well, the latest to open – officially – is the george and dragon over the bangsar shopping centre, up the hill in jalan maarof, bangsar. despite it being an english pub, it is managed by the rather irish finnegans pubs group.

actually don’t have any photos of the place but i have been there since they opened their doors in the third week of january.

just like the soho freehouse over in penang – yeah! penang does have some advantages over kuala lumpur – the george and dragon serves a variety of draught beers apart from pub standards such as anchor draft, carlsberg and guinness.

also availabe in draught is beamish stout, strongbow cider, old speckled hen, kilkenny and heineken.

the food menu is simple but the quality has been patchy since they opened. well, at least the wedges, dipping chips and fish fingers is more than all right.

talking about pubs, the affable frank murphy – who used to manage the original finnegan’s pub in bangsar baru – is now managing the much-much-improved ronnie q pub in jalan telawi 2 in bangsar baru.

there is a new menu, better selection of drinks and cocktails apart from single malt whiskies. and there is the quiz night on wednesday.

am lining up to have pints at either place once i return home. cheers!

oh yes! if you drink, don’t drive! trust me on this.

was organising one last week when i was called away – can you beat it, from a dinner of spicy, sweet and succulent crabs – to head to pakistan after benazir bhutto was killed. you can read all about it at karachi.metblogs.com or islamabad.metblogs.com!

so there went the new year plans. am trying to figure out what to do in karachi for the new year. damn, i know for sure there will be a host of parties in kuala lumpur.

so what are you doing to welcome 2008?

anyways,, naye saal mubarak.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a widower after his wife succumbed to breast cancer, is to marry his former sister-in-law Jeanne Danker Abdullah (right) in a private ceremony June 9, 2007.

Jeanne, who was married to Abdullah’s wife Endon’s brother, has been executive housekeeper in Abdullah’s household since he became deputy prime minister in 1999. She is Eurasian and studied in the Kuala Lumpur satellite city of Petaling Jaya.

The wedding between the 67-year-old premier and his 53-year-old future wife will be held at the Prime Minister’s official residence of Seri Perdana in the administrative capital Putrajaya.

Well, sure looks like Abdullah has scored a first of sorts – a Prime Minister marrying while in office.

He was married to his late wife Endon for some 40 years before she died of breast cancer on October 20, 2005. Abdullah has two children with Endon while Jeanne also has two daughters with Endon’s brother Othman.

Sounds complicated but it isn’t. Unfortunately or is it fortunately, there will be no live telecast of the wedding ceremony.

Well, if you have nothing much to do, especially Saturday night or Sunday morning, head down to the MSN Training Stadium in Bukit Jalil and take part in the Relay For Life.

Yup, put in 10 ringgit and walk for a good cause – the fight against cancer.

The event – organised by the National Cancer Society Malaysia – is 16 hours that you won’t forget. Remember to bring cameras and even video-cameras to capture the moments in the high-spirited event and team up to raise public awareness about cancer in the community and to raise funds to find the cure.

More details from the website.

You can also build a team by recruiting friends, family, coworkers and neighbours to join you in a Relay team. Oh yes, there is a candle-light type part of the event to bring to focus what the entire thing is about.

See you there!

And Putrajaya is the launch venue for this year’s Colours of Malaysia or Citrawarna – a melange and mayhem of colours, carnival and cuisine aimed at tourists. Yes, it is still Visit Malaysia Year.

The theme this year is Millions of Colours, Millions of Smiles and it starts May 26 and ends on June 10.

The grand launch filled with glitz and gaudy glamour is at Putrajaya Square in Putrajaya – nice place but pretty spooky and empty at night – with dance and music troupes taking over the deserted boulevards and avenues that criss-cross the administrative capital.

After that, its back to basic Malaysiana – food promotions, craft exhibitions and cultural shows at the various hotels, shopping malls, tourists spots and what-have-you in and around Kuala Lumpur until June 10.

Go to Tourism Malaysia for more details.

Heh, I should be back in Kuala Lumpur by then. Travelling here and there and everywhere ;)

Bojangles, one of the rare few pubs across Kuala Lumpur, actually has an open mike night for amateurs to peddle their music or jokes or whatever. It was a combination of music, jokes and whatever that was centrestage and under the stage lights.

10 am and a couple of smart-alecks take to the stage and tried to be funny. It was a struggle and they almost gave up as they introduced the main act, a beefy dude called Zak, who in turn encouraged them in their sideshow.

Well their singing – a parody of Hotel California that referred to a seedy redlight district in Kuala Lumpur – had us in tears. The Chivas Regal whisky helped a bit and then Zak took to the stage and ratlled off some jokes.

As they say in Malaysia, okay-lah! He has some talent that needed some polishing. Maybe a few more jokes to the repertoire and better sideshows. His most memorable joke was a riddle – What do you call bees that can provide milk? Answer – Boobees!

Groan!

Anyway, Bojangles is at Jalan 22A/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur.

Unable to find a good scene to capture ahead of the installation of the new Malaysian King this Thursday April 26, 2007.

But I did manage to go by the Eye on Malaysia over at Lake Titiwangsa – a disused mining pool turned to a public park. Kuala Lumpur used to be one of the centres of tin-mining in Malaysia as it slowly turned the then-capital of Selangor state before eventually becoming the capital city of Malaysia.

So this is beautiful Kuala Lumpur at night with the Eye on Malaysia and the Petronas Twin Towers – the world’s tallest twin towers.

While Sultan Mizan became King last December under Malaysia’s unique rotating constitutional monarchy for five years, the official installation takes place months later in traditional ceremony. The Malaysian King is chosen from the nine royal houses in the country.

It is a public holiday for the civil service, schools and banks plus the local bourse. The rest of us will have to work while state broadcaster Radio Televisyen Malaysia will have a live telecast of the proceedings steeped in pomp, pagentry and ceremony.

Kuala Lumpur City Hall has already strung up buntings to celebrate the installation while building owners have also put up decorations to congratulate the King on the installation. Expect some photographs in the coming days.

Also, some information about the Malaysian constitutional monarchy is available from here.

Captured this last week in the frantic run-up to the Malaysian Grand Prix F1 race. No wonder the city is one of the top 100 cities in the world. ;)

Anyway, the weather has been blowing hot and cold lately, leading to streets chocked with cars and other vehicles. The only good thing about this is it forces on to take a walk and tour the beautiful city.

It was as easy as one, two and three.

One. The first KL 24 hour Food Crawl began.
Two. It was just the two of us – plonkwonk and Sharizal Shaarani.
Three. It ended after three places.

At the stroke of midnight April 1, we ended up at the burger stall near the Esso petrol pump in Jalan Kasah in Medan Damansara, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur. We ordered the Burger Special as we chatted with the burger boys about their business.

The burger special was a meat patty sliced through the centre and grilled on a hot plate, then wrapped in a fried egg with paprika powder before the usual condiments of onions and lettuce plus mayonnaise was added to the burger in a seeded bun.

Nice. They finished cooking it in five minutes and we took the equal amount of time to finish it off. Meanwhile, Hafiz had sent an email about some Laksa – noodles in either tamarind soup or curry – somewhere in Ampang but that suburb was just out of Kuala Lumpur city.

We then moved on in the light drizzle to the nearby suburb of Bangsar – across Medan Damansara – for some really good Mutton and Oxtail Soup stall in Lucky Gardens but the stall owner had shuttered for the rainy night.

With time to spare, we moved on to downtown Kuala Lumpur in search of Hokkien noodles but that stall had also closed for the night. We finally headed a couple of streets away to a Chicken Rice stall near an equally famous Chicken Rice shop.

The meal was simple – steamed chicken with steamed rice in chicken stock and some excellent blended fresh chillies and lime sauce. Barley water and hot Chinese tea provided an able complement to the meal.

We were already fquite full but pressed on in search of good food. A quick stroll through the Tung Shin area – a square of streets in the centre of the city filled with Asian cuisine popular with tourists – in search of something light to eat.

There was a lot of food but we gave it a miss.

Something light was the order of the night at two in the morning and we decided to head the northern edge of Kuala Lumpur for some Dimsum – steamed and fried bite-sized meat and vegetables – that probably inspired the Spanish tapas and Persian meze.

So we made to Jalan Ipoh where a row of shops served dimsum that were being steamed in giant wicker baskets as displayed in the photo or fried in giant woks. We ordered a few with some Chinese tea and struggled to start eating sharp at 2 am and finished most of it 30 minutes later.

That was that. We had enough. We went home with a promise to be hungry and try again in the weeks to come.

Apart from Hafiz’s suggestion, I guess I was wrong about Malaysian’s craze for food. Or maybe its just the people who are online surfing the blogs – maybe they are just used to 24 hour burger joints and Indian Muslim restaurants plus the Starbucks where WiFi is free.

But we will try again. This was just the test run.

By the way, more photos will be posted at plonkwonk as soon as possible.