Astro B.yond IPTV Hollywood & Celebrities Night

Fresh from one Halloween themed party at the Hot Magazine 7th Anniversary Bash, I had the opportunity to attend yet another costumed themed night. This time, it was an invite from Nuffnang to go for the Astro B.yond IPTV Hollywood & Celebrities Night. The bloggers party was held over at the Astro B.yond IPTV Concept Store in Solaris Mont Kiara where familiar faces of bloggers and friends arrived all dolled up in costumes!

The stage is all set up for an incredible night

So what's all this fuss about Astro B.yond's IPTV? For starters, Astro B.yond IPTV offers the best of 3 worlds, Astro, Broadband and Voice all lump into one awesome package. It brings to life a true digital lifestyle, and as quoted from their press release "It is the one and only line you will need to fulfill all your need for information, entertainment, and staying connected. Check out below on the mechanics of Astro B.yond IPTV.

How it works

Anyway, so there I was at around 8pm, to be greeted by the lovely Nuffnang ladies at the registration counter. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many bloggers decked out in full Hollywood and Superheroes costumes. The night was packed with games, food, and lots of fun with photos and all. Do check out some photos I managed to capture of the lovely ladies and gentlemen from Astro B.yond IPTV Hollywood & Celebrities Night.

#1 Yours truly with some rather "cute" characters.. The cotton candy was awesome.

#2 Beautiful people ..

#3 "Beautiful" people ...

#4 We even had Captain America, Agent Carter, Batwomen, and all the other beautiful folks

#5 There's Red Riding Hood, The green hornet, and more!

#6 Bloggers can be really fun to be with

#7 That's me being this unknown gangster hoodlum ... Oh, there's Wolverine and Storm as well!

#8 Merryn came as this really cute Britney Spears

#9 That's us!

#10 My pretty lady ...

So there you have it, a collage photo collection of wonderful people we call bloggers. I apologize if I didn't manage to capture everyone present. I found the fact most of them took the effort and time to make up as well as dress up for the occasion really cool, up to the point I was rather embarassed because I was really under dressed. Overall, a good night out, and thanks again to Nuffnang and Astro for giving me the opportunity to crash in such an awesome party.

Aladdin The Musical

The last musical I went to was the Magical Musicals, and it was awesome to say the least. This time around, also by the same West End production at the same location Sunway Lagoon, we are going to have Aladdin The Musical! Are you ready to go on a magic carpet ride with Aladdin this coming November? Sunway Lagoon brings a whole new world to the Amphitheatre with Aladdin The Musical!

Aladdin The Musical

This post serves as a pre-event writeup to give a heads up for this upcoming Aladdin The Musical. The opening night for this West End Production is set for November 25th in a Gala Premiere, which will
include special stage effects, over at the Amphitheatre @ Sunway Lagoon.

“Following the immense success of our earlier productions, Peter Pan The Musical and Magical Musicals, we have decided take our stage production expertise to the next level with Aladdin The Musical. We are very excited for this upcoming production because of the ‘magical’ quality to this age-old tale. From flying carpets, pyrotechnics, snow to other aerial performances, our production team will be bringing the magic of Aladdin to life” 

Source: Aaron Soo, Chief Executive Officer of Sunway Lagoon.

So there you have it, Aladdin The Musical will be telling the tale of a boy's magical adventure from street rat to prince, when he is discovered to be ‘a diamond in the rough’ by Jafar, the evil aide to the bubbly and lovable Sultan. With the help of a magic lamp and a jovial ‘rapping’ Genie, Aladdin wrestles against the odds to win the heart of Princess Jasmine while he ingeniously uses good to  triumph over evil.

Audiences can expect to see familiar characters such as Aladdin, Princess Jasmine, The Sultan, Jafar, Slave of the Ring and of course The Genie of the Lamp himself. The six principal characters will be played by talents who hail from London’s famous West End. They will be joined by an international ensemble cast of dancers, fire eaters and stilt-walkers.

Aladdin The Musical will be playing at the Amphitheatre @ Sunway Lagoon from November 25th, 2011 until January 2nd 2012. 

The musical will show once a day, from Sunday to Friday at 8:00pm (no show on Tuesdays), and twice on Saturdays at 7:15pm and 9:15pm with extra shows on 25th December 2011 (Sunday) and 1st January 2012 (Sunday) at 7:15pm and 9:15pm. 

Ticket prices range from RM300, RM250, RM200 and RM100 for adults and RM150, RM120, RM100, and RM50 for children up to 12 years old.

For information on Sunway Lagoon, 

call 603 5639 0000

visit www.sunwaylagoon.com 

or connect www.facebook.com/sunwaylagoonMsia / www.twitter.com/sunwaylagoon1

P.s: There's a way to obtain free passes from Feeq's blog at http://bit.ly/rEpkXU.

Past Musicals Posts

• Magical Musicals Gala Premiere
• Magical Musical and Freestyle Musical Flash Mob at Sunway Lagoon 

Desa Parkcity Bloggers Fun Photo Outing

One fine bright and sunny Saturday morning, a small bunch of bloggers decided to pay a visit to Desa Parkcity's Waterfront in KL for a short fun photo outing. Armed with our cameras, ranging from Lomography cameras, handphone cameras, compacts to digital SLRs, we reached the place at around 10am. Attendance taken, and there were nine of us present to just snap freely around the area while discussing on photography in general.

Happy Bloggers

Those present were (in alphabetical order), Benjamin, Caroline, Eric, Henry Lee, Jackie, Jayren, Shii Teck and Spectre. The fun part was the fact that so many different types of cameras were used there. As for myself, I only had my compact camera Canon S90 to play with, but I did manage to grab a hold of those really cute lomography "sardine" cameras used by the other bloggers.

Setting up

That's Caroline with the cute "lomo" camera

Benjamin gazing into the distance

Eric Lee snapping away

Anyway, I've never been good in photography, and this was my first photo outing with friends. Seeing the rest snapping away like professionals got me all hyped up to snap some photos of my own. The scenery around Desa Parkcity Waterfront was nice, coupled with the good weather, I managed to capture some landscape shots. It's nowhere near the quality that digital SLR cameras can get though. Check out below on some landscape shots I manage to capture on my S90.

#1 Desa Parkcity

#2 Desa Parkcity Waterfront

#3 The Lake

#4 The Walkway

#5 Desa Parkcity Signage

#6 Some rocks

#7 Portrait mode

Of course, on top of landscape shots, I did manage to capture some shots of our only female member that morning, Caroline Ng. Desa Parkcity residents sure love their dogs as we saw so many people walking their dog that morning. More photo shots below.

#8 A rather cute dog from one of the folks walking their dogs around the area

#9 Caroline, the model of the day

#10 Caroline Ng

#11 More of Caroline

Overall, it was a rather productive morning, and really fun as we just walked around the area looking for good angles and good shots. I look forward to more gatherings like this, where more knowledge can be shared. As for now, let me continue saving towards a Digital SLR camera of my own.

Buddy Soy Smoothies Berjaya Times Square

Soy based products seems to be in trend now, as I found myself going for another review with bloggers to the all new Buddy Soy Smoothies in Berjaya Times Square the other day. I've previously tried yet another soy cafe over in 1 Utama (QBean), so I arrived at Buddy Soy with high expectations of good healthy soy drinks and food.

Buddy Soy Smoothies

Buddy Soy Smoothies

Lower Ground (LG-18 D2), 

Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (located next to Chatime)
Contact no: 012-338 3662 (Mr. Lee)
Website: http://www.buddysmoothies.com

Located just beside Chatime on the lower ground floor of Berjaya Times Square is bound to have some effect on Buddy Soy. Fortunately, patrons will see Buddy Soy first before Chatime, as the location of Buddy Soy Smoothies was rather strategic. I did not find any difficulties locating the store for the first time. 

The Cafe's decor

Welcomed by the owner Mr Lee, we were treated to a myriad of soy based drinks and food in various different presentations. We had soy bean milk drink, "tau fu far", yam with soy drinks and even a rather special cooling "Evergreen Cucumber Soy" drink. Of course, there were the extra side dishes comprising of cakes and cucuk udangs. Do check out below on a sample of what we savored that evening. 

#1 The Drinks: Soy Bean Milk - RM2.80, Evergreen Japanese Cucumber - RM5.80, Sweet Corn Soy - RM4.80, Cendol Soy, and even a Peanut Soy Drink.

#2 "Tau Fu Far" - RM2.80

#3 Tau Fu Far with Gula Melaka - RM3.30

#4 Some bite sized cakes

#5 Something new on Buddy Soy's menu, the Cucur Udang

#6 Kaya Pastries

#7 Coconut Tart which tasted rather good

After a short chat with Buddy Soy's owner Mr Lee, I was informed the word "Buddy" was used as the cafe's name as buddy symbolizes a very good friend, and that's what he wanted the shop to represent. Buddy Soy Smoothies, your friendly desserts cafe where you can just hang out with friends over some really healthy soy drinks.

The owners, Mr Lee and family

The bunch of awesome bloggers present for a round of good soy desserts

So if you have not checked out Buddy Soy Smoothies yet, the next time you go shopping in Berjaya Time Square, do drop by for a drink. I recommend the japanese cucumber soy drink for the unique cooling effect to the throat.

Maria's Restaurant And Cafe Damansara Perdana

A couple of days back, I had the opportunity to try out this rather cool restaurant over in Damansara Perdana, Maria's Restaurant and Cafe courtesy of an invitation from Melanie. Upon entering the restaurant, I was told Maria's Cafe is famous for their steaks, which I will showcase later in this post.

Maria's Restaurant and Cafe

Maria's Restaurant and Cafe

C313A, Center Wing, Metropolitan Square

No 2, Jalan PJU 8/1, Bandar Damansara Perdana,

47820 Petaling Jaya

Tel: 03-77252313

Email: info@marias.com.my

Location Map

Located on the upper floor of Metropolitan Square, Maria's Cafe exudes a really homely environment and ambience, with soft lighting and classy decor. With a tagline of "The Best of Traditional Western Cuisine", you know you're in for some good food here.

Inner Decor

Arriving at Maria's Cafe at around 8pm with Janice, the other bloggers haven't arrived yet which gave me the chance to have a quick chat with the cafe owner's daughter, Mary. To my surprise, the cafe was already filled with customers who mostly consisted of families and couples.

Maria's Cafe Restaurant Menu

It wasn't long till the rest of the bloggers arrived and we were seated on this rather long table ready to dig into some good food. As usual, I took the opportunity to get to know new friends, and that night, the bloggers that arrived were really pretty and good looking I kid you not. Anyway, do check out some of the dishes that we had that night.

#1 Spicy N.Z Mussels - RM16

#2 N.Z Rock Oysters - RM6 each

I wasn't really a fan of oysters and mussels, being more of a meat lover but these oysters were really fresh without any hint of fishiness odour, plus they were really huge.

#3 Ox Tail - RM19.50

#4 Pumpkin Soup with Croutons - RM8.50

#5 Seafood Minestrone Soup - RM19.50

#6 Caesar Salad - RM14

#7 Oriental Salad - RM10

After some healthy soups and delicious Caesar Salads, our next dish was Maria's Cafe's signature steaks. We were served with the Australian Wagyu 7 beef steaks, and also the Australian Chilled Black Angus steak. Naturally the Wagyu 7 steak tasted really good, being tender and very nice texture. At RM95/100gm for a wagyu 7 steak, I was informed the price was pretty reasonable for the quality of the meat. Check them out below.

#8 Australian Wagyu 7 Beef Steak - RM95/100gm

I just had to capture this heavenly piece before it went into my mouth

#9 Australian Chilled Black Angus Steak - RM42/100gm

#10 Pan-fried Sliced Fresh Tuna - RM24

#11 Seafood Spaghetti - RM24

#12 Chicken Parmigiana - RM22

#13 Black Pepper Chicken Chop - RM18.50

Desserts were served at the end, sweet tempting cakes which melted in our mouths. The Tiramisu came in a rather huge cup while the Moist Chocolate Cake was warm with some ice-cream served by its side. 

#14 Moist Chocolate Cake - RM9.50, Tiramisu - rm13.50 and Blueberry Cheese Cake - RM8.50

Needless to say, by the end of the night, we were literally filled to the brim with good, delicious food from Maria's kitchen. All the food served were good, all of which were meticulously prepared fresh from the kitchen.

Yours truly with the owner's pretty daughter Ms Mary

So if you are around Damansara Perdana area looking for some really good steaks, or any western food for that matter, do drop by Maria's Cafe over in Metropolitan Square. If you're lucky, you may even have Mary serving you your dishes! Anyway that's beside the point, go for the good food.