rinnah's consumer views|a straight talking, tell-it-as-it-is consumer lifestyle blog

In the words of Barney Stinson, it was LEGEN… wait for it… DARY!!!

I truly didn’t imagine that a random conversation on Twitter with Paris B would become the epic event (in Beetrice’s words) that was My Women Stuff Readers Choice Awards.

There are more pictures of the event, so keep on reading after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month I was invited to check out Apronbay, which touts itself as the first beauty boutique with an air travel concept in Malaysia. Intriguing, yes? I thought so too.

The whole idea behind Apronbay was dreamed up by Ashley Loong and her friend – a beauty salon with an exciting, fresh concept and superior customer service. I particularly like their travel themed concept with different destinations. It’s kinda like ‘Now everyone can go places even while you’re getting your brows or other parts done’. Teehee.

This is a super heavy picture intensive post, so if you want to know more, keep on reading after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Where’s a solution to your hair woes when you need one?

I’d been experiencing some unusual hair fall of late, where if I ran my fingers through my hair I’d come away with a few strands in my hand. Washing my hair meant losing dozens of strands of hair and none of my usual shampoos were working to stem this problem. Honestly, I was getting rather worried about this situation. Not that I don’t have hair to spare – my hair is deceptive, as any of my hair stylists (past and present) will tell you. It looks rather fine and no more than a handful, but when they start to style/cut my hair, it will seem never-ending! Hahah.

Then I got invited to the Pantene blogger engagement event at Hair Atelier in Jaya One. And I will honestly say that I didn’t set any expectations overall before going. You see, I don’t have a firm opinion where Pantene products were concerned even though I’ve used variants of the shampoo/conditioner ever since I was a little girl. You could practically say I grew up in a house that was never without a bottle of Pantene shampoo/conditioner (different types) in the bathroom. And you know what they say – that you don’t fully realize the pros and cons of something just because you are so used to having it in your life. Heh.

I did hope that my poor, neglected tresses would get some TLC though. I’d say that the team was pretty confident that their product works because we were treated to a hair pampering session using nothing but the new Pantene Recharging Fluid Pro-V formulated products (after this referred to as Pantene Pro-V Total Care) – the Total Care shampoo, conditioner and the 3 minute miracle treatment.

The new Pantene Pro-V Total Care smells deliciously like honeydew, a rare departure from the rest of the fruity/floral shampoo brigade. Unlike dear Kahani, I kinda liked the fragrance and couldn’t help but sniff at my hair whenever I thought no one was watching.

After the wash and treatment, the stylists brought out their hairdryers to blow dry and style my hair and I thought “Oh no, my hair will be fried!” Luckily, I was wrong. The treatment had made my hair soft and silky straight, so much so one of the stylists asked if I had straightened my hair. LOL. And the end result of all that hair pampering?

My hair felt amazingly soft and light after and still looked great for the following week. Even better yet, the soft and light feel remained even though I’d been using other shampoos and conditioners and reminded me of far more pricier hair treatments I’d done previously. Even my scalp felt cleaner, since my hair did not get oily as quickly as it normally would. And while my hair did not miraculously stop falling, any subsequent hair fall that week was significantly reduced by as much as 70%. That was pretty amazing for me, I can tell ya.

Will I continue to use the Pantene Pro-V Total Care products? Yup, I definitely would as long as the products continue to work well for me.

You can pick up Pantene Pro-V products at the following recommended retail prices : Shampoo/conditioner @ MYR 9.30 (180ml) or MYR 14.90 (350ml); Intensive Treatment (in a jar) @ MYR 14.90 (135ml) or MYR 19.30 (300ml); Night Miracle serum @ MYR 17.90 (90ml) and Treatment 3-minute Miracle @ MYR 17.85 (3 tubes x 15ml).

Read other blogger reviews here :
Connie
Ee Von – the product and the party
Juan
Kahani – the product and the party
Pretty Beautiful
Yani

Last week, Paris B kindly invited me and Kahani to join her on a food tasting review of the delicacies that The Huckleberry Cafe (hereafter referred to as Huckleberry) has to offer. The foodie session was organized by Candy of Asian Age Holdings and boy, were we on a sugar high after!

For folk who are familiar with Food Foundry in Section 17 PJ, you’ll be happy to know that Huckleberry is opened and run by the same folk, so you can expect the same standards to apply at both eating outlets. I’d heard of Food Foundry before, but never managed to find the time nor an occasion to check it out but I think I’d want to after sampling the light finger foods and desserts at Huckleberry.

Huckleberry is tucked away into a nook at the back of Times Bookstore in Bangsar Shopping Centre (BSC). (As such, I had a moment of confusion when I arrived and checked BSC’s tenant list only to find no Huckleberry there. Luckily, a quick call to Paris B sorted things out. Phew!) The area itself is not very large, but the tables, chairs and comfy sofas have been neatly arranged to maximize space constraints without feeling cramped. I can imagine chilling at Huckleberry with some coffee and cake whilst browsing books from Times on lazy afternoons.

And since we had some time to spare before the food tasting began, we had an impromptu photoshoot session for Kahani so that she could showcase the lovely cerulean blue dress she wore on Frocking Around.

Then it was on to the food, glorious food!

Here’s my iced cafe latte (MYR 6.00) before I mixed it all up. A decent enough, normal cup of latte that went well with the pastries and cakes that we had.

We started off with the savories. Here you can see 2 types of quiches and a cornish pastry. The spinach and beef bacon quiche (MYR 9.00) was less savory than the mushroom and onion quiche (MYR 9.00) (which I really liked!) but both were melt-in-your-mouth delicious, with just the right amount of flaky pastry the way I like it, which is that it doesn’t remind me of pie, where I have to go through layers of pastry that flakes to bits before you can get to the savory filling. But the standout would be the beef rendang cornish pastry (MYR 9.00), which had a solid meaty filling of rendang that reminded Paris B and me of serunding and would be excellent with nasi lemak.

We then moved on to the sweet stuff (but not exactly desserts yet), starting with the Banana Raisin Bread Pudding (MYR 9.00). Silly me forgot to take a picture of the pudding! I love a good bread pudding and the addition of bananas and raisins to traditional bread pudding was pretty inspired, if you ask me. Not overly sweet, but just nice. Made me wish for vanilla ice-cream to accompany it though.

From left to right, clockwise, you have the Guinness Chocolate Cake (MYR 9.00), Whooppie Pie (MYR 5.00), and Macarons in the flavors of Pineapple, Green Tea and Red Bean (MYR 2.50 each). I would have preferred a slightly stronger tasting Guinness Chocolate Cake and it also needed to be a little bit more moist but on the whole it was good. Same with the Whooppie Pie (could’ve been more moist) which reminded me a bit of Oreos and made me wish for vanilla ice-cream again. The macaroons were uber sweet but oh-so-tempting! The pineapple one reminded us all of traditional pineapple tarts but my absolute fave was the Green Tea one, because the taste balanced out the sweet macaroon shell.

We were by no means finished, because like a magician, Candy whipped out four varieties of cake for us to try! Clockwise from bottom center you have the Chocolate Cake, Hummingbird Cake and Carrot Almond Cake (MYR 9.00). The Chocolate Cake was just right, chocolate-y and moist and reminded me of brownies that would go absolutely perfectly with ice-cream (yes, I think I was craving for ice-cream that day. *wink*). The Hummingbird Cake was nutty and grainy, just the type for people who like “healthy tasting” cakes and got classified as “now-I-know-where-to-get-a-cake-for-my-godmother”. (The Huckleberry Cafe does take orders for whole cakes, but you’ll have to call them up 2 days in advance.) I had rather high expectations for the Carrot Almond Cake because I love carrot cakes in general and this was one of the good ones – not too sweet and light, but filled with lots of good, nutty ingredients. The only thing that threw me off a bit was that faint taste of cinnamon, which I’m not used to having in my carrot cake, and which I suspect may have to be an acquired taste for me at least.

If you have been counting, you would have noticed that I talked about tasting four varieties of cake but only pictured and described three above. Well, I had to save the best for last, right? Here is the highlight of the desserts…

Mille Crepe Cake (MYR 10.00)! Pictured above in Vanilla, it also comes in Strawberry and Chocolate flavors too. Even now, I can picture and taste the delicate crepe layers melting in my mouth with every bite. No wonder this is the best-selling cake at Food Foundry.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and settle some dessert cravings from writing this post. Contact details of The Huckleberry Cafe are as pictured below.

The Huckleberry Cafe
@ Times Bookstore
Bangsar Shopping Centre
Tel : +60 3-2095 1606

Read other blogger reviews here :
Kahani (featuring the photoshoot session only)
nrewq
Paris B
Xin

Image credit

Just a quick post to notify readers that Metrojaya is currently allowing shoppers to sign up for the MJ Privilege Card for free this weekend (24 – 25 April).

Yup, they’re handing out their department store loyalty card for free – no purchase required. Even better yet, you get a MYR 10 voucher to spend together with the card, so that’s essentially MYR 10 being given away by Metrojaya to every person who signs up for the card. Can you say score?

There is one thing though – it seems that the numbers of cards being given out are limited, so maybe that’s why this campaign isn’t being published or promoted because I didn’t see any flyers or banners. I found out by chance from a friendly cashier who told me when I made my purchase at Metrojaya MidValley just now.

So, if you’re not a MJ Privilege cardholder yet, now’s your chance to be one for free!

A great many moons ago (but still within this year), some bloggers and I gathered at Yook Tho Hin (PJ) Restaurant for a post Chinese New Year lunch. Being the very hungry folk we are, we decided to indulge in a seven course meal to celebrate the New Year.

First up was the ubiquitous Yee Sang that is present at nearly every meal during Chinese New Year. For the uninitiated, yee sang is a salad-type dish that is served with a number of sauces and usually with raw fish (salmon). The best part about eating yee sang is the part just before you eat, when everyone gathers around to “loh hei” or toss the salad while reciting auspicious sayings. As you can see, it can get a wee bit chaotic and messy!

There was also the usual seafood sharksfin soup as the second course. Even though some time has passed since then, I remember that Yook Tho Hin’s version was not too starchy and pretty delicious too!

My fellow bloggers were raving away about the fried prawns with salted egg but being allergic to most types of seafood that comes with a shell, I could only watch them tuck into those gargantuan prawns (look at the size of ‘em!) and drool.

Luckily for me, there were other dishes that I enjoyed tremendously. Like the baked herbal chicken. The chicken was so tender and soft it literally fell off the bone and while I personally would have enjoyed a stronger herbal taste, this dish got the thumbs up from me.

We also had two vegetable dishes, braised vegetable and tofu and the vegetarian dish of vegetables and mushrooms but after the tofu dish, my camera ran out of battery!

We were very full after all that good food, but there was still dessert to come – the usual tinned fruit in syrup and fried pastries – plus a special surprise of a birthday cake for me. =)

For all of the food we feasted on above, we paid about MYR32.00 per head (8 pax x MYR32.00 = MYR256.00). Considering that we were then still within the 15 days of Chinese New Year (when most Chinese restaurants tend to inflate their prices), I found the prices to be reasonable, especially for such good food. The company, of course, was excellent, as always.

The restaurant is fully air-conditioned on both levels, but it would be wise to call ahead and reserve your places on weekends as space is limited.

Yook Tho Hin (PJ) Restaurant
No.13, Jalan SS21/37
Damansara Utama
Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Tel : +60 3-7729 6534
Note : The restaurant is located at the same row as HSBC in Damansara Uptown.

Read other blogger reviews here :
Connie
Paris Beaverbanks
Peteformation

Recently, I attended a wedding function at Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley.

With no offense intended to the bride and groom, I personally do not fancy Cititel as a suitable venue for a wedding reception. My reason? Cititel is a hotel that caters primarily to business travelers and tourists looking for a centrally located hotel between KL and PJ. Also, I am not a big fan of Mid Valley Megamall and its surrounding areas. However, I was prepared to give Cititel the benefit of the doubt when I received the wedding invitation card.

Image credit

My poor experience with Cititel began the moment I drove up to Mid Valley. Following the directions to the hotel’s main lobby, I attempted to locate the entrance to the hotel’s parking. For reasons known only to the hotel management, the signages directed me instead straight into Mid Valley Megamall’s basement parking. This meant that I would not be able to get my parking ticket stamped for a flat single entry rate (MYR 6.00, I believe) and instead would have to pay Mid Valley Megamall’s hourly rates. And it was not because the hotel’s section of the basement parking was full, as I saw a number of empty spots available.

The poor experience continued at Cititel’s lobby. You know how most hotels have a little signboard telling you what kind of functions are going on for that day? Well, again I couldn’t locate one to tell me at which floor the wedding reception would be held at. Not very visitor-friendly, I have to say.

The final thing that sealed the deal for me was the poorly installed backdrop on the stage. You know how there normally is styrofoam lettering on a curtained backdrop telling you the nature of the function? Well, less than half way through the function, one of the styrofoam letters fell off into the foliage below because it was not stuck on properly. Less than half an hour later, the whole styrofoam board on which the date was printed, followed suit. So you have a bare backdrop to the stage because the sign fell off. I think it was a case of shoddy preparation on the hotel’s part.

Would I hold a function (of any sort) at Cititel, Mid Valley? If I had a choice, no.