I Love April.

April is gonna a pretty eventful month for my schedule. First on the list, Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day) on this coming Sunday. The day usually begins at 5.30am, and by 6-ish we should be at the market in SS17 buying some breakfast for my grandparents. Everyone gathers at the cemetery around 7.30am to prepare offerings and all the necessary things. Once my grandparents are done eating, it'll be our turn. In my opinion, it's more like a picnic than a Qing Ming for us :p Maybe I'll try to take some photos of that day. Hopefully nothing unexpected turn up on my images :s

Next, it'll be a BBQ I'm organizing for my cousin sister, who will be leaving for Melbourne to secure her PR. It's been raining alot lately so I hope the sky clears up on that day! I am sure everyone is getting pretty bored with what I've always prepared for the barbie so I am trying to develop new recipes. Suggestions welcome!

On the work side, I will be leaving for Singapore on the 20th for FHA2010 with my brother, Karen and Yi Fan (who have her own stuffs to check out). FHA is Asia's Largest Food and Hospitality Trade Event so that will be pretty interesting. Countless food sampling, lol. And maybe some Clarke Quay for relaxation and de-stress......

Last up, the highly awaited and anticipated trip to BANGKOK! Where should I even start?? Food, glorious food. Massage after massage. Shopping, hmmmm, we'll see. Hope to see you soon, Chiams!

Mr. Departure Lounge

By now, everyone and anyone who has me/CDL in their Facebook would know about our barista taking the '2nd Runner-Up' and 'Best Cappuccino' awards in the Malaysia Barista Championship 2010. We're so proud of Yee's achievements, especially since he entered the coffee industry for less than 6 months! Judges commented that they don't see his passion but they are obviously blind because they failed to see that he came this far in such a short period of time.

The event itself is very enlightening for most of us as it was our first time attending such competitions. However, we were also quite disappointed with how the event was organized. In my opinion, it could have ended earlier but somehow it dragged on for an extra few agonizing hours. Nevertheless, I had lotsa fun cheering for Mr. Departure Lounge.

As pre-competition encouragement, I promised Yee that I'll buy bubblies to celebrate if he gets any of the top 3 awards. Well, you know how ridiculously expensive champagnes can be so I bought sparkling wine instead. And an extra bottle of Merlot too! Both were a nice compliment to the Korean BBQ celebration dinner.

Both the plaques are on CDL's (Solaris Mont Kiara) counter-top so if you wanna admire it, drop by and buy a cup of 'MBC 2010 Best Cappuccino'. We might even let you touch the plaques too :p

MBC 2010

The 2nd Malaysia Barista Championship 2010 is happening tomorrow at KDU and I am proud to announce that CDL's barista is one of the 15 qualified contestants!

As a final push, few of us had spent extra 6 few hours after work to help him rehearse his presentation as well as a time trial. With the help of Mark Chandler, we brought the competition stage to the outlet. I won't be able to attend the competition tomorrow so the mock up was really enlightening.

I am not in the position to reveal much as the competition has yet to begin but I am just going to say that 'The Signature Drink' is very nice.

All the best, JhYee!

Celebration.

Opps, how could I forget to mention that Yohei has finally graduated from cooking school?

CONGRATULATIONS!

Hope you had a blast at the one night stand standing bar and don't forget to get your Facebook account (we're hoping that you'll miss the deadline so we can open the Moet, heheheh).

Happy St. Paddy's!

Well, not that I know the significance of this particular day aside from a perfectly marketable day for Guinness and other Irish pubs..

The very first time I've ever came to know about St. Patrick's Day was back in 2006, in Auckland. I vaguely remembered a group of us was trying to get into an Irish pub for some green beers. For some reason, we didn't managed to and in the end went back to the apartment for some Lion Red instead (I think!)

4 years later, I finally managed to get the long overdue green beer, albeit in KL at Craft Brews. The good news is its available all year long. The bad, it tastes so-so.

Last Sunday (14/March) was the official opening of CDL's Uptown outlet (which we relocated from Aman Suria). The event itself was awesome as many family members, friends and customers turned up to show their support. On the same day, we officially launched CDL's partnership with Western Australia's Five Senses Coffee and invited Mark Chandler of Five Senses Coffee and a two-time WA Barista Champion as the guest of honour. He's a very experienced Barista and we are fortunate to have him here to conduct a short Barista training for all the staffs, including myself.

Hopefully, this will be the stepping stone for us to roast our own coffee beans in the future!

Eventful Day.

Of all days, it rained on Friday (yesterday), the day where I've made plans to have a small gathering with few close friends for a belated birthday do at Traders Hotel's Sky Bar. Though the rain had stopped by the time I get off work, the traffic was inevitably a pain in the ass. The route that would've taken me home in less than 15 minutes dragged on to almost an hour. With the clock ticking closer to my Sky Bar reservation time, I was so anxious that I finished up my noodles in 5 minutes, showered and dressed up within 10 minutes, and left the house soon after.

Alas, sometimes shit happens. Of all things in the world, I wouldn't have predicted that someone would crash their car into mine. Not especially when I was obeying the traffic lights, goddamnit. I was running late and this had to happen. I swore I would snap her (the driver) head off if I had to cancel the gathering. With zero experience on handling crash situations, I made calls to my oldest brother, concluded that I'll report to the police the next morning, brushed off call men, drove home to get the keys to mom's sleek black horse and finally continued my journey to Kepong by taking the alternative road!

The incident made us late for our reservation at Sky Bar and we had to endure bitchy servers and sucky seats before a bottle of 42 Below vodka snared us a table by the glass panel, with view overlooking the Petronas Twin Towers. The timing couldn't be anymore perfect as alcohol was what I needed to calm the nerves. If only they sell shots. I would've taken a few! The gathering was awesome and would love to do it again sometime soon.

That was the calm before the storm. I woke up this morning with the intention of going to work then taking few hours off to get the police report done. That was intention. In reality, I spend the WHOLE morning sorting out the report, making calls and trying to settle the case amicably. For god's sake, I am the victim here but it felt as if I was in the wrong! In total, I spent 6 hours doing things that would've been settled within 2 hours.

To think of it, I am glad that I have that bottle of vodka in custody as I'll probably need it pretty soon. Sky Bar, anyone?

All Over Again.

an invitation for you guys!

The new outlet is finally up and running for the very first time today. I was told that it was a very very busy afternoon but somehow between the havoc, they managed to receive favourable feedback and compliments from the customers. Not bad for the new boy in town!

We've officially switched coffee beans and I went to work bracing for customer's verbal attack. Most regular customers were quite skeptical towards the new beans but some were quite impressed. Frankly, the beans are not good for brewed coffee. Savour an espresso and you'll know why we snub Illy. Hah.

Now that it's back to 2 outlet, work will be, sigh, never ending. Would've love to plan some holidays but I worry about the uncertainties at work. We're so short-handed that if any existing employee quits, I'll probably have to work at both outlets so... definitely no further travel plans. Yet.

So before I get super-glued to work, I managed to squeeze in some time to have some pre-birthday fun last week :) Dinner and drinks at Changkat Bukit Bintang was amazing (THANK YOU!) and for some reason, it was less crowded than expected. Then later, I went to Zouk for the first time. Clubbing in Malaysia means going home with hair and clothes reeked with cigarette smoke that you won't be able to wash off for the next 3 days!

I was told to wait a little longer because it couldn't arrive on time. Frankly, what's a few more days when I was told to wait since October last year, right? I was however, surprised with the size and quality of it. THANK YOU, both of you.

:D

Thank You for all the wonderful birthday wishes! This year's birthday is a low key affair because it's a Monday so I was at work from 7.30am till 4.30pm. Was actually planning to head out for dinner with the family but attendance was pretty low so mum ended up cooking instead. Not a bad thing actually. I was exhausted from work!

We've changed the cafe's coffee beans supplier (from Italy's Illy to Western Australia's Five Senses - awesome coffee, I tell you!) so we had to box up and return all the loaned Illy cups and saucers. Then we had to wash up all the new Down Under-inspired cups, wipe dry and organize the bar. Speaking of it, the bar have a new auto doser grinder (for consistent ground coffee dosage). Since there are 2 grinders, there will be 2 types of coffee beans for your selection. I would suggest you to try out our House Blend though, because it's amazing :)

Sightseeing.

It was great to have Shingo in town last weekend. Played co-tour guide and brought him to some KL attractions and ate a generous amount of food that we think are quite Malaysian.

Jalan Alor was interesting but definitely a rip off. Luna Bar is a great place for tourist to check out the iconic KL landmarks and night lights but drinks are, as always, mediocre. I love the view from there though.

Petaling Street was extremely crowded on Sunday because it was the last day of CNY and there were many lion dance troupes. We managed to catch an awesome lion dance (complete with stunts!) and fire crackers too!

Prior to this, I've been to Batu Caves once with Obasan but for some reason, we did not climb up the stairs (We'll go up this time if you come again!). I was disappointed with what I saw in the cave though. It was filthy and ill-maintained. Garbage were strewn all over the floor and it reeks. It is a tourist spot temple for god's sake. Do something about it! And I hate the fact that we have to pay 20cent to go into the toilet and yet it was stinky, wet, dirty and no tissue. Seriously, what's the money for? Isn't it for toilet maintenance? What has been maintained?