Eat: Foodlogy French Italian Restaurant, Viva Residency @ Off Jalan Ipoh

I first heard of the term, casual French dining during my visit to Foodlogy. It’s a French restaurant which is located beneath the Viva Residency condominium. Frankly, it was my first time coming across the term so I was indeed excited to try what kind of dishes that the restaurant would have.

The restaurant is spacious with a pretty simple, no frills decor to it. If you come in the evening, it’ll be a suitable place to chill and dine since it is rather quiet in the restaurant. (I’m starting to think, I should at least snap a picture of the interior so that at least it’ll be easier to illustrate how the restaurant looks like. Mental note to self.)

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Mushroom & Truffle Cream Soup | RM 18.90

Potato Artichoke Salad | RM 18.90

Mandarin Orange Salad | RM 16.90

Sardine Sandwiches | RM 21.90

Our meal started off with a rich creamy soup of Mushroom & Truffle Cream Soup, followed by the two salads of Potato Artichoke Salad & Mandarin Orange Salad. What I appealed to me as I was looking through the menu was the use of truffle in a what would have been a normal mushroom soup. If it wasn’t for the use of truffle in the soup, the soup would be just another mushroom soup. This is my first time having the soup of suchcombination and I must say, I did quite enjoy the soup.

The salads arrived looking rather colourful, and simply was not as I expected them to be. There were a lot of different ingredients used for the salads and eating them made it a fun experience as we tried to guess what was inside them salads. All in all, I would say the salads were refreshing to have.

Sardine Sandwiches | RM 21.90

Next up, was a hors d'oeuvre of sardine sandwiches. The sardines are actually from a tin, imported from Spain and simply placed over toasted baguette. As simple as it is, this sandwiches taste better than the ones that would usually need more effort to make. Surprise, surprise. So really sometimes it is the simple things that means the most, eh?

Chicken A-la Cream | RM 25.90

Steak A-la Bleu | RM 59.90

Duck Breast with Smoked Tea & Soya Sauce | RM 29.90

Poached Salmon With Herbs Court Bouillon | RM 39.90

The first main course to arrive was the Chicken A-la Cream which personally appeared to be rather different than what I had expected it to be. Chicken were served sliced, giving impression that the serving size is rather small. They look better suited to be cooked as a side dish though. Taste-wise, it was pretty decent but that didn’t leave much of an impression.

The Steak A-la Bleu, which is a stark contrast to the chicken dish earlier on with its thick slab of meat cooked with a super rich blue cheese. Super cheesy, you don’t even need to taste it to know it’s that rich. It’s a 200g rib eye steak, cooked rare. The cheese overpowers that almost raw meat taste and frankly, I love it like that. But then again, I’m bias probably because of my love for cheese.

Duck Breast with Smoked Tea & Soya Sauce, was an unlikely choice for me because chances are I wouldn’t have picked that. But boy, was I pleasantly surprised with this dish. I hadn’t had much expectation of it mainly because I probably didn’t know what to expect. The duck meat, was well marinated with 'Lapsang Souchong' Smoked Tea. Although it is a seemingly odd choice of cooking method, but I can reassure you that this is something you have to try from the restaurant.

Then, there is Poached Salmon With Herbs Court Bouillon, where you have 180 grams of just poached salmon. This was another simple dish, but the best part was in the dill sauce which was accompanied along it. Personally though, I was just smitten with how fresh the salmon is and natural it tasted. That was the best part of the dish for me.

Seafood Pasta in White Wine Reduction Sauce | RM 45.90

My expectation of the Seafood Pasta in White Wine Reduction Sauce had a lot to do with the price of the dish, I mean it is only fair to have a rather high expectation of the pasta based on the price of the dish. There are shrimps, scallops, fish meat and also squid in ink sauce. The squid in ink sauce, along with the wine used in the dish is the reason why the price is above average.

Choux A-la Creme | RM 12.90

Crepes Suzettes | RM 15.90

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After the dining sessin in Foodlogy, I came to the conclusion that the term casual French dining is due to the dishes being loosely based on the French cuisine but up to the chef’s interpretation on what these dishes should be made. And this was exactly what the chefs told me afterwards as well. Here’s a fun fact about the restaurant; it is started by two sisters who had a passion in cooking. After learning from a French chef, they were inspired to start the restaurant.

And that’s all I have for this post, but wait, I’ll let you in on a little secret since you read this post till the end. One of the surprisingly delicious dish here is not actually a French dish but a local Malaysian favourite which is made from the family’s recipe.

Foodlogy Nasi | RM 18.90

So if you’re really not a fan of French food, do yourself a huge favour by trying the Foodlogy Nasi. You can always thank me later for this, or better yet, treat me to one plate of this yummy goodness! Okay, I’ll end my post here with the details of the restaurant so that you can hop by over.

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// Foodlogy //

B-01 Viva Residency
Jalan Suppiah Pillay
Off Jalan Ipoh
51200 Kuala Lumpur
03 - 4050 4636
Open Daily from 11am – 10pm

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Till next time,

xoxo

CNY: The Year of The Goat’s 2015

Gong Xi Fatt Chai! I hope the Chinese New Year’s celebration have been pretty amazing, filled with calories laden food and of course, those addictive cookies goodies for you. This year around I made a few ‘resolutions’ myself since I missed making them for the new 2015 year. I’ll have a Chinese New Year’s resolution instead and here they are:

1. Capture my Chinese New Year’s moments with my Olympus EPL7, together with my set of lens
2. Pose and snap pictures of my daily #OOTD
3. Upload and post these pictures up!

These are pretty simple resolutions but every year I told myself I’ll do that this year, but I’d fail to do so every time. But this year, I was determined to do just that. So this year, I armed myself with the Olympus EPL7 together with a set of lenses like the Olympus 25 mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko Digital Lens (my favourite most versatile prime lens), Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 M. Zuiko Digital ED Zoom Lens (this is my widest lens that I have which I thought would be useful for portraits with all the family members) and Olympus 9mm f/8 Fisheye Body Cap Lens (I had always found this lens to be rather fun, so I thought I should use this more for that fish eye, wide angle effect).  

These few lenses were my initial set of lens choices, but as it turned out I did use my Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 Macro Lens and also, Olympus 45mm f/1.8 ED M.Zuiko Digital Lens. If all this lens talk is boring you out, let me just show you in pictures now how my Chinese New Year went by. :)

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| Reunion Dinner of Korean BBQ at Palsaik |

So, this year the family decided that they had enough of having Chinese food for dinner and we ended up in Palsaik Korean BBQ for our reunion dinner, having Korean. But Palsaik actually didn’t have yee sang, hence we didn’t have the chance to toss / lou sang. The barbequed meats was amazing nevertheless, and it was a place I would definitely revisit again.

| Chinese New Year’s Eve OOTD |

On the eve of the new year, I’m usually tied up with so many house works especially with all the last minute cleaning. So like every other year, this year I had my role as Cinderella again and didn’t have time to dress up. I decided to go with a rather simple playsuit, and a bare face too.

| The Family Portrait I |

In the past years, we started taking family portraits after we were done with the tea serving ceremony on the first day of the Chinese New Year. In the previous years, what I would do is that I’ll place my camera on a tripod and set a timer for that. That was before I got my EPL7, but with the EPL7 what I did was just enable the remote control function using the Olympus Image Share app, and set a timer to capture the pictures! Best thing is I can see and compose my pictures from my phone (you can see the phone on the table).

| The Family Portrait II |

| Ingredients for Luo Han Zhai |

Like taking the family portraits and the tea serving ceremony, there is something else we do on the first day of the Chinese New Year whereby we would have to be vegetarians for the day. So for this, Dad would take over being the chef because this was his speciality dish. If you actually counted the number of ingredients, you’ll find that there is about 18 ingredients all together.

| Luo Han Zhai |

This is how the dish looks like when it is cooked. It’s pretty much a massive dish with all my favourite vegetables. :) And for dinner, my aunt would cook her version of a complete vegetarian meal. Here’s a picture of the dishes she had prepared.

| The Vegetarian Spread |

|  Dinner Table with the Olympus 9mm f/8 Fisheye Body Cap Lens   |

Those few photos above pretty much sums up the activities for my day, which would usually be a rather chilled day because it’ll be spend just lounging around. For the pictures above, I only used Olympus 25 mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko Digital Lens except for the OOTD picture which was shot using the  Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 Macro Lens. There is a reason why the 25mm lens is my favourite lens, it’s multi purpose uses enables me to use the same lens for almost everything.

| Make up Of The Day #1 |

I don’t think I should caption the picture as Make Up Of The Day especially since, I barely have any make up on except for BB cream, eyeliner, blusher and also lipstick. A really simple, bare minimum make up I would say. To look ever so flawless, I used the One Touch e-Portrait in the EPL7 which is pretty much the beauty mode. To know about the feature, read my blog post here ; http://www.carmenhong.com/2014/12/snaps-selfies-with-olympus-pen-lite-e.html.

| CNY Day 1 OOTD |

And here’s the first OOTD for the Chinese New Year. I am mad in love with the top from Twenty3, the back details of the top is even prettier. It has a crisscross back design, maybe I’ll show that in another OOTD picture in future. Jeans are from Pur Premium Jeans, but I hate the quality of it. When I tried it on, it was an amazing fit. After one wash, it expanded and is now loose. Such sorcery.

| Make up Of The Day – Blue |

I decided to put in a little more effort in doing my make up on the second day, and this was the result. I used a combination of eye shadows from Inglot and also from Mary Kay, which matches my whole overall outfit. I have Maybelline on my lips, which is a hint of pinkish nude.

| CNY Day 2 OOTD |

The skirt I’m wearing is from Twenty3 and the simple top is from Nichii. It is such a coincidence that we managed to find a background wall of the same colour as my outfit is. Pictures are taken by the sister, Clarrisha with my EPL7 and the Olympus 25 mm f/1.8 M.Zuiko Digital Lens.

| CNY Day 2 OOTD |

| OOTD with the sister |

Day 2 of the Chinese New Year are usually reserved for a family gathering coupled with a potluck of fast food feast, because everyone else is simply too lazy to cook. :p My parents included. Since it is a family gathering, I could not miss the chance to photograph the family members with the attractions of the day which are usually the children (babies, especially!)

And that sums up pretty much of the first half of the Day 2 of Chinese New Year, as my job as the family photographer to take pictures of my Mom, Dad and my sister, Clarrisha with little children. We managed to take a family portrait too using the Olympus Image Share app to control the camera remotely coupled with the Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 M. Zuiko Digital ED Zoom Lens which allowed me to fit everyone in the picture!

| Make up Of The Day – Purple |

What happened after the lunch family gathering was a dinner we needed to head to immediately, and I only had like 15 minutes to change. I realised I didn’t have time to redo my whole make up, and so, I layered an awesome shade of pink eye shadow from Mary Kay over the blue one. It ended up turning into this lovely purple shade of shadow.

| CNY Day 2 OOTD |

Here’s how the full outfit looks like, with the dress from Something Borrowed which I bought online from Zalora. There was a period of time when I was pretty much in love with the colour burgundy and I got myself everything that colour or similar shade. It’s definitely my next favourite colour after the black colour.

\| CNY Day 3 OOTD |

Here’s the last OOTD picture I have for the Chinese New Year, because I have only spent the first three days dressing up. On the fourth and last day of the holiday, I pretty much spend it chilling around, visited a friend and then a simple dinner with some family friends. Nothing much happened though after the first three days, just casual meet ups. Some of which I didn’t photographed too.

And that pretty much sums up how my Chinese New Year is. I did manage to meet with my college friends and a few friends, but that is just about it. So, I’ll leave you with this post, and I hope you did find it useful that I shared a little on the different types of Olympus lenses that I used. My point in doing so is pretty much to show you how I change my lenses according to my needs. If you enjoy reading posts like this, do let me know and I’ll try to include them into my posts in future!

Till next time,

xoxo

Snaps: Thaipusam Celebration at Batu Caves

About a year ago, my friends suggested for a shoot at the Thaipusam festival in Batu Caves but I couldn’t make it back then because I had to work (yes, even though it was a public holiday). I had to pass on that opportunity last year. This time around, as it happens I didn’t need to work on Thaipusam Day and again, my shutter loving friends invited me along to shoot. This time around, I wasn’t going to miss on the opportunity too.

I was all pumped up for the Thaipusam shoot until Robin told me that we’ll be meeting at 2am at the KTM station to take the train down, so that we will arrive at 3am. And I died a little inside when I heard the plan, because this is equivalent to me not sleeping at all seeing that I usually only sleep at 2am anyways. But for the sake of this all, I decided if I wanted to shoot the festival, I will go all the way.

The first meeting was at the Bandar Tasik Selatan KTM station, where I met up with Tian Chad, Robin and Tobias. From which we took the KTM to KL Sentral to change to the other KTM line which was headed to Batu Caves. I didn’t time the journey, but it took us less than 45 minutes to arrive at the station. Since it was in the wee hours of the morning, the train was relatively spacious still.

| ISO 800, 25 mm f/1.8, f/1.8, 1/60 sec | 

So, at approximately 4am in the morning, I found myself sandwiched between a sea of devotees and I’m among the thousands queuing in line to head up to the caves. It wasn’t a dream, I could feel the heat in the humid air and sweat trickling down my face. To top this all, I had both my cameras with me, with my lenses too. At times like this, I am ever so grateful that my Olympus cameras and lenses are so compact and lightweight, it didn’t feel so much of a burden to carry them around.

| ISO 1600, 25 mm f/1.8, f/1.8, 1/125 sec | 

We did eventually made it to the top of the caves, where we stayed there to shoot for a little while. Personally, when we first started out, I felt lost and overwhelmed amongst all the happenings and I couldn’t decide on what to shoot. This is why, I didn’t have much pictures from the first half of the shoot. It is only after we made our way down from the caves and headed to the preparation areas for the devotees, that I found my interesting subjects to shoot or perhaps, it was because I had the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO Lens with me.

I have never shot with that lens before but I know when it was first released, Jackie and Alex had a chance to try it out and they were gushing about it all. Since I could finally use that lens, I ditched all my lenses during the second half of the shoot and only shot with just that lens alone (except for a couple of pictures).

| ISO 1600, 60 mm f/2.8, f/2.8, 1/2000 sec | 

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 40mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 48mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 67mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 40mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 75mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 79mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 90mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 40mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 46mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

| ISO 200, 40-150 mm f/2.8 PRO, 43mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec |

And that’s all the pictures I have from Thaipusam festival, which was actually a rather lengthy shoot. We spend about like 6 hours there but for me, I only did actually started shooting about 7am onwards. Nevertheless, the whole experience of witnessing for myself what happened during Thaipusam, from the preparation to the prayers and to the walk up the caves. I can say with pride that as a Malaysian myself, I know more about this than I had previously.

My parents’ reaction when I told them I was headed to the festival was that, it’ll be packed and uncomfortable. Knowing this, I still went ahead because I couldn’t possibly miss a cultural event like this when I would travel to another country for something similar. Throngs of tourists come over here to watch this, I would be ashamed if I didn’t at least attend it once.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and reading this post, albeit it being a rather short post on the Thaipusam festival. Oh, I do realise that some pictures may feel rather repetitive, in the sense that I shot mostly portraits. I did wished I shot more ‘action’ photographs, but somehow there were always a handful of photographers crowding around the devotees and it made it harder to compose while trying to avoid capturing that.

On a side note, I am falling madly in love with the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO Lens especially when there are so much to love about the lens. I’m very tempted to use the lens again, I’m hoping to come up with a shoot concept which would allow me to test the lens more in-depth. Any suggestions for that? Or perhaps, would anyone be up for a collaboration? :) Let me know!

Till next time,

xoxo