The Vanilla Place

Me and my colleagues stumble upon some interesting reviews on The Vanilla Place at Empire Shopping Gallery. We planned to have an outing/farewell for me (Yes, you heard me it's me leaving, that will be in another post) and other colleague so we decided to head on to the place. 

The Vanilla Place certainly have a variety of desserts. In fact, it's the first thing that attracted me *screams dessert lover* to come and try out the place.

Check out the variety of cakes

Baby cupcakes ❤

Mini Macaroons 

HUGE Macaroons (they are 4x the size of the mini ones)

Tea Time Set

They do have lovely dessert tea time set but it was dinner time, so we couldn't order the tea time set which we initially came to have it for, maybe next time.

Most of us ordered their Dinner Set as we could tasted most of their food and all of the main course are well reviewed.

Mushroom Soup

The mushroom soup is chunky enough but it's not creamy enough for me and I tasted a tar bit of sourness.

Smoked Duck Spaghetti 

Chicken Lasagne 

 Chicken Lasagne is cheesy and the pasta between it is quite chewy.

Seafood Pesto Spaghetti

Seafood Pesto Spaghetti is my order, the amount of seafood is generous enough. I like the mixture of raw tomatoes and dry tomatoes.

Aglio Olio Spaghetti

Dessert time! The Dinner Set's dessert is Brownie with Ice Cream but one of my colleagues manage to request to switch her and my dessert to other dessert choice that we like. Lucky us.

Brownie with Ice Cream

Brownie was not bad but if it's heated a bit longer and serve it warmer it will be great. It has some nuts in the Brownie. I like nutty Brownies.

Apple Crumble

Carrot Cake

Honestly this is my first time tasting Carrot Cake, so I don't know what to expect. Though the cake itself is very filling. It could be a main meal itself LOL

Pavlola 

The inside bit of Pavlola

Never tried a Pavlola too, so didn't have any expectations. I reckon it's too sweet for me and the crust is almost like Macaroon crust and it has softer crusty-filling in it. This is one of the desserts being switch and colleague told me it goes really well with the English Breakfast Tea that came later.

Lemon Meringue

The Lemon Meringue is mine and is the switch dessert. I'm not saying that I know how to pick but this is the best dessert among all that we order topping the Brownie. Though the Meringue is a bit sticky/rubbery. The lemon sauce and lemon curb goes very well with the crust. Some say it's a wee bit sour for their tasting.

Long Black Coffee

We had some spare time after dinner, so went around to take some shoots to practise on my Lumix G3.

Trying to be artsy

 

Bokeh?

  

Another one with poses

I guess everyone had a great time. It's seldom we could gather almost everyone together and here we got old friends and new friends.

Overall, the place is just average to me. Though it's a place with reasonable price you can go to have a meal or high-tea with your friends. The location is quiet to have long chats as it's away from other restaurants.

Address:

FK01, 1st Floor, 

Empire Shopping Gallery.

Tel: 03- 50222198

Email: thevanillaplace@hotmail.com

DCiM 2011

Well well, the year 2011 has passed and a week of 2012 has already passed too. I'm such a slow poke at keeping up with the time. How has your Xmas and New Year been so far? Hope everything is just as fine and I wish everyone to have a year ahead which will be better than your last one! XD

Moving on, here's another late blog post. I visited the DCiM event last year and the year before. Last year I went with snailyin and saw there isn't much of a difference compare to 2010's DCiM. The main brands (or lesser this year) are there with all the big and nice booths featuring their latest camera models.

Big boys with big guns

They still have the Velocity Angles show going on. All the boys bring out their big guns to have a shoot at the pretty ladies on stage.

One of the Velocity Angels

Try to find a spot for shooting the stage

I only manage to get a clear shoot of the stage and the ladies while I'm tipping my toe and shooting from afar with my compact camera zooming to the max.

Some pictures and good and some are blur. I tried my best guys, sorry.

Blur pic #fail

Not clear pic #fail

I felt there are more gallery displaying photographer's work. It's a good sign that people don't just buy expensive cameras, following trend and not shoot any pictures.

There were more accessories booth than the main booths, I guess camera accessories are more demanding then new camera body with higher specifications.

Rows of accessories booths

Underwater camera case

A Canon Clinic is set there to provide after sales services for Canon owners. This is convenient, I wish that more camera clinic are there to provide after sales care services. They can get first hand feedback as well. 

Canon Service Clinic

If you are already following me on Twitter (if you are not, please follow), you already know that I bought this baby on Christmas Day!

I've been wanting to get a semi-pro camera since the launching of GF1, back then GF1 didn't really quite met my requirements and I feel I don't need a semi-pro yet. After much awaiting and patience.

Yes! Finally a semi-pro camera and it's Panasonic Lumix G3. I'll write a separate post on my review of it as I'm now leaning how to use it.
It's meant to be mine! Here's the story, I actually went to DCiM on X'mas Eve and wondering around with snailyin. Testing out some of the semi-pro camera which is on my wishlist. We went around trial testing on cameras and still ending up back to the Lumix booth.

I was already poison on the G3. Snailyin kept poisoning me to get it. I wanted more time to consider. They had the limited brown colour on sale and a white one (last piece). When I first laid my eyes on the launching of G3, I fell in love with the red colour. The SA told me, Pansonic has discontinue the red colour one. I was so devastated, so I just went home empty handed.

After I got home having much thought, I went "Hack with this consideration, just get it! Get a Xmas pressie for myself, why not?!" So, I had my Xmas breakie at Levain and head to DCiM again.

Panasonic Lumix booth

I headed back to the Lumix booth and found the SA that had attended to me the previous day. He saw me and straight away go fetch a G3 for me knowing that I will be back for it. He open up the box and all I saw is RED! A RED G3!!!! Without any doubt, I had to have it and he wrap it up for me! It's meant to be isn't it?

I asked the SA how did he found a red one, he said after listening to me wanting a red one, he went back to Panasonic HQ early morning before going to DCiM, he found the one and only red piece, he just grab it knowing that it will find it's owner! *melt* ❤❤❤

He really made me the happiest person to own my ideal semi-pro camera! I will cherish it a lot!

What did you get for Xmas present? New Year present? Done shopping for Chinese New Year yet? Hope you guys get want you wanted as well.

You can check out Snailyin DCiM entry here.

PS: I'm not shallow to buy things with colour I like, I did research and referencing before I decided to buy G3 way before I went for the fair :P

Blogging testing

Testing 123, testing 123... can you read this? Can you see this? Can you read what I post?

If yes for all of the above then it's a success from blogging with the world's most awesome smart phone ever~~~!!! Yes! I'm blogging with my HTC Desire HD smart phone!

This phone is totally awesomesauce to the max! I heart Android! I heart HTC! These 2 are the best collaboration-combination-match-duo-crossover EVER! EVER!

I also heart the 4.3 inch LCD screen which gives me clear visual and typing on a touch screen is so damn easy! It's not heavy either. I get in touch with all my friends worldwide so much more often and it's so convinent and most of all, all apps are free! FREE! It's FREE! I tell you, it's FREE! Ok, so you have to have data plan to have all these free apps but then you do save a lot of hassle cos you really can do what you do from your lappy or PC. It's almost the same.

Everyday is a new day for learning new stuff from my phone. It is really that smart. Now even better is that I have installed Blogger-droid, I can blog anytime anywhere using my HTC Desire HD! Isn't it awesome?

I can STFU now! Done blogging with my awesomesauce phone now. I think I use the word awesome like the 848332 times already, LOL. Nitez peeps!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

dCim 2010

As you know dCim 2010 is going on at Midvalley Megamall's Exhibition Hall on 14th - 16th May 2010. I, of course went to have a peak on what they are having there. I just went for a day, but compare to some photography hot lovers, they tend to hang around the event for three whole days to get the best promotion for their gadgets.

My main purpose of going there is to check out a few cameras that I'm interested in and to check out is there any new cameras launching there. I arrived about evening and there's still a lot of people browsing around the event. Btw, just so you know there have a few booths at the ground floor for you to have a look too. There are Canon, Panasonic, Olympus and HTC. I saw a lot of aunties and uncles trying to purchase digital camera and the booths are feel with them. So, I didn't hang around there yet, I just went straight to the Exhibition Hall. I thought that the event will be quite big or happen or at least that's what I imagine but to my disappointment there wasn't much to see. Most of all there weren't as much brands opening their booth at the dCim. *wonders* There were just the very main and famous brands at the event. There are just the well known brands of Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Leica and some galleries and some accessories booths. Just all that, nothing much impressive.

For quite some time I'm having dilemmas on picking the best suitable semi-pro camera for myself. For budget wise slightly over RM 3k is fine for me. but of course when Canon launch their very affordable yet advance level range of DSLR the Canon EOS 550d, everyone wants a bite of it. My bro went with me to check it out too. He too wants to own it. Of course, you may say that a budget of mine like that could get this (Canon EOS 550d) already but I don't want to have a DSLR! Because...

1.) It's heavy!
2.) I'm not a pro user! I just need a non-pro camera to do a pro job.
3.) It's not convenient to bring it out for traveling and while you go for travel, you want to take good pictures too!

So, it doesn't leave me much choices. I mean semi-pro cameras are for noobs that just wanna act pro right? My choices were Panasonic Lumix GF1 and Olympus Pen E-PL1.

Look at the color! I feel in ♥ with it! Of course the price is my concern!

The Olympus Pen E-PL1 comes with Black, White, Silver and Champagne color.

I do really like both of it and the color choices are very attracting too. (I know, I know, gals tend to decide on buying an item buy choosing the pretties color, why not?! wtf!) You can check out their specs here and here. Both have very good reviews on them and both features are more or less the same with not much of a big difference. Both have their own good stuff that you can't get from the other. Honestly, I'm a Lumix lover and if I get the Olympus I feel very unfaithful towards Lumix! wtf! Most of all, there's been rumors going around that Lumix is planing to launch new gadgets too. *anticipated*  Arrgggg....!!!!! *pulling my hair* it's so hard to decide! If any of you have already own these two gadgets kindly please advise! All I can do now is wait.

OK! back to the dCim 2010. I found my new ♥,  I mean it's every photographer's wet dreams and ♥ to own this baby as part of their collection! I'm here by to announce ~~~ LEICA! OK, it is surprising to find Leica booth in this dCim 2010 cos in Msia there's not much of dealers carries Leica cameras cos it's very expensive for just normal specs compare to other camera brands which have the same result but way cheaper. But it's LEICA! *bow bow bow* Without hesitation, the moment I found their booth, I quickly grab hold on what was had on display cos it was fill with people. I pick up the Lux -20, snaps some picture and totally *faint* and fell in ♥♥♥ love! It has become my main priority to own one when I get rich! *dreaming* There was a display of Leica M9, guess how much it is? IT'S RM 25 K +++ (OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!) but then the quality of just a Leica digital camera can be compare to Panasonic LX3. 

 The very expensive Leica M9! (not for trying too)

 

The design is just classic and simple, NICE!

Trying to pose it

 The Leica Lux - 20

Enough of my unrealistic dreams! Let's carry on. Canon and Nikon booth have certainly draw the most crowd. It's very thoughtful of Canon to have some cute and colorful display within their booth to let us try out their camera and of course both booths have display of their very bazooka lenses for us to play with too.

Canon's cute and colorful display of 'Bajak Hitam'.

This is Nikon's huge DSLR display, I think I should own one as my garden display (haahaa) *swt*

Panasonic Lumix booth

If you like underwater adventure, you should totally get this accessory to snap wonderful pic underwater.

 

Olympus booth at ground floor 

The gallery section was interesting, a lot of photographers' masterpieces were being display but too bad it really didn't draw much attention for the crowd compare to pretty models walking on stage modeling cameras. Well, most photographers are male so they do think with their adrenaline more than their mind. Canon has a EOS Buddy Club for Canon fans and photographer free lancers to join in. You can check out the details here and their facebook fan page. Apparently, they will help find business for you, get discounts for Canon items and stuff. I think is pretty cool of them. This way, you can extend your love for photography even more and well earning a few dollars more is no harm too.

Canon EOS Buddy Club gallery + booth

Got to took a shoot of this model modeling a camera for the crowd

Drawing a lot of male crowds, crowds go blizzard taking photos of models adding to their collection

Bring on the bazookas!

Do you think this guy is 'seriously' asking questions from this pretty lady? (Well, I think so cos he look kinda pro)

I hope next year's dCim will bring in more brands and more cool stuff for us to see. Choices of accessories and gadgets are so much more overseas compare to here and please please please try to set the prices to more affordable prices so that poor people like me can own much more stuffs!