The secret garden (daytime)

I mentioned in an earlier post that we went to the Avatar Secret Garden.

On the way there, along Mount Erskine Road, the traffic was slow, and we saw these kids fighting beside the road.

There were some adult goats too, their parents?

Reaching our destination in Tanjung Tokong, we had to pay RM5 for parking. It's one of those places where there are people directing you where to park so that they can fit in as many cars as possible.

There were some statues and shaped plants (I don't know what to call them, but you'll see what I mean) on a very sandy beach.

Welcome!

Pity the lady at the side was making a funny face at the time.

Just want to show you the back of the statue; it's a tortoise too!

I took a few panoramic shots as well.

I didn't notice until I looked back at the photos that there is a tortoise among the cars. Do you see it?

I didn't climb the tower, but my father did. Can you spot him? If you can't, here's a zoomed-in photo where you can't miss him!

Looking back out towards the entrance where we drove in, we can see the name of the temple.

And here's the temple itself.

There is a food court to the right of the temple, and between the two, there is a path going to the secret garden behind the temple. There's a signboard with an arrow saying that the secret garden is that way, which means that the photos earlier were not part of the secret garden.

If you look closely, to the right of the archway they had a rabbit and a giraffe/llama? facing each other.

Even further to the right of the archway, we have these statues.

And even further, at the end of the photo above, we have another statue.

Between these two statues, if we look up (to the area where the archway leads), we can see the area where the hanging lights are.

Zooming in, you can see the lights (the hanging strands... though they are not lit yet!).

Further to the right of the sitting statue there is a path to go down to the sea.

Between the statue and the sea, there is a tulip-bordered path going up.

To the right of the path, we have this:

Does this garden belong to MBI?

At the top of the stairs, we turn left and the stairway splits into two. Both paths actually lead the the hanging lights.

At the very top, there's a five-headed cobra that I don't really understand the significance of. In front of it is a smaller statue but I didn't go close to look at (the snakes were pretty intimidating). Not sure whether those are offerings in front of it.

The king has a few minions guarding it...

Here's how the whole cobra's home looks.

Lower down, there is a Chinese chess set.

You can actually move the chess pieces about. Later on, when there were no more children playing, I tried to move one, and it was heavy as a brick!

This is the doorway that leads immediately to the chess set, and further up, the cobra.

I felt the arrow-shaped foliage (at the bottom-right) was rather apt, as if saying, "Look up to see the hanging lights!"

Here's another angle. This angle is better to see what the arrow "points" to, but we can't see the arrow as clearly because of the green background.

Going down further, we exit the archway that we first saw when entering the secret garden. We saw that the archway was to the left... to the right there is a huge tree with "coins" hanging from it.

We can see the sea from here too. There were even some people picnicking. (you can see them on the rock)

This post is long enough as it is, so the lights (which everyone goes to see) will have to wait till the next post!

The famous sticky ribs

Morganfield's has been in Penang for a few years now. However I have never tried it. This year, we decided to go and see what it was all about. To save money, we went for the set lunch.

garlicky ribs

peppercorn ribs

hickory ribs with fish; this one has an extra bowl for the tartar sauce

my father with his dish

pork schnitzel

Each set lunch came with either soup or salad (our choice) and a bottomless drink. However they were out of everything except Coke and Sprite. And they first told us that grape Fanta was available (which we all ordered because they were out of Heaven & Earth iced tea), but later came to say there was none left. So much for bottomless drinks... most of the drinks already hit the bottom! I believe they just didn't want to stock up on so many different drinks.

I didn't take a photo of the soup or salad... the salad was quite large and not bad, but the soup (cream of chicken) was rather watery, not that good. Each dish had some coleslaw too, which is what you see in the photos.

Each rib set cost RM35 (RM34.90 I think... can't remember whether GST and service charge was included or not), and the ribs + fish one cost RM30. The pork schnitzel was the cheapest... RM20 if not mistaken. The size was also the cheapest...it's not just small but thin!

We didn't find the ribs all that special after all. They were good, but not good enough to warrant this kind of price. As for the flavours, I liked the peppercorn one best (the one I chose!). However the other two were not bad either. Actually they all tasted about the same... the hickory one was the "basic", the peppercorn one had a pepper taste, and the garlicky one had bits of garlic on it. But without eating the garlic pieces, we wouldn't know the ribs were of  garlicky flavour!

The search for good oh chien ends here

Last night we went to Keat Seng in Ayer Itam for dinner. Snorlax (previously known as WW) and my father said that we had been here before, but neither my mother nor I could remember the place. When we reached, we felt that we had a hazy recollection of having been here, but we did not remember eating the oh chien at all.

Anyway, the past does not matter here, only the food! Unfortunately I didn't take photos of any of the food except our second round of oh chien (aka fried oyster), and that only after we had already cleaned one side of the plate.

One small plate (by "small" I mean the smallest size) cost RM12, and it wasn't really that small. This photo is maybe three-quarters or two-thirds of the plate; the far side is already eaten.

Besides the oh chien, we had char kuey kak, belacan chicken, otak-otak and sui kow (dumplings) in soup which were all pretty good. To me, the oh chien, belacan chicken and char kuey kak were the best.

We had some lok lok as well, but it wasn't that good... the satay sauce was not good at all, and I ended up dumping the fish dumplings from the lok lok stall into the sui kow soup.

At the end we ordered a bowl of hokkien mee (for those who were still hungry) which was quite good too.

The main thing at any dinner location is the food, but actually, the first thing I took a photo of when we got to our table was the sticker of the table advertising the drinks! Because it is advertised by Pikachu :P Made me want to order one even though I don't usually order these drinks. (in the end I didn't order this though)

A famous pattern

Anyone recognize this pattern?

Lai Shin gave me a bag for my birthday last year. It wasn't until yesterday that I brought it out to use, when we went to Penang Hill. I thought it would be easier to carry that handbag cum backpack instead of my usual sling handbag.

So do you recognize the pattern? I wouldn't... but the handbag/backpack is a Cartier. So this is actually its logo.

Anyway, looks like I started using it just in time to give me a good photo for this week's photo theme!

Food, food, and food

Yesterday we went to visit the Avatar Secret Garden in Tanjung Tokong. However, before I post photos of that, let me get my overdue food pics out of the way.

Last Monday (not yesterday :P ) we went to Go Noodle House for Adeline's farewell lunch. I had been there twice before, the first time at Gurney Plaza and the second time at Queensbay. This one was at Queensbay. Not that it would make a difference in the food.

The first time I went to Go Noodle House, I tried the pork slice noodles. It was delicious, which is why I brought my parents there (the second visit), but unfortunately that time we ordered bursting pork ball (the kind with some soup and filling inside) and fish ball noodles which didn't taste as good, even though we asked for the same soup (superior soup). This time we recommended it to Pei See, so she ordered the pork slice noodles. (we ordered the same by default (forced recommendation) for Seng Kai who was arriving later and asked us to help him order in advance)

Adeline had been here multiple times before, and she said she would order the spicy soup. She said it was good, so I thought I could try it, but I decided not to when I saw that it had vinegar in it. Lucky for me...I tried her soup and I didn't like it.

When she said she would order clam noodles, she said that they gave us a lot of clams. That was why I ended up ordering clam noodles as well... I was worried that there would be too few clams! Happily, there were really a lot of clams, more than seen in the photo presentation in the menu. They even gave us each a bowl to place the clam shells in. Nice... that way we don't have clam shells strewn all over the table.

The soup from the clam noodles is slightly different from the one with the pork slices. Now I am a firm believer that when we go to Go Noodle House, we need to order a soup with fresh ingredients. Meatballs don't add any flavour to the soup! However the other two fresh items are prawns and fish which are expensive... so I might just stick to these two.

That night we went to Island Glades to have the nasi kukus there (and go to Tesco after that).

This one cannot compare to the noodles in presentation. However, the taste is good, and at RM5 a plate, this presentation is good enough! (we asked for "atas peha" and "peha")

The last "food" in this post (did you notice that there are three in the title?) is the mutton briyani at Kapitan Setia Triangle. We went there for Pei Shi's farewell lunch on Tuesday. (Yes, two friends are leaving soon after CNY. Two very popular girls who need to be booked early to have farewell lunches with!)

The food presentation here was not that special either, so I only took this one photo. The others either ordered this, chicken briyani or tandoori chicken with naan.

I didn't find the briyani that special... it was good enough, but the mutton was not tender enough (not tough however). I wouldn't go there again myself, only if someone wanted to go.