wAntAn productions

Optimus Prime is a cool. He died once but he's back and he's stronger than ever... oh well that was probably 10 years ago. I haven't been following the Transformers since then. I got this little figurine as a birthday gift from ST. It's cool though it doesn't transform :) Anyways it's one my new mastheads now. If you can't see it then come visit more often. It reloads randomly.

Now whoever put up this banner should be fired. First of all... who has arrived? Secondly what exactly did we wait 10 years for? If you put up a picture of let's say Jackie Chan and don't name him that's fine cause who in the world does not know Jackie Chan but I went in wondering who the man pictured on the banner was and left the restaurant none the wiser. In fact when we left we were underwhelmed by the whole experience.

First off we have to give credit where it's due. Dragon-i is a very handsome restaurant. The entrance is lined with some faux terracota warriors. The chairs and tables are wooden with a dark lacquered finish. The lighthing is suitably dim. The whole place oozes a stylish charm. If I had the money this is how my house would probably look like.


Now on to the food. Dragon-i's menu offers a variety of dishes from Shanghai. There are many ala carte dishes which we did not try and there are what looks to be some pretty interesting tid bits. Didn't feel like having rice so we ordered 2 bowl of noodles (lai mien) and a serving of their signature 'Xiao Long Pao'.



The first thing that came to my mind upon the noodles being served was that this place served their noodles the way Japanese restaurants typically served their ramen. Big bowls with huge spoons. Unfortunately this also happens to be a well known trick to make the serving look big without actually giving much away. As you can see the bowls are only about half full. The beef brisket noodles tasted as you would expect them to but really nothing to wait 10 years for. The other dish on the other hand was utterly bland. Also the mushrooms seemed to be missing from the dish. I can't remember the exact price but both noodles are over RM10 each. Not really that expensive but bear in mind the disappointing taste and proportions.

Next, the 'Xiao Long Pao'. Now I can't read any Chinese so correct me if I'm wrong but I think literally translated... 'Xiao Long Pao' means Little Dragon Buns (trivia: Bruce Lee's Chinese name was Lee Xiao Long). 'Xiao Long Pao' is a delightful steamed bun with meat and broth on the inside. You pick up the bun at it's tip and you can feel the broth within gather at the bottom. If the skin breaks then it's a badly made bun. Dragon-i's little dragons were good but I know an even better place which I'll talk about in an entry in the future. Oh by the way... a serving of 4 will set you back RM8.

Was fooling around with the Sony T3 yesterday... introducing the Honey Maize (or jan jhi bau suk in romanized Cantonese which means pearl maize). You can find these babies in abundance if you go up to Cameron Highlands. I'm not sure what they are known as other parts of the world but the folks up in Cameron Highlands sell it as Honey Maize so that's what I'm calling it.

I don't quite remember how much it's sold for up in Camerons. If memory serves it's RM10 for a bunch of 5 or 6 (that's the tourist price... if you're local you probably get it much cheaper). The one I devoured yesterday was free.