On behalf of me, myself and I, I take this opportunity to apologise for not maintaining this blog as often as I should. I guess work and life just got in the way. So, I'd like to put down my thots....I very revised version of my thots for prosperity.
HALFEST
I can't believe it but it's really just around the corner. The MARA & CIMB agreements are in its final phase (alhamdullilah), and it just needs a tweak here and there before we sign. All other events like Opening Ceremony & Gala Dinner are on track, and I'm just counting the days before I get to see my handiwork.
CAREER
Besides jugling HALFEST matters, I've been asked to head SI, which I've agreed in principle. The JV Agreement is being updated, and looking forward to the dinner meeting tonight at Meatworks, where we hope to clear some administrative matters etc. Clearly a step upwards for me, but I'm dreading but looking forward to the hard work in the coming months.
FAMILY
Succeeded to move Adriana into Convent Bukit Nanas or CBN (1) after months of applying. I'm so happy and proud to see an immediate improvement when she comes home from school and announces that she has homework to do. Bracing ourselves for next year when we enrol her for gymnastics. Alyssa is also progressing well at Smartreader, showing marked improvements in reading, singing and maths. I can't be more happier with family life, and wish we can spend more time with my Mum and Azie's Mum on weekends.
Right, I guess that's all for now. A snapshot of my life thus far. Will try my best to make updating this blog a more regular affair, insyallah. Till then, Arrividerci.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
2010 in a nutshell - Part One
Oh my god, I've only realised that my last blog posting was way back in April 2010, so on behalf of me, myself and I....thousand apologies (said in a thick South Indian accent).
Now, where do I start?? Right...right, the girls got themselves admitted at Pantai for 1 week, so it was interesting for me to spend the night at Pantai, waking up at 6am, rushing back to Duta to take a shower, leaving Anggun Puri by 710am to send Azie to the office, then rush to Technology Park to get Restoran Cherita ready for breakfast by 8am.
After the breakfast rush, Chef Abu was already pumping out close to 30 dishes for lunch, and Clarence and Wani were busy getting them out and laying them out on the Bain Maries. I was left to get the centre island ready for the special daily items like Spaghetti Bolognese, Curry Noodle, Sup Tulang, Mee Sup, Laksa, Laksam, Chicken Rice, Beriani Rice with Lamb Curry, not forgetting the Cucur Udang or Cucur Bawang.
So, by 12pm everythings ready and we braced ourselves for the 1st wave. Since Chef Abu cooked a specially concocted beriani rice with no meat, he came up with a totally vegetarian dhall to complement it, and boy did it go down well with the expat Indian engineers at Stempeutics who always made a beeline for Restoran Cherita every day.
By 1pm, the 1st wave totally cleaned out the Bain Maries and now are attacking the island buffet so Chef abu and I are kept busy and sweating just keeping up with the orders. Every Tues and Thurs, the Quartet will perform during the lunch hour so I'm there chopping the cucur udang while dancing to the great music. Since they cover genres ranging from Santana, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Search, Zainal Abidin, etc etc Chef abu and me just pick up on each others vibe and keep the food flying out till 230pm.
By 3pm, its all over and I always get my favourite Sup Tulang, and something from the buffet. After helping Indra, Arman, Wani and Bad to clear up the buffet, I'll normally be on my way to Pick up Azie from the office to make our way to Pantai. After letting Azie spend some quality time with the girls, I'll send her back to Anggun Puri then come back to Pantai to cover the night shift again.
Phew, I can't believe I actually managed to pull through it but I did, the girls got better, and I dare say that Me and Azie got even closer after this whol ordeal. Watch this space for the next part.....
Now, where do I start?? Right...right, the girls got themselves admitted at Pantai for 1 week, so it was interesting for me to spend the night at Pantai, waking up at 6am, rushing back to Duta to take a shower, leaving Anggun Puri by 710am to send Azie to the office, then rush to Technology Park to get Restoran Cherita ready for breakfast by 8am.
After the breakfast rush, Chef Abu was already pumping out close to 30 dishes for lunch, and Clarence and Wani were busy getting them out and laying them out on the Bain Maries. I was left to get the centre island ready for the special daily items like Spaghetti Bolognese, Curry Noodle, Sup Tulang, Mee Sup, Laksa, Laksam, Chicken Rice, Beriani Rice with Lamb Curry, not forgetting the Cucur Udang or Cucur Bawang.
So, by 12pm everythings ready and we braced ourselves for the 1st wave. Since Chef Abu cooked a specially concocted beriani rice with no meat, he came up with a totally vegetarian dhall to complement it, and boy did it go down well with the expat Indian engineers at Stempeutics who always made a beeline for Restoran Cherita every day.
By 1pm, the 1st wave totally cleaned out the Bain Maries and now are attacking the island buffet so Chef abu and I are kept busy and sweating just keeping up with the orders. Every Tues and Thurs, the Quartet will perform during the lunch hour so I'm there chopping the cucur udang while dancing to the great music. Since they cover genres ranging from Santana, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Search, Zainal Abidin, etc etc Chef abu and me just pick up on each others vibe and keep the food flying out till 230pm.
By 3pm, its all over and I always get my favourite Sup Tulang, and something from the buffet. After helping Indra, Arman, Wani and Bad to clear up the buffet, I'll normally be on my way to Pick up Azie from the office to make our way to Pantai. After letting Azie spend some quality time with the girls, I'll send her back to Anggun Puri then come back to Pantai to cover the night shift again.
Phew, I can't believe I actually managed to pull through it but I did, the girls got better, and I dare say that Me and Azie got even closer after this whol ordeal. Watch this space for the next part.....
Thursday, May 6, 2010
April 2010 - Girls Admitted into Pantai
After both girls spent a weeks in Pantai for a severe cough in mid-March 2010, I thought that will be that. Well, the cough came back with a vengeance, and after 1 week of listening to the girls coughing their little lungs out, we decided to go for one final appointment with Dr Eric Lim to find out once and for all what the girls are having.
The morning of the appointment, both girls started to show rashes on their faces. Dr Lim got them admitted straight away, but somehow Pantai was really busy, so I sent the girls back to Duta at 2pm, and at 5pm Azie got a call from Pantai that their room was ready.
They were given Room C512 and 513 in the lovely children's ward, complete with life sized clowns decorating the nurse's station. The girls didn't loose anytime re-acquainting themselves with their motorised bed controls, while I kept busy arranging their clothes in the cupboard, and setting up my bed for the night.
After the girls bravely went thru getting their drip installed on their left wrists, I copied the clown pictures on some art paper and got them busy colouring them, while I got to watch some National Geographic...kakaka.
Thank god the kid's ward has a cool chair that reclines all the way down, with a foot rest to go with it. Well, with my 6-foot frame, I joined both of them and boy did I sleep like a baby, totally oblivious to the cute nurses coming in the middle of the night to give the girls their nebuliser treatment.
Anyhow, the x-ray came back negative, so we waited with bated breath for the blood test results. Dr Lim mentioned that the girls are suffering from a viral fever caused by mycoplasma, which also causes rashes to grow on patients. Being the laymen that we are, we nodded in unison and promised ourselves to learn what the hell mycoplasma are on Wikipedia!!
On Friday, we we allowed to discharge, and by 1130am, we were home in Duta, and the girls squeeled with delight to see their Mummy and Bibik. All in all, it was a good stay, Pantai Medical has not let us down at all, and do I need to some real beauty sleep after a week sleeping on the blue reclining chair thingy!!
2 days later I received the first of many calls from Pejabat Kesihatan Petaling enquiring on the girls measels jabs...
The morning of the appointment, both girls started to show rashes on their faces. Dr Lim got them admitted straight away, but somehow Pantai was really busy, so I sent the girls back to Duta at 2pm, and at 5pm Azie got a call from Pantai that their room was ready.
They were given Room C512 and 513 in the lovely children's ward, complete with life sized clowns decorating the nurse's station. The girls didn't loose anytime re-acquainting themselves with their motorised bed controls, while I kept busy arranging their clothes in the cupboard, and setting up my bed for the night.
After the girls bravely went thru getting their drip installed on their left wrists, I copied the clown pictures on some art paper and got them busy colouring them, while I got to watch some National Geographic...kakaka.
Thank god the kid's ward has a cool chair that reclines all the way down, with a foot rest to go with it. Well, with my 6-foot frame, I joined both of them and boy did I sleep like a baby, totally oblivious to the cute nurses coming in the middle of the night to give the girls their nebuliser treatment.
Anyhow, the x-ray came back negative, so we waited with bated breath for the blood test results. Dr Lim mentioned that the girls are suffering from a viral fever caused by mycoplasma, which also causes rashes to grow on patients. Being the laymen that we are, we nodded in unison and promised ourselves to learn what the hell mycoplasma are on Wikipedia!!
On Friday, we we allowed to discharge, and by 1130am, we were home in Duta, and the girls squeeled with delight to see their Mummy and Bibik. All in all, it was a good stay, Pantai Medical has not let us down at all, and do I need to some real beauty sleep after a week sleeping on the blue reclining chair thingy!!
2 days later I received the first of many calls from Pejabat Kesihatan Petaling enquiring on the girls measels jabs...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Laman Function House
This May 2010, Alamritz Catering & Wedding Planner will be catering for two weddings at Laman Function House. The first is Trevor's & Salwa's Wedding Reception on 15th May 2010, which we have already started to plan out today. 70% of the staffing, market list and general operations have been sorted out. Watch this space for further insights into how a 400 pax event is organised.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Kafe Chendana - April Full and all things nice!!!
April Fools!!! My yearly battle cry was helped by a Hair Loss Advert in The Star, which made me send out fake congratulatory sms's to people saying that they've won a 1 year supply of this wonder product. Needless to say, I got some sarcastic but mostly good humoured replies......I'm already looking forward to next year.....
After a fantastic March where we managed to make some sort of impact in Sg Penchala, the team was tested yet again with another bizzare promotion that took a whole 3 days of discussion, brain-storming and exchange of ideas to come up with:
Kafe Chendana's Inaugural Buffet Lunch at RM9.80 per pax.
Many people questioned our wisdom when this idea popped out. I mean, who would even think about creating a huge menu of 30-odd items, set-up the tiny cafe to look like a pseudo-hotel ballroom buffet line, and then charge only RM9.80 for the pleasure. Anyhow, from the positive feed-back we've gathered, we're not doing that badly; as long as X number of pax has their lunch at the kafe of course.
The first week of April was also spent designing the 2'x 5' buntings, as well as the A5 sized flyers to advertise this promotion. Insyallah, we hope to gain some sort of momentum in the first week, and build up towards to end of the month.
Even with the hectic schedule in running a steadily busy kafe, Eddy & I were also busy in preparing the tender document for a new site, which was submitted at 11:29am on 26th Apr 2010, 31 minutes from the deadline. If it's our rezeki, then we will win this tender exercise, and who know what the new site has in store for ACWP and all of us in the team.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Kafe Chendana - First Month of Operation
March came and went, and boy was it an eventful month, full of surprises and a steep learning curve for all involved.
The dressing up this tiny cafe with some decorative touches has gained favourable responses from our customers, who obviously appreciate how much effort we've put in to beautify the cafe, together with: the fresh cream and green colour scheme, the ivy and bird's nest hanging from the walls, the candle lanterns on stands that we put along the road frontage, the prominent banners displaying our special menu items, and the fairy light hung as high as the tree is tall, the clean open kitchen, and the staff in uniform who use trays to serve our customers.
It was also obvious from Week 1 that our Nasi Ayam Bakar and Chicken Chop will be a hit amongst our regulars, some even tapau-ing up to 4 orders at one go, not forgetting our huge charcoal-grilled toast (we serve 2 slices per order at RM2 per order). Of course with any new opening there will be kinks here and there that needs to be ironed our, and i must say that the ironing will be an on-going exercise.
We've also realised that besides Restoran 123 (the corner tomyam joint), we are the only place that shows Astro football programmes in Sg Penchala. During major games over the weekends, we now know how restaurants feel when valuable tables are taken up by hordes of people who only order drinks and sit for 2 hours.
We plan to create a football viewing corner, which only needs an extra tv and some chairs; let's hope business will be brisk so that we can afford to get a decent sized TV. Let's see what April has in store for us....
The dressing up this tiny cafe with some decorative touches has gained favourable responses from our customers, who obviously appreciate how much effort we've put in to beautify the cafe, together with: the fresh cream and green colour scheme, the ivy and bird's nest hanging from the walls, the candle lanterns on stands that we put along the road frontage, the prominent banners displaying our special menu items, and the fairy light hung as high as the tree is tall, the clean open kitchen, and the staff in uniform who use trays to serve our customers.
It was also obvious from Week 1 that our Nasi Ayam Bakar and Chicken Chop will be a hit amongst our regulars, some even tapau-ing up to 4 orders at one go, not forgetting our huge charcoal-grilled toast (we serve 2 slices per order at RM2 per order). Of course with any new opening there will be kinks here and there that needs to be ironed our, and i must say that the ironing will be an on-going exercise.
We've also realised that besides Restoran 123 (the corner tomyam joint), we are the only place that shows Astro football programmes in Sg Penchala. During major games over the weekends, we now know how restaurants feel when valuable tables are taken up by hordes of people who only order drinks and sit for 2 hours.
We plan to create a football viewing corner, which only needs an extra tv and some chairs; let's hope business will be brisk so that we can afford to get a decent sized TV. Let's see what April has in store for us....
Saturday, March 13, 2010
13th Mar 2010 - Another weekend is upon us
Boy am I tired from a hectic week, and I'm looking forward to some down time this weekend. First off is both little girls who became poorly last week, Adriana with her never-ending cough, and Alyssa loosing 2 nights of sleep from a painful ear infection. I brought them to Dr Murali on Saturday morning for their supply of medicine, and alas, Sunday morning I found Alyssa melancholic and too quiet for my liking, while Adriana was still coughing her lungs out.
After getting a referral letter from the clinic, picked up Azie and went to Pantai to get them admitted. The entire process was pain-free, with all hospital staff at their most efficient. After a bland-tasting lunch at the Sodexho run cafe, we finally reached our room at 2pm and the girls immediately got their right wrists fixed up with the needel for the drips. Surprisingly, the doctor said that both girls acted like true ladies with no tantrums or tears, unlike some adult patients she's had to stick needles into!!
In no time, both girls got down to exploring their room, discovered their remote controlled bed, and simply absorbed their 24 hour Astro cartoon channel.... after they were served with cake and milo for tea, they simply got comfortable and dived into back-to-back cartoons that they missed like Spongebob Squarepants, Cat Dog, Dibo the Gift Dragon, Animal Mechanical etc etc.
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