Daorae Korean BBQ Restaurant @ Sri Petaling

My wife is already in her Week 39 and she is asking to have something special for the dinner to celebrate the smoothness of the baby development so far. Have to do it now or else she wouldn't be able to savour these kind of food for a month after she give birth, so off we go. It's been forever since we ate Korean food and with our favourite restaurant opening up in Sri Petaling, there is no reason to find other shops to kill our craving. Our all-time favourite, the Daorae Korean BBQ.

Daorae Korean BBQ have been actively expanding since last few years ago and till to-date, they have 11 branches all around Malaysia, including Penang, Melaka, and Ipoh. I've tried out the Mont Kiara and Puchong Bandar Puteri branch, and hope they will manage to keep up the good quality in these expansion.


The Daorae Korean BBQ occupying the first floor of three shoplot just right above the Toyota Showroom in Bandar Baru Sri Petaling.


We are a little late that day reaching the restaurant by 7.30pm and it's already packed! Look at the people that swarming the front area, but fortunately they are all seated very quickly. Lots of space.


However, as she will have difficulty to sit on the floor, so we waited at the waiting area for a proper table. It's a long 30minutes wait, I think. She pick up some magazine and I snapped away.

Breakfast at Kum Heong Restaurant @ PJ New Town

Beautiful Sunday morning and my best friend travelled down from Ipoh to KL so we arranged for a meet-up. Manage to grab our another best friend for a good breakfast in PJ New Town. My friend decided for a meet up with good food din Kum Heong restaurant and the variety of food here is plenty! Let's take a look.


Morning buzz, and if you are late waker, you don't know what you are missing out there. Swarmed by people in the early hour and must be food a good reason.


A good cup of tea, my favourite, however a little disappointed with the quality though. Nothing beat a good tea / coffee in Ipoh, but this will be alright to fill the morning.

1simpleplan is 2 year old

Last week marked the 2nd anniversary of this blog and it's another interesting year for me. I've done so much with blogging and it's truly inspirational to encourage me to do more everyday and live my life to fullest so I can continue updating this blog, even if there is only 1 person that read it. As explained earlier, I'm not expecting people to read my post, but it has been serving the purpose very well, which is to keep myself living the life that's given to me!


13th July 2010 till 12th July 2011 Life Journey Mosaic

Last year is truly inspirational and there are so many things happened. My lovely wife is conceived in November 2010 and we are expecting our first child anytime this month. Couldn't be happier, and so excited to have someone to call me daddy soon =) I also continue my aim to complete a marathon so I further pushed my limit and completed two half-marathon this year! Never thought I can do it, thanks to the support of my family & friends. My interest in cars & photography continues and I joined up more meet-up run with other car enthusiast and also I took the opportunity to upgrade my lens so I can get better photos for my family and you. With the family expanding and new chapter of life, I upgraded my wife's car and we are enjoying every moments of parenting for current time. I included a new category of parenting, hoping to give guidance to other parents from what we've learned in our journey, it's a true commitment in lifetime.


13th July 2010 till 12th July 2011 Food Journey Mosaic

Thank you everyone for continuing supporting my blog, and I promise to keep it updated as much as I'm able. I'm getting caught up with my new role in the family and company, but fortunately it's part of the discovery the better of myself. Cheers!

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Fresh Unique Seafood 23 Restaurant @ PJ

This is long overdue post and it's dated back to Chinese New Year 2011, yea, almost 6 months ago. A good friend of mine came back from his long work in Dubai and our group of friends manage to get hold of him to treat us a good dinner since he got good USD allowance! He is always so good and generous and we picked Fresh Unique Seafood 23 in PJ for the food feast!


The main entrance of the Fresh Unique Seafood 23 Restaurant located in Petaling Jaya. If you want to opt for jockey parking, just stop by the entrance and the jockey will take over. It's only RM5 but if you want to save some money, there is a large underground parking that will cost you RM2 with direct access to the restaurant.

The usual seafood restaurant set-up, a good display of their live seafood available for the day. It's just not decorative in my opinion as you can actually choose which one you fancy to eat that night. Similar arrangement in other seafood restaurant but variety is a little lacking comparing to the other newer opening.

Chong Yen Steamed Fish Head @ Chan Sow Lin

It has been a while since I bring food blog onto the table and this time around, I'm going to introduce the all time favourite and famous, the Chan Sow Lin Steamed Fish Head. For those that don't know, there are many Chan Sow Lin Fish Head in the area as all are riding on the success of the brand built. It's just the same that Klang is famous for Bak Kut Teh, Ipoh for Tau Geh Chicken, Penang for Laksa & Char Kuey Teow, and Chan Sow Lin located within KL is famous for their Steamed Fish Head.

Reputation is built over time and it must have recognition of good majority before it's accepted. The fact is, most of the restaurant around Chan Sow Lin does serve good Steamed Fish Head, therefore the brand. As with everyone else, we wil tend to have our favourite and so-call "Original" Chan Sow Lin Steamed Fish Head, fact is, we also don't know which one is the original. But we think this is the best in the group. So let's check out the Chong Yen Chan Sow Ling Steamed Fish Head!


Chong Yen Chan Sow Lin Steamed Fish Head Restaurant is originally located in Jalan 3, Off Chan Sow Ling and recently they have just moved over to their new premise inside the Jalan 4 since December 2010. For those that are not familiar with Chan Sow Lin, stick to my GPS coordinate. It does not looks like when you driving in, but don't worry. I verify my coordinate before posting it here.


Once you reached, this is the shop you should be looking at. Yellow industrial shoplot with a small banner. It's not hard to spot the shop once you reach the location, it will be hard to direct if you don't know the place. That's the price to pay to find the best Steamed Fish Head =)

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF

I've been living my childhood dream of owning the dSLR for almost 2 years and as I move deeper into photography, the more I learn about the limitations of the equipment. That's why I've been researching and always longing for a new lens to replace my standard stock kit lens of AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm f3.5-5.6G ED VR that came together wtih the D90. The ultimate dream lens of Nikon user is always the incredible AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED, which is priced at RM6,688 but unfortunately it's out of my reach.

After a long research and consideration, finally I grab the cheaper option of Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF for a price of RM1,550 that's always in my wish list. I always tell people that the main reason for using a Nikon dSLR is only because of the range of incredible Nikkor lens that's available. If you are not planning to use Nikon lens, then no need to buy Nikon dSLR. I'm ashame to admit that I just join the group of people that I complain about.

My other enthusiast friends suggest me to move on with a cheaper option rather than waiting forever saving for the dream lens. As although the cheaper lens is not as superior as dream lens, it is still by any measure a much better lens than my kit lens. With my intention to move myself into professional level, I made this decision.


Here is my new un-box Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD IF lens. This lens is special made for DX camera and the 17-50mm range is effective 24-70mm after conversion.

The main reason I made this decision is because I've already decided that I love photography and I plan to upgrade to full frame in future. This 17-50mm lens will allow me to familiarise myself to the 24-70mm range in full frame camera. The superior quality of f/2.8 will also allow me to fulfill my current desire for my wish bokeh effect that will improve my photography quality tremendously. It will be one of my important step towards my plan of turning professional.

Why You Shouldn't Buy A Hybrid Car!

Since my friend and other people are considering hybrid, so I might as well share my simple calculations and research that I've done last time. It's a hip thing for hybrid as you are doing your part for the environment, but at what cost? Let's first look at the cost savings, which everyone is talking about.

For the smallest model in the range in Malaysia now, we have the Honda Insight and a comparable model should be Honda City, so let's see.



Honda Insight = RM99,800.00
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 20km/l

Honda City = RM90,480.00
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 13km/l

Based on a 20,000km range per year,
Honda Insight = 1,000 liters x RM1.90 = RM1,900.00 petrol price per year
Honda City = 1,538 liters x RM1.90 = RM2,922.20 petrol price per year.

Savings of RM1,022.20 per year. It's well known that hybrid runs on battery and whoever use handphone will know battery doesn't last. The last report from Autocar magazine earlier indicated the price for a new battery is almost RM7,000 and you should be changing it by the 4th or 5th year. Let's take 5 year for battery change out. Savings of RM1,022.20 x 5 years = RM5,111 savings and it's not even enough to pay for the battery! Now that sounds a little stupid, not to mention depreciation of the hybrid car as who will want to buy an old battery hybrid? Unless for a bargain as the next owner will need to take the RM7,000 into his calculations as well. Depreciation will suffer, savings is non, then why buy hybrid? Because you want to pretend to do environment a favour.

People will argue that hybrid will do less harm to the environment as it dispose off less carbon monoxide, but do you know how much harm it does by manufacturing the battery?? Either way, you are destroying the earth. Want to save the earth? Do it like the western style, cycle to work!

Insight is a bad example for Malaysia petrol price, let's take the crown of the hybrid, Toyota Prius and compare it against the Toyota Altis.

Toyota Prius = RM139,900
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 31km/l

Toyota Altis = RM112,900
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 10km/l

Based on 20,000km range per year,
Toyota Prius = 645 liters x RM1.90 = RM1,225.50
Toyota Altis = 2,000 liters x RM1.90 = RM3,800.00
Substantial savings of RMRM2,574.50!



However, Prius battery is quoted RM12,000 and how many years you will need for the savings to breakeven? 4 years. Whoever driven the Toyota Prius will know that the features provided is not as much different to a mid-range Toyota Altis, so for the additional price tag of RM27,000, now that will take a long long time to recover. So call hybrid car, I don't get the logic on cost savings actually, anyone mind enlighten me?

Worse, if you do a search online, you will see why Prius is bad for environment. Not particularly only Prius, but all hybrid cars. Top Gear tested the Prius agaisnt BMW M3 and M3 recorded a better mileage than Prius in their test circuit. It's all about how you drive. Then Prius battery contained nickel where the emission will cause acid rain that's damaging to all living things out there. Prius nickel is mined from Canada and it's send to Europe for refinement and then send to China for production into nickel foam and then only send to Japan for assembly. The process alone is more damaging that what you individual can do with a car! There is also another comparison made for Prius and Hummer, reported that Prius life expectancy of 100,000 miles is more environmentally damaging and expensive than a Hummer life expectancy of 300,000 miles.

We are in the information age, verify what I wrote online and don't listen to me blindly.

For other country that have more expensive petrol price, then fuel savings might play a bigger role, but not in Malaysia. As the fuel prices go up, and the battery price go down, cost savings is inevitable but definitely not for now and not within few years span in my opinion.

But if you are talking about helping the environment, I'm going to slap you in the face next time.
To me, I will just wait for the better technology before committing myself. Solar sounds good, anyone?
For greener place, here is what you can do now!

1. Change all your bulbs to energy-savings bulb. It's more expensive, but it really help.
2. Cut down on all eletricity usage and set your air-condition temperature a degree higher and on the fan, it does make substantial difference.
3. Cut down on plastic bag and recycle everything you can.
4. When buying next heavy eletricity appliance like air-condition, refrigerator, choose 5-star green rated appliance and claim RM200 from the government.
5. Switch of all switches when not using, it does draw electricity.
6. Live like your grandfather, throw your kids to the playground and stop them from playing iPad or PS3.
7. Stop printing emails and unnecessary things, save the trees.
8. Walk or cycle to work if you can, no one will be greener than you!
9. Plant some plants in your house, if every household have some plants, it will help substantially.
10. There are many more than buying a hybrid, let's show some action.