Expensive Meals in Al Salam Rotana Hotel

One of those nights where we went to Al Salam Rotana Hotel to celebrate two colleagues' birthday, one on that same night with the other one at 12am midnight.

For me, this is the first time I went into this hotel. Really nice set up at their reception desk area.

Upon reaching the restaurant, we told them that we needed a table(s) for eight of us. The restaurant staff told us to proceed outside of the hotel.

What? No air-conditioned comfort. The air-conditioned area was reserved for customers who are willing to part with at least 100 Sudanese Dinar (2.30 Sudanese Dinar = US$1.00). For others who are spending less, please proceed to sit outside and feel the Khartoum heat. That's what it meant to me.

We had the external dining area all to ourselves with a giant spotlight shining its light down on us.

The menu has lot of choices for us to choose but for a famous hotel I reckon that the menu should have more choices. I saw the Two Eggs any Style served with hash brown potatoes at 19 Sudanese Dinar. Eyes went big hehehe.

Eyeballs dropped out when I saw Nasi Goreng at 42 Sudanese Dinar.

We were served with some fresh breads together with some butters. Next question came, "Who ordered this?". Nobody said yes and the next question came up, "How much will this cost us?" Didn't take a look at the bill at the end of the day.

They were willing to when you I said that I would tell them to hold the food until you all agree to pose.

The hotel's signature sandwich.

Three colleagues ordered the Cheeseburger that came without cheese hahahahaha. Upon voicing it to the waiter, he brought three slices of those cheese where you could get it from the supermarket shelves.

My Grilled Beef which came quite naked without much sauce. I think it was about 36 Sudanese Dinar and it's quality and taste was way far off those food served at the famous western dining outlets in Malaysia. The portion is so little.

One of my colleagues' Grilled Chicken.











This is a Mutton Curry served with white rice. Quite a big serving and this dish did went through my brain to process but didn't receive the green light to order.













This was a Salmon fish.












This is the cheesecake topped up with blackberries. Do you call this a blackberry cheesecake?

Our total bill at the end of the day was more than 700 Sudanese Dinar. Shocking indeed!











The night scenery where the shot was taken from the car park area.
Tags: Al Salam Rotana Hotel, Khartoum, Mutton Curry, Cheeseburger, Grilled Beef, Grilled Chicken, Blackberry Cheesecake, Nasi Goreng

Parents Joined In To Bully

What has become of Malaysia's general society nowadays?

I read this piece of news in Stars online and found that a Form 4 (16 years old) kid from a Serdang secondary school was bullied on 14 Oct 2008 and that 'bullying' incident was recorded. Somehow, that videoclip has been leaked out to other schoolmates.

Fearing for his safety, the Form 4 kid lodged a police report. After the lodgement of the police report and also the school authority, Tee Wui Hong found himself being harassed by those bullies again. This time, the bullies' parents confronted him too.

The police has to act on such police report as it concerns the public's safety. I know that the police has been requested to receive all kinds of police reports but then the police must act on it as well. Failure to act on it will somehow 'encourage' bullies to carry on knowing the police wouldn't dare to touch them.

My question is, why are the bullies' parents involved this time? Are those parents having "good connections" and thus, threatened Tee for his lodgement of reports with the police and school authorities? No matter who's wrong, the parents shouldn't have gotten involved. I would take that as adults bullying the kid right now.

The school authority ought to act as well as the videoclip has been circulated in the school and failure to act is like condoning such bullying case.

With the Subang Jaya police, Selangor State Education Department and DAP Serdang Service Centre having been informed, I hoped that the culprits would be warned and appropriate 'sentence' would be imposed. Otherwise, such bullies (esp the bullies' parents) will continue with their rude life and the few school going kids may grow up as ruffians in the future.

Reading: More trauma for victim as videoclip surfaces - Star
Tags: Serdang, Tee Wui Hong, Subang Jaya Police, Selangor State Education Department, DAP Serdang Community Service Centre

Malaysia Off OECD Blacklist

In a quick reaction to being blacklisted by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD") on 3 April 2009, the Malaysian government quickly intervened by agreeing to provide full commitment to exchange information to the OECD’s internationally agreed tax standards.

For a moment, Malaysia was made famous by the non-compliance on tax standards.

What a relief! How could we have missed such a major compliance issue when almost every single country has agreed to it except for the unfortunate four which includes Malaysia.

Let's move on with the new Prime Minister and new Cabinet in place now. The economy is virtually hanging around -1% to 0.5% economic growth. Any more negative news about the new government due to their failure will certainly cause more economic downfall.

Reading: Malaysia off the OECD blacklist - Star
Related post - Malaysia Blacklisted by World Body
Tags: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, Malaysia

Trip to Kandahar Town III

Part III-Final

Those bigger plates that you see in Part II (last picture) were grill goat meat.

In this picture, the top plate in white is really really fresh raw goat liver ............. yucks. Managed to trick Peter to take it. I forbid myself from taking fear factor food hahaha
The reddish food at the bottom is a salad dish. Tomatoes, cucumber and foul mixed together.

Fantastic taste and this was the only dish that was finished by us.




In this picture, the smaller plate at the top is actually chillis. I like it and it really burn your lips.

A plate of salad that comprise cucumber, tomatoes, onions and greenies is very common.

The blackie stuff I tried this since it was fried, the goat liver again. No smell as it was marinated with salt just now hehehe and since it was fresh it was so tender.

This is their tea stall where you have all kinds of spices that could be put into the hot tea to spice up the taste.

A good cup of local coffee or tea after a good meal would be a complete meal.

Peter was still whacking the food after two of us have gave up. Another four more local Sudanese friends joined us later.









But our Sudanese friend said we cannot take our coffee and tea yet because he has ordered a special drink for us. Oh no!

I saw them preparing this concoction. It was a mixture of one litre of 7-Up, two cans of non-alcoholic beer and fresh local yoghurt. It taste like ........ hmmmm what does it like already???? Nice cocktail. A Sudanese friend said it's Sudanese Rum hahahaha.

You are given a tin cup .... scoop up and that's yours. We looked at each other and said that we have no meetings tomorrow, so go for it. After one cup, I drank another and another. Whatever is going happen, so be it.

Then came my favourite, the hot tea for me. I'm the only one who requested for tea. It came with an incense stuff. To drive the houseflies away or to add more taste to the atmosphere ?????







This street vendor really caught my attention. The other boys brought many stuffs hanging on their neck.

This guy came with an industrial weighing machine over his shoulder. He was trying to sell it to our group of Sudanese friends.










One of the Sudanese friends said before buying we must test whether the machine is working or not. Almost everyone in the group went up to see their personal weight.

For private & confidential purpose, not revealing the name of this person's weight ...... you guess. It's in kilograms of course.

No one bought that machine anyway haha

Saw the owner was cutting up another goat to be served to other customers.















Yeah, he tried not to block my camera's view and showed me the ribs.















The other side of the Souq Nagar .... desert.











Back to civilisation after our food adventure at Kandahar town.

This is the Burj Al-Fateh Hotel. We'll be in there soon for our afternoon tea. Too expensive to have a meal in there. Could cost up to US$70 per person.

Related posts:-
* Trip to Kandahar Town I
* Trip to Kandahar Town II
Tags: Kandahar, Sudan, Souq Nagar, Burj Al-Fateh Hotel

Trip to Kandahar Town II

Part II
Many more goat meat being slaughtered 'freshly' and hung up at the stall for customers to choose their piece.

Lots of other stalls selling the same stuff and normally you'll tend to eat at the same store where you are comfortable with.

The market area where city folks drop by for their weekend meals. No proper road here ...... all desert area.

The opposite shops where they sell the same stuff.











Noticed a lady was cooking some meat at the side of our stall.















Another street vendor came in with his stuff. Products from the same country as well.















Peeked to the other side of the stall operator. More chairs and 'beds' than customers???

I called them 'beds' as you could lie down as you wait for your food or take a nap after having a heavy meal. You can't find this in Kuala Lumpur hehehe










Suddenly I realised that my fresh food was being brought to the same lady I saw earlier. She's my cook after all.

My portion was those still in raw colour on the other two hot plates. It's grill goat meat that we are going to eat.

Walked around the market area while my food was being grilled nicely. The donkey in front of me was carrying a large drum of water. Local Sudanese would just go to the drum and pick up a general cup and draw water from the small tap.

The general cup would be used by the general public (whoever) who is thirsty.

This guy was one of those street vendors too. Guess what was he selling?

He was selling cassette tapes (have not heard of cassette tapes before, go ask your older folks) and a music compo (don't know what's this? ask about this too) was blasting the music loudly.

All this on a wheelbarrow being pushed around the market. Saw two guys doing the same.

Another side of the market area as I walked around with a Sudanese friend (just in case you see).

Here comes the food yahooooooooooooo.

No fork, spoon or knife .......... bare fingers only.
What do we have here?

Part III to come .................

Related post - Trip to Kandahar Town I
Tags: Kandahar, Sudan, Libya Market

Trip to Kandahar Town I

One of those wonderful trips in Sudan. Our Sudanese friends brought us to an obscure place .......... obscure to us of course, not them. The place that we were brought to was about 30-40 minutes drive from the city centre. It located somewhere around the Kandahar town.

Not far from the city centre, you'll see desert area already. Surprisingly I saw coconut trees???

You'll see houses made out of clay bricks.

Lots of tree trunks for sale at this market area called Libya Market. Such woods came from far away places ..... maybe south Sudan.

A number of shops were selling such woods.

The main mode of transport for smaller towns. You find such mode of transport in the city centre too.

In the city centre, the locals need to pay around 0.50 to 1 Sudanese Dinar for a journey up to 400m to 500m or even further. For us, once we flag one down, we have to negotiate the fare first before we board it.

For the same distance, we would be charged up to 3 Sudanese Dinar.

We arrived at the Souq Nagar market located at the Kandahar town. Our friends brought us to this shop where they always hang out almost every weekend in 2008.

I saw the lady owner preparing a dish for another customer.










Our gang was waiting patiently for the food. This is the only place in Sudan that has such large area of many stall operators selling various kind of meat dishes, i.e. goat meat in various cooking style hehe ....... camel meat (not served and not found in this market it seems).

Customers in this market are mainly from Khartoum city. They chose this place because the food here is very fresh.

That's how the stall looks like. Simple set-up only.











While seated inside the stall area, lots of street vendors will drop in. Our appearance (foreigners) has caught the locals' attention when we arrived.

This young chap just had everything that you need.





Torchlight, pen knive, screwdriver, wallet, cigarette lighter and many many many other smaller gadgets ........ all made in China goods.

Two of the items that caught my attention.

Guess the usage for it.









Went to the stall to see how this guy started to 'cut' those goat meat into smaller pieces. They sell by the kilograms. Don't know about the pricing as our local friends treated us.

Tags: Kandahar, Sudan, Libya Market, Souq Nagar