Melaka - Tong Sheng Restaurant and The Daily Fix Cafe Review

I have recently made a short trip to Melaka and instead of having the usual fun and "go everywhere and eat" trip, I have reduced it with my own "SOP" and "requirements" to reduce COVID19 risks. Spending more time in hotel room is certainly one of the strategy and another one is only to visit during off-peak hours and try to spend less time in restaurants. 

I have visited Tong Sheng Restaurant and The Daily Fix Cafe this trip and below are some photos and reviews.

Tong Sheng Restaurant
The restaurant is famous for its Crayfish Cheese Noodles. I was lucky that I came on a Sunday evening and not crowded. I did not pre-book and I managed to get a seat immediately.

I ordered 3 dishes including the famous Cheesy Prawn noodles - a must to try. The other 2 dishes are fried vegetable and salted egg "steam egg" were very good as well. The dent to my wallet is only RM82 which includes 1 bowl of rice and 2 hot chinese tea. 

Overall, I must say I enjoyed the food and would definitely come back. The price that they are charging is even cheaper than a standard KL Chinese restaurant and taste is very good. I was told that the crowd at the restaurant is normally huge and was advised to go early, which I did at 5.30pm. During this visit, I saw at least half of the customers are locals. 

Tong Sheng Restaurant 

Restaurant Interior

Story of the founder and the shop

"Cheesy Prawn Noodles"

I ordered 3 dishes and all of them are delicious

The Daily Fix Cafe
The cafe opens slightly later at 9am (but I was told they actually open for business before 9am). When I arrived, half of the tables were already. They have the standard cafe offerings like coffee, pancake, cakes, american breakfast etc. Since I had light breakfast prior to the visit, I only ordered a salted gula melaka coffee and a pandan pancake. The pandan pancake is delicious and it's unique (as it's not standard offerings in other cafes). However, I did not get so 'accustomed' to the taste of the Salted Gula Melaka coffee.  

The cafe's design and decorations is very picturesque as it has a blend of green old-school sun louvres, red-brown floorings and old solid wood tables and chairs. It gives a very relaxing feel but due to COVID19 risks, I did not feel much of relaxation and it quite defeat the purpose of visiting a cafe (to chill and relax). Anyway, let's have a look at the menu and photos.

Entrance of The Daily Fix

Menu

Menu

Menu

Salted Gula Melaka Coffee

Pandan Pancake with Gula Melaka

Review: Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur Room

Hotel rates has fallen dramatically this year and I like one of the many has taken advantage of it to try those nice (but expensive hotels out). Since I am a lifetime Silver Elite of Marriot Bonvoy membership programme, I had tried a few of the hotels out. It's also due to the familiarity with them (not on the promotions they offered). 

In September, I took up a promo where I paid RM320/night for 1 night stay at Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur and was being offered another night's stay at Majestic Hotel Melaka. It came just a room without breakfast but it's a pretty enjoyable stay. 

The hotel has a Tower Wing and the "old" Majestic Wing. Tower wing is a new building completed somewhere in 2013 where Majestic Wing is part of the original property and brings lot of heritage to the place. The ballrooms is situated at Tower Wing and between the Tower Wing and Majestic Wing, it houses Orchid Conservatory Cafe. Meanwhile, Colonial cafe is situated at the "old" Majestic Wing.

Now, let's have a look at the series of photos below.

Upon arrival at Majestic Hotel, we were 'welcomed' by a long queue.

Bathroom is equipped with a big bathtub and also a TV. It has separate bath area and WC.

The bedroom's design is inline with Majestic Classic look and feel.

The view of the very sizeable bathroom from the bedroom

You can lie down in the bathtub and enjoy your favorite TV programme

Coffe and tea making facilities in the room. It comes with a capsule coffee machine

Room

The room

What I like/enjoy:
1. The bathtub with TV is certainly the most exciting feature of the room. I have stayed at many hotels but first with such a sizeable bathtub (standalone) and you can close the area with a sliding door (so that it's not cold) and curtain for extra privacy. Light a candle and watch your favorite TV while soaking in the warm comfy bathtub is definitely heaven on earth.
2. The 'classic' design of the room - it's classic English design in-line with the hotel's theme. Even the security wears shorts like the good old days English policemen. 
3. It has a coffee machine with capsule vs almost all hotels will offer you sachet of Nescafe.
4. It has many unique offerings like Orchid Conservatory which serve English style afternoon tea.

I have not tried out food and beverages during the stay. I will be returning for another stay with Buffett dinner and Breakfast as part of the package. Stay tune.

Hilton Honors Membership - how to obtain Gold or Diamond in 2021 the easy way?

In my previous articles, we talked about the promotions for Hilton Honors programme in Year 2021 and the different perks attached to the different Elite levels. In this article, we will discuss the strategy to achieve your goals and take benefit of Hilton Honors membership programme.

Strategies:
1. Book basic and cheap rooms - If you read the requirements of obtaining Gold and Diamond Elite, they only mention stays. Qualifying stays include rooms booked with points and rooms with any price point. Look at the snapshot taken below. Doubletree KL will cost 2x of Hilton Garden Inn. If your aim is to qualify for the membership upgrade, initially you should book and stay at cheaper basic rooms (i.e. RM 76 x 10 nights = RM760). The strategy is to get to Gold Elite status first.

2. Always book direct via Hilton Honors app or website. Any nights that are booked and stayed via other platform like Agoda, Traveloka would not be counted.

3. Once you hit Gold Elite, you can start to enjoy better hotels (Hilton PJ, Double Tree KL). This is because they will provide room upgrade and free continental breakfast which easily costs RM50++/pax or even if you book breakfast together with the stay, breakfast will easily cost you RM25-30 per pax. Not to mention a better room like Deluxe or Suite room will cost you even more. The value of the upgrades normally ranges from RM70-150 per night.

The Snapshot shows that it's RM148+ (room only) vs RM204+(2 breakfasts) for Hilton PJ 1 night's stay.

4. Once you achieve Gold or Diamond in Year 2021, your Elite status be rowed over into Year 2022 automatically and you can still enjoy all these perks by paying minimal for the rest of 2022.

5. Book for friends or family members under your name if they come down and stay nearby you. Any stay will be considered as yours although it's not you staying there.

So, if you're looking at achieving Gold or Diamond, Year 2021 might be the perfect chance for you to do so. Start planning if you're keen.

TouchNGo E-wallet Promo: Family Mart RM 0.99 Ice Cream!

 TouchNGo E-Wallet always has some nice promotions and this month they have Family Mart's Sofuto @RM0.99 again! Yay!

Do remember to reload your TouchNGo E-wallet and head down to your nearest Family Mart to enjoy the 'coolness' of the Matcha or Choclate ice cream. 😛😍

Gardenia (Selected Products) Price increase from 1st Dec 2020

From 1st Dec 2020, Gardenia Malaysia will be increasing prices of selected products. Now, if you recall what we have talked about in the Retirement Series, food inflation is typically higher than other expenditures. Look at the table I have prepared and you'll see that although it's 5 cents and 20 cents increase, the actual increase is 4+%. A small increase like this collectively will lead to a significant overall increase.

Below is the summary of the impact to you wallet if you buy them regularly:

Prices of Butterscotch, Choco Raisin, Raspberry Milk and Cranberries and Butter Raisins which are my favorite Gardenia bread will see a price increase of RM0.20. As for the single buns, those with fillings like Squiggles, Soft Roll Butter Toffee, Red Bean and Sambal Bilis will see an increase of 5 cents.

The below letter was sighted and shared across various platforms.

The Starbucks Buy 1 Get 1 Free Promo!

Something for the weekend and not so heavy, especially for the chilly Sunday morning.

Starbucks is one of the coffee chain here in Malaysi which managed to capture the middle-to-upper class market pretty well, as opposed to Coffee Beans. In my previous article, I mentioned that Starbucks is great with their drinks but not so much with their individual coffee (what I mean here is espresso or americano). If you're are still unable to understand what they mean, you can read it up here for a quick guide and for Sunday past time activities.

Now, back to our original topic, Starbucks is offering Buy 1 get 1 Free promo since Oct 2020 and they have extended the offer till end-Dec 2020. If you miss their drinks, do drive down to the nearest Starbucks every weekend from 10am to 12pm. However, a note of caution is there is quite a queue at a few of the starbucks that I went to. Be sure to be there early to enjoy the promo.

Some photos to 'quench your coffee thirst' for the time being.

Oh did I mention that their staff now have the cool green colour face masks?

Nando's - Double Chillies Promo!

Nando's Double chillies is back!  

Double Chillies from 26/11 to 6/12

Just in case if you're unaware, the below shows the rewards what you can get with your chillies.

Review: Mient's Burger Port Dickson

Mient's burger is one of the local Port Dickson burger shops that attracts a fair amount of crowd, especially on weekends. Since this is my first time there hence I asked my friend who was with me to recommend.

The shop was fairly busy for a Monday and during CMCO period. Most of the customers spend ~an hour at the shop.

 I ordered Chic N Crisps Burger set and it came with some salads and lots of fries (pic below).

The food looked very yummy indeed.

Review:
Price        : 3.5/5 stars
Taste        : 4/5 stars
Portion    : 5/5 stars

The portion of the food is quite big and I can't finish them alone, maybe due to the flour, fried stuff and I use to eat smaller portion of food for dinner. As for the taste, it's special and unique. Not quite the same as the burgers I used to eat. The set that I have ordered is a little bit spicy (my personal preference is for it not to be spicy). Other than that, it's value for money if you're hungry and can swallow a horse. Do drop by the shop if you're in Port Dickson - and they do FB Live from time to time.    

Unboxing of Delonghi Coffee Grinder KG49

For a coffee drinker, I have reached a level where I needed Lavazza or Illy to satisfy my taste bud. Due to the COVID19 pandemic, I have decided to get myself a coffee grinder than relying on the ones outside (i.e. IKEA provides free coffee grinder at their stores) for very clear reasons.

I am not going to write a lot of will let the photos speak for itself.

Just opened the top of the box

The top of the box, you can see one brush and another plug point, all wrapped up in plastic

I took the content out from the box before opening up the plastics, it's in 2 pieces - 1 coffee grinder and 1 brush

Now I have taken out the plastics that's covering them

The diagrams in the top section of the coffee grinder shows you how to use it

And here's how it looks like from the top when you open up the lid

I will show you how it operates when I start to grind my own coffee beans with the machine. Stay tuned.

Update: I have finally tried my first home grinded coffee today. I bought Lavazza Rossa in coffee beans (red bag) and grinded it with Delonghi KG49. The coffee taste less bitter and bolder than the same ground coffee (Rossa) which I bought from Lavazza. 

I know not many of you can differentiate it (I have many friends who can't even see the difference between Lavazza vs Illy vs Nescafe!) but for those who can, this is a worthwhile investment to go for. I do not know how many levels of coffee drinking we have but this should be the highest tier minus 1 or 2. ;-)

McCormick Brown Sugar BBQ Sauce for Grilled chicken chop

Ever since I started buying deboned chicken whole leg at the marketplace near my house, I yearned to cook chicken chop, grilled chicken and chicken soup. I have always used my own sauce with a mixture of five spice powder, soy sauce, salt, pepper and sesame oil. It's always delicious to eat a freshly marinated and cooked chicken chop. 

I decided to give the McCormick Brown Sugar BBQ Sauce a try as an alternative to my existing mixture. 

My grilled chicken chop recipe:

1. Sufficient McCormick sauce on the underside of the chicken whole leg. Leave it to marinate for at least 30 mins.
2. A little bit of white pepper for extra flavoring
3. A small tea spoon of soy sauce
4. A few sprinkler of five spice powder 
5. At the end of the cooking, add a little bit of honey to even further enhance the flavour. 

And... tada.. the outcome is as below. It doesn't look fantastic but it definitely taste good. yumss.. The BBQ Sauce make it taste sweet and not the salty type. For someone who has sweet tooth, I certainly enjoy this combination of flavours.

Black Whale Ice-Cream @ RM1

 One of the famous Bubble tea company has came up with ice cream option. This isn't a surprise as we have Family Mart selling lots of Matcha and other flavour ice creams since their shop opening in Malaysia. Oh boy they are very popular and during the xMCO (replace x with R and C or whatever alphabets! haha) there were long queues outside their shops in KL especially when they run the RM1 Touchngo e-wallet promo. 

You might be wondering if there are fine prints and yes it's limited to first 20,000 purchases and only valid from 1 - 30th November 2020

 I would think that it Black Whale has an outlet near your house, why not go and give it a try? I have definitely tried mine.