He who eats alone chokes alone. ~Proverb

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Mugshot Cafe @ Chulia Street





Best in town for: Oven baked Bagels

Worst in town for: Lack of places to sit

Opening times:
Monday to Sunday
8.00 am to 9.00 pm


302 Chulia Street
10200 Penang


BEAR: Chulia Street has always been famous to Bear for one thing, and it's not a good thing. When the night comes, "girls" will be out on a hunt.  

This Bear likes Bagels. There was even a time when my lovely Cat would buy me bagels from Rainforest Bakery before fetching me from work on Fridays, it has now been replaced with Roasted Chestnuts @ Penang Road but the Bagels are still my favourite. 



The oven which they use to bake bagels

The chairs and tables are probably raided from a school and reminds Bear of Bear's Primary School years with the tiny wooden chairs and tables. The part Bear mostly remembers is when there is a gap between the chair and Bear's butt gets caught in it. Just thinking about it makes me cringe! Bear thinks all the females would remember the feeling but the guys probably wouldn't since they wear pants.

Mugshot Cafe's bagels are from Rainforest Bakery, conveniently located next door. The bagels in Mugshot cafe are oven baked, which means they come out slightly crispy on the edges yet soft and fluffy on the inside.


There is not much fillings for the bagels for now but Bear's favourite is the Bacon and Egg Bagel (without mayo) and the Cream Cheese and Smoked Salmon Bagel (without the cream cheese). 

Bacon and Egg Bagel (RM10)


Coffee is good but a little too 'kaw'(strong) for this Bear. Bear doesn't want to be hairier than Cat, so usually I don't order this. (There is a joke that strong coffee puts hair on your chest)



CAT: Good bagels are very very hard to find in Penang. Actually, good bread in general is hard to find in Penang, and I am very pleased that  Mugshot Cafe / Rainforest Bakery is good at both!  


The Bacon & Egg Bagel is also my favorite, a delicious treat for when we want to have a light brunch. It is rather expensive at RM10 though, so we don't really come here often. That being said, the high price doesn't seem to deter Penangites, as Mugshot Cafe is always, always full of  customers. 


The assorted yogurts are also quite popular with the crowd, coming in a variety of flavours. However, they are quite expensive at RM10 each, but again, this doesn't seem to stop the customers from ordering it by the bucketload.



Kiwi and Honey Yogurt (RM10)


Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Japan trip - Mount Koya

BEAR: Visiting Koya-san was one of the biggest highlights of the trip. Koyasan or Mount Koya is located is in the South of Osaka. It's roughly about one and a half hours from Osaka via train. It's also the place where Shingon Buddhism was found by a monk named Kukai. 

Cat marked Koyasan as a must visit because of the view and also because he wanted to visit the mausoleum of his hero, Oda Nobunaga which was in Okunoin which is literally a graveyard.


There is no fancy-smeancy hotel there but you can find lodging in hostels or temples. We decided to stayed at the Shojoshin-in temple. It's roughly about 10,000 yen per person per night. My initial thought about visiting Koyasan wasn't very good. I did not understand why the temple charged by the person and not by the room and the fact that it was bloody expensive.

Our super comfy futons

Our room has no lock, has a sink but no toilet bowl, 2 futons on the floor, a kerosene heater that smells of kerosene, a kotatsu, 2 yukatas and a fantastic view.

We left our shoes outside the temple in a wooden shoe rack. The shoes froze overnight, and when we put them on the next morning,  so did our toes!

Cat hiding under the kotatsu

The room was incredibly wide and spacious which was nice but the toilet located outside was a bit of a hassle considering that it was 5 degrees Celsius in our room and about 0 degrees in the hall. The toilet bowls were wonderfully heated, thank God.

The view outside our room

I wanted to see snow, and Cat showed me a blizzard. It was extremely cold for me as I was used to having 30 degrees Celsius almost all year round. I bundled up like a very fat bear and waddled about, the gloves making me unable to pull my fallen bra strap up without difficulty.

Dinner was at 5:30pm but we decided to have something to eat about 1:00pm, considering we're up in a mountain and not many restaurants were open, we popped into a small one-woman show restaurant and I ordered the curry soba.


Our meal arrived in less than 5 minutes and tasted so good. The bowl was big enough for me to dunk my entire head in, seriously! And the price? Freaking reasonable. This huge bowl of curry soba cost  under 700 yen!

After lunch, we went for a walk to visit the famous Okunoin and the Kongobu-ji, the head temple of Koyasan Shingon Buddhism.


In winter time, Okunoin looks so hauntingly beautiful. It was a lovely walk. The snow got heavier as we went along.

A super cool looking grave I couldn't resist taking a picture of. Anyone know to whom it might belong to?

The mausoleum of the great oda Nobunaga. I expected it to be much fancier and bigger :P

On our way back

When dinner time came, I found out why it cost us 10,000 yen per person per night.


 
We had tofu made from sesame giving it a very smooth yet sticky and firm texture; very much like jelly. Fried tempura, sweet grilled beans, mushroom soup.


On the other side was dessert of apples, oranges and strawberry along with a bowl of boiled pumpkin, pea, mushroom, more tofu and lotus root. We also had a strange ginger soup. The dessert above was actually a sweetened, preserved(?) orange and sweet potato. The sakura patterned dessert was something I have no idea what is was. It was slightly sourish and very crunchy and slimy.

Dinner was all vegetarian food and it was out of this world. The food were tasty, super fresh and they paid so much details to the food that it was a sin not to take pictures first. I polished off atleast 3 bowls of rice that night.


Yes, we had to be up by 6:30am in the morning. We had 10 minutes to get up and ready at the sound of a gong. The kerosene heater was extremely smelly and we decided not to turn it on. We slept together in a futon and combined our blankets together. All in all, we had 4 blankets, 2 water bottles and each other to hug. At about 5:30am, Cat woke up and turned on the heater.

It was a long walk to the Main Hall and it was extremely cold. During the ceremony where we had to kneel on the floor, sitting next to the heater didn't help much either.

All I wanted was breakfast, I couldn't wait for the chanting to be over and go eat. Breakfast is understandably less fancy but still as good.

We have fried tofu, sweet beans, seaweed, and vegetables along with a miso soup. So was it worth the 10,000yen?

Many times yes! It was a fantastic experience despite having my toes frozen and painful, bathing in a public bath at night with 0 degrees temperature, painful slipper, water so cold you can't wash your hands under the tap for 3 seconds, and the smell of kerosene and etc. It was wonderful and I strongly recommend this to anyone who's going to Osaka. Make the effort to visit Koya-san. You won't regret it!

Japan trip - Nara

CAT: Nara was once the capital of ancient Japan, but now it's famous for the Todaiji, where the Great Buddha resides. It's a short hop from Kyoto, just 30 mins, and you can either go by JR Railways or Kintetsu Railways. The JR station is closer to the hotels, while the Kintetsu station is closer to the Todaiji, so I would recommend Kintetsu if you're just taking a day-trip from Kyoto. 


"Human! Got any food?"

Nara is also famous for its deer, who are totally unafraid of humans, and will even chase you if you have food on you!

We saw a fruit seller about to close her store for the day. Thinking that we might be able to score some bargains, we popped inside. She was selling beautiful Fuji apples, but we were puzzled - some were selling for 300 yen each, while others were selling for only 100 yen each. When questioned, she replied that the 100 yen ones were "damaged". Upon closer inspection, they had the tiniest of bruises. We promptly bought 2. 


100 yen each, normally 300 yen.



Beware of deer

While walking towards the Todaiji, Bear and I saw a Yaki-imo (sweet potato) seller. It smelled rather good so we bought one, not knowing that the price was 1000 yen!!! (I'd foolishly assumed that a sweet potato would only cost 200 yen or so). Evidently we had been caught in a tourist trap. It was amazing though, sweet, tasty, HUGE, definitely the best I'd ever eaten.


1000 yen yaki-imo

BEAR: The sweet potato ended up drawing a huge crowd of deers to us later on...

Todaiji

The Todaiji was until recently, the largest wooden building in the world, and it is an incredible sight. It's even more amazing when you discover that the original Todaiji burned down in an earthquake, and the current one is 30% smaller than the previous one!

Greedy pig deers.

The Sika deers roam freely in the compounds and damn they are greedy little things! The smell of the Fuji apples and sweet potato whipped them into a frenzy and I ended up being harassed. After refusing to feed a deer anymore, it headbutted me, wiped its wet, dirty nose on various spots of my coat, tried to eat my scarf and coat and chased me!!

Hero Cat ended up coming to my rescue by shoo-ing them away with his laptop bag.

For lunch, we stopped at Nakau, which is a chain of restaurants you'll see almost anywhere. The below picture was taken from the Google Streetview of Nara, as I didn't take any pictures of the outside. This one is located just in front of JR Nara Station. Bear loves the Beef Curry Udon here, a bargain at only 490 yen.



Beef Curry Udon - 490 yen (Bear's favorite!!)



Thursday, July 4, 2013

Japan Trip - Kyoto (Days 2 and 3)

CAT: Sorry for the lack of updates. We've just been so busy with other things that we didn't have time for the blog, and when we did have time, we were too lazy to do it. I blame it on Bear and her current Sims 3 addiction (300+ hours played so far).

Anyway, back to Kyoto. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan, before Tokugawa Ieyasu moved it to Edo, which is now known as Tokyo. Since then, Tokyo has developed into a gigantic metropolis while Kyoto still has that small-town feel, with a population of only 1.5 million  as compared to 13 million.

Though I lived in Japan for a year, I never visited Kyoto during that period, and as such, decided to play it safe this time round, visiting the usual tourist attractions.

Kinkaku-ji
Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Pavillion, is one of the most famous attractions in Kyoto. From the viewing area, it looks stunning, gleaming brightly in the sunlight on the banks of a man-made lake.



Until you get closer to it, which is when you realise that it's tiny!

Admission: 400 yen


Fushimi-Inari
Fushimi-Inari is a shrine dedicated to the Fox Spirits, and is famous for its Torii gates. Companies from all over Japan will sponsor a Torii in the hopes of good fortune, with a small one costing 400,000 JPY to over a million for a large one. I don't know about the companies, but the monks are definitely making a fortune....



When we visited Fushimi-Inari, it was raining quite heavily. Looking back, I'm not quite sure what we were thinking at the time, as we decided it was a good idea to hike up to the peak in the rain, which took us 2 hours. The hike wasn't too difficult, but the rain was a bit unpleasant. The peak, however, was a huge disappointment, as there wasn't much of a view to see, and only a pathetic little sign saying "Top of the Mountain". Bah.


At least entrance is free.

Valentines Dinner at Issian Pontocho.

Issian Pontocho was highly recommended on Tripadvisor, so we decided to celebrate Valentines Dinner here, which Bear generously offered to pay for.

We were checking out the menu that was posted outside, when the owner Ken actually came out of the restaurant to invite us in. Since he had already seen us, it was too late to run away and we meekly shuffled in.


Ken spent 10 years in America, and as a result, speaks perfect English. He's the perfect host, cooking your food for you and explaining which sauce goes with which dish. Overall, the food was good and the experience great.

He also gave us a free Wagyu Hamburger as it was Valentines Day, and it was probably the best burger I've ever eaten.

A word of warning though : because this place is a ishiyaki (stone-grill) restaurant, there is a lot of smoke, which seeps into all your clothes, causing you to smell like a roast chicken! Do let them keep your jacket for you, and wear clothes that you don't intend on wearing for the rest of the trip.

Ginkaku-ji 



Ginkaku-ji, or the Silver Pavilion, is supposed to be one of the most beautiful gardens in Kyoto. However, because we went in winter, the scenery was rather dull and grey. I think Ginkaku-ji would be much nicer during Cherry Blossom season.


Admission: 500 yen