the wait! Ben describes it in his blog post here.
To view all the photos taken in Maidenhead and Bray, click this.

Day Four – Maidenhead-London-Dubai
Our last day here. When checking out, Sue and Graham chat with us for a while. It’s funny how Sue fondly says “Heston’s just a pussycat”. She was comparing him to Ramsay of course, telling us about how there was a chef who used to work at Ramsay’s, who then came to work at TFD, and he’s the only chef who’s ever quit The Fat Duck, probably cos he’s just too used to being screamed at at his former kitchen.

There’s a bus stop conveniently located at the doorstep of the guest house, from which we take a bus to Heathrow. We go to the airport first so that I can do the online check-in and we also leave our bags at Left Luggage, this time for £6.50 per piece! Our flight is only later in the evening, so we have the whole afternoon to walk about London.


We head straight for Portobello Road Market because there’s a special bookstore here called Books For Cooks. It’s a Saturday, and the area is crowded with hundreds of stalls, selling everything, from souvenirs to army paraphernalia, fresh fruit & veggies to vintage toys.

Unfortunately, we didn’t know that the bookstore closes in August. I'm more disappointed than Ben is, probably cos I felt this was the objective of visiting the market in the first place, whereas he was enjoying the atmosphere of this bustling place.


Dejected, we take the train from Notting Hill Gate to High Street Kensington, hoping that the WH Smith store here might carry a wide range of food-related books. They don't, but we pop by the park at Kensington Palace just so Ben can have a look-see. We pass Stick n Bowl restaurant, and I tell Ben about remembering how some SQ crew just can’t let a day pass without eating Chinese food, no matter where in the world they are, no matter how lousy the food is.

We hope to get some really good fish n chips before leaving London. With the flu getting the better of me by this day, it seems luck really isn’t on our side today, until we find an Italian restaurant that has a Fish n Chips Special displayed outside.

Seated next to an old lady, we place our orders for F&C. The old lady turns to me, points at Ben’s t-shirt, and says, “I believe I have that same exact t-shirt”. (Ben thinks that people must like my round funny-face cos strangers always approach me.) I tell her that it just might be the same cos it's from Topshop. We chat a bit more, and I ask her where we can get really good F&C here. She says we’re at the right place, and I suspect she’s just being a nice, old lady.

She’s right though! The fish n chips here is great. Really light n crisp batter, tender fish. As she gets up to leave, the little old lady bids us goodbye, wishes us a safe journey and says, “God bless you”. So sweet.

View all the photos taken in London here.

When we’re at the airport waiting for our flight back to Dubai, I get a bag-full of meds for my flu from Boots, and finally get my hands on a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.


Overall, our holiday was superb! We were blessed with good weather – cold the first two days, warm and muggy the next two, but at least no rain! The full effects of the flu only hit me the last day, so at least I could taste all the amazing food we had.

Apart from a closed bookstore and ‘overly-strategic’ rooms, everything went great and as planned. With the magical dining experiences and enchanted places we visited, I can gladly say, mischief managed! :o)

Old Skool Glam

Through the Rain, by Cinderella
I know it's hard
In a world gone bad
To find the truth
To understand
And I know it's hard
To turn the page
To walk the line
To have the faith

I know it's hard
In a world so cold
To feel the love
I know it's hard
And I know it's true
That in the end
We all find our way
And that's life my friend

But sometimes when it's light
And you can't see
Sometimes when this world
Just seems to be so cold
Sometimes when you're lost at sea
Drowning in your pain
Sometimes the sun shines through the rain

He Says, She Says

Benjamin and I made a trip to London recently; a holiday unlike any other, dedicated to food, glorious food! Ben has already posted his blog about our 3-day dining extravaganza on his website. For his version, click here. And for all the photos, click here.

This is my side of the story – a somewhat mak nenek, unprofessional version of the binge fest that took place.

Let’s get the facts right first. I’ll accept that the holiday was a birthday ‘gift’ for me, although it didn’t start out so… but I’ll just leave it as that. The focus of the trip was to makan at The Fat Duck, but I’m not the sort who knows her kappa from her carrageenan. So the whole dining portion of the holiday is what I’ll call Ben’s “search for (dining) perfection”.

Getting a table at The Fat Duck was the tricky part. Bookings are not accepted earlier than 2 months before a reservation date, and the phone lines are busy the minute the clock strikes 9 every morning in Britain.

On a day exactly 2 months before our preferred date, I made more than a dozen calls to TFD – one call every 10-15 mins till I finally got through about 3 hours later. At the same time, I had to have the British Airways online ticket booking webpage at the ready, so I could have a few dates to play around with. At least 5 of the dates I asked for were already fully booked by the time I got through to the restaurant. But I finally got a date for dinner that was ok, and we were good to go!

Imagine that – booking dinner at a restaurant almost 3,500 miles away even before booking our flight there. Growing up in Petaling Jaya, the furthest my family and I have travelled just for good food was probably the 50-min drive to Klang for bakuteh or a little further for seafood. So anyway, with our table at TFD set, I could finally book our flight, accommodation, and plan the itinerary. Now this is where that one fat duck multiplied into one grossly obese animal! Sebab nila se-itik…

There's a Malay saying that goes, "Sebab nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga"
which is like the English "One bad apple spoils the bunch"

Like, since we’re gonna be in Bray, we might as well have lunch at another 3-Michelin-starred restaurant, The Waterside Inn. And since we’ll be in London first, let’s pick just one really good restaurant too. So we decided on Gordon Ramsay’s at Royal Hospital Road.

Our first 3-star dining experience was at the latter. And it was bloody amazing! After dining here, I don’t think I’d ever need to “search for perfection” anywhere else. Perhaps I’m just a ‘sua koo’, like a beggar who can’t choose. But nah… this is it! Absolute perfection!


I usually dread the idea of dining at a fine and expensive establishment. Firstly, kena pakai cantik-cantik, and then, kena act all proper and posh-nosh. Then be surrounded by uppity diners and served by snotty wait staff with put-on accents and plastic smiles. Ugh!

But NO, not here! I’m not saying the service staff here were like all lepak and bo chap lah. They were extremely professional, carried themselves very well, were confident, eloquent and just oozed charm like a diabetic with a nose bleed. They didn’t allow this confidence to seem anything like arrogance, or to be exaggeratedly charming that it made you feel awkward. As Ben puts it, they were genuine. I did not spot even one tiny ‘jeling’ (cynical/derogative glance) from anyone.


We only managed to get this dinner booked for 10.15pm. When we arrived, we weren’t treated as though we were late, or as if we were the losers who couldn’t get an earlier booking. Instead, we were welcomed with such warmth and grace, with the maitre d’ leading us into the dining room like VIPs, saying “Ahh, yes, we ‘ave a special table ‘ere just for you”. I’m sure he says this to all diners who come through the door lah, but for me, it was like, Dude, you had me at hello…

The amuse bouche, especially the cornet, was so darn good, it was like, Dude, seriously?!! You had me at hello again!

Each course a foreplay to the next, it just got better and better. A soothing, sensual build up to the main course, which was ‘blow-your-effing-brains-out’ out of this world! To make things even more enjoyable, there Ben was, making little mmmms and ohhhhs and ahhhhs as he almost licked his plate clean of the main course, plus the dreamy, half-stoned look on his face during the cheese course.


We were so full by the time the dessert came, but the Tarte Tatin was so freaking awesome that we just couldn’t help but stuff our faces till we got cross-eyed. I told Ben that if I drool in my sleep from now on, it’ll be because I was dreaming of that remaining portion of the tart that I couldn’t finish.


And yes, Jean-Claude the maitre d’ presented me with this little ball of mango sorbet with a candle in it, and very softly sang (like it was our little secret), ‘appy birthday to you… ‘appy birthday to ze lady who’s birthday eez next week… ‘appy birthday to you…

I truly have never had a dining experience this perfect. From now on, every fine dining establishment I visit will be compared to this one. I admit I’m not some globe-trotting foodie or gourmand, but I dare say it will take many more years and many more meals to beat, or even come close to this. Sweet, savoury, sensual dreams, are made of this.


It was with this feeling that I’d never eat the same again, that The Fat Duck and Waterside Inn had to welcome me and try to live up to that ultimate makan experience.

So here’s the no holds barred version of what I really thought of dinner at TFD as compared to how much Ben enjoyed it. I don’t know if I try to give excuses just cos I try to be nice. But by the next night when it was time to have dinner at Heston’s, I wasn’t feeling too good from lack of sleep (the sleepless flight over plus too much activity crammed into the first day and not enough rest throughout). Ben had a luxurious nap before dinner, whereas I, being as usually anal about planning and preparing, went through checklists and itineraries, did some packing/unpacking and spent some time chatting with the owner of the guest house while doing some ironing.


I won’t go into the details of the meal itself, as Ben has already done that. Some new tastes/sensations here and there of course, and overall, the food was really good. Perhaps I could say out of this world only because of how you look at it – snails on bright green porridge, ice cream that tastes like bacon n eggs… weird, but good.


However, I’d just like to pick at the “Sound of the Sea” and why I didn’t enjoy it at all. Heston Blumenthal’s cuisine is about involving all the senses – sight, smell, taste, sound, touch… and emotion, or memory. I suppose most people would really feel like they could almost be by the sea when ‘experiencing’ this course, recalling fond memories of happy days at the beach.


I love the sea, the beach, reef flats and the likes. But maybe I’ve seen, smelled, tasted, touched, heard and felt too much. Perhaps the “Sound of the Sea” jogged something in my brain, flashing an image/memory bank of worms, slugs, back-breaking pre-dawn Wildfilms trips, trudging through knee-deep mud, getting sand in all sorts of ‘cavities’ including all over my camera… And believe it or not, I love it! But the “Sound of the Sea” just didn’t work for me. Dunno why. I guess it proves that everything tastes different to everybody.

Now the gloves come off. I was terribly disappointed with the service. When we entered, we heard one staff tell the other who was showing us into the dining room, “just any table”. It felt as though we were tucked away into the corner of the dining room. It was actually a nice n cosy spot, and because it was by the window, we had a lot of natural lighting that proved useful for taking photos (non-flash photography is allowed at most of these restaurants).

In fact, when were in Bray the next afternoon, we noticed that another Asian couple were sitting at the same table. Maybe they just push all the Chinese dudes to this corner cos they know we'd be flipping out our cameras and snapping away at everything. And I mean, everything.


Anyway, only when I had almost reached the table, someone else came up to ask if I wanted my coat taken. He then took it from me as though my coat was a piece of snot-filled tissue to match his snotty attitude. You had me at hel-… No, you didn’t.


I suppose with all the smoke and mirrors that comes with this sort of menu, the service staff may start to sound quite robotic, repeating the same ‘script’ and jokes over and over and over again, at every table, every afternoon and every night.

To make things worse, two tables away, there sat the most annoying boy in all of England. At that age of adolescence when he sounded like a diseased duck being strangled each time he spoke, plus with a puffed-up know-it-all attitude, he annoyed Ben to bits! He kept giving the plot away!

Like when they were served the orange & beetroot jelly, even before his parents or sister could pick up their spoons, he bellowed out loud, "THE ORANGE ONE IS THE BEETROOT AND THE RED ONE IS THE ORANGE! I've read about this before."


Now, orange we glad we arrived early and are at least two courses safely ahead of Mister Smarty Pants.

There was only one wait staff whom I wish attended to our table more often. He was funny and seemed genuinely friendly. He probably would have made all the difference to how I felt about dinner.


Unfortunately, the young lady who served most of our courses was really fake. Although she didn’t have her head up her a** like the guy who took my coat, her smile was really plastic and she had this sort of haughty and critical glint in her eyes. She couldn't really hide that look of impatience each time we tried to take a picture of something.

By the end of the meal (about 4 hours later), I rushed Ben to leave. I was tired, and just wanted to shake off that feeling of being unwanted and unwelcome. You had me at… No, you never got me. Or perhaps I just didn’t get it.

I feel kinda bad cos I know Ben was trying to linger and just sit there, soaking in the whole experience and the very fact that he had just dined at THE Fat Duck.


The next day, we had lunch at The Waterside Inn. By this afternoon, I was already suffering from the early effects of the flu, having a slight sore throat, runny nose and just that overall annoying droopy-eyes feeling. The restaurant here is sort of open air, looking out onto the terrace and the River Thames. It was a refreshing change to the usual dimly lit dining room that makes everything around you look sepia or jaundiced.


The service staff were more reserved (bordering on being aloof and detached actually), but at least not arrogant. Overall, the food was enjoyable but somewhat evanescent. Nothing really stood out except for the fact that ingredients were really fresh, but that was the same at the other restaurants too. Oooh, the desserts were yummy though!


I guess, like how the meal at Ramsay’s built itself up to such an apex, it would have been so much better if we reversed the order of where we dined first and last. ‘Cos now, everything post-Gordon Ramsay seems like one anti-climax after another. He'll always be 'the one that got away' (till I find another).