Project 365: Day 33 - Food! Nasi Lemak

Just a quick post today as I have a lot of stuff to do:

Nasi Lemak's Claypot Chicken

Comparing this to adobo is like comparing apples to oranges. Totally a horse of a different color. Yes, that train of thought was odd, even for me

Nasi Lemak is located in Robinson's Galleria in one of the side alleys, east wing methinks.

Feeling adventurous again, Roxane and I decided to try out this restaurant claiming to offer "authentic" south east asian food. I've been to similar places offering, malay, thai, singaporean and indonesian food and I have been happy (101 Hawker Stall in Makati) and I've been "meh" (Orchard Road in SM Megamall) so giving this place a try seemed like a good idea.

And it is :)

I just dont know how to describe this dish. It's billed as Nasi lemak's answer to adobo so when we orderd this , Roxane and I were expecting something along the same lines.

Now this dish isnt like any adobo I've tasted. The best way I can describe Claypot Chicken is to imagine Don Henrico's Buffalo chicken wings (when they were still GOOD and not these oversized abominations they serve now). Now imagine a milder version of that, but still barbecue-y. Now imagine that in a stew. With onions, baby corn and mushrooms.

If I lost you somewhere between Buffalo wings and baby corn, I understand how you feel.

Again, my description isnt doing this dish any justice. Its an odd but good tasting dish. I was not expecting  that barbecue taste. Is it authentic? Can't say. I dont really have a good point of reference. I just know I like it!

I'm definitely coming back to try Nasi lemak's other offerings. Their Chili Crab looks awesome :)

Project 365: Day 32 - Painting Miniatures - Spacewolves WIP

Getting some painting commitments out of the way and getting a blog post to boot. Sweet!

Here are some of Felix's Spacewolves after their initial drybrushing and basecoats on black primer. This is strictly tabeltop so no fancy tricks just some good old fashioned elbow grease.

" In hindsight", Baldir said;"'Cutting your hair with a chainsword was a bad idea..."

When painting whole squads of figures I usually try to do them assembly line style. I start with drybrushing the metals down, in this case the golds (P3 Rhulic Gold) and the iron (Mix of P3 Radiant Platinum and Thamar Black). I also drybrushed the resin bases with a progression of Citadel Bestial Brown, Citadel Bubonic Brown and P3 Ryn Flesh.

With the messy drybrushing done I then worked on the basecoats. The heads were done with straight GW Bestial Brown and since I was working on "new school" 'wolves the power armor was done with GW Shadow Grey.

You'll notice I dont try to cover every nook and cranny on the model. This serves several purposes. First, its a shortcut so I get to paint a lot of figs in a short time. Second, if you prime black and you pick your strokes strategically youll be able to outline between armor panels and give some starting shadows just by not painting over the primer.

I keep in mind that when aiming for tabletop quality that youll be seeing the figures 3 feet away from you at an angle, so missing the undersides and corners wont really matter. I just remember to neaten up places that will be seen and be prominent.

For the folks who are Painting Obsessive-compulsives, this may seem like a grave sin but it works for me and my client.

Now he looks like a dwarf slayer!

By the way, since a lot of the heads were identical I decided to sculpt some additional features on them like beardy here. Generally, I cant sculpt a damn but fur and hair is doable for me. I added the greenstuff before i primed.

All in all it took me about 2 hours to get 10 marines from primer to this point. I should be able to wrap them up in a couple more days with some more basecoats and some simple highlights so stay tuned :)

Project 365: Day 31 - A Retrospective and Throwing a Light into the Future

I really need to shorten my titles.

This is my 31st post on Project 365. I'm ending a month. I've actually had enough of an attention span to actually get something done for more than a week straight.

Now I will be the first to admit that I didnt have a perfect posting record for this month (check title, check date, for those who werent paying attention) due to some circumstances, some avoidable and some not. But regardless, I was able to stick to this blog for the first month without my attention flagging.

This blog, which started as a way to keep me motivated on my hobby-related stuff turned out into a hobby of its own. This blog has actually started eating into my my hobby time! Didn't see that one coming. Insert witty comment here, tack snide remark there.

Looking back at January I was able to cover some of the stuff I like doing. I've posted about games and local gaming events, I've gone out to eat at places I've never been to. I've posted some old "work in progress" stuff. I've gotten some positive and constructive feedback from the folks who've read up on the blog. Even with the amateurishness of this blog, I honestly believe I'm on to something worthwhile :) This blog has sparked a renewed vigor in the stuff that I already do, and is also inspiring me to get more experiences out there.

So what's in store for February?  Here are some of the things I have in mind for the month and beyond:

- FOOD! Roxane and I have been talking about trying out some places to eat in Binondo. I will definitely try to schedule a Binondo romp within the month :D budget permitting.

- Painting Miniatures! I recently got myself a Druid Wilder as a new addition to my army. I plan on posting a progress report on this mini as well as other pieces from my backlog  :)

- Gaming! With an upcoming Warmachine/ Hordes League and freer weekends I plan to give more detailed Battle and Event Reports in the future. I also plan on helping Kim with the WMH Philippines Club in any way I can.

- Terrain! I've always talked about contributing terrain pieces to Fortress. This would be a good time to cross that off my to-do list.

- Doodles! I want to draw more and I'll be posting more doodles and artwork in the future

I've got one month down and I have 11 more to go and a lot of stuff to get done :)

Right! lets do this :D

Project 365: Day 30 - I'm free!

I'm finally free of that goddamn project. I'm finally going to settle down into my old job.

But why am I still anxious?

Maybe because I KNOW the folks I left behind aren't ready

Maybe because what I leave behind is a legacy. It reflects on me

Maybe I just cant be comfortable being relieved when I know some people around me are facing dilemmas of their own.

Urgh.

Project 365: Day 29 - Food! - Tokyo Cafe

Me and Roxane decided to try the New Tokyo Cafe that opened up in Megamall.

Now usually me and Roxane have big appetites (can't ya tell?) but this time we weren;t particularly hungry. We just knew that we had to eat because its been some time since our last meal (about 6 hours or so).

Trying new places to eat in is always scary as theres always the chance you'll walk away disappointed.But since we werent that hungry we decided now would be a good time to take a chance. We decided to split a dish and get a bowl of soup.

Tokyo cafe is another one of those japanese themed places that seem to be popping up all over the place (like Zango, Pepper Lunch, Bubble tea...) and they gave the vibe that they were on dry run. The waitresses were attentive enough but they seem to be preoccupied by one thing or another. The place's decor was nice but they had this big mural that showed a paris(?) train station and that just didnt make sense to me. Ah well.

We ordered the Hamburg Steak with Garlic sauce. I was a bit iffy with it because the picture in the menu made out the garlic sauce too be a bit too white. It was just screaming "MAYO!" and im not very fond of the stuff.

The food didnt look like the pic in the menu. Big surprise. This is a good thing because the garlic sauce was now a bit more appetizing to me but this was also a negative because the pretty char marks on the burger were nowhere to be found:

The other annoying thing is that we thought that the hamburg would come on a sizzling plate. The pic and the dish had that wooden thing you serve sizzling plates on and everything. But no. Plate was cold and the wood was just for effect.

The food itself was alright. Two juicy, well-seasoned burgers that were a good size. But aside from that the stuff wasnt anything special. There are a lot better options there that would meet or beat this place in terms of price and taste.

The clam chowder was good. We originally ordered the Shrimp Bisque but they didnt have it.   The clam chowder could stand to be a bit creamier in my opinion but it made up for it with chunkiness.

Now would I come back here? Maybe. Again, there's just a lot of other options out there. Maybe I'll try out their so called "smoogees" and their beef dishes (theres two i think) look interesting. I'm certainly not in a hurry to go back though.

Average cost per person would be about Php 300 by the way.

My favorite moment of the entire experience was watching Roxane try to cross her eyes:

she fails.