Voucher Food Hunt: Cassis

Cassis is one of the most famous fine dining restaurants in Penang for its price and food presentation. Apparently their chef used to work in some Michelin nominated restaurant in Americas. However, it did escape my notice until I saw their voucher in www.myooo.my – another new voucher website.

This was the most expensive voucher that I’d ever bought. It cost RM88 for a 5 course meal with a unique payment arrangement – RM8 paid to www.myooo.my and RM80 to be paid at Cassis.
http://myooo.my/deal/55-back-popular-demand-and-upgraded-rm88-5-course-dinner-exclusive-fine-dining-experience-cassi

We wanted to book for the dinner on December 20^th but were told that they were closed during the weekdays due to opening of a new restaurant at Precinct 10. Thus we had to change our appointment to December 30^th for a pre-new year’s eve celebration.

When we arrived on the night, we were greeted by the waiter and the owner (I think). I think they accidentally missed out our appointment since we made it very early as they can’t find our name in the list. But the owner solved the situation professionally by simply pretending that our name was there with the surprise and confusion of the waiter. His professionalism was really impressive as most people would mention or even argue that we did not make any appointment. So instead of being kicked out, we were ushered upstairs to our seat.

The upstairs was completely empty until the end of our dinner. We were joking that we must’ve dressed too hideously until they wanted to hide us upstairs to preserve their high class standard to other patrons. But it was really fun to have the whole floor to ourselves since we can make a fool of ourselves without any witnesses! :p

Look at this! It was actually red but turns purple with my lousy iphone camera!

The waiter recommended us for some wine to go with our meal so we ordered a glass of house wine (RM32). The red wine had a strong scent and taste but smooth nonetheless. We were served with our 1^st course which was either Tuna Tartare or Tiger Prawns Salad. We ordered one each to sample the taste.

Bread (mini baquette?) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

The House Wine

The food presentation here was simply exquisite. Look at the photos of the food! The tuna tartare was topped with caviar and it tasted really special. The tiger prawn was served with some fish roes and the combination was amazing.

Tuna Tartare

Tiger Prawns & Fish Roes

Our 2^nd course was soup of the day. I totally did not pay attention on what soup it was but it tasted great. It was definitely not mushroom soup or any other normal soup that were served in western restaurant. I must say this was the 1^st time I tasted soup like this. The soup was served with some olive oil, crouton and some tiny bit of cheese.

Soup of the Day

3^rd course of the night was Atlantic Salmon. Look at that! I was amazed by the size of the salmon as I was expecting bite-size items from a fine dining restaurant. This 3^rd course Salmon was of equivalent size to the main course in The View, EQ – and it tasted so much better than the salmon main course in The View. The salmon was seasoned minimally; in fact, it tasted of freshness with a hint of salt. This was my favourite course of the day. A funny thing happened when the waiter served us the course, the vegetable on top of the salmon fell sideway when he put the plate on our table. His face was like in panic and I was thinking he wanted to take the plate and ran back to the kitchen for a “rework”. To make him felt better, we assured him that it was okay for us and he left hesitantly with a ‘longing’ look at us. Hmm… maybe he thought that we were weird to accept a ‘defect’ item? :p

Atlantic Salmon

 4^th course of the day was either Australian sirloin, braised duck leg or pork belly. We chose the sirloin and pork belly since we were not a fan of duck. The waiter recommended us to have the sirloin medium to have a best texture and we accepted his proposal. The Australian sirloin was served with red wine jus whilst the pork belly was served with elderberry sauce. Both had mashed potato on it. The mashed potato was the smoothest mashed potato that I’d ever tried. Anyway, I noticed that their flavouring was more of a minimalist with minimum condiment to bring out the taste of the main item. I guess some people might consider it as tasteless but we were very satisfied with the food. The size of the 4^th course amazed us again as it was big. Not TGIF/Chilis size big but big nonetheless. The sirloin was cooked just nice with a tad of crispiness on the outside and tender on the inside. I was not a fan of the pork belly though as I could see the fat layer on the meat. But it was pork belly and it was supposed to be fat on it. The good thing was you wouldn’t feel nauseous when you ate the fat layer – guess this had to do with the way it was cooked.

Australian Sirloin

Pork Belly

The dessert of the day was less impressive with carrot cake and ice cream. The ice cream was smooth but the carrot cake was quite dry. Our dinner ended with a cup of coffee/tea. The tea served was earl gray.

Coffee

Tea

Dessert of the Day

The service of the restaurant was really impeccable. Throughout the whole meal, the waiter left us to our own private dining and only came to us during course serving or water refill. I actually like this service as I hated waiter standing around staring at you eating for the whole time and kept pestering you about how the food was. It was like our own private haven upstairs.

It is highly recommended that you tried out this restaurant especially when there is a voucher promotion as the RM88 is really worth every penny. The price of the original menu is really pricey though so if you see any voucher promotion, GRAB IT and try out the fine dining experience!

Cassis is located at Belissa Row at Pulau Tikus, Penang.

Travel Log: Living the Dream… in STRIKE! (Day 9)

Previous Day (Acropolis & Museum)

Destination: Greece
Duration: 9 Days 7 Nights (Oct 18~Oct 26, 2011)

Day 9: Doha -> Kuala Lumpur -> Penang

Our transit from Doha to KL was at 1.30am thus most of us stepped down the plane to transit hall in blurry eyes. The transit hall in Doha was very crowded. There were some shops there but the only impression I got was messy. There was a Lamborghini on display and everyone was taking photo with it. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the Hugo Boss Advertisement in the airport! Jared Leto!!! *swoon*

The Car!!!

Jared Leto!!!

Our plane finally took off and we were served with some juices and sandwich... let’s just say the sandwich was not up to standard.

Sandwich & Juices

Sandwich

We were served breakfast before the plane landed in KLIA.

Appetizer: Seasoned fresh fruit with breakfast oat

Entrees:

Potato and cheese frittata, tomato concasse, chicken sausage, creamed mushroom and cherry tomato

Or

Thai vegetable fried rice with ginger chicken

The fried rice tasted normal but the western set was really nice! How I wish to eat nice breakfast everyday! =)

The Western Set - Yummy!!!

The Rice.. Hmm..

After the plane landed in KLIA, we took a bus to LCCT to catch Air Asia flight to Penang. The flight was of course delayed due to heavy rain. All the planes were queuing up since they were not allowed to take off. The rain followed us to Penang and we were soaked during our walk from the plane to arriving hall in Penang International Airport. By the time we reached home, it was around 8pm++.

Tea Time @ KLIA! Spicy Fried Rice!

All in all, what a magnificent experience! The only downside was that we missed out Mykonos but we did get to explore more of Santorini. Let’s put Mykonos in the future travel list along with another 100000 places! :p

Bottom Line: Sammy & Dooggie get a new Friend!

Masterpost (Click to get to day to day link)

Travel Log: The Mist, The Balrog, The Ghost & The Food

Destination: Ipoh, Malaysia
Date: December 10, 2011

After several weeks of “discussion”, we finally went on to our Ipoh trip on Dec 10, 2011. Our arrangement was simple, 3438 met 9663 at BJ, passenger in 3438 then hopped into 9663 to meet 9218 in Juru Autocity. 9218 would then hop into 9663 as well to meet 3003 at Juru toll for the drive to Ipoh to meet 2699 at Foh San Dim Sum. The highway was so misty in the morning with low visibility. Oh mine, this was the first time I’d seen mist like this on the highway. I half expected some nasty creatures to appear from the mist to kill us all like Stephen King’s “The Mist”. Perhaps there was a government experiment gone wrong?

Look at all the mist...

Our fearless leader!

Fortunately, the creatures did not appear and we arrived at Ipoh toll safely. There was when we realized our GPS sucked! It took us round and round the city when Foh San Dim Sum was right there! *facepalm* The restaurant was crowded with people but luckily we managed to get a table after some waiting. We took a tableful of prawn dumpling, giant fish ball, chee cheong fun, egg tart, yam puff and century egg congee. My favorite of the bunch was the yummy congee! It was really smooth and flavorful. The yam puff was a pleasant surprise as the inner ingredient was cooked in a totally different way if compared with those in Penang.

Dim Sum!!!

The Yummy Congee!

After our breakfast, 2699, 9663 and 3003 were broken into two groups – one for praying in some cave and another to the famed Gua Tempurung. Guess which group I was in? It was a short drive from Ipoh to Gua Tempurung and we bought our ticket of Tour 2 (Top of the world) as we have no intention to get ourselves wet for the wet tours. The cave was really interesting and beautiful, it was dark inside with minimum dim light and it really reminded me of Moria – the Dwarves city in Lord of the Rings.  

The Road Leading to Gua Tempurung

Just Walked in...

Stairs!

It was supposed to be a guided tour but the next tour only started much later. They agreed to let us go in by ourselves as we did not wish to wait. There were a lot of stairs involved (duh!) but it was not as difficult as I imagined it would be as the path was built nicely. The more adventurous path would be the wet tour which we did not take. Our 1^st stop was at the Golden Flowstone at the height of 90 meters. The stalagmites and stalactites on walls and ceilings take various astounding sizes and shapes.

Moria!!!

The Golden Flowstone Cave...

Walking towards the Darkness..

There is some dim light..

Are there dwarves?

We then climbed higher to another platform which was 120 meters high. There was a wind tunnel and we could feel the cool breeze before we proceeded to other caverns. The Top of the World basically was on the stairway which you could touch the top with your hand. There was another dark stairway leading down the cave after Top of the World but we did not proceed as that was the pathway to the wet tour. It was really dark and looked bottomless and we wondered whether a Balrog lived in there. Since we did not have Gandalf to save us, we walked back by using the same way as we came in.

Wind Tunnel...

Yet Another Cavern...

Climbing up to the Top of the World...

Sammy is touching the Top of the World!

Creepy?

From another Angle..

Some Creatures on the stone? Balrog?!

Finally there is light...

Survive the Cave Safely!

Live Another day to tell the tale..

3003 then met up with 2699 and 9663 for Oon Kee Sprout Chicken Restaurant in Ipoh. Of course our dear GPS took us to a big round again. Did GPS Company and the petrol company made an alliance so that driver could drive further to spend more fuel? The chicken was disappointing as it was so difficult to bite and swallow. Nando’s had better chicken than this! The bean sprout and the meat ball were nice though even though the soup was really salty. Overall, not that impressed with this restaurant.

The Famous Restaurant...

The Hor Fun

The Bean Sprout, Chicken and Meatball.. or what's left of it when we arrive!

We then went for souvenir hunting.. hmm..i meant food hunting for local snacks. We bought some biscuits and salted chicken and accidentally found the famous soya drink stall. The soya drink was nice! Our group then got split again as some were to continue to Taiping and some to Kellie’s Castle.

Soya Drink!

Salted Chicken

Kellie’s Castle was seemingly further from Gua Tempurung but we then realized our dear GPS took us for the long route. We finally reached the castle and were amazed that Malaysia actually had a Western style castle. The castle was built by a William Kellie Smith in honor of his wife and it was unfinished as tragedy hit the castle before it was completed. The workers all fall to their death due to sickness before Kellie succumbed during his trip to Portugal to bring the 1^st ever elevator back to the castle. It was said that his ghost still romped around the castle till this day.

A View from Afar

Secret Pathway!!!

The Pitch Dark Wine Cellar hosts a Secret Pathway but was Closed..

Small Stairways from ground floor to bedrooms..

Kellie's Residence behind the Castle

A Guest Room!

The Elevator Shaft!

Top of the main building.. it was supposed to be a tennis court

A View from the Top

The Tennis Court..

The Elevator Shaft from the Top

The stairs to the highest point of the Castle

During our visit, there were 2 couples taking wedding photograph and a teenagers taking portrait as well. We went into room after room, stairs after stairs in search for secret pathways and secret rooms. Unfortunately the secret underground pathway was closed by the authority due to safety reason. What a bummer! It was supposedly leading to the nearby Indian Temple where Kellie worshipped during his stay. However, we did drive to the Indian Temple during our way out from Kellie’s Castle and took a photo of Kellie being worshipped as a God there.

The Daughter's room, It was said that the daughter's ghost still romps around here!

Master Bedroom

Beautiful Aisle

Secret Stairway out from the Master Bedroom

This is where it leads

The Guard House

Beautiful Wall!

The Stove

Kellie's Residence from another Angle

The Air Ventilation System for the Secret Underground Pathway

A view at the courtyard

Kellie's Castle & Residence

The Aisle where Kellie's ghost still romps around..

The Bear Tree...

Side View of the Castle

Let's take a photo!

Another Ventilation System for the underground pathway

Bye Kellie's Castle!

The Indian Temple - where one of the underground tunnel leads to..

Here is Kellie!

It was almost 5pm when we started to drive out from Ipoh and we were wondering whether we should go to Taiping Lake. In fact, we had Taiping Lake keyed in to the GPS but then did not go through the plan as there was a heavy downpour at Taiping area. Thus this ended our short little trip in Ipoh. =)