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Right before Raya, I was privilege to get an invitation to attend one event with pretty well known person, Chef Amia El Shafei if you do watch Masterchef Australia in this meet and greet session. I have to thank Nuffnang for extending the invites to me that attended at Blu Med, Mid Valley.

[UPDATE: Close down since 2015 Jan]

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 The event took place in one of a new restaurant, Blu Med Ristorante at The Gardens.

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Some Buffet Spread dishes being prepared for all the guess that arriving.

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 Food were pretty decent.

masterchef (4) Those of you who watch Masterchef Australia which is aired on Astro Lifetime Channel, this person certainly would not be stranger to you as after being as a contestant in Master Chef Australia, Season 4, she have huge follwers worldwide since then with her bubbly personality and leads her to win ‘Woman of the Year Award’ in Australia. masterchef (5) Born from mixblood that Dad is Egyptian and mom is from South Korea, Chef Amina learn quite a good recipe from both country. Her great culinary skills that impress by family members that had encourage her to apply in this show. masterchef (8) Well, in this event we are being thought how to cook simple meal that can be prepared just within short time frame. masterchef (9)

Tamarind, Chili and Lemongrass Prawns

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To prepare this great dish, all we need to hunt is fresh tiger prawns, follow by just pan fried it.

masterchef (11) I love the taste of the prawn which is juicy and succulent with the tamarind sauce his slight sour and spicy that makes it a perfect dish to go along. Near to our Prawn sambal but this have its own kick. masterchef (16)

 Here you go on the recipe for you to cook along on this dish.

masterchef (13) Next dish to be cook is Pandan Cake dessert, and she randomly ask one of the crowd to assist her in scooping out the pandan cake from the Chinese tea cup. If you mix it in a right way also by spreading some oil in the cup, it should not be sticking on the cup and easy to come out with a gentle push. masterchef (14) Masterchef Australia Amina El Shafei preparing Steamed Pandan Cake with Lychee, Rambutan and Longan. However I think its something similar to our Chinese version of Huat Kuih, the pinky type. masterchef (17)

 Another recipe for you to follow ..

masterchef (15) Its a pleasure to meet such a well known chef as when I posted up in my Instagram (taufulou) my friend were like OMG, you are with her, please tell her I love her. . This is how well know is she to the MasterChef Fans. Those of you who love cooking, chef Amina wishes to write a recipe book and host cooking lessons. Not only that, as one of her wish is to open a Middle Eastern mezze restaurant with her sister, Eman. Catch MasterChef Australia, first and exclusive on weekdays at 7pm, with same-day repeats at 11pm on Astro Lifetime Channel 709.

Kicking off year 2013 with a meaningful start by starting to do charity with McD. Was given the opportunity to stand right in their operating kitchen to help out and also to make the customer waiting longer with our inexperience yet challenging to work in the Kitchen to serve the waiting customer. The charity event took place at McD Kota Damansara on 19th and 20th January 2013 to raise proceeds for more than 60 local charity homes.

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WE are here early before the lunch crowd on the weekend. . .

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The banners are all posted in all McD outlet accross Malaysia on that weekend.

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One unique thing about this outlet is that, this McD have McCafe in it. When I was in Australia, McCafe is all available in most of the McD outlet and in Malaysia is only on selected outlet at the moment as they have plans to expand it further to more outlets soon.

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Coffee and cakes are available. .

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Coffee in McCafe are pretty decent as price are reasonable too.

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We were firstly brief by the outlet manager on the procedure of the whole kitchen operation, on how the counter punching in and to which burger line that will start preparing the burger first. This remind me of a game Burger Rush or something like that that every burger creation are in order.

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They event have mini flipcharts for staff that are new in the kitchen to get easy understanding.

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I just love their sauce can that located on top. Every click is the right amount of sauce being put onto.

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Then comes to the beef patty griller. Look at those juicy yummy slices that been take out from the pan . .

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Kitchen operating crew is very effective as every one know where their bay is and their job scope to make it efficient. We were told that to get the whole process from burger right to waiting customer the whole experience should be less than 3 minutes. That’s why its known as Fastfood!

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We are all getting ready and excited to be hands on the war zone. We were told that we have to wash our hand for 30 seconds for hygiene purpose and also have to wash again every one hour.

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Are you ready to eat our own made burger? 😀

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Before we start, we camewhore abit with Anna and Benjamin

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Since this would be our first experience in the kitchen, we are given a easier task, instead of making Big MAc with 3 layers we go for the easiest and also their charity product for that weekend. Prosperity burger that we will be handling.

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So we were given 1st round of demo before we being. Bread toasting machine ..

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Follow by adding on 10 slices of onions – yes .. that specific on the supervisor but sometimes it may be more or maybe less depends on the staff experience. Then grab the slices of meat in the gravy and top on, pack and ready to go out to customer.

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We were told that, every order came in, there are 2 lane in the burger production area. More experience staff will be place in line 1 is also known as priority lane, or fast lane. Line 2 are more for training staff as when line 1 are filled with order then it will flow to line 2 automatically to cut short customer experience in waiting.

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Follow by we have our hands on with supervision on second round. .

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and jeng jeng jeng. . . we are all by ourself on making burger. Its fun to work in here yet its a bit challenging when lunch crowd is huge and you make the line jam.

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follow by Benjamin . .

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After 1 hours in kitchen, we are out to enjoy our Prosperity set.

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Available in 2 types, chicken and beef. I used to eat beef when comes to prosperity burger set. This round decided to try out chicken and to my surprise, Chicken taste much better than beef. Black pepper taste is pretty strong to my liking and slight spicy. On that weekend, every prosperity set sell throughout Malaysia McD, RM1 will be donated out to selected charity homes.

It was a great experience to be able to assist in the kitchen and also learn that its not easy to handle all that. It definitely look easy but when you hands on, its different story.

If single patty is  not enough for you, then now Double Prosperity is available for you.

Bandung is like consider a shopping paradise where we can purchase alot of goods from. Most of the factory outlet there are filled with some genuine, some rejects and some fakes outlets. Of course it depends on your budget and the area that you are heading to. Bandung have 3 districts that are famous for shopping. As the place I am staying is called Dago, an area which is only 5 minutes walk out to this great factory outlet shopping district.

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In the streets of Dago, located at downtown area is where this factory outlet are located. The first factory outlet that I went, Glamour already cost me 60% of my budget alocated for shopping. The clothing materil is good, the brand that I love Nudie Jeans which is a famous brand in Australia, is available in this outlet too, took us about 2 hours in this shop as its huge in there. Besides that, can get Polo, Paul Smith, Hugoboss, Ed Hardy, and many more at a cheap price, ranging from ID 45 000 – ID 500,000, which means as cheap from RM20-RM300.

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The whole streets have about 20 outlets here, so be prepare to get heavy damage here, do prepare alot of cash when you do come here, major credit cards are accepted too.

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In this area also do have Indonesia local designer too, which is about 15 minutes walk from here.

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Next destination we went for shopping was highly recommended by my friend is Setiabudi area that is filled with alot of branded factory outlet and one of the famous one in the area that shall not miss is ‘Ruman Mode’ which host alot of international branded brands with some of them are rejects.

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Its more like a open concept area and it might look nobody outside but inside the factory outlet, its filled with LOTS of people. They have cafe and Javanese coffee is available here too, besides this the first shop we went in sell LV, Gucci bags with very reasonable price.

This is the 2nd area that I got totally broke for my first day of shopping. Just took me half a day to spend all my money.

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The outlet is located at the streets of  41 Jalan. Dr. Setiabudi. All taxi driver SURE know this place.

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Even though the festive season of Hari Raya had pass few weeks ago with some of us that work far from home is always on our own.  At times, we do miss back home, the voices of our love one event though we can’t see them physically; voices of them certainly cheer us up. Calling them would be expensive as it is a long distance call, certainly with iTalkwhoa things had been made possible with we are far yet felt so near with their latest promotion on calls to UK, China, Canada, USA and Australia for JUST 7sen/min.

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The great part is, the promotion just do not stop there. When I told my friend about this promotion he was so happy that now he can call his girlfriend in Taiwan with cheaper rates. Most of the people out there trying to save some budget in contacting their love ones would definitely be happy to see their promotion with extra 20% talktime when YOU top up your credit, as the 20% credit will be automatically credited into your account once you active/reload it. The table below sure will excites you:

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Now, after you have use it a while and do not know how to utilize the rest of your balance/credit, iTalkwhoa had come out with better deals that now, we are able to use the credits to purchase some other items from selected website. After you have selected the song’s, newspaper content or others, the credit will be auto deducted from your account.

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With my current balance, definitely I am able to purchase a something music and others which is just a click away.

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Some people would ask, how do we kill two birds with one stone. Well, certainly I can do that here, I talk and I buy. Just do not miss out this promotion that ends on 31st October with the extra value 20%.

For more can log on to www.italkwhoa.com.my

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TM is known as one of the leading service provider for most of our telephone lines for whole Malaysia that recently we have heard it a lot on radio’s and blogosphere on TM Whoa iTalk. On my previous round that I had mention, we can actually call out by registering ourselves at the website to obtain cheaper calling rates.

After I came back from Melbourne, I had been constantly keep in touch with a few of my best friends, that they still resides at that country, but at times calling them on phone just burn a hole in my pocket as the rates are not cheap not until after I have discover iTalk recently, not only I save on making domestic call but I do save on calling my friends overseas with their amazing rates only 30cents to their landline.  (for other IDD rates click here)

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With their user friendly website that had combines the some online portal together, youtube, Twitter, under one roof that had help me save time on navigating. Now I can just call my friend by using their portal, key in the number and waiting for my friend to pick up at the other end. It just as simple as 1,2,3.  

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Now I am not only dialing to Australia, but to other countries as well, this had keep me closer to my friends even we are far apart. With this portal it is like taking a stone killing 2 birds.

 Need not wait any more, just log into www.italkwhoa.com to register yourself and enjoy their special rates.

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