A9 + Bukit Cahaya Cycling Outing

So it was public holiday for KL and Selangor on Tuesday (15 July), A9 CG decided to make this an outing since the last outing was quite awhile ago. The weather was awesomely nice, kinda gloomy and it was humid as we trail the pavement. Almost everyone had rented bikes and was cycling around. 

Bukit Cahaya a.k.a Bukit Cahaya Sri Aman a.k.a Taman Botani Negara Shah Alam, yes, all three names are referring to the same spot, as long as you see skytrex right at the entrance of Bukit Cahaya, then you are in the right place. It confuses me when I was looking for more information in Google, because all 3 names came up and I am not sure if they are the same or not. So, this is to clear up some of the confusion if you guys have not been there. 

The main entrance is under renovation, it looks much nicer and grand at the entrance, not sure if the entrance fee will double up or not. As of now, the fees are below :

Adult - RM 3.00
Children below 12 - RM 1.00
Senior citizens - RM 1.00

*Prices are applicable for weekday and weekends.

Operating hours : 0830 AM ~ 0500 PM

*Closed on Mondays

Those who want to do group bookings are welcome too. For further information, you can visit Taman Botani Negara Shah Alam.

They have 2 main bicycle rental, one is right in front of the entrance after you enter, rental charges MYR 10.00 per hours, and every subsequent hour MYR 10.00. The second rental are located not far away, but its cheaper MYR 5.00 per hour, subsequent hour MYR 5.00. Now, what is the difference? why is the price cheaper by half? If you do comparison, the MYR 10.00 per hour bicycle are newer, they are all with gears and you can choose with basket or not. Whereas the MYR 5.00 bicycle are older, some rusty parts, and they may not come in gears. Bicycle with basket and definitely without gears, and bicycle with gears will not have basket. It is your call...

For those who didn't want to cycle, they have free shuttle bus, but it is from the main entrance up until Four Season Temperate Garden. By the way, the initial entrance fee does not cover this, you would need to pay additional if you want to enter. 

It was almost an hour of cycling on the winding roads, uphill and downhill, everyone got tired and rested at this stall to catch their breath and to hydrate themselves.

Personally, I think Taman Botani can be better, as we cycle, walk and using the shuttle service, we see a lot of under maintenance, some of us saw dead cats in a rabbit enclosure. There are a lot of maintenance they need to do if they want to make it an attraction to whether locals or foreigners. However, it is still a nice place to do morning jogging, cycling, or morning walk. The fresh air refreshed us, especially we who work 24/7 in the city, how often do we get fresh air?

After getting sufficient rest, now everyone is dying for food. As planned, we head down to Klang for Bak Kut Teh. Everyone was so hungry that we all forgot to take pictures before the food, so...here I can show you the during and also aftermath.

It was definitely a good outing, bonding and getting to know each other more. Great food with great company. Looking forward to another outing soon!

Coffee Date @ Artisan

*THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED POST*

So a day after World Cup has finally over, it is back to our usual dating time. This time we wanted to try out this coffee house that the hype created back then when it first started was super duper crazy amazing. 

So here we are, I walked in and I couldn't decide what should I have, but they have a diagram on the wall, showing if you want to have coffee or tea, then it leads on to milk? Ice? And at the end of the diagram is the name of the drink. I quickly read through the diagram and found myself Picolo, meanwhile my Stephanie ordered red latte. To top it up, a slice of chocolate cake.

Well, it's not bad actually. Only thing is you need to get yourself a table before proceeding to order at the counter. 

King's Brunch

It was over the weekend on a Saturday, my Stephenie had told me to clear off my schedule on that day, because she is bringing me to a new place near her office. 

So we left home and headed to Jalan Ampang, very quickly we got ourselves a parking and found ourselves at the entrance of ACME Bar & Coffee (You may get the address at the bottom of this post). It's a nice and warm place, decoration is really special, well-lit, and waiters were all friendly. 

I ordered King of Breakfast - Grilled minute steak with confit of portobello mushroom. organic eggs, sucrine lettuce, and fries.Whereas, Stephanie ordered Baked Egg Pan - Medley of red peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, shredded smokers duck tomato olive sauce, organic eggs and garlic toast.

So my food came and and I got the shock of my life, two giant mushroom on my plate. Anyhow, it was well cooked as in tender in texture, and it really gives me the taste of portobello as soon as I put in my mouth. The steak was definitely the highlight of the dish, I'm not sure which part of the steak are from, but, it was the best steak I have ever tasted. 

Stephanie's dish was awesome too, except the duck, I don't really like duck, so I tested the garlic toast with some baked egg.

All in all, it is something different from any of those brunch restaurants like 3 Little Pigs, or Antipodean and such. Worth a try especially when going in group, because they have lots of big tables, but not a lot of tables for 2. We had to share a table of 6 with 2 other couples. By the way, saw someone order a dessert, chocolate brownie or something like that, on a hot pan, and the waiter will pour a shot of chocolate onto the brownie, so imagine the when the chocolate touches the hot pan and smokes will be seen and it creates a lot of attention. Not sure what is that, but I would definitely want to try it out. 

Oh, I almost forgot about our coffee. No fancy coffee art, but, my cappuccino is so much better than Coffee Bean's or Starbucks. I have not try out any of the cappuccino in other coffee house, because usually I will have espresso or long black. One more thing to shout out is, I have been asking Stephanie why other places do not give biscotti? and I got my biscotti here, which is nice.

The day ended with a shot by the sea and sunset, but we were kinda late for sunset, by the time we arrived at the seaside, sun have already set.

ACME Bar & Coffee Address :
Unit G1 The Troika
19, Persiaran KLCC
50450 KL.

Myvi - Suspension Comparison

First of all, I would like to express my greatest appreciation towards Perodua technician for sharing this wonderful piece of information with me. I am not sure if anyone of you know about it, but hope this would be useful for those who are planning to upgrade or looking for solution or similar.

I am comparing two versions of Perodua Myvi here, one is 2012 Myvi 1.5 SE and another is 2013 Myvi 1.3 S-Series. 

Perodua Myvi 1.5 SE

Perodua Myvi 1.3 S-Series

The 1.3 S-Series were an "upgrade" from the standard 1.3. The "upgrades" are mainly using the 1.5 SE bodykit; striking colour - Ozzy Orange; 6-sopke silver alloy rim instead of 7-spoke gun metal alloy; Ocean-blue colour meter cluster backlight instead of red; and many more (I think). These are the few obvious upgrade. 

Perodua Myvi 1.3 Standard
Photo Courtesy of : http://keretaahmad.webs.com/21.jpg

Here comes the important part. When I was driving the 1.3 S-Series, 7 days to full one year old, over some of the speed bumps and I could hear springy/squeaky sound coming from the front. It is just weird coming from such a new car.  Then I tested with a 1.5 SE, about 2 years old, and there were no such sound at all. 

So I decided to check with the manufacturer, and found out that the 1.3 S-Series is actually using the 1.3 standard spring and absorber. Whereas the 1.5 SE and 1.5 Extreme are using different set. What I'm writing about here is all OEM spring and absorbers, no sporty modification.

Manufacturer wouldn't recommend that we swap the absorbers and spring during the warranty period, swap as in I order a set of 1.5 SE spring and absorbers from factory and fit it into 1.3 S-Series. It would be best to consider this swap again when the warranty is over, meanwhile, we can actually file a complain and claim a set of new spring if found by the technicians that it is indeed defect. 

I'm sorry I could not tell what is the difference, as in whether it is lower ride hide or harder spring rate or bigger monotube between the two. Perodua technician did not reveal the in depth specifications to me, but we all do know now is that, the 1.3 and 1.5 suspension setup are 2 different settings. 

So, all 1.3 standard and 1.3 S-series owner out there, if you hear some springy/squeaky sound from the spring, you know what to do. If we are not looking at having sports spring upgrade or hi-lo soft-hard adjustable, then getting the 1.5 SE suspension is another economical upgrade.

Cheers!!

Tomyam Yusuf - REVISIT

*THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED POST*

Here we are again on a Sunday night, we revisit this authentic and nice malay cuisine in Lucky Garden. 

As mentioned in my previous post, Delicious Dinner, we will return and try out the Deep Fried Seabass with 3 different tastes (Ikan Siakap 3 Rasa). To our amazement, the presentation was really awesome, colourful, and we can taste the fish on our taste bud before we even start to dig in. It has lots of garlic, chilli, onions, pineapple, and to finish it off spring onion toppings to make this fish awesomely delicious. Now, the taste of this fish is really weird to some people, it has combination of sweet-sour-spicy. Probably to certain group of ethnic people, it maybe just another sweet and sour dish. I took the first try on the fish, I immediately fell in love with it. I mean, the taste is somewhat similar, but, it is all new to me. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, combined with the awesome sauce, that is just simply perfect.

 

 

 

Colourful and mouthwatering

As for vege, we tried a new dish recommended by Stephanie's colleague : Stir Fried Mixed Vege. Of course, we couldn't miss out the tomyam soup and the omelet.

Mixed Vege

This time, the bill came up to slightly more expensive than the previous, MYR 50.00 for all the above. Go try it out, especially the fish. One more note, when I asked for recommendation from the woman who took our order, she actually recommended steam as top of the list. So you have more than one option to choose from. Cheers!!