22 It's A Seremban Food Trip!

How I love weekends. It's either a trip out of town, the movies, visiting new neighbourhoods or a day with my closest friend. I could go on -- goo-gooing over fresh produce at the local grocer, wandering through bustling pasar malams (night markets), taking in the flowers at Lot 61 ...

This one weekend, Hubs and I decided on a food trip to Seremban. We started with brunch at a banana leaf restaurant and ended the day with a Lucky King Bun takeaway.

Curry Leaf Restaurant
Eating with your hands? It's the stuff of heaven. Leave the spoon and fork aside. I'm exaggerating but truth be told, there's nothing quite like a meal of rice and curry on banana leaf enjoyed without the taste of stainless steel and the awkward twists and turns of a fork to cut out a piece of meat from fried fish. Use your fingers - it's the most authentic and easiest way to eat. When in Rome, do as the Romans do ...or we could go with -- 'It's a free world.' Whatever makes you happy. 

Banana Leaf Rice

We paid just a little over RM30 for two banana leaf rice sets, mutton, fried fish, and drinks. The set comes with a basket of papadum and would you believe 8 side dishes? That's not counting the gravy. I was bowled over by the variety and the generous portion!

Banana Leaf Rice with 8 Side Dishes

After we finished our meal, they served us a bowl of payasam. It was a delicious dessert that I would have asked for seconds had I not been full.

Payasam

We reached the place at 11.30am. It was good timing and we avoided the crowd. The restaurant was full from 12PM-ish.

Curry Leaf Restaurant - The Ambiance

Curry Leaf Restaurant, Seremban

Restoran Curry Leaf
Address: 1273-1275 Jalan Rasah, Seremban, 70300 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

Lucky King Bun
Again? Yes, again! We had a goal to try all three varieties of the bun. It took several separate trips to achieve this but I'm happy to report that it's now 'mission accomplished'. Chicken Curry, Pork Curry, Dongpo Pork - been there, ate that!

My first experience: Food Discovery : Lucky King Bun, Port Dickson
The second: A Love Affair With Giant Curry Buns

And now this:

Giant Buns Fresh Out Of The Oven!

Yin Yong Pork Curry / Dongpo Pork Bun

The RM40 price tag on this bun is no surprise considering that there are two meat dishes wrapped inside.

Curry (left), Dongpo Pork (right)

Address: 28 & 29, Jalan MPK6, Medan Perdagangan Kepayang, Lebuhraya Seremban - Bukit Nenas, 70200 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.
Phone:+60 11-3129 9393
Hours: 11:30AM–10PM

What's next on my bucket list? A trip to Kampar, my dad's hometown, to try out more huge Curry Buns. Who's with me?

10 Property : Elmina, Shah Alam

It's been a long time since Hubs and I went property hunting! We're two weird people who love checking out what's new in the housing market. I'm baffled by our interest seeing that we're neither investors nor agents. We're not in a rush to put our money down on landed property either but you never know ... *wink*

This was a Sunday outing that was unplanned. There had been a terrible thunderstorm just before the weekend, so we decided that it was best to postpone driving too far out of town. We went exploring the wide expanse of Elmina, a new township developed by Sime Darby instead.

We checked out a couple of recently completed homes on our own, namely Keana and Regia, before running into Vincent Tan, a Senior Property Negotiator who was already there showing a potential customer around.

These are some pictures I took of the place. There is no shortage of empty units up for sale as you can see from the banners hung on the fence.

Elmina Keana

Elmina Regia

Children's Park, Elmina Keana

Elmina is neat and peaceful. I like the serenity. Done properly, it would be a really beautiful place to live in. For the moment, it lacks the basic needs of a typical community - there's no grocer, mamak or clinic nearby. Haha, I'd be happy with just these three shops!

Vincent took us for a tour inside an empty Cressida unit. It was spacious and bright with more than enough large windows to allow lots of natural light to come through. There is no need to switch the lights on in the daytime, saving some electricity. That's a plus point for me!

Elmina Cressida

Secondly, the back lanes are spacious enough for garbage trucks to drive through. This could mean no rubbish bins lining up the front porch. Neat!

I didn't snap any photos of the interior as I felt it looked fairly the same as any other bare unit until it's done up, as in fully decorated.

Elmina Cressida

Exercise Park, Elmina Cressida

This is not a gated community which is great too. We shouldn't be a society that thrives on paying to be safe or to have beautiful gardens. The spirit of 'gotong-royong' should be inculcated from young. It is something that is becoming rare in this generation.

Elmina Crista

Elmina Crista

I would say that Elmina's a great neighbourhood to live in. Driving is a breeze. The only thing that could mess this place up would be poor planning of roads (insufficient parking for commercial zones and lanes for high traffic) and drainage for heavy rainfall. As I have no clue as to what the developers have planned, I can only keep my fingers crossed that they are far-sighted professionals.

That said, I've never met a more down-to-earth property agent. I may not know Vincent personally but I firmly believe that it's better to deal with someone who is truthful about the current state of affairs in the property sector than one who sings that there's nothing wrong with it.

Finally, I'm not sure if I got the names for all the units right. I found it quite a challenge to tell them apart!
Property is priced from RM800K.

22 Eat All You Can At A Minor Place - It's Only RM11

It is, to date, the cheapest Chap Fan (Mixed Rice / Economy) style lunch buffet that I know of - with fried noodles tossed into the mix.  The catch? None, except that you pay extra if you waste and you have to reuse your plate. Sounds fair to me! This would be heaven for big eaters. Hubs went straight for it.

Round 1 - Lala, Chicken, Fried Rice

Me? I chose to go ala carte and ordered Wat Tan Hor (an eggy noodle dish) that Sunday. It was just one of those times that I craved for wet noodles. Oh, well.

Flat Noodles In Egg Gravy

I took a peek into A Minor Place's Facebook page and noticed how kind and generous the owners are. They clearly have a charitable heart. A story published on Star Online tells how the owners, in order to prevent food wastage, distribute what's left uneaten to security guards in the area.

The other thing that warmed me to them is that they do not practise ageism. Retirees are welcome to apply for jobs here. It is something I long to see more of in our society.

I don't know about you but anything that puts the warm-and-fuzzy in me is a great place to eat. My taste buds aren't solely dictated by perfectly cooked steak or macarons baked on point. It includes my feelings, and I'm feeling really good about this place. Hubs and I enjoyed our meal.

A Minor Place

We will be back!

Address:
A Minor Place
Block G-0-11, Plaza Damas,
60 Jalan Sri Hartamas 1,
Sri Hartamas, 50480 Kuala Lumpur.
Contact number : 03 - 6211 7418
11.30am to 2.30PM - Buffet Lunch RM11 daily
Non-Halal

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Random thoughts --
Something I wrote for Ivy, a friend whom I love to bits.

Everyone needs a friend who says, "Hold on, this isn't right! Stop!"
That's my buddy for you. It takes guts to have real friends.
It's easy to surround ourselves with "yes" people, the forever-supportive (even when you do wrong) ones
but to grow into the best version of ourselves, we're gonna need an Ivy in our lives.
Someone who reels you in when you go overboard with the bad stuff.
Someone who says it's ok to fall but you gotta get up.