celebration at leonardo's...

This post is long overdue. I've been wanting to write up a picture post but with my desktop currently dying on me, I kept finding excuses that prevented me from doing so.

Back in May, during The Lady's XXth birthday, I made a reservation at Leonardo's Dining Room & Wine Loft in Bangsar. It was a lottery really, as I browsed furiously in the world wide web to find a decent fine dining restaurant and this place popped up in the first page.

Thank my lucky starts that this place didn't disappoint me. Leonardo's is superb with very little crowd (in fact, I think they can house a maximum of 30-40 pax only), and with soothing music being played in the background, you can feel that they really make it a romantic venue for couple the italian way.



Leonardo's serves modern Italian cuisine, and while fine dining restaurants have limited items in the menu, there wasn't short of options here.


I can barely remember the names of the dishes that we ordered that night, but looking back at the photos it's pretty apparent we had mushroom soup as a starter. The Lady ordered spaghetti (forgive me but I really can't tell what kind), while I took up the chef's recommended Port Knuckle. Plus a Kahlua Tiramisu for dessert.

The spaghetti was okay, but the Pork Knuckle was simply delicious. Which surprises me, I didn't even notice that Leonardo's is a non-halal restaurant until the waitress recommended this dish.

Leonardo's also organizes talks, book launches and exhibitions occasionally during the weekends, according to the notice board found at the staircase. I'm sure this place attracts plenty of intellectual groups, and usually classy ones.

If you ask me, I'd definitely return to this restaurant again, probably with a small group of friends for a good round of dinner. I tell you, this will make you look pretty darn professional; dining and sipping wine in a classy restaurant located in a secluded row of shoplots hidden in Bangsar.

Leonardo's Dining Room & Wine Loft

61-1 & 61-2, Jalan Bangkung,

Bukit Bandaraya, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 6.03.2096.2226

all's well, end's well...

The past week has just been non-stop action, if we are to put it into a film, hahaha...

Anyway, job assignments have sent me to Santubong (Kuching), Ipoh, Kuantan and Nilai back to back in a little over a week. As fun as it sound, things didn't really turn out that great.

The job assignments were completed without any major troubles, although some must've been wondering if it's just our luck that some things fall right into place despite some really unexpected misfortunes that happened along the way.

Santubong came first when I departed on Saturday, the weather in Kuching was horrendous and the haze was suffocating. Our job resumed despite the recent H1N1 scare, and on Sunday it was 6am-11.30pm continuous run before I hit the sack. The event itself was close to perfect (from our side at least), until the moment we have to depart to the airport at 5pm. One of the rented vehicles' engine couldn't start, and with our flight's check-in time at 7.30pm (Santubong is one hour from Kuching International Airport) time wasn’t with our side. Speedy arrangements were made on the spot and we ended up renting two tourist MPVs from the Santubong Resort to send us to the airport.

The crazy things didn't end there. When I arrived at the airport (we traveled in 4 different vehicles), one van was missing. After several phonecalls, it was revealed that the petrol station attendant has mistakenly pumped petrol into the diesel-engined van, and will need a mechanic to assist in flushing out the mixed fuel. If you think things couldn't get worse, the mechanic's car broke down on the way to the petrol station. Just managed to check-in everyone but one of our two flights got delayed for an hour and a half (WTF?). We finally get to gather back at the office in KL and reload our equipment at 3am, and then headed straight to Ipoh.

Arrived at Ipoh approximately 5.30am on Tuesday, we’ve got about half an hour to refresh before we began work. Several hours into the job we realized that a baggage was missing from our loading. My colleagues in KL spent an hour or so searching through the office while we ransacked our hotel rooms to find it but to no avail. Finally, we had to get someone to drive all the way to the LCCT and what do you know, the missing baggage was left unclaimed outside the airport.

The assignment in Ipoh ended at 4pm Wednesday, and after a late lunch we departed back to KL. Heavy rain in the city didn't help and after dropping off my colleague at the office I reached home at 9pm for a quick shower and repack my luggage. A burger Ramli was enough for dinner and 10.30pm we began our journey to Kuantan. By the time everyone arrived at Kuantan town it was already 3.30am Thursday.

Work started at 6.30am, and for once everything went without any shortcomings. The assignment finished at 3pm and we got into our cars sped back to KL. Again, heavy rain slowed the journey and lunch was at 5pm in Karak, before reaching KL around 7pm. We finished reshuffling the equipment for Saturday’s event and went home around 9pm that Friday.

Saturday’s work began at 5.30am and it was a breeze handling this job after 7 days of constant traveling (and quite a distance too I may add). Finally got everything wrapped up by Sunday 1am and went home to sleep.

During the entire trip, there were also ongoing assignments back in KL beginning with the Friday before I depart to Kuching, and every single day thereafter until Saturday, hence the lack of manpower. Not forgetting that the office and retail shops were practically open for 24 hours that week as there were night shifts as well.

For all the hectic scheduling, I guess I will have to thank whoever that has prayed that everything went smoothly and well. No major incidents happened and despite all the late night traveling and lack of sleep everyone are safe and sound, and still coming to work these few days with no hints of H1N1 infections (touch wood) despite being in contact with over 15,000 graduating students all over Malaysia during this period of time.

As for me, I slept the entire Sunday and woke up at 7pm for dinner, and slept all the way until this morning.

hangover...

Couldn't really pull myself out of the bed this morning. If it wasn't for some smart client who calls on a Saturday morning, I think I'd be spending the entire day tucked nicely in my bed.

Haven't had any off days for quite some time, and considering that KL's traffic condition to be static today it meant I'm able to stay at home instead of going to work. And also had a good night out last night.

Ministry of Sound was celebrating Juice's 7th birthday with a party called "Future So Bright" on the 31st July, but to be honest the real attraction was the free flow of Chivas between 9pm-11pm. Though not a fan of liquor, I didn't pass the chance to attend especially since it's been some time I've gone out clubbing. And also because a big number of my primary school friends will be having a good gathering there as well.

Upon arrival, it turned out to be a major disappointment when news broke out from some of my friends who're already inside that every patron is limited to only two glasses of Chivas (heck, that's a major fraud case), and the long queue didn't help. In the end we hopped over to Coco Banana instead.

Coco Banana was expectedly less happening, but within an hour the crowd started moving over from MOS, and quite a few complained being duped by the 'free flow liquor' adverts, coupled with boring fashion shows (??) being the main agenda of the night.

It was the first time I met several of my long lost friends, definitely over a decade since I saw them. Clubs aren't really the best place to sit down and catch up on our pasts, apart from a few small chats everyone were basically dancing all night long and boy, aren't they serial clubbers. ;)

2-3 glasses of liquor was okay. 4-5 glasses, still good. 12 glasses within 2 hours? Well, I'm surprised that even with a dozen glasses of Chivas I'm still sober, although to be very honest had I stayed on for another glass I'd be puking all over the place. I'd have to thank the lady for having a seminar early morning today, that was a good excuse to leave early (1.30am is considered pretty early for them).

Took a shower and hit the sack immediately after I reached home, and I couldn't really do anything but lie straight on the bed, at that moment any movements could've triggered my 'puke' action. A double dose of paracetamol in the morning helped little to ease the headache.

I'm still wondering why do people enjoy getting wasted. I certainly don't. But I do enjoy catching up with old friends though.