Breakfast @ Oleo Pazzo

The hotel stay was inclusive of daily breakfast which was served from 6:30 til 10:30 morning.

I usually was in rush hour, hence i dun get to enjoy much of the varieties. Anyhow, the place offers very standard english breakfast.

the surroundings in the cafeteria, with me enjoyin' my warm food inside the cosy cafe...

such a bliss when it was cold with drizzling rains outside!

it has plenty of nice corners for you to enjoy the view

what's on my plate?

*the below pictures were taken randomly on different days

scrambled egg, sausages, sauteed mushrooms, potatoes, hams, baked green chilli...

some green leafy, red apple, the usual ham, sauteed mushrooms & potatoes...

not much variation from the other days, i had some corns on top of the usual dishes...

BON APPETIT!

The office in Turkey

This was the place where i worked for the past week. Nothing special about the building, and it is located at downtown Istanbul.

 the mini car that fetched us to the office...noticed that Turkey car plate number is lengthy!

when i wasn't in the office, i will be here, working from the hotel room

weekend was spent in another office at city centre, the director's office.

nice blended wall colors of the opposite building

the meeting table where serious business talk was discussed...

*shhhhh.....confidential and no eavesdropping plzzz!

this was how the director's room looks like, he wasn't around when i snapped this picture!

i'd would be in deep shit if anyone knws this! *shhh, again this is secret!

btw, i was saddened to hear that a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that has hit eastern Turkey on Sunday, causing buildings to collapse and a huge number of victims died and injured.

Condolences to the victims' families...

Iskendere Restaurant

Iskendere Restaurant is located nearby the Courtyard hotel, within walking distance. It serves authentic Turkish cuisine, at a reasonable price.

It was one cold nite, that me and the two other colleagues walked to this place. The entire street was cold and wet, temperature was below 10 degree Celcius, nothing can give us such warmness except for some food in this humbly warm restaurant.

And this was my first Turkish meal, in a very "Turkish" restaurant.

The below is "beef shish" - Rice, served with yogurt, pita wrapped with beef, baked tomatoes and green chilli

it looks colourful, and tasted not bad...

i ordered lemon tea, one small glass for the price of 1 Turkish Lira

the below photo shows the interior of the place

i luv the green chairs

we were all hungry, somehow our colleague here was busy reading emails on blackberry, looking somewhat puzzled...
Anyhow, we managed to wallop everything served on the table, despite so many "job-related" issues around.

 On another rainy day, we went to this same place again coz it seems to have no other options of eatery places nearby.

This time, I had a complete meal with soup - the "Lentil soup"

 salads

 breads, that is eaten with butter and cheese

 mini Turkish pizza

 this is what my colleague has ordered, the "Iskender"...sort of beef on top of egg, served with yogurt, baked tomatoes and green chilli

 and here is mine - lamb kebab served with rice, baked tomatoes & green chillies, topped with sliced cabbages

Tastewise, the food are delicious and not pricey in such nice environment. Surprisingly i have no issue in adapting to the Turkish cuisine, which is somewhat a fusion between middle east and western.

BON APPETIT!

Courtyard by Marriott

Courtyard is located nearby Ataturk International Airport, not quite sure about the distance but I could see the airport from my room window. This place is about 15 minutes drive from the airport, provided if there is no traffic jam.

The hotel isn't the superb posh 5-star hotel, though the standard is on par with it.

Anyhow, it has all the usual standard facilities, with restaurant, cafe, beauty salon, function rooms, ballrooms, etc...

 isn't a huge hotel, but the lobby is greatly design

 the bar as viewed from first floor

 some decorative items at the restaurant entrance...very 'middle east' with shisha, bottles and trays

 "the market" that sells basic needs, sort of a sundry shop but with overpriced items...

 another set of decorative items - spices

 this is a superb view from my room, the airport is visible from here

and you can sit next to the window to enjoy the traffic flow below.

Cool?

Courtyard by Marriott - The Room

As soon as I touched down, me and another colleague were brought to a nearby hotel, which would be our residence for one week.

This place was chosen due to its short distance to the office. The rate per day: Euro125

 yea, the above picture was my room, and i occupied the entire room with 2 queen size bed!

 it has all the basic neccessities, tv, phone, and including a coffee machine!

 the washroom with bathtub...

and complimentary shampoo, bath gel, gargle liquid, conditioner, lotion...

hairdryer & dental mirror

 mini-bar consists of various coffee & tea with packets of sugar & creamer

 inside the fridge...can drinks, bottled water and packet drinks

 some pictures hanging on the wall, quite a plenty of them, even one in the washroom

 i stayed at 18th floor, being the topmost of the building, with superb scenery from my room!

here is the view outside the window, west view

 the east view

and the front view



Flight Meal - KL to Istanbul, Turkey

Continuation to my earlier post regarding "Flight Meal", here's what i had for my 3rd Biz trip.

This time, i no longer take Air Asia, it is Emirates airline, coz i was bounding for Turkey.

It was a long flight from KL, about 6-plus hours to the interchange airport in Dubai.

Here is my so-called "lunch" above ten thousand over feet above the sea level!

Appetizer: Prawn salad with coleslaw

Main course: Traditional chicken curry served with roti jala

Dessert: Red bean layer cake served with mango sauce, cheese and biscuit

Next, was my flight from Dubai to Istanbul, another 4 hours to go. Set meal was served too. It was supposed to be my dinner perhaps, but due to time difference, it was noon, hence this is also my lunch.

Appetizer: Tuna nicoise

Main course: Parsley mustard chicken

Dessert: Layali Dubai (Arabic pudding of semolina, date and fresh cream enhanced with rose water), cheese and biscuits

Bon Appetit!

myElephant Thai Restaurant, Sec 16 PJ

Note: This is a much delayed post that is supposed to be published on last month.

We went to this wonderful Thai restaurant to celebrate the chinese "mid-autumn" festival.

We usually dun eat-out for such festival, but somehow, we did it differently this year round, coz we have a guest...

 this is our starter, the dish is known as "miang-kum", consists of chopped nuts, dried mini prawns, chopped onions, pineapple, cucumber, chillies, coconut, and "honey-like sauce" (which i m not too sure wht it is). To eat this, jst put every of these ingredients and wrap using the leaves.

one of the dishes, the pomelo & prawn salad...

there were a few more dishes such as green curry, fried chicken, paku vege...etc...but i did not take the pics coz the place was too dim, hence picture quality wasn't that good

 and dessert was mango cheese cake...tastewise so-so only

the bill came to over 150MYR, for five person.

Overall, ambience is great, but too crowded on a Sunday evening, mayb i shall come another time.

Smurfs

It has been long since i watched The Smurfs as i dun favor those blue creatures. It was quite popular then in the 80's when i was still a kid.

Nevertheless, i did not expect it to be back...

Instead of those cartoon series on television, they made it big on

CINEMA!

my colleague favors alot on these smurfs, hence i bought 3 for her, and joining my 3 smurfs, another colleague bought one more, making it 4! 

bear with us, we are a bunch of 'kids' in the office!