Review: The Facial Sculpting Experience at Premier Clinic–Part 2

Hellow! I’m back again to continue on where I left of in my earlier post about my experience in Premier Clinic. If you haven’t read the first post, here’s the link; Review: The Facial Sculpting Experience at Premier Clinic–Part 1. Read that before you read this! So, let me continue from where I last left off which was waiting for the numbing cream to take effect. If you never had numbing cream on your face before, you should try it at least once because I found it rather funny to lose sensation around my lower face area. I know I'm weird, that is what you would probably think of me now.

But anyway, once the effect takes place, one of their ever so helpful beauty assistants would help to remove and clean the cream from the face. They would then proceed to take a picture of your face before the treatment from 5 different angles. After that,  I was pretty much all prepped for the treatments.

The first treatment was the Botox treatment where Botox was injected into my masseter muscles using a technique which is called the “safe injection”  technique. This is a safer technique which ensures that the Botox is injected at the right spots in the muscle, with 3 jabs on each sides of the cheek. Dr. Aarthi used a pencil to draw and indicate where my muscle was and made markings at the three points where she would inject them into. To get the markings right, she asked me to bite on my teeth so as to identify the correct spots. 

After marking the spots, my cheeks were ready for the injection. For the injection, I was told to relax my muscle as contracting it would affect the accuracy and it would also hurt really badly. Because the muscles are located deep within the face, I felt like the needle was going in deep and once it reached the muscle, it was actually pretty painful. But I told myself it'll be okay because I just need to endure the pain for the moment. It did only hurt when the injection took place and not after that. 

Next up, was the Dermal Filler injection for my chin where a three point method is used for the injection. The filler was supposed to from below my chin upwards, but my skin was too thin there. Hence, Dr Aarthi injected from the middle of my chin instead. Compared to the Botox injection, this didn't hurt as bad. In fact, this was almost painless.

The filler works pretty much like a mouldable clay so after injection, Dr Aarthi would massage and try to sculpt the filler to give my chin a defined V-shape face. I found this rather amusing and amazing at the same time! 

Oh, I forgot to mention that for the Dermal Filler treatment, only sterile equipment were used. The gloves were changed to special sterile ones and I had a sheet which was sterile, placed over my chest as Dr Aarthi injected the filler. I wasn't allowed to touch my face as well for fear of the bacteria. The filler is a natural hyaluronic acid, that's why it is prone to fungal infection which could be rather nasty. 

Both the treatments were done in less than 15 minutes, all thanks to Dr Aarthi with her amazing skills who even took the time to explain to me what she was doing while actually performing the treatments. Would you believe if I told you that the effect of the filler treatment was immediate? Exactly! I didn't need to wait for it to take effect, as I sat up, I was given a mirror and ta-da!!! I had a V-shaped chin, and it was so amazing, I could not stop laughing. It's like at that moment you don't believe what you're seeing kind of laugh. 

As for the Botox, it would take 10 days to see the full effect of it. The idea was that the Botox would help to shrink the muscle and result in smaller cheeks. After seeing how amazing the filler works, I was pretty excited to see what my whole complete look would be like. I think I may just have the face of my dreams now. 

But to see that, the final and complete look..... You'll have to wait till the next post to read about the final part of my Facial Sculpting Experience and also, the pictures of my face! So, do look out for that last post. I'll be talking a bit more in depth about the products that was used on my face and what I felt after the treatments. 

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// Premier Clinic //
No. 31 Jalan Wan Kadir 2, Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI)
03-7732 5522 / 012-662 5522
Open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 7pm

Review: The Facial Sculpting Experience at Premier Clinic–Part 1

Okay, I’ll be frank with you. I mentioned briefly in one of my posts, sometime ago about having insecurities. This is something I’m sure some of you would be able to relate and really, it’s something that affects us all. For me, it used to be my body. How I’m so petite and skinny that people think I’m anorexic, how clothes don’t fit me well and it doesn’t help to hear these negative comment from my own friends. But over time, I learnt to overcome that insecurity and came to accept my body as what it is.

As much as I am able to accept that about my body, I do still feel insecure about my face. Firstly, I always feel like my face is not in proportion to my body. I’m already petite sized but yet, my face feels like “bobby head” to my body. Don’t laugh now, you’re not allowed to! But really that’s how I feel most of the time. What bugs me the most is my chubby cheeks, because of them cheeks, I always look fat or bloated at times. The picture next shows my face, taken from the flat straight angle which makes me look uhhhh, fat.

The best part about this was that I devised a technique to make my face looks sharper by manipulating the angles, my face expressions and also the play with lighting. But then again, these methods only work for my self-portraits but when I’m out with my friends, it’s difficult to do that. So, that is why I always end up looking ridiculously chubby and you’ll find me behind a camera most of the times.

I have seriously considered getting a plastic surgery to achieve that V-shaped face, because it’ll help to make me look better and I’d have more self confidence. But the thing about plastic surgery is that there is so many thing to consider; where to do it at, the cost, whether it’ll be painful, after effects of the surgery….etc.. In the end, I decided that I to hold back on doing the surgery until I find out more about it first. Bear in mind that doing the surgery would mean that it’s almost irreversible, if you somehow don’t like it later.

What I didn’t know was that there was another alternative to achieve a V-shaped face, which was through an aesthetic method of facial sculpting. This was achievable through different methods, none of which involves going under the knife and with practically no down-time or rather, healing time. Having been aware of this through my first brief visit to Premier Clinic, I returned for a second visit to get more information regarding the different methods and treatments which would address my areas of concern.

At the clinic, I met the loveliest doctor I ever had, Dr. Aarthi who took the time to consult me based on my concerns. I told her that I was concerned about my cheeks and that I wanted to have a more defined V-shaped face. Based on that, she suggested the best methods to use to help me achieve that, alongside explaining how they work.

 Me being myself, I asked a lot of questions since I’m concerned about the side effects and I do genuinely want to understand the treatments I was doing as well. And Dr Aarthi patiently explained it all to me, taking a step further to explain even more depth sometimes. Having a doctor like her puts me at ease and I know I would be able to trust her with my face. :)

For me, she recommended two treatments under Facial Sculpting which was the Botox (Botulinum Toxin) for my masseter muscle; the muscles in my cheek and Dermal Filler for my chin. The masseter muscle is the muscle we use more for chewing and for me, it was quite prominent. Hence, using Botox, it will help to shrink the muscles on both side of my cheek temporarily. This would then help to reduce the diameter of my face. As for my chin, using the filler, it will elongate my chin and thus, giving my face a more balanced look. 

After the consultation, I could then immediately proceed to have the treatments done on the same day itself which of course, I agreed to. Why delay having a sharper face? Haha. The first step before proceeding with the treatments are to apply numbing cream on face, which would help to reduce the pain later on.

Pictured above is Marcus, the Branch Manager himself, helping me with the hair net to keep my oh-so-pouffy hair in place (everybody gets with long hair gets one, btw. Not just me, because I have huge hair). Then, he also helped me to apply the numbing cream which would take about 30 mins to have any effect on the face.

As you can see, I was pretty much super excited for my treatments and I really couldn’t wait to see the end results. I would finally be able to have the face shape that I always wanted, how could I have possibly sit still. Well I did, anyway. I was placed in a special cosy room while waiting for the numbing cream to take effect. In the room, there are comfy chairs, a TV and drinks like coffee are available as well.

I would love to talk more about the treatments next, but I don’t want to bore you with all the details in one long post. So, what I have decided to do is to split the post up and I’ll save the interesting bits about the actual treatment in my next posts. Look out for that! Meanwhile, here is a picture of myself taken before the treatment, just so we can compare it next time.

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// Premier Clinic //
No. 31 Jalan Wan Kadir 2, Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI)
03-7732 5522 / 012-662 5522
Open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 7pm

Eat: Dukes & Duchess, TTDI

Another one of my favourite places to head to for good food would be Taman Tun Dr Ismail. In this year alone, so many new cafes opened in the TTDI neighbourhood; I’m thinking it would be the next Bangsar (in the sense of that, it’s like a food-concentrated area). If you ask me, some of my favourite places are around that area. And I have another to add to my list now.

If you read my reviews often, you’ll know that I almost never say that. To add a restaurant to my list, would mean that I do love the place so much that I would revisit and most likely recommend it to my friends. The place that I’m talking about is none other than Dukes & Duchess, which is a place that I first know of as a bar. That was mainly because I was there a year back for a couple of drinks with my friends. I never did stepped foot back in there until last week, thanks to a food review session organised by HungryGoWhere Malaysia.

Much to my surprise, they now have a complete and extensive food menu on top of their drinks menu. The bar and grill place now serves real, solid food which are not just your average pub/bar grub. This is all thanks to chef Don Daniel Theseira, who now helms the kitchen of Dukes & Duchess. Let’s begin with food that we had that night, shall we?

Roasted Mushroom Soup | RM15

The soup arrived looking rather photogenic, and pretty much artsy I would say. Haha, so jokes aside, I found that the mushroom soup has a somewhat peculiar sour-ish note to it which I was unable to identify. Needless to say, I didn’t quite enjoy this. Serving size is pretty huge, by the way and the garlic bread was crisply delicious I would say.

Nachos Chilli Con Carne | RM28

I have never been an appetizers-type of person, I would always find myself heading straight for the main course and I never quite fallen in love with appetizers. But this time around, I have and it was with the Nachos Chilli Con Carne, which has crispy in-house made nachos drenched in Chef’s Don homemade chilli con carne, topped with melted cheese & jalapenos. This was the most amazing things I have eaten to date, I might have sounded a bit exaggerating but the nachos were crispy thin, coupled with the cheese and the beef sauce.. OH SO AMAZING.

Spicy Bacon Pizza | RM28

Next up, we had the Spicy Bacon Pizza, a thin crispy thin crust pizza with tomato sauce base and topped with spicy pork bacon, capsicum, olives and cheese. This pizza has bacon with a generous amount of cheese on it. With that combination in hand, the pizza was nothing short of delicious! Didn’t quite taste the spicy bit tho, or my tolerance is much higher than I expected.

Crispy Pork Knuckle | RM 88

The Crispy Pork Knuckle is another one of the glorious looking dish, a pork knuckle buried under piles of grilled bacon, served alongside with roasted vegetables and corn-on-cob. Taste-wise, however I was rather disappointed because it tasted rather bland and the skin wasn’t all that crispy (it was chewy more, which was a turn off for me). However, the special home made chilli garlic sauce by Chef Don which accompanied the Crispy Pork Knuckle was the saving grace for the dish, as the chilli sauce was rather unique. It was also pretty appetizing when paired together with the pork.

Spaghetti Carbonara with Bacon | RM24

Australian Sticky Pork Ribs | RM 42 (Half Slab)

And those were some of the Western dishes that we have sampled, which was (aside from the nachos) are pretty common dishes that you would find in most Western food joints. Now, comes the interesting bit because on top of the Western dishes Dukes & Duchess also serves local dishes and they served pretty “mean” ones I would say. It was the last thing I was expected when I saw the local dishes, that it would be an average one. Except it turned out to be completely the opposite.

Mutton Dry Curry | RM18

Devil's Curry | RM 16

Chilli Padi Chicken | RM16

The mutton curries that I have had are usually rather overwhelmed with the rich curry flavour, which to some can be a warm welcome. I, myself like mine with just the right amount of curry taste to it and the Mutton Dry Curry here, had the perfect balance between curry and the intensity of the flavour. Then, there is the Devil's Curry, which is an already famous dish on its own. Known for its super spicy, mind-blowing curry… the Devil’s Curry is usually not for the faint hearted. But in Dukes & Duchess, the one served here is a milder version which for me was already rather spicy. The spiciness, was rather addictive though and you’ll end up finishing the whole dish, then crave for more.

The best of the three, I would say would be *hands down* the chef’s own recipe of the Chilli Padi Chicken dish. As dauntingly spicy as the dish appears to sound, it is actually rather decent (in terms of level of spiciness). What I found to be more amusing for the generous usage of herbs which worked really well with the chillies and resulted in a rather delicious chicken dish. All the dishes above are served with a choice of bread or a plate white rice which comes with keropok and mango pickle. 

Malaccan Portuguese Spicy Noodles | RM 14

We ended our feast that night with just the Chef’s specialty dessert, the Molten Lava Cake. Each of the lava cakes sold were made by the chef himself, and only himself, so it’s awesome-ness is pretty much guaranteed. Haha. I have to say, from a person who dislikes chocolate, I loved this cake to bits. The cake was not too sweet and the chocolate was rich, but not in the overwhelming-let-me-stick-on-your-throat type. And that’s what I loved about this, and it’s one of the exceptions to my I-do-not-eat-chocolate-but-I-eat-this. Best to eat this while it’s hot because then, the chocolate sauce will flow as you dig into the cake.

Molten Lava Cake | RM16

Molten Lava Cake | RM16

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// Dukes & Duchess //

52, Lorong Rahim Kajai 14, 60000 Kuala Lumpur

012-922 2159 / 014-538 2666

Open from Monday to Sunday from 11.30am till 2.00am

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“This food tasting session was organised by HungryGoWhere Malaysia – Discover, Eat, Share today!”

Event: Maybank GO Ahead Challenge 2014 Gala Dinner

In it’s third season running, Maybank GO Ahead Challenge 2014 is an international business case competition, with participants coming from up to 14 different countries including Malaysia. With the challenge gaining popularity since the previous season, this season had attracted participants from Kyrgyzstan to India, Pakistan to Mongolia and even from Tanzania to Bangladesh. Not forgetting the ASEAN community, Maybank also received applications from China and Hong Kong as well. 

This year, Campus Level stage across 13 campuses in the region was introduced where it is a new feature in the 2014 edition of the Challenge. After that, the participants were challenged further in the national levels held across 11 countries in ASEAN countries as well as Hong Kong, China, United States and United Kingdom before converging at the Grand Finals in August 2014.

For the Grand Finals, the finalists were split into 10 teams, where they were working alongside randomised international team mates in a battle of the not just wits, but also a fair amount of physical stamina. Each team was assigned a series of challenges in multiple disciplines, encompassing fields of finance, stock broking, sales and even culinary and music.

Here’s a brief rundown of what happened in the Grand Finals; they were sent to Jakarta where they spent a day helping to build a house for the needy, then back to Malaysia for an annual ‘amazing race’-esque city wide treasure hunt in KL. On one of the nights, they had to stay up all night preparing food to give it away to homeless people on the streets. On the final day of the challenge, the participants were waking up mad early to prepare food and a plan to set up stalls all around Bukit Bintang to sell food (from burgers, sandwiches and chips to full out Bolognese Pasta).

And after 168 hours of the challenge, a grand finale was held in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where the finalists were celebrated and the winners of the Maybank GO Ahead Challenge 2014 were crowned. Compiling all the scores in the end, Team Star Wars comprising finalists from Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh and the Philippines won the USD40,000 Grand Prize!

Meanwhile, Richard Agabus Ocampo from Adamson University, Philippines took the Ultimate GO Ahead Challenger 2014 crown, winning a cash prize of USD1,000, plus an all-expenses-paid trip to New York and an exciting two weeks internship opportunity at the Maybank New York office.

 After speaking to one of the participants of the Maybank GO Ahead Challenge (who was a junior in my college), I wished I joined it this year. It sounds like crazy intense yet fun business challenge, something that I would have loved to do. At least once in my life, that is. Oh wells, there is always next year at the #MGAC2015, meanwhile if you’re interested to learn more about the Maybank GO Ahead Challenge, you can always join the Facebook group here; GO Ahead Academy.

I’ll end this post with some of the pictures I took that night. Because it was a gala night, so I actually dressed up for it and managed to take a picture of my outfit as well. Thanks Joe! Although I looked absolutely chubby in that angle. :o

The food we had that night was absolutely delish too, and no, I’m not going into my food blogger mode, where I describe and review the food. Haha, I’ll just leave you with the pictures of what we had that night. It was fine dining, and some of us had a laugh about which forks and spoons should we use first.

Till next time,

xoxo

Eat: Yakiniku Ishiya, Encorp Strand

If I closed my eyes and randomly pointed in one direction or a place, chances are that I would likely stumble upon a Korean BBQ restaurant there. That would pretty much sums up the Korean BBQ scene in Kuala Lumpur, you’ll find these BBQ places a plenty. What is more rare would be Japanese BBQ restaurants; you would agree with me, right?

Should you beg to differ, do let me know where I can find these Japanese BBQ restaurants because I only know of a handful! There’s one in Taman Desa and another I know of in Pandan Indah, where both are apparently rather average and nothing fantastic. I never had the chance to try either so I can’t say for sure.

Then, here’s a new comer to the Japanese BBQ restaurant scene, Yakiniku Ishiya which originates from Kyoto, the imperial capital of Japan where they have many branches in Japan with the first ever in Malaysia. Yakiniku Ishiya was founded in the early 90′s by Mr.Reiji Yamamoto, who wanted to preserve and enhance the flavours of traditional style of Japanese Barbeque with his unique concoction of tare (dipping sauce).

| BBQ Promotion Set (2 pax) |

Currently Yakiniku Ishiya is having a BBQ Promotion Set (for 2 persons), where you can pick 3 out of 5 meat selections of smoked duck, New Zealand lamb shoulder, New Zealand beef sirloin, chicken and squid. The BBQ promotion set comes with 2 bowls of mini garlic fried rice and 1 bowl of green salad. The set is priced at RM48++.

| Smoked duck |

| New Zealand lamb shoulder |

| New Zealand beef sirloin |

| Chicken |

| Squid |

This would be my first time eating Japanese BBQ and I was pretty much excited to try to grilled the meat myself. As you can see from the pictures above, that the meat have been expertly sliced thin, which would help to cook the meat at a shorter time. And if you’re like me (a fan of BBQ) but hates the smoky smell that comes with the whole BBQ experience, you would be glad to cook that here in Yakiniku Ishiya because they have a rather strong vent hood which would suck the smoke out from the BBQ grill.

Here you can see how we grill our meats, like I mentioned above it doesn’t take too long for it to cook and the meats are best dipped in the special dipping sauce. If you loved lamb but hate that strong smell/taste when you eat it, the chefs at Yakiniku Ishiya managed to marinate it till that distinct smell/taste is gone in the New Zealand lamb shoulder. The smoked duck was absolutely amazing, the art of grilling is where you grill just enough and not too thoroughly which was simply delicious!

If I had to pick the three choices of meat, it’ll be the smoked duck, New Zealand lamb shoulder and also the squid. Not forgetting that the BBQ Promotion Set comes with garlic fried rice and also, salad (pictured below).

| Mini garlic fried rice | 

| Green salad |

If you’re not a fan of Japanese BBQ, Yakiniku Ishiya also have other items on the menu specially included in their Malaysian branch to cater to the local’s taste of Japanese food. Here are some of the dishes we tried from the menu;

Chicken Teppanyaki Set (Teishoku) | RM 24

Wagyu Don | RM 38

Tempura Moriawase (Mixed Tempura) | RM 26

Golden Dragon Maki | RM 18

Cheese Stick | RM12

Chicken Teppanyaki Set (Teishoku) comes with the usual bento set side dishes like salad, miso soup, pickles, chawanmushi and salad too. The chicken was very marinated and would be best to be eaten along with rice, because on its own it was tad salty. Whereas, the Wagyu Don comes with a white rice topped with shreds of omelette, miso soup and pickles.

Tempura Moriawase was surprisingly one of my favourite ala-carte dishes, because I don’t usually eat tempura fried because it’s so oily in most places. But here in Yakiniku Ishiya it was amazingly crispy and in some of the pieces it was fluffy too. There was little or almost no trace of oil in them! As for the Golden Maki, it differs from the usual maki because this have been carefully coated and fried in tempura batter. Yet despite that, it was not oily and like the Tempura Moriawase, it was crispy and tasty!

The Cheese Stick is an absolute delight for cheese lovers like myself because it is crispy popiah skin fried and inside is thick gooey pure Mozzarella cheese, which is oh so lovely when eaten, especially while it’s still warm.

We finished our meals with lovely ice creams made in-house, Black Sesame Ice Cream (Goma Ice) and Green Tea Ice Cream (Macha Ice) which was rich in flavour and creamy smooth! I loved the black sesame flavour more. :)

Black Sesame Ice Cream (Goma Ice) | RM8

Green Tea Ice Cream (Macha Ice) | RM8

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// Yakiniku Ishiya //

No 58G & 60G, Jalan PJU 5/22, Encorp Strand Pusat Dagangan Kota Damansara

03-6142 6363

Open from Monday to Sunday from 1130am to 3pm (lunch) and 6pm to 10pm (dinner)

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Till next time,

xoxo