Monsters Ice- cream @ Sunway Pyramid

Gong Xi, Gong Xi.

Today marks the 5th day of the Chinese New Year and I think everyone probably should be back on their work desk by now facing a lovely Monday after a long holiday HAHA It's funny how we easily brush off our working momentum but how difficult it is to stop our holiday momentum, which of course leaves us being rather unproductive and fat from all the tidbits, teehee.

Came back to KL on the 3rd day of Chinese New Year because mum and sis wanted to go mall strolling. I think it's the best time to hit the malls in KL because when everyone else is back home, the malls (and parking) here become rather empty and so nice to stroll!

So we went to Sunway Pyramid and managed to try out the new ice- cream from the newly established stall located on first floor.

Monsters Ice- cream

F1, Sunway Pyramid

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Monsters Ice- cream

There weren't many people at the store when I was there. I think there was only one lady placing her order but because we placed our our order and flocked the stall for pictures, it attracted many others to check out the ice- cream making process too! That's why the store looks like they have many people flocking it in the picture above LOL

Basically you get to customise you own ice- cream. There ares Five (5) ice- cream to choose from: Thai Tea, Green Tea, Chocolate, Mocha and Vanilla. Then you pick the combination of toppings that you want. Refer picture below:

Monsters' menu

We chose Green Tea ice- cream with red bean and cornflakes topping, RM8.90! 

Oh, I forgot to mention why the hype of this ice- cream. It's a 'new' form of the chop chop ice- cream- you know the ones that you select your ice- cream and toppings then they will mash it up and nicely serve it to you after it's nicely combined?

Monsters ice- cream is practically the same where the ice- cream and the toppings will be mashed to combine BUT it will be flattened and then rolled to be served! 

Check out the process of making tiny ice- cream rolls!!

Step 1: Place toppings onto the 'ice pan'. Ours was cornflakes and red bean.

Step 2: Measure the ice- cream base out. Wasn't expecting real green tea but it was real liquid foem green tea!! I think they would have some other combinations in it rather than green tea alone.

Step 3: Pour liquid on toppings

Step 4: Mash and fold. As they continuously mash and fold the ice- cream, the liquid will soon solidify.

Step 5: When it reached ice- cream consistency, ice- cream is spread wide like this

Step 6: Roll em' up!

Tada!!! Many tiny ice- cream rolls!!!

Initially we bought this just to have fun HAHA So I wasn't having any expectation on it's taste but it turned out tasty! The green tea flavour tasted like those authentic Japanese powered green tea! It's not too sweet, red bean where mush nicely (Sis who didn't like red bean didn't mind it here) and cornflakes gave a nice crunch to it, YUMS!

You can request for additional toppings at RM1. You can add on whip cream if you like but I didn't because I was only after the ice- cream rolls so whip cream seemed redundant that time.

It was fun seeing them make the ice- cream so if you haven't it's worth a try! Oh, FYI the guy makes it better than the lady LOL

Check them out on Facebook and Instagram!

Okay, going off to make dinner. 

Happy Chinese New Year! 

Ming Xiang Tai @ Burmah Road, Penang

Why is everyone still on holiday??? I'm back and ready for action since a week ago but then everyone else seem to be still on holiday, which leaves me to have nothing to do, which makes me feel guilty for wasting time. Though there's nothing much that I could do.

Another post on Penang!

So prior to the Penang trip I was googling about the places to find good food. I wanted to try out different food that I have not had the opportunity to eat the last round I was there. Of course, good food from the previous trip will be eaten again LOL

Don't know how but I was googling about pastries in Penang and apparently quite a number of people were talking (blogging) about this chinese pastry shop. So I did my homework and paid them a visit!

Ming Xiang Tai 

133 Jalan Burmah, Georgetown Penang

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If you are coming from Penang Rd (It's a one way street), Ming Xiang Tai will be on your left

Entrance of the Burmah Rd shop

Ming Xiang Tai is a Chinese pastry shop that sells Cantonese snacks like egg tarts, Siew Pau, and other types of sweet and salty pastries. 

Initially I wasn't sure if it's worth the visit because Penang is a Hokkien place so I assumed that whatever good there is there should be of Hokkien originated cuisine right? However, lots of people were saying that the pastries were really good and that this lady even ordered many packs of Trishaw Eggtarts to be brought back to KL as souvenirs!

Since I didn't had to ride on public transport to get there, I decided to give it a go!

Interior of the shop

Sidewalk board outside the shop

I think this outlet on Burmah Road is their first shop, if I've not mistaken. Now they have a few branches all around Penang. Have a look at the pastries that would be the first thing to welcome you as you walk into the shop:

Pastries say hello!

Walked inside and found more pastries

They have soybean drink and Tau Huey (soy pudding) as well for sale in the refrigerator alongside other beverages.

Seems like their soybean drink is a hit! One bottle cost RM6. Since it's pricey I'm assuming that it would be really really good.

We packed back our pastries and Tau Huey to the hotel because we just had Pata Mee Sotong for lunch and also Swatow Lane Ais Kacang so we were so darn full and tired. Back in the hotel we had a nap and once I awaken from my slumber I felt hungry so just in time for snacks!

Pastries nicely packed in a transparent plastic box

I got the famous Trishaw Eggtart (RM1.80) and Salted Egg pastry (RM1.50). My sis got the eggtart and a chicken siew pau (RM2). We shared a lotus filled pastry (RM1+) as well. 

Trishaw Eggtart

This was the pastry that motivated me to go check out Ming Xiang Tai. It's call Trishaw Egg Tart because his grandmother started off selling pastries in a trishaw. People actually pack boxes of this back! Must be good!

I love the egg centre of the tart, very fresh, soft and wobbly. Not too sweet so that's good. The crust of the egg tart is the crispy flaky type. I thought that the crust needed to be more buttery though since it tasted quite bland. Overall I give it a 3 Star, not sure if I'd pack it all the way back to my hometown as souvenirs though. The ones at Canton- i tasted significantly better for me:P

Tau Huey, RM3.50 I think 

They soy pudding and the syrup were packed seperately. Here you don't get to choose your sugar. Usually I'd have mine in white but since they only had black I didn't mind too much either. The fun part comes when you drizzle your syrup onto your pudding!!

Syrup on pudding, yums!

This, I like!! Very fresh homemade tasting Tau Huey. The pudding was very delicately made, tasted so fine, fine as in halus with no clumps and easily slurped down your throat! YUMS!! I dumped half the syrup on the pudding yet it wasn't too sweet! By the way, the syrup was thick (I was impressed with how thick it was because usually the syrups are watery) so I thought it would be very sweet LOL

Naomi's Chicken Siew Pau

She didn't really like this because she said it didn't taste classic. Usually the meat is pork but since Ming Xiang Tai is pork free, they substitute pork with chicken. Also I think this siew pau is modernised in some way because they added extra ingrediants inside (Forgot what they were, was it lotus seeds?)

My salted egg pastry wasn't that tasty as well. Tasted very dry to me. Basically, all the pastry skin in Ming Xiang Tai is dry LOL But their fillings are not too bad though! But don't think I'll return when back in Penang.

Mugshot Cafe @ Chulia Street, Penang

Haven't been doing much work this week even if I'm back and ready for action. I guess everyone else is still in their holiday mood. So I here I am blogging, at least it's something productive or else I feel guilty:X 

But before that, a quick note about what happened today. 

Today, I waited 7 hours at Perodua's Car Service Centre. This is the longest I've ever waited. Called the centre at 9am to see if today is full and make an appointment but the lady told me that today it's on walk- in basis so I walked in at about 10am (I got lost finding the place). 

Saw the scheduled time printed on the invoice (12.30pm, okayyy I had to wait for at least 2 hours I thought). Since I had to change the timing belt (whatever that is), the guy told me it would take a longer time and the car will be ready at 4 plus. In the end, I was the last customer to retrieved my car at 5.20pm:O

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining just that I'm amazed at how patient I am LOL. I finally found my strength. So next time when potential employers ask me that question, my answer would be "extreme high tolerance towards anything including bullshit" :D

Talking about sh*t, when we were back in Penang somehow my bowels knew that it was not home so I couldn't go to toilet for 2 days. On the last day before heading back to KL, we had yogurt for breakfast and WALA!! Bowel started working efficiently within an hour!

Mugshot Cafe

302 Chulia Street, Penang

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Mugshot Cafe from the outside

Interior; Mugshot 302 Chulia Street

Making full use of the space

Counter to place your orders and high chairs along the counter

I've heard of this cafe and have read blogs about it but if not for my sis, I would have given the place a pass and regret it for the rest of my life! The reason why I initially thought of giving it a pass is that this cafe serves very limited food i.e. bagels, yogurt and coffee. That was about it. None of the items stood out to me but there was always a large crowd whenever I passby.

At mugshot, it's partially self service. 

You gotta place your order and pay for it first then wait for them to send you your stuffs. So that morning, after walking back from breakfast, all hot and sweaty we decided to chill at Mugshot cafe. Thank God for the aircon! 

As mentioned, usually there are a lot of people flocking the cafe so I wasn't sure if we could find a seat but we did instantly! The seat was very strategic too because it had a mirror on my right hand side like such...

... and a stone oven on my left hand side as such...

If you're thinking why is it good to sit next to the oven? Well, because we get to see all the action! Mugshot cafe bakes their bagels in the stone oven so it's very cool to see! Also, I managed to capture pictures of different types of bagels of which was ordered by other people as well! HAHA

Guy making salmon bagel

Bagels sliced in half, spread with butter or cream cheese depending on the order, popped into the oven!

Check out the firewoods. REAL firewoods to run the oven! Impressive!

This was our order: Cream Cheese Bagel (Forgot the price, something like RM5 I think)

Very generous amount of cream cheese

Mugshot definitely did not scrooge with the quality or quantity of cream cheese! One huge slab of thick creamy cream cheese in between your bagel. The only thing is it's rather tasteless LOL So if you prefer something more flavourful maybe you should try their bacon and egg bagel or Salmon bagel.

Bacon and Egg Bagel (Forgot the price, about RM10 I think)

The bacon is not pork. It's turkey bacon. I overheard the counter guy clarifying the issue to two muslim ladies who were deciding on their bagels. I love the customer service there because they are all very polite and considerate. The said customer didn't even have to ask to know what kind of bacon is served.

Btw, I'm deviating from Mugshot for a bit since I'm talking about bacon. 

There was once where I saw a comment, a question actually, from a Muslim customer enquiring about the type of ham being used. I forgot which cafe was that on Facebook. It seem like a sensible question to me since there are many types of ham and obviously they are prohibited to consume pork.

Then came a nasty comment by this guy who is not of the same religion. Being very rude, he laughed it (the question regarding type of ham) off in his comment and said something implying that the Muslim customer was stupid because ham is pork.

Well hello smarty pants! "Ham" could also be chicken, turkey or beef. Was so angry with this fella's stupidity, to think that he thought someone else is the stupid one. Pfff, obtuse asshole.

Okay, coming back to mugshot. Here is a picture of their Salmon bagel! It's someone else's order but since I was sitting next to the oven I managed to get free picture without having to order it hehe

Smoked salmon bagel (Approximately RM10 I think)

Iced Cappucino (Approximately RM10 I think)

I'm not a big fan of their coffee because it was so dang bitter!!! I had to put like 5- 8 spoonful of sugar to make it drinkable. For that price, I'll opt for Starbucks instead. That being said, their ultimate product that you got to, have to, must buy is Mugshot's... 

Jackfruit & Gula Melaka Yogurt!

Jackfruit slices and Gula Melaka yogurt RM10

This was my holy grail, thanks to my bowel who stubbornly insisted that it's not home

This is real homemade yogurt! Nothing like those sold in supermarket!! This was so thick and rather sour so the jackfruit and gula melaka toppings was a perfect fit! I shared one jar of yogurt with my sis and thought nothing of it till about an hour later.

An hour later, my stubborn bowels started working it's ass off and I couldn't wait till home so I had to use the R&R's toilet along the highway LOL This is how effective their yogurt is! It is so authentic and natural and concentrated that it works magic! Very suitable for people who have a stubborn bowel when travelling!

To think half a jar could help me so well, it slide right through! (Okay, too much details but I am realy IMPRESSED by their yogurt!!!) Imagine having one whole jar to yourself! You probably wouldn't get fat after your food hunt trip in Penang :D

Okay, one nice food picture to make you forget about the gross detail I've just written LOL

The back area of Mugshot cafe, bigger tables for bigger groups of people

They have an upstairs too but I think it was closed that day

Doorway to the kitchen

The place where they produce my favourite homemade yogurt! Seriously, I have never ever come across such effective product before. Not even bananas could come close!

A mint making machine, RM2 per mint I think.

Select your design then turn the wheels. Wheel get heavier as it was being crafted. There you go!

Also, they provide you with chalks for... 

A must have MUGSHOT picture!!!

Mugshot pose, hehe

I would definately return to Mugshot cafe when I'm back in Penang!!! Super good service, unlike the ones that we got in China House. People at Mugshot Cafe makes you feel so welcomed and happy despite them being very busy zooming here and there fulfilling orders. 

If you ever go there, you MUST try their yogurt okay! It comes in many different flavours too other than jackfruit & gula melaka. It's seriously the BEST product that I have ever eaten! Even till today, my sis and I often gushed about how awesome their yogurt was for our bowel!