A child no more and is now a married woman with a child of my own, Chinese New Year is always intimidating to me. It is no longer fun where you get to eat a lot of tidbits and collect angpow from the elders. Socially speaking, Chinese New Year is a horror story where you have to practically endure your nosy relatives who talks too much and judge too much for their own good. You see, I never like those stupid small talks that asks me questions like why I only have one child, why my son’s progress is so slow in comparison to other children etc. Such things makes me feel uneasy and makes me feel like my privacy have been breached.

Yes. Honestly speaking, that is how I feel every Chinese New Year. Unpleasant, really…as the Chinese are extremely competitive and naturally Chinese New Year becomes the time where everyone show off their achievements. Everyone have something to show off about. How well their kids are doing in school, how awesome they are at work…it is all about who is better than the others.
Not exactly my thing. I don’t like showing off…nor do I like to get involved in meaningless small talks.

But then again, I have changed a lot these days. I am much a successful person today in comparison to last year and the year before. I’m prettier and lovelier now. I no longer feel inferior and I strut with my head held high. I am influential too and my son have progressed so much in his own ways too and despite not really expelling academically, my son is pretty street smart and have loads of hands on experience in comparison to children his age. Unlike a lot of children his age, he wasn’t raised to be babysit by iPad or smartphones, so he have better table manners too, where he would actually sit and eat the food instead of fiddling with the gadgets. Frankly speaking, if I were to boast, there is definitely a lot for me to boast about.

So yea…Chinese New Year might be socially unpleasant. But looking on the bright side, at least I have a home to go back to. My mother in law is still around and she usually make a lot of effort to bring the family together for Chinese New Year. She will cook loads of delicious stuff for us to eat and there are jars of tidbits for all of us to munch on. I guess when I am older, I’ll be doing the same thing to keep my family together, and despite the unpleasant social environment, I still could enjoy homecook food and enjoy doing nothing and unwind during Chinese New Year. My husband will be by my side 24/7 too, which is great as we are all busy during normal days. Who says you can’t make the most of everything? Festive season can be pretty overrated and commercialized, but it provides the opportunity to actually bond with your family, so make the most of it. Consider yourselves lucky to still have family and home to go back to this festive season. Some are not lucky enough to have one. 🙂

Happy Chinese New Year. Here’s sharing with you a video. Inspired by true events, this Chinese New Year short film by Alan Thoo, brings together 4 good friends chit chatting over tea time. Another Lions Club of Sunway Damansara Metro message to everyone, proudly produced by Virtigo Studio and Adini Productions.

Starring Joseph Germani, Dennis Yin, Shawn Lee, Simon Leong and cameos by many local celebs and Lions members.

Let me share something with all of you here. I’m a regular Facebooker. I spend a lot of time interacting with friends and acquaintances via Facebook. I have 3 Facebook account. One of it is solely for Facebook game purpose while the other two is my personal account that I used to interact with friends. Each of these accounts have different sets of friends coming from different backgrounds.

I stopped using one of it because of a very personal reason: which is that the friends in that particular account are not as motivating and inspiring as the new one. The newsfeed in my old Facebook account are usually full of negative status updates and things I’m not comfortable with. It is also full of judgmental people who thinks I’m an abusive and failed wife and mother. Accusation that I do not sit very well with.

Yes. These days I’ve stopped using that account and currently using the new one where I either do not befriend such people or I do not subscribe to their status updates. Plainly speaking, the current account that I’m using, the one that I’m actively updating serves to make me feel good about myself, and not the other way around.

One can easily accuse me for being picky and discriminating, but you have no idea how much such thing affected my life. Surrounding myself with positive people has made me feel better about myself instead of feeling inferior and insufficient. Surrounding myself with inspiring people who encouraged, inspire and motivate me instead of telling me that it is not possible for me to achieve something when I wanted to try something new made me a better and happier individual who feels that the sky is the limit.

Accidentally logging in to the older account that I’m no longer active in a couple of days ago after more thqb a year abandoning it actually gave me a culture shock. You see, I have yet to deactivate that account and once I was logged into that account, I was blasted by all sort of negativities and things that does not make me feel comfortable; from racist individual who condemned everyone who have faith in religion and God to judgmental parents who are more than determined to take their children’s childhood away by grilling them and forcing them to attend extra classes and tuitions as young as kindergarten age and not to mention those who rant and vent about their failed relationships were practically flooding the timeline.

That account was filled with all sort of negativities. The negative auras were somehow instantaneous. Out of sudden, I could feel depressed and anger filled me for no reason. I was shocked with my own reaction towards what I was seeing and I was immediately slammed with the fact that I was one of these people before I decided to change my life by surrounding myself with different kind of people who makes me a better person in while just by behaving positively.

I guess…it is true that who you have as your friends, even on social media reflected who you are, and Law of Attraction does come into the equation when it comes to attracting both positive and negative energy. I now surround myself with people who are positive and encouraging, and I definitely feel like I am a better and a more successful person than the person I was two years ago.

Yes, someway, somehow, Facebook did changed my life, by showing me that different sets of people in your life could affect you differently with just their status updates and the things that they decided to share on their timeline.

For what it’s worth, I’m glad that I decided to abandon the old account and stick to the new one instead. Truthfully, I feel much happier now.

It is nice to have friends who encourage me to get out of my comfort zone and friends who do not bash me for everything that I want to do. And it is certainly nice to have friends who actually told me that I am doing well as a mother instead of those who show off their spoiled brats and tells me that my child is retard and I need to do something to ‘fix’ him up because he is unfit to mingle around in the society
And it is definitely very nice that I no longer have to deal with people who find ways to comment negatively on everything no matter things are good or bad.

Yes…it is nice that I no longer have to be with those who are finger pointers and fault finders.

Cleffairy: I want to be the better and successful version of me. Not the insecure and depressed version of me.

There are plenty of unpleasant things that is going on in the blogging world lately. Some is rather embarrassing to even mention as I believe, when a blogger screwed up…the others will be affected too. As they say, one rotten apple spoils the whole bunch. So I’ll just leave that where it belongs and hope people will just forget some stupidities even happen.

Yes…some is not worthy for discussion but some things that is going on in the industry, I believe must be spoken up.

The one thing that is worthy precious time to mention in my opinion:

Plagiarism

Such a disgusting thing and as someone who wrote 33 mini novellas and self published a couple of novels online, I am completely against plagiarism.

As a writer, I have experienced my work being plagiarized a few times, and while this is quite strong to say, I have always feel that plagiarism is a form of rape and robbery Read that: Rape and robbery. Yes. Rape and robbery. I stand by this statement as those who plagiarize forcefully take and use someone’s ideas their own personal gains.

Within the span of one month, I’ve seen a couple of plagiarism cases

Plagiarism is a form of intellectual crime and I do not believe in condoning them. Not even one bit, because if you just let it be, it will occur again and again countlessly.

A lot of bloggers keep quiet whenever their work is being plagiarized. That is a huge mistake, because you let that happen once and just keep quiet about it, people will think it is all right to just copy and paste your work without even bothering to give you credit for it.

I have been plagiarized and I do not tolerate such act. I took legal actions against those who claims that they ate the proprietor of my intellectual property. Some people would think that it is not worth the fight and one should just be all sweet and forgiving by just turning a cheek against it…and thinks people will always know the truth. But sorry to break it to you people that this world is not a romance novel nor it is a fairy tale.

Grow up. The real world does not always paint the good people in the good light and the criminal in the bad light. The world may see things differently and worship the bad guys just because they could give you enjoyment or benefit.

The real world does not always have a happily ever after for good people and if fighting for your rights is considered being a badass, then so be it. It does not matter how people see you, but how you see yourself and stood for what is right.

Spotted this status in the autism support group that I’m in and it hits me really, really hard. No. I won’t lie or sugarcoat it for all of you out there. Sometimes, living with a child(ren) with autism can be challenging. And quite a living hell. Yes. In some cases…it does DESTROY marriages and your social relationships and more often than not, you’d see that there are a lot of parents with autistic children out there are actually single parents. And most of these parents keep things to themselves. So…why does this happens? While I am still happily married, I could actually relate to the issue why autism destroy marriages, because I’ve honestly been in that living hell:

1. The stress of raising a child whose milestone is terribly way behind normal children, in terms of social skills and behaviour; children with autism mostly are non verbal. It makes communication impossible, especially for severe ones. Hence… couples started to blame each other for the lack of parenting skill and even will accuse each other for negligence, while in truth, it is almost impossible to raise a child with autism without professional support, early interventions or acceptance of their disorder.

2. When you have a child with autism, your bonding time with your spouse becomes almost zero. Yups. You are reading that right. Children with autism requires 1000% attention and they lacks the need to sleep due to their active neurons activities. In severe cases, some autistic kids just requires 2 hours of sleep daily and practically need to be given melatonin to help them sleep. So…you tell me…it is probably easier to work on your marriage…or just walk out that door and have sex elsewhere? Honestly…although I am a faithful person, I’d say that walking away and having my ‘needs’ serviced outside of marriage would be much easier and kinda ‘stress-free’

3. Family strain caused by your autistic children’s milestone and behaviour. Well…not all family and relatives are educated enough to actually understand that autism is a disorder and not caused by bad parenting skills. This usually caused strain and stressful relationship between couples and their respective families. Another main cause for divorce.

4. Sending autistic kids to babysitter for a mere 1 hour break is impossible unless babysitters are trained in handling autistic children….

I could write a whole book if I were to give you reasons why autism actually destroys your marriage, but at the end of the day…I come to these conclusions:

1. Only cowards walked away from their marriages because of autism.
2. Acceptance and early intervention is the most important step for a much quality life if you are a caregiver to an autistic person. Don’t get caught up on labels…just let the rest of the world call your autistic child retarded or whatever provided you get all the support that you need from those who are in the same shoes as you. Support and tips to handle kids with autism is important for your sanity.
3. Religious beliefs keep you calm. Trust me…religious people will tell you having such a special need child is a gift instead of a curse. I made a mistake of mingling with those who are not religious during the early years and it wrecked my morals terribly and practically demolished my self confidence not only as a mother but as an individual as well.

Now, although there are times I wished I’m dealing with cancer instead of autism as the society in general have much more empathy for cancer patients and make more efforts to understand cancer, I can’t honestly say that all about autism is bad. If it did not teach me much, I can at least say that I have much higher tolerance towards children with disability and unlike many of you out there, I do not judge anyone’s parenting skills nor do I make a point to compare one child with another. If there is anything that this fast moving and competitive world needs….it would be empathy. That is good enough for a kinder world, don’t you think?

One of the life changing thing that I decided to do this year is to understand more about Islam; the most misunderstood religion in the world. I thought, to understand more about it is to experience it first hand, and what better way to experience the Muslim’s way of life and how the religion itself works is to observe the holy month of Ramadhan.?

There is a few things I’ve learned about Ramadhan. The word Ramadhan comes from the Arabic root ‘ramida or ar-ramaḍ’, which means scorching heat or dryness. Muslims worldwide observe this as a month of fasting. This annual observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Fasting is obligatory for adult Muslims, except those who are suffering from an illness, traveling, pregnant, breastfeeding, diabetic or going through menstrual bleeding. While fasting from the break dawn until dusk, Muslims must refrain from consuming food, drinking liquids, smoking, and engaging in sexual relations and also must refrain from other ill behavior which could be perceived as sinful such as swearing, engaging in disagreements, backbiting and procrastination.One would thrive to be more pious during this holy month of Ramadhan too, and I daresay that is not an easy feat.

I was particularly excited and at the same time, nervous to observe Ramadhan this year. It’s my first year attempting to fast with my Muslim brother and sisters out there. This is not just about religious obligation, but it just doesn’t feel right to be eating when the rest of the people we know are not, what more, I think to understand Islam more is to experience it first hand. That is not all. To put the challenge up a notch, both my son and husband takes up the challenge too. Now, I can assure you that fasting alone is easy, but it’s another story altogether when your little one decides to join in too. It takes a lot of will power, motivation and most important of all, disciplined to accomplish a successful day fasting.

I’m not sure how the rest of the world coped with fasting during Ramadhan, but I find it particularly challenging, especially during the first few days. My family and I missed sahur during the first few days as we overslept, and we find it rather difficult to refrain ourselves from eating and drinking without the pre-fasting meal. (Sahur is an Islamic term referring to the meal consumed early in the morning by Muslims before fasting. The meal is eaten before fajr prayer, or dawn. Sahur as the morning meal is matched by Iftar as the evening meal, during Ramadan, replacing the traditional three meals a day; breakfast, lunch and dinner) But after the third day, we managed to get a grip. I set an alarm on my smartphone and make a point to prepare meals for both of my boys and wake them up to take their sahur. They are surprisingly cooperative and not once they whine about not wanting to eat at odd hours. I suppose the gnawing hunger during the day motivates them to actually wake up and eat during sahur. 🙂

It is 25th Ramadhan as of writing and we have yet to miss a single day of fasting. I find this fact particularly rewarding and I’m so proud of my boys. For some, fasting during Ramadhan is perhaps just a religious obligation, but I discovered that the whole thing goes much deeper than that. I feel much more connected to my husband and son during Ramadhan as we do the same things together and remind each other about sahur and breaking fast. This one common thing that we are practicing actually brought us closer as a family.  We communicated more and spent more quality time together, especially during mealtime, and I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I’ll be missing Ramadhan very much when it’s finally over.  I’ll miss my husband making effort to come home early from work so that he could break fast with us, and I’ll definitely miss the excuse of texting my husband at work whenever he couldn’t make it back to break fast with us, just to ask him if he have eaten. I’ll also miss the motivation to be discipline and actually do things on time.

Yes, Ramadhan is beautiful in many ways if you try to actually experience it and understand it instead of being skeptical about it. I feel much more appreciated,loved and blessed this Ramadhan. We did a lot of things together as family, and one of the other memorable and worth mentioning thing that we did this Ramadhan is breaking fast with our Muslim brothers and sisters.

We attended plenty of breaking fast session with friends and acquaintance, but one of the most special one have to be the Iftar with eWana Fm at Pak John Steamboat& BBQ. The event was jointly organized by eWana FM and Pak John Steamboat&BBQ, sponsored by Nanorecords, Creativcolor, Chewy Chocs, and Santai Travel as their media partner. The event also featured special segment Hai Blogger! and Carta Bloggers 30.

So, I’ve joined plenty of events and Ramadhan buffet reviews, but what makes this one so special? Well, first of all, this would mean I would be able to meet all my Muslim media and blogger friends to catch up. A plus point: The iftar was held not only to celebrate bloggers and the members of the media who have been supporting eWana.FM, but also to celebrate the underprivileged children from Rumah Kanak-Kanak Tengku Budriah. Naturally, when my family and I were invited for iftar by eWana FM in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ at eCurve Damansara, I was ecstatic and delighted. Secondly..STEAMBOAT is on the agenda!

Steamboat refers to several East Asian varieties of stew, consisting of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. Steamboat has a history of more than 1,000 years and thought to have originated in Mongolia where the main ingredient was meat, usually beef or mutton. It then spread to southern China during the Tang Dynasty and was further established during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. Steamboat is often consumed by Chinese in Malaysia, an ethnicity that is majority non-Muslims. Steamboat, although not a staple among the Muslims in Malaysia,  remains one of the favourite way of dining. But it is very difficult to get good, Halal steamboat in Malaysia. Here’s a picture of our Iftar with eWana FM venue. Pak John Steamboat and BBQ eCurve outlet. The restaurant is offering HALAL steamboat so the Muslims could actually enjoy their steamboat meals without doubts. And as their tagline goes, they only serves quality and fresh food here, .

Pak John Steamboat&BBQ has a huge interior that could accommodate a maximum of 300 diners, and one can opt to sit at the common public area or the VIP room. The outlet is fully air conditioned. This photo was taken before the invited media and guests started to arrive.

Bloggers and the members of the media present that day

Guest of honour of the day: Children from Rumah Kanak Kanak Tengku Budriah, Cheras.

eWana All Stars and artists were present to entertain the guests and the children from Rumah Kanak Kanak Tengku Budriah that day too.

🙂 My artist friend, Iqwal Hafiz, The Singing Traveler singing and entertaining the guests before buka puasa time. 😉

eWana.FM also launched “eWana Raya” album and during the event, attendees were given privilege to listen to the never heard before songs live first hand that day. Kudos to eWana.FM for such a great effort. With the mere cost of RM21.90 per CD, 30% proceeds of the sale of this album would go to the war ravaged victims in Gaza. Here’s your chance to give a tremendous value to your money while you entertain yourselves with some catchy but nostalgic Hari Raya songs sang by eWana FM deejays themselves. To place an order, do contact eWana.fm  or Wan Salam. I know I’ve written about eWana FM countless times in my blog, but in case you’re still wondering what eWana FM is all about, well, to cut the long story short, eWana.FM is an Internet radio (not conventional radio) using the latest technology and provide more interactive experience where listeners can interact directly with the deejays on duty. eWana.FM operate 24 hours per day or and can be accessed through www.Ewana.FM or via Tune In apps if you are an android device user. eWana.FM is accessible via Internet and online radio apps regardless of time and geographical boundaries. For more details on how to download the apps to listen to eWAna.FM, you may refer to my older post HERE

What’s Ramadhan without the spirit of love, joy and sharing? Ramadhan is all about charity and apart from all the entertainment and catchy songs, Aidilfitri contributions of Rm3,000 are made by Pak John Steamboat&BBQ to the Rumah Kanak Kanak Tengku Budriah as well during the iftar function.

Check out the video by Kaio for a clearer picture on the event.Various activities went on during the event too, including lucky draw and mini games with hampers as prizes (which I won at the end of the night), but I won’t divulge much about that, as the best part about iftar with eWana FM is definitely the food in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ.

Consider yourselves forewarned, ladies and gentlemen. This post is full of food graphic. Yours truly will not be responsible for your hungry tummy or ruined diet. 😉

There food in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ is organized nicely according to sections. There’s fresh food aisle where ingredients like vegetable, meat and poultries is located, then there’s frozen food aisle where processed food like fishballs and surimis awaits. There’s the hot food buffet spread, of course, the ala minute counter where you can request food to be prepared on the spot, and dessert and beverage counter.

Spotted at the fresh food section, the seafood ingredients.

The ingredients for steamboat is extensive here in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ, and you’ll be spoiled for choices. But here’s showing what’s worth showing and hopefully it will help you readers to visualize on what this restaurant have to offer the diners.

Assorted fishballs and surimi can be easily spotted from afar. There’s a healthy balance of crabsticks, seafood tofu, dumplings and whatnot here. These processed food are certified HALAL by JAKIM and is supplied exclusively by CYL Food Sdn. Bhd who have won the SME100 Award back in 2012. They have over 10 years of experience in providing a wide range of frozen food products to the local and oversea market. CYL Food Sdn. Bhd distributes many frozen food products and meal solutions to colleges & universities, hospitals, chain restaurant , convenience stores , wet market, supermarket , hypermarket, restaurant, wholesales frozen food mart and many other food service channels throughout Malaysia, so you can be assured that these assorted fishballs and surimis at Pak John Steamboat&BBQ is of high quality and assured fresh.

Poultries and meat are available too, and they are already pre-marinated with myriad of herbs and spices for your grilling pleasure. I highly recommend the marinated beef slices and the spicy chicken. They are to die for as the flavours are deeply imbued in the juicy meat.

Sensational fresh seafood and clams. Bamboo clams, fresh mussels and prawns are available for your taking. This is basically a cholesterol fest, so eat with caution for those who have high cholesterol issues.

Irresistibly fresh vegetables for those who love to have greens in their steamboat soup and grill. Crisps leaves, leafy bak choy, crunchy broccolis, juicy tomatoes, corn on cobs, assorted fungus and mushrooms will guarantee natural sweetness in your steamboat meal, so be sure to pluck some of these from the vegetable compartments.

Also at the all you can eat buffet section is the not to be missed premium food items like abalone slices, smoked duck slices, premium New Zealand Beef and lamb slice

Abalone slices. Note to all foodies: This item is unlimited! Yes! You are reading that right! So abalone fans, help yourselves with these and knock yourselves out. 🙂

Smoked duck slices was a divine thing. It was thinly sliced and made a perfect savory appetizer in my steamboat meal. 🙂 There was no gamey taste whatsoever, and please don’t ask how many helpings I had.

Premium grade New Zealand Beef/ lamb slices is also available for your repeated consumption.

Fancy some carbs in your steamboat meal? No fret. An assortments of noodles, including instant Japanese Udon are available for you to cook too. Beside the noodles offerings, I can’t help but notice the eggs that’s placed neatly on the tray for diners to use as a part of their steamboat ingredients. The eggs that’s offered as part of Pak John Steamboat&BBQ ingredients  are clean and adequately washed. Bonus point for Pak John Steamboat&BBQ. The ingredients are not only fresh but hygienic as well.

Yours truly spotted Dimsum counter in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ buffet while she was browsing around for more food to bring to her table. Walked closer to take a glimpse of what’s steaming…

And was duly impressed. There’s a variety of dumplings offered to diners, ranging from irresistible Siew Mai that comes with different flavours  to mini pau to keep your growling tummy happy. Worth mentioning dimsum item in my opinion:the Siew Mai that is embedded with mussel on top and the Sea Urchin Bun.

Sea Urchin Bun is a kind of dimsum made from puffy fish cake mixed with sea urchin paste, fish and yam inside.You can enjoy the full sea urchin flavor inside and out. This dimsum, is not to be missed if you fancy something a tad exotic and out of this world.

Starring this Ramadhan at the hot food spread corner is The Pak John house special Coke Chicken, Nasi Tomato, Rendang, Sambal Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf and Vegetable Tempura. Yes. These are only available during Ramadhan, so please take note. If you want to have these, do hop over to Pak John Steamboat&BBQ now before they are taken off the menu.

Coke Chicken. You wouldn’t guess just how delicious it is based on the simple ingredients. In this recipe that’s a favorite of home cooks in China, Coke and soy sauce meld to form a great sweet and savory glaze for the chicken. According to the cook, the preparation method is very similar to that of soy-sauce chicken, a common Cantonese dish. Cantonese soy sauce chicken wings are braised with soy sauce, garlic, and ginger, and occasionally cinnamon and star anise. But for Coke chicken wings, they just use soy sauce and Coke in the braising liquid. This dish is not overwhelmingly sweet, or overwhelmingly salty. It tastes a little bit like Coke, but even that is very subtle. A must try dish in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ.

Nasi Tomato is one of the traditional foods that is warmly welcomed among the Malay community in the states of Malaysia, especially the Northern states like Kedah and Penang. Nasi Tomato is a type of Malay food culture, so it’s always served in special occasions like a Malay wedding and Hari Raya. Nasi tomato is one example of how fragrant and spicy additions can turn ordinary rice into something extraordinary. This dish is deliciously sensational and mouth watering. The rice is not only fluffy, but flavourful and fragrant as well, and goes very well with the next dish I’ll be talking about, the Chicken Rendang,a spicy meat dish which originated from the Minangkabau ethnic group of Indonesia,and is now commonly served across the country.

Chicken Rendang by Pak John Steamboat&BBQ has it’s own twist to the traditional recipe. It’s not overly spicy and has a hint of creamy coconut milk flavour. Safe to pile onto your plate if you prefer milder tasting rendang in comparison to the overly spicy ones. Pair this with the Nasi Tomato, and you’ll find it difficult to stop yourselves from having seconds. 🙂

XO Sambal Glutinous rice is probably inspired by ‘Zongzi’ a traditional Chinese food, made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo, reed, or other large flat leaves. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. These XO Sambal Glutinous Rice, however, is wrapped with lotus leaves and has a spicy prawn sambal fillings in it. Quite a twist from the original traditional version, but this dish is delicious nevertheless. The glutinous rice was perfectly cooked and the filling is bursting with flavour.Another must try item on the list.

Vegetable tempura. My son loves these and I approve too. It was adeptly fried and not accessibly greasy. The vegetable tempura was crispy on the outside, but still freshly moist on the inside. I highly recommend having this with a side of mayonnaise or some chilli sauce dipping.

Traditional Malay/Nyonya kuih was also available during the iftar. I was told that these are seasonal and only available during Ramadhan. I can’t comment much on these as I gave it a miss, but my husband says he can vouch for the yumminess. According to him, these nyonya kuih taste authentically homemade. 🙂 So go ahead, give it a try!

There are 6 choices of steamboat soup available this Ramadhan:

1. Beef Bone Pepper Soup

2. Tomyam Soup

3. Curry Soup

4.Miso Soup

5. Chicken Soup

6. Prawn Soup

While the most common base for steamboat is Chicken Soup and Tomyam, Pak John Steamboat&BBQ took a bold move by introducing Miso Soup, Curry Soup, and Prawn Soup. Like every good steamboat soup,  the base is made fresh without the use of MSG and therefore you don’t have to worry about getting thirsty after consuming it.The soup taste so good on it’s own. Personally I think Tomyam Soup has the kick but not the aroma, Chicken Soup and Prawn Soup was good and flavorful, while the Miso Soup has a distinctive  aromatic taste to it. I cant comment on Curry soup, though, as I did not manage to sample that, nor did I manage to sample the Beef Bone Pepper Soup. I’m sure they are lovely, and I’ll make a point to try it out on my next visits.

There are 4 types of popular sauce for the steamboat and grill food: Sambal Belacan, Green Sauce, Sweet Yong Tau Foo sauce and Spicy Sauce.

But personally, I prefer dipping my steamboat and grill items in freshly fried shallots immersed in oil. I’m weird, I know. 🙂

Variety of food in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ summarized in video. Pardon the quality, I’m a writer, not a videographer. Note: The background music was two songs from eWana Raya Album, sang live by eWana deejays.

Anyway, we were really hungry, so we took these from the processed food department

And these from the fresh food and dimsum section 🙂

Iqwal and uncle. This time around I took a break from cooking and let the men do the grilling :p

Will you just look at that! While the hot pot and is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. The pot sharing concept is made with typical pot you see elsewhere but here in Pak John Steamboat&BBQ the center part of it is dedicated for BBQ purpose. The unique pot is design in a way where after a few round of grilling, the staff can easily change the hot plat on top with a new one. Margarine, butter and oil is provided at the food counter for you to use while grilling too. What you grill on top of it is up to you. 😉

I gott bored waiting for the food to cook so I left Iqwal, uncle and my husband to cook and made myself some cup corn. The corn in cup station was located beside the ice cream machine. Scooped up some into the cup provided, seasoned with salt and butter and gobble em up and by the time I was done…the food we have raided from the shelf earlier is ready for my gastronomic pleasure

Fruit slices and jellies was also available. But as refreshing as it was, I gave these a miss this time around.

And what’s a good meal without desserts? No meal is complete without desserts.  Pak John Steamboat&BBQ offers  decadent ice creams as dessert. There’s a choice of the traditional ice cream potong and sundae at the dessert section. Yours truly can’t decide which one to have. And so, they say, when in doubt, just go for both, and so I did! 😛

Tadaaa! Vanilla and chocolate flavoured sundae with ice cream potong, durian flavour. I thought of calling it a day after treating myself to the ice cream potong embedded in vanilla and chocolate but Iqwal happily came back to our table with this and I helplessly succumbed to temptation.

Iqwal offering a plate of fluffy waffle topped with vanilla and chocolate sundae ice cream to me and kiddo. How can I say no to this…this is irresistible!

The waffle was made ala minute at the waffle station. You can customize it to your liking. All you need to do is just the the chef in charge how you want your waffle to be made.  Ours was filled with chocolate and peanut butter spread, and Iqwal topped it with ice cream afterwards when it when it’s done. 😉 The peanut butter was smooth, rich and nutty while the chocolate spread complement the simple waffle construction perfectly. The dish arresting enough to warrant a second helping, I assure you.

In case you’re wondering, yes… the beverages are inclusive in this buffet and its free flow. There’s coffee, tea, and of course, refreshing juices too. Personally I enjoyed the BBQ part, I grill (I mean, I made Iqwal and my husband grill the stuff :P) everything with it. My favourite that day was their Smoked Abalone Slices. The texture is simply amazing. Marinated Chicken was good,but be forewarned, the spicy one is really burning hot. Each and every ingredient is not only guaranteed fresh but is also different from what you get outside. I like the fact that Pak John Steamboat&BBQ practices an open concept where you can get creative and mix and match your food, and is offering a perfect combination of Chinese and local cuisine that is Muslim friendly.

There is also Lady’s night promo every Tuesday and Thursday where ladies can get 20% off whenever they dined there, and if you are a student, just flash your student card to get 30% off on the buffet from 11am to 5pm daily. 🙂

Right now there is two Pak John Steamboat&BBQ outlets. One in eCurve Damansara and another one in Wangsa Walk Mall, Wangsa Maju. Below is the address for respective outlets, should you be interested to dine there.

Pak John Steamboat E-Curve
Lot LG-13A, LG-15,
Lower Ground Floor,
E-Curve, No 2A, Jalan PJU 7/3,
Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya

AND

Pak John Steamboat Wangsa Walk Mall
Lot GL-02 & FL-02,
Wangsa Walk Mall, Wangsa Avenue,
No 9, Jalan Wangsa Perdana 1, Bandar Wangsa Maju
Kuala Lumpur

Website :
https://www.pakjohn.com

Facebook :
Pak John Steamboat & Yong Tau Foo

Disclaimer: Picture credit to  to Garfield, Mama Myn and Iqwal Hafiz, and special thanks to Halim Brothers and eWana FM for the wonderful Ramadhan experience.