Uncle Jang Korean Restaurant @ Johor Bahru

It’s been 2 months working for Cameron, and being a single and lonely guy, most of my Friday evenings were spent at home – no significant meaning of TGIF for me at all. Thanks to Yi Jie who invited me to a Friday evening getaway to Johor Bahru, with the colleagues from Machine Shop 1 & 2, which put the melancholy to a tentative end, although I'm actually not as close to colleagues from the Machine Shops. That's when I need to bring my passport along to work.

Separated into two groups, I took the company bus which goes to JB (Bas Pekerja) after work, and we transited at the house of Alan, one of my colleagues; while some hopped onto Wai Ming's car which drove directly to JB. He fetched us to meet another group of them at one of the petrol stations around the Taman Bukit Indah neighbourhood, before proceeding together to our dinner place - Uncle Jang Korean Restaurant, run by a Korean family, I supposed.

The foreign workers in the restaurant can do their work well, but it's kinda troublesome when you find out that they can't understand your English or even Malay, and so the young Korean owner of the restaurant had to serve us by himself.

Everyone was given an apron in red.


First, he added the cabbage.


Then some meats.


Fry ah! Flip ah!


We ordered noodles as add-on.


Soju, which I found indecent to me.

The level of spiciness we requested was either mild or medium, but I felt like I could throw flame out of my mouth after eating, which also made me feel super dizzy as I tried so hard to catch breath. ♨♨♨
Make sure your table always has a jug of water standby before your throat gets burnt really badly.

The dinner costs about RM28 per person (I can't really remember), and it's followed by a karaoke session at DeBox Family KTV.

The next day’s gonna be Malaysia’s 56th National Day, so we had to quickly flee out of Johor before any road congestion upsurged. During our journey back on a flyover in JB, we actually saw fireworks somewhere eastwards, what a gorgeous scene.

Credits to Alan who fetched me around in JB and Wai Ming who fetched me back to Singapore.

Uncle Jang Korean Restaurant
17, Jalan Bestari 5/2, Taman Nusa Bestari,
Johor, Malaysia

Santa Monica, USA

21 Aug 2013 (Wed)

Bidding farewell to Oklahoma City, and maybe even US, we soon will be back in Singapore in no time.

As there's no direct flight from Oklahoma City to Singapore, the flight route was scheduled as Oklahoma City ✈ Los Angeles ✈ Singapore, and guess what, the stopover at Los Angeles was 7-hour long!
Are we gonna be good boys and girl stoning at the airport for the upcoming flight? I don't think so... :)

Los Angeles International Airport

Our flight details
21 Aug 2013 (Wed)
Will Rogers World Airport (OKC) - Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Terminal 4
Flight No: AA 3692
7:25AM ­- 8:20AM

21 Aug 2013 (Wed)
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Terminal B - Tokyo Narita Airport
Flight No: SQ 11
3:45PM ­- 7:15PM (22 Aug)
Tokyo Narita Airport - Changi Airport Terminal 3
Flight No: SQ 11
8:50PM ­- 2:55AM (23 Aug)

---

Things then went pretty crazy - the airport staff told us that there's no luggage deposit at the airport, if we were to get out of the airport, our luggage goes with us. Yes, it's the full load of luggage we're bringing back to Singapore.

And we did, we called for a cab to bring us to a beatiful beach in Santa Monica, a beachfront city.

Renting bicycles is a good reason and excuse for us to deposit our luggage at the bicycle shop, we were then able to cycle along the beach without having an eye on our bulky luggage. Two birds with one stone! WHY WE SO SMART?! Lol~~

The weather was great, it's not the warmth that you would typically feel under the sun of the beach (LOL) at noon.

Perhaps throughout these years, nothing could be merrier than cycling by the beach with beautiful blue sea, blue sky and babes.

Cycling makes me recall my exchange days in Sweden, when I cycled for months under right-hand traffic, until I learnt to cycle hands free. Guess what, Boon Kiat and Yi Jie did their exchange in Sweden as well! XD

I mean, how freaking awesome can it be if I were staying in one of these beach houses...

Rusty's Surf Ranch

We had lunch at one of the restaurants along the pier, hoping to dig in their really fresh catches.

Rusty's Surf Ranch
256 Santa Monica Pier

We managed to get back to the airport in time, and bade out last goodbye to America, at least for this year.

Not just Santa Monica, we'll miss the fortnight we spent in the US. It's our first time stepping onto this continent and country.

Thank God that because this was a partial business trip, being a Malaysian passport holder I was still able to get my visa in a bit upon interview, as US visa approval is heard to be an incommodious hassle for those visa waiver program exempted, I wonder if they see everyone as a potential terrorist.

Fish 'n' Chips @ $11.95
BBQ Chicken Breast @ $11.95
Chef Avelar's Marinated Skirt Steak @ $19.95


Singapore Airlines SQ11 Airbus A380-800

Bye USA. Hi Singapore.

For more photos, please check out my photo album Santa Monica, USA on Facebook.

Ssikkek Korean Grill BBQ @ Junction 10

Ssikkek Korean Grill BBQ

After spending nearly 2 months living under the same roof, we finally had our first housemate dinner with full attendance (plus our neighbor, Susan, living a block away). You’ll never see all 7 people appearing in the living room at the same time and space, never! Thanks to Shuhui who came back late at night because she has events after work EVERY SINGLE DAY. I have no idea how she does that. Guess she must have a huge circle of friends.

It's my 2nd time having Korean style BBQ buffet dinner after my first time at 2D1N Soju Bang Korean Restaurant. It's called Ssikkek Korean Grill BBQ, located in Junction 10, a small mall which is 1.5km away from home. The first thing that came to my mind after having learnt the existence of this restaurant was, what's wrong with this oddly spelt word with an extra "S" in front. Well it's Korean anyway, and in Chinese characters, it says "食客".

It's a welcoming dinner for the housemates cum farewell dinner for Shuhui who's flying off to Taiwan a couple of days later and me who's flying off to the United States next Wednesday, whee~~~

My appetite was probably whetted when I was welcomed by a native Korean lady from the restaurant at the entrance. ❤Hi, I booked a table of 8.❤
I was a little amazed by the cool looking grill they have, which I think is more advanced than 2D1N. So... am I right to say that the overcooked residues and oil go down to the gas-flame?

Sushi in a Korean restaurant. Ah ha.


Just keep spamming!

Unlike most of the typical steamboat or BBQ buffet restaurants which serve only lime juice and cold water, Ssikkek has bottomless coke and sprite on top of that. Thumbs up from the lime juice hater like me.

The undesired glare effect is due to my uncleaned lens filter


The girls


And of course finally, group photo! Shuhui was with us sia... (she's seldom observed at home)

The buffet costs around $28 per person.

Junction 10
1 Woodlands Road #01-21/22
Singapore 677899
Tel: (65)6468 3435

RamenPlay @ Jem

I spent my 3rd TGIF having dinner with the big girl, Chu Luei. Because I needed to visit OCBC Bank that opens till 7pm, so I suggested Jem as the bank branch there is one of the nearest ones. In the meantime while I was settling some stuffs at the OCBC Bank, this adorable little girl was hesitating to buy a packet of toothbrushes at NTUC FairPrice.

Green Tea Milkshake @ $4.80

It's a bloody Friday evening when you see tides of people queuing for food in front of EVERY restaurant!! And so we got no choice but to queue for a ramen outlet - RamenPlay. I'm partial to ramen when it comes to Japanese cuisine, as compared to sushi, sashimi, don etc. Adequate tastiness is indeed the essence of enticement.

I wouldn't suggest eating ramen accompanied with green tea milkshake. Nothing was wrong with the milkshake, but milkshake + ramen combination doesn't go along well. For ramen it's kind of unappetizing. I should have just ordered plain green tea.

The saturation of the broth sometimes is telling you that you're lucky man, something savory is just right in front of you! Ok, maybe this imaginative scenario doesn't apply to everyone. ;P

The ingredients were generous, I can hardly find a hard boiled egg in a bowl of ramen like this one here, unlike other ramen which is usually spammed with bamboo shoots but not eggs. You might judge differently, but the ramen I've eaten here tastes almost as good as the ones I had in Kyoto, Japan.

The yakiniku was tender and pretty tasty that it immediately made me share with Chu Luei a few pieces of that. Perhaps it's pork, not beef yakiniku which tastes rather dull.

My Pork Yakiniku Ramen ポーク焼肉豚骨らーめん @ $14.80 ★★★★★


Chu Luei's Cha Shu Tonkotsu Ramen チャーシューとんこつらーめん @ $12.80 ★★★★☆

Now you know why I called her big girl in the beginning of this blog entry. It's her 24th birthday, after an exact couple of the Chinese zodiac cycles.

I bought her a present in pink, a slice of pink cake and wrote her a pink birthday card, coincidentally.

お誕生日おめでとう！！
卒業おめでとう！！！
゛☆⌒o(*^―゜)⌒♪


50 Jurong Gateway Road
#B1-10 Jurong East Mall (Jem)
Singapore 608549

7 Village Noodle House 七廊粿條湯 @ Abu Siti Lane

This is my final period of stay in Penang before I officially start working in Singapore.

Fortunately, I managed to catch up with some of my high school buddies this time (namely Chee Wee, Wooi Siang, Wei Chung and Yeu Cheung).

I was sort of the one who invited them for the meetup and gosh, I hate to use my barely-surviving Nokia 6300 to SMS, but I had no choice because I have no other phone for my Malaysian SIM card.

The place where we had dinner is 7 Village Noodle House 七廊粿條湯, as recommended by some of them, which I hadn't heard of at that point of time. Kway Teow Soup or Guo Tiao Tang is one of the most common Chinese hawker food in Malaysia, which I've been occasionally eating since young.

The restaurant is originated from the other side of Penang - Butterworth. The saturated taste from the Kway Teow Soup accelerated my urge of finishing the entire bowl of the noodles. They have both dried one and another with soup. I usually prefer eating noodles with soup as I sort of have my own philosophy that the soup is the essence of whatever that is in the bowl, and at that night itself I almost wanted to order another same bowl of Guo Tiao Tang.

廣將 Kwan Jiang @ RM1.00/piece


滷肉 Lobak @ RM1.80/roll


七廊粿條湯 Guo Tiao Tang (Large) @ RM4.70

37 Lorong Abu Siti
10400 Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.