BIRTHDAY DINNER & STAR TREK

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

As mentioned from my previous post, I have intended to bring A to dinner for his birthday. I also mentioned that it will be a secret place unknown to him. Actually I did not hide anything, I told him the name of the place outright already....the place I meant was Rahsia Bistro & Bar (here) at Jalan Damai.

First impression of the place has been impressive. As mentioned in the website, it is a 60's bungalow surrounded by greens with chic decoration. You can either dine in open air garden area, 1st floor or 2nd floor terrace, ( outdoors) or the living halls, private rooms or patio (indoors). Such a serene place with nice ambiance indeed. We choose the 1st floor terrace, a compromise between an open air and a full blast fan to cool ourselves from the hot nite.

The garden area

The menu is a mixture of Asian and western food. As stated in the website it is an eclectic mix of contemporary Asian and Nouveau International cuisine...whatever that means...

For starters we ordered, Tomato Soup, Rojak Buah, and Top Hats. We drank Rahsia's speciality drinks i.e "Asmara" by A, a mixed of mango and orange plus soda. I ordered "Cinta", a concoctions comprising of watermelon, lime, mint, soda and other ingredients I can't remember. I was then told by the waitress "Cinta" was invented by the owner of Rahsia himself.

"Asmara", A's drink
"Cinta", my drink

A non pretentious tomato soup, simple and yummy

I love these Pie Tee, its not crispy
but it tastes good nonetheless

For the main course, A ordered Mushroom Fish and I ordered Chicken Roulade. As for dessert, I ordered Black Sweet which was actually a Malay bubur pulut hitam with banana slices and vanilla ice-cream, served in a hot wine glass . A ordered bread butter pudding instead. The restaurant also served us with the traditional malay sago pudding together with coconut gravy and red sugar, complimentary from the chef.

Mushroom Fish, served with onion rings

My chicken roulade, served with mashed potatoes and asparagus

A's dessert, bread butter pudding with a scoop of ice-cream

My dessert

All in all, we really enjoyed the dinner. The food prices are nett i.e. with no service charge and no GST. With a very reasonable price, great ambiance and soft background music, it was a pleasant surprised for me to listen to one of my favourite singer, Brenda Russell belted her distinguished songs such as "Le Restaurant" and "Get Here" (made famous again by Oleta Adam) . These two beautiful songs introduced me to appreciate contemporary jazz singers years ago such as Sheila Majid, Vina Panduwinata, Jerry Butler, Sade and Anita Baker to name a few.

Birthday boy ...

Smiling after a full stomach......

Thursday, 7 May 2009.

I have already booked 2 tickets to watch "Star Trek" at IOI Mall at 9.25 p.m. earlier in the morning. The journey from our house to IOI Mall will normally be not more than 15 minutes but we were shocked to be confronted with a massive traffic jam entering IOI Mall (we have forgotten about Jusco's mega sale on the same day). To find a car park was horrendous and I managed to park at a very dangerous place. We reached the cinema at 9.00 pm. Luckily the seats for the movie were still available. After buying the tickets, we then rushed to the A & W's nearby and grabbed our burgers for a quick bite. The movie had already started by the time we were in.

Having watched a few failed Star Trek movies before, my only hope was that this will be a different movie from its predecessors. Why? Because it is in the hand of J.J Abrams, the same director who gave us the unforgettable "Armageddon", "Mission Impossible", "Cloverfield" and lots of TV series. Again, he did not disappoint. For me, he has done a splendid job of reviving the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members in a much much grandeur scale. As expected in a Star Trek movie, the story of the future co-exist in the present and vice versa was apparent here..confusing? don't bother, you are watching a movie where earth only existed maybe 10 minutes out of this 126 minutes movie. Also, its kinda funny to watch Zachary Quinto as the good old Mr Spock after seeing him as the evil Sylar in Heroes. Whatever it is, go watch and enjoy the movie.

To end this, I quote Mr Spock famous phrase......Live long, and Prosper. ( with the imaginary "V" hand sign.......).