Mysore Curry House

One more food post.... 8)

I noticed this place while renovation was ongoing end of last year. Wanted to go when they opened but with school term starting and Chinese New Year just around the corner, we just couldn't find the time. But today, after all the celebrations and the tiredness which is still hanging around, dinner was here. The place is located along Jalan Pegawai, in two of the 'not-so-new-now'shop houses.

It was empty when we arrived. I guess maybe due to one festivity just winding down and school starting, everyone is trying to get into the normal routine. So eating outlets are not so busy.

Pasta Mania

Now, if you call a place Pasta Mania it's only fair to expect great pasta, since the signage gives an impression of a place which specializes in pasta. We've walked past this place quite often in our forays to Gurney Plaza in Penang. Somehow we never did stopped by. However, this time around, we were quite tired and wanted to go home as soon as possible. As we didn't fancy any of the outlets at the makan area on the ground floor, we decided to give the place a try.

Son was still thinking about the Carbonara that he had missed at Vintage Bulgaria and when he saw Carbonara on the menu, he immediately ordered it. The place wasn't as busy as the other eating outlets nearby and after taking a few mouthfuls, I could see why.

The carbonara was heavy, it tasted like it came from the can or bottle. The turkey bacon and other stuff in it didn't taste fresh enough. I actually found some of them chewy.... but there was a generous amount of meats. one can only take a few mouthfuls before giving up. 

Daughter and I each ordered their set meals. Each was supposed to come with fried chicken. One look at the fried chicken when her order came told me that they were over fried. And true enough, the chicken pieces were hard and dry. The spaghetti wasn't spectacular. The soup came with the set meal. It wasn't too bad.... taken hot. But once it cools down, it gets a little gooey, I think.

I ordered a different set from Daughter's but the spaghetti that was supposed to come never did. Instead, I got another Carbonara... I didn't send it back as I had already waited rather long and everyone else had almost finished their food. Service is poor. The waiters got confused even though the outlet was the least busiest there. 

The saving grace for Pasta Mania was their pizza. I guess that's one dish that can't go very wrong, especially a thin crust pizza. Overall, this place disappoints. By the way, food was served on plastic plates, not quite befitting of their facade..... As for the 2 spaghetti orders, I think the ones that I can cook up in my own kitchen probably taste better.

Pasta Mania... Well, it certainly didn't create any mania in me (or all of us for that matter) for their pasta offerings. Been going round eating quite a bit lately... think we'll give this food escapades a short break. Anyway, Saturday classes beckons too, first term exams, and a season of exam results beckons too....

Vintage Bulgaria Revisited

It's still CNY season. we ended up in Penang again cos we had something to do there. It was quite late when we found our way to the hotel through the heavy traffic. We actually wanted to go for dinner at Ingolf's Kneipe German Restaurant but since only seats at the bar were available and we were told that the wait might be long, we decided to give Vintage Bulgaria, which was its next door neighbour, another go since our last visit there was quite a pleasant one.

This time we tried their Mixed Sausage Platter, made up of pork and beef spiced sausages, grilled spiced minced pork and beef and smoked sausages. The pork sausages seemed nicer than the beef ones. The sauce was light enough not to smother the taste of the sausages. The mashed potato that came with it is one of the nicer ones I have taken. It has a nice aroma to it, not too heavy. But sausages taste almost the same after a while. And that's why we feel one might be better off with the real stuff than go with the 'processed' ones.

Baby Pork Ribs... the photo above does not do justice to its taste though. Lighting wasn't great for shots and we were hungry. If you like pork, this is one of the places to go. The ribs were roasted tender to taste. It was moist. And they beat the roast ribs that we've had at TGIF or Tony Romas. I guess food in a franchise outlet loses some of its quality because there is no personal touch of the owner. Throughout our meal there, the owner of Vintage Bulgaria could be seen moving among the patrons.

The side dish to go with the ribs. I am a potato person and I liked the potatoes. They were soft and sweet, just right. I think I won't mind having it for the main meal.

Orley Wraps... basically cheese wrapped in bacon, skewered and grilled so that you can pick it up and eat it like the satay. Bacon always goes well with cheese and this one is no different. Orley Wraps is supposed to be an appetizer but we ordered it for Daughter as we knew that the portions for the other orders would be more than enough to go around.

Seafood spaghetti... my kids are spaghetti fans. Son had actually wanted to order the Carbonara (cos they liked it from the previous visit) but we talked him out of it. Seafood apparently referred to fish only cos Son said there were chunks of salmon and 'don't know what other fish meat' in it. I tried some and found the sauce to be rather nice; maybe it's the wine sauce in it but I found it to be light minus the overpowering tomato paste taste that one sometimes gets.

Overall we found the dining experience to be still pleasant enough even though it's the second time we've visited it in the span of a month.

For Every New Year

When I was a kid, on Chinese New Year's Eve, Mom would cook up a storm and we'd have a family makan. Family meant just our immediate family. Then in the evening, or sometimes the next day, Dad would bring us to visit our paternal grandparents. There would also be visits to my grandparents on Mom's side. Chinese New Year is different for my kids. Their every New Year  celebration has been spent at their grandparents' (except once for Son). The prevalence of 'migration' due to work and better opportunities of my generation has somewhat contributed to this different experience for my children. 

Years gone by... we're all in our midlife now. CNY is still a time we get together, though often one or two of us might not be able to make it due to distance. These days we tend to have our makan together at the restaurant as Mom is getting along in years.

The passing of F-I-L too has also made us realise that every gathering is precious now. This year we had ours at Michelin Star again. Food was actually better than last year's. Tables had been set when we arrived, with names attached to the tables. I saw quite a few familiar names.... The other reunion dinner was a home cooked one as M-I-L still wanted to cook. 

The kids got to play together, with cousins from both sides; and collect their angpows too. I guess for most kids those two are the major highlights. It was so for me at that age too. I guess certain things don't change that much. 

And firecrackers... the whole town basically lit up as midnight drew nearer. If you want an ear into what might qualify as absolute noise pollution, you get it on that one night.... your hear cackling, cracking, popping, whooshing, whistling, booms, explosions, sizzles.... And your eyes get to feast on all kinds of colours popping up here and there, like magic, in the sky, appearing and disappearing in colourful trails of light and smoke; a panaromic view cos everywhere you turn, you see them. Whole neighborhoods literally came out to view the spectacular displays of fireworks. Lanterns were released into the sky too; though this year I felt there were fewer. Last year, the effects of Disney's Tangled left the sky very dotted with floating lights. My kids and their cousins had a fun time.... scoring a few firsts for themselves too. Their childhood is not as carefree as mine.... they don't get the chance as we did year after year as we were growing up, even just to light the firecrackers. 

These days, CNY is more 'work' than play for me cos most of the time is spent chasing after this or that... kids and everyday mundane tasks like clearing up. But in all that, they were interspersed with things that make life meaningful.... conversations, interactions... those things that serve to strengthen bonds and give meaning to life. You know, there are points in our lives when some of us might feel that we want to get away from all the hassles associated with festive seasons; clogged highways, packed eating places, constant need to be on the feet because the kids (and the older ones) cannot wait, etc, etc. So some of us would very much like to opt to go somewhere quiet to take a break from all the preoccupation and demands that come with this chasing of our career, wealth... And that is why we should have celebrations such as CNY, to give us no excuse for not making it home, for the family reunion. For many of us, it takes the demand of duty to get us there, even though we know our parents would very much want us to be there with them... Think of the times our parents were there for us each time we needed them when we were kids.... Today, many of us can't do the same......

Most of us are back to our normal routine by now... I supposed too it's okay to say that the feeling of getting together often times is no less exhilarating than a trip somewhere. 8) Am thankful for this one more CNY. The dragon has entered.... 

E-Textbooks and PPSMI

Apple in education. Going by what they have done to tablet computing, I think education, especially the learning experience will probably be seeing a shift.

And this is one reason why the soon to be dead PPSMI (teaching of Math and Science in English) should remain, or at least parents and students be given a choice of the medium of instruction. I downloaded the samples of the e-textbooks that they put up in the Store and if these are to be a peek of what is to come, education as we know will change.

From my own experience, I have found the educational apps to be of great help in teaching my kids. During Son's time, we had to be where the computer was but still back then, technology complimented, aided in the teaching and made learning more fun.

Then came the iPad. The apps with educational values were simply awesome. When Spirit and Rover were on Mars, the NASA app made it so easy for me to show the kids the pics of the surface. If you wanted to teach about the constellations, there are so many apps available. All you need to do is just hold your iPad to the sky and you get a guide, real time. I can even show things that I only had some inkling. If skills used to be reflected in how much knowledge you can retain and use, I guess skill now would be how well you know what tools are available and how to use them.

Enter the e-textbooks. You get videos, personal tutors and a touch screen to try out certain tasks. The learner gets instant feedback. And with upgrades which seem to be a practice today, books will never quite go out of date.... and this is where PPSMI benefits; though one might say that if the MBMMBI works, it'll get the same results too.

Still, if our kids are no good in English, they lose out. At the moment, I think it's hard to imagine our local publishers coming out with e-textbooks of this quality. I read through the intro of the recently released e-textbooks in the App Store. The end product is a collaboration of many - researchers, teachers, videographers, graphic designers, etc, etc. And that also means that digital textbooks will now enable a rather efficient delivery system where information can get to the students...... from the scientists, top notch people in their respective fields. And we'll be incapacitated by our lack of language. 

English is important. It does not mean that we turn our back on our national language if we seem overzealous in trying get it to be used as much as possible. Our English standard is bad now. That is a fact.  For now, English is a language of knowledge. Master it and a whole world of knowledge opens up. And that is what the e-textbooks has shown too.... There'll be many good quality instructional books which our kids will be missing out. Seems such a pity that our policy makers don't quite see that. 20 years ago, there was still quite a big group who could handle materials in English. Today, the group is getting smaller. But perhaps too, we are happier being the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, trying to convince ourselves that we are doing okay.... Woe to us!

Hang Tuah No More....

I remember the figure of Hang Tuah adorning the entrance to our National Muzeum during my last visit there a couple of years ago. For as long as I can remember, Hang Tuah has been central figure in the history of Malacca. And now, Prof Khoo Kay Kim has come out to say that he is a myth. He and his 4 sidekicks apparently did not exist. And neither did Hang Li Po... the wife of Sultan Mansur Syah; of that famed marriage of the most prosperous Malacca Sultan to the princess from the Chinese Empire which was supposed to have elevated the status of Malacca. I supposed now that the good Prof and his team of learned historians have done their studies, the history of the Peranakan might also be undergoing some changes too, since the descendants of Hang Li Po were supposed to have 'created' the Peranakans. 

I supposed then, too since records aren't too clear about Parameswara, could we safely assume that the first ruler of Malacca was a Hindu? Or perhaps too, the stories of early Malacca were folklores? Sometimes one gets the feel that there is too much politics in everything. Politics make things murky. Did Hang Tuah exist? If he did, does it matter if he had been Chinese? Malaysians deserve to know their heritage. Malacca could have been an early model of peaceful racial existence...... one of which we can be proud of. The fact that early stories never mentioned his race... we could learn a few things from there about integration.

So now, would we be told that the colonial historians had something to do with this error of Hang Tuah's existence? Why are we making our kids learn history? Is it to pass exams or to inculcate a certain pride or even to draw lessons from the events of the past? Or is it just to set the young brains onto a certain path? ...brain washing. A new syllabus for history is supposed to be implemented in the next 2 years or so. Will the new syllabus be focussing more on the history of the indigenous people.... the Sengoi, Negritos, Jakun, Orang Asli..... those original settlers on this land? Or will those too continue to be forgotten? Will we be reading about the Penans? 

We've seen efforts to wipe out history by changing street names, demolishing old schools for development and thus ensuring their old name dies with that act. We have a university where race plays a pivotal role in entrance. We have a civil service almost devoid of other races at the top level. History is supposed to teach the future generation that man can go very wrong very often.... The atrocities committed by the Ku Klux Klan against the blacks, Adolf Hitler and his Aryan supremacy, the Indian caste system.... yet we seem not to be teaching our young how to be good a good insan in the truest sense. We use race, religion, ideologies to streamline people to achieve our own selfish ambition. 

Prof Khoo and Prof Zainal Kling were my former lecturers. Suffice to say, not all academicians are made of the stuff of Aziz Bari. And if one wonders why the Malaysian education system cannot seem to rise to its former glory.... look no further. Instead of challenging the the minds of tomorrow to question and inquire, these (supposedly) learned academicians issue statements like politicians, expecting everyone to accept it unquestioningly... History ought to  to be rewritten to correct facts.... not for any other reasons. If it's done with the latter as the main objective, then we will be doomed cos we will never do things right. And that is another lesson from history.

Is This A Lemon?

This came from my 'lemon' tree or what we thought was a lemon tree. It smelled lemony but did not have the normal lemon look. It's been growing for months on the tree. We finally decided to cut it down cos it looked really ugly.... they looked like gnarled hands.

And when we cut it opened, there wasn't any of the usual lemon insides either.....