Chinese New Year 2010: KLCC Suria Decorations

KLCC Suria Mall had some decorations set up for the Chinese New Year.  There were these neat looking decorations hanging from the ceiling:

As well as a stage set up with a woman playing a song on an instrument.

Also, near the rear exit by the fountain they had this screen set up.  Groups of people were posing in front of it to get their pictures taken.

The decorations look nice, but they seem a bit sterile to me.  I think Singapore will do it better.  I’m looking forward to seeing the Chinese New Year festivities later this month.

California Pizza Kitchen at KLCC Suria Mall

While we were in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend we decided to go down to KLCC to look around and have dinner.  We weren’t sure what we wanted to eat but as we were looking at the electronic store guide I saw that there was a California Pizza Kitchen in the mall.

Neither of us had ever eaten there before so we gave it a try, with mixed results.

The ambience is very, very nice.  The place has a clean, uncluttered, modern look that was refreshing and relaxing.  Also, the service staff was incredibly friendly and helpful.  No complaints there.

The food wasn’t too bad, I guess, but what bothered me about it is that everything was incredibly oily.

The first thing we ordered was an appetizer.  I think it was called an ‘avocado turkey bacon roll’ or something along those lines.  It’s the first item on the menu under appetizers.  It was described as a fusion between Eastern and Western flavors and was basically a cheesy, gooey, extra greasy egg roll.

While eating the thing the hot grease was running out of the roll all over my fingers and forming a small puddle on my plate.  That’s a definite no go.  Also, the taste of the oil was a bit overpowering, to the point that I couldn’t even distinguish the taste of the avocado.

In fact, in this second photo you can actually see the grease dripping from it.

Shortly after finishing the appetizer the pizza showed up.  We got a thin crust ‘Sicilian’ pizza.  Thin crust pizzas are usually less greasy than full crust pizzas.  Unfortunately that’s not the case with CPK’s thin crusts.  It was oily as well.  We went ahead and finished the pizza, but after the second slice I could’ve walked away from it.

My wife and I have changed our eating habits over the last year and we’re consuming less and less oily foods.  It’s better for us, and less oily foods taste better anyway.  I was reminded again of how good Trattoria’s pizzas are in that 313 @ Somerset mall in Singapore.  CPK’s offering wasn’t even in the same league and cost nearly the same price.

3 Days in Kuala Lumpur: Part 7: Petronas Twin Towers

If you’re going to Kuala Lumpur, you of course have to go see the Petronas Twin Towers.  Missing them would be like going to New York City and not stopping by the Statue of Liberty.  If you’ve never been there, it’s just something you have to see!  Also, the Petronas Twin Towers were featured in a movie with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones called Entrapment.

Getting to the Petronas Twin Towers was very easy for us.  We left our hotel on Jalan Petaling and went to the Pasar Seni train station.  To get on the train, we first had to buy tickets.  Two one-way tickets cost us 3.20 ringgit.  We scanned the cards, went through the turn-style and hopped on the train.  Four stations later and we were at K.L.C.C. station.  From there we went up the stairs and the towers were right next to us.
 

We managed to get a few good shots of the towers before it started to rain.  You can see in the picture above how overcast it was.  Once it started raining we ran towards the entrance and went inside to check out the Suria Mall that’s between the two towers.  Also, just inside the doors there are signs that mention an orchestra or theater room?  I can’t really remember because we weren’t interested in it.

When we entered the mall we saw signs that prohibited video recording and photography.  I can only guess it’s a security measure that’s been implemented to prevent a repeat occurrence of what happened to the Twin Towers in New York City.  So, I didn’t take a lot of photos.

The only place where photography seemed to be ok was at a display set up in the center court of the mall, on the bottom floor, where a display was set up by Lego.  I think it was a competition, because there were quite a few different ‘exhibits’ of famous places from around the world.  The most interesting, and amusing, of them was… The Petronas Twin Towers!  Lego Style!

The Lego display was the most interesting thing in the mall.  All malls are basically the same right?  So, we stopped to have coffee and chat for a while at a San Francisco Coffee on the 2nd or 3rd floor.  I didn’t think the coffee there was very good, by the way.  It was too bitter for my taste.  After that we headed back to Jalan Petaling and took a nap so that we could be ready to explore the night-time street fair that evening.