Vincom Center . Ho Chi Minh

When girls go for a trip, shopping is always a yay no matter how tired is their trip. Over here in Ho Chi Minh City, they don't really have much malls, some of the malls are more to wholesale store, the price isn't cheap tho. 

Went to Vincom Center on our first day, some of the branded store such as Longchamp, Calvin Klein and etc offer cheaper price than in Malaysia; still we were not here for shopping. Realized that there are so many cafe and bakery shop in their mall, and we went there for second time for their Fanny Ice Cream, stay tuned for the post. Bought a bottle of Royal Pudding in Paris Baguette, was attracted by the bottle at first and brought the bottle back here as a souvenir of mine. Yup, the only thing I got myself there.

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How are you?

Trung Nguyen Coffee . Ho Chi Minh

When you travel to Ho Chi Minh city, one thing that you couldn't afford to miss is their local Vietnamese coffee. It's not hard to find a coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh, but you will have hard time on which one you should go. There are some famous coffee shops featured by bloggers and forum-ers; we just went to the nearest coffee shop that located 2 mins walking distance from our Mayflower Hotel.

Trung Nguyen Coffee is quite famous in Ho Chi Minh (I guess, since we saw lot of branches for Trung Nguyen Coffee), my cousin did asked me to buy some coffee packets from here as well. Went there on our first day and last day, didn't pick other coffee shop on our last day as we really like their service, it's superb. Even though we might have communication problem (only few of them can understand English), they trying hard to serve us and give us the best coffee experience over here. 

Trung Nguyen Coffee implements order-and-pay-upfront before you grab you seat, a number will be assigned to you and they will serve you your order once it is done. Here, they have more comfortable seats at 1st floor and a cup of bottomless water (I guess this is some kind of tea, doesn't taste like water at all) will be served to you.

Mother Land Coffee . VND 50,000

I tried their signature coffee on the first day, this is what I ordered on the last day. It share the same portion like espresso coffee, from this portion, I can imagine how bitter it will be before I started my first sip on it. I'm right on the bitterness of this coffee, end up I poured the whole pack of sugar in it so that I can finished it off. I prefer espresso more btw.

Break Through . VND 81,000

Here comes the signature iced coffee in the shop, when they first served this up, we totally had no idea how to make an iced coffee, never seen this is Malaysia pun. Normally, in other restaurant that we went during the trip, they straight away served the ready iced coffee to us, but here they let us try to make our iced coffee by own-self. They just served a glass of ice and a 2 layer cup (my first thought), then the friendly waitress came and helped us on how to make our own iced coffee. It was so fun to 'play' with the filter but it required 10-15 mins until the coffee is ready. Anyway, good coffee worth the wait. We looked like a pro on making this coffee during the second visit. I even bought a filter and coffee powder but didn't try it out yet at home. 

When they served you the cup, they already placed sufficient coffee powder in filter chamber, a filter press is to flatten the coffee powder before the hot water being poured inside. The coffee will slowly drip through the holding tray and mixed with the condensed milk that already poured in the cup. You may need to grit the bottom of holding tray by using a spoon in order to accelerate the dripping process. Once the dripping process is done, take the filter chamber off the cup and stir the coffee so that coffee mixed well with the condensed milk. Pour the coffee into the glass of ice that was prepared earlier; if you like thicker coffee, you need to drink off the water inside the glass. Ta-dah! Our iced coffee is done. 

Was not really a coffee lover while I'm in Malaysia, but became a decent coffee lover in Ho Chi Minh; really like the thick coffee (because they mixed with condensed milk mah) and we had it almost every meals. Stay tuned for more posts. 

Location

82-84, Bui Thi Xuan, P. Ben Tanh, District 1, Ho Chi Minh.

Website

Trung Nguyen Coffee 

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A revolution is needed for up coming year.

from my eyes . Vietnam

December, please be good to me. I never have this kind of quote until today, and I really mean it and need it. Please! I'm gonna start posting about my Vietnam trip and this is like a prologue before I really go into it in details. Didn't really capture a lot of photos during the trip, maybe I was just too tired or the weather kind of hot; so my mode was like: snap-and-go. Let's get started with things I saw in Vietnam, I just pick some to share here, enjoy...

Just a short one. We might have communication constrain during the trip as most of the Vietnamese couldn't talk fluently/understand English, yet they trying hard to help us in ordering food, pointing us the right way to go and etc. I might go back again, still didn't have enough time to unveil every pretty little thing over there. Oh yeah, in case you don't know, Vietnam is in the list for Top 10 Safest Asian Countries for Female Traveler [link], if you girls plan to have a solo travel, you can refer to this list. Till then for next update.

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I'm finished with fins.

Souvenirs

October and November (and maybe December) are becoming the travel season, you will get to see friends posted photos or tagged themselves at International Airport elsewhere. I also get some souvenirs from friends and colleagues, I gave some but I did not get enough souvenirs at Vietnam and end up I gave all the souvenirs to others while I left with nothing. I don't mind at all as long as they are happy. Decided to have a post with all the souvenirs I got before proceed to post the Vietnam trip. Procrastinating again. 

People tend to get nougat and pineapple cake whenever they go to Taiwan, which Taiwan really famous with. I just realized I keep eating these things for whole year long, maybe our company do intake Taiwanese trainees and they will get us these as well. The plum sweet is meh, so I didn't grab much of the sweets. Got the alcohol (the tiny bottle) and I'm not gonna drink this, just for decoration.

The best souvenir you can get in Hong Kong is their variety of cookies; I got some and just took these few to blog. Thanks to Jhu babe for the postcard which drawn by Chailie Ho, but guess what it was not posted to my house; she got this and pass it to me hand-to-hand. Laugh. On the other hand, I got the Winnie the Pooh key-chain from my colleague, TY, which he bought from Disneyland. 

Bangkok is like a shopping paradise for all girls, but surprisingly my colleagues MH and her friends just spend around half day for shopping; they actually hunting on food for the rest of time. Glad that she bought me this, my room now is full with iPhone casing, but I still ask my sister (she going to there on next 2 weeks) to get me some from there, since it's so cheap over there compare to here. 

Last but not least, got this cutie pie (body lotion) from Florence, I was actually planning to get one because it looks so cute, she also get us the pencil box from Teddy Bear Museum! I asked her help me to get the spoon and chopsticks set for me, 4 pairs for only RM8; kind of worth it isn't it? I'm quite into Korea, not because of their k-pop star (but Running Man is!), but for their food. Om nom nom.

Thanks!

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It's On-Call 36 Hours again.

Kaffa Espresso Bar

Backdated post. I should post this right before my Vietnam trip 2 weeks ago but I was so busy packing my luggage and scaling the weight until I have no mood for blogging. I need to pick up my enthusiasm to blog, and that can make me feel good I think. 

I think I mentioned before that I love to explore new places during weekdays as we don't have to squeeze with the crowd, and I don't really enjoy the environment; depends on circumstances of course. Feel lucky that I do not work on Friday, good company? Come and join us at Mini-Circuits Technologies then, promo for my company. ROFL. Back to topic. Every time I pass by the Green Hall road, the GOOD COFFEE HERE sign will always caught my attention without fail and I finally paid my visit to Kaffa Espresso Bar. Yii-hah!

You may need to place your order at their counter, pick a number, wait for the waiters to serve you and enjoy the cozy ambiance. 

Kaffa Espresso Bar provided spacious area for dine-in and chill-out, each of the corner with different design but nevertheless each of the design is with a little bit of vintage, retro and quaint. Since it was noon time during my visit, outdoor will definitely a nay for me (you may consider outdoor seats during night time, will be a awe experience with zephyr); I chose to face The Beatles painting.

Present to you the second floor with a solo exhibition by Rofi, so called PSYCHE; the exhibition dates is until 7-Dec-13. Rofi enjoys painting faces and figures, he embarks on a psychological study of the face. Feel free to pay a visit before it's off. 

Random shots while waiting for my food.

Cappuccino (RM10) . Salted Caramel Macchiato (RM12.50)

Guess which would be my cuppa of coffee? Grin. Definitely the salted caramel macchiato, no prize for those who got it correctly. My first choice will always goes to this prior others, I just love beverages with pinch of salt which tickle my tastebuds for a little. The taste of caramel doesn't overwhelm by the salt yet you can taste some saltiness in every snifter. The cappuccino seems too normal. 

Big Bites All-Day Long Breakfast Platter . RM18.90

Wonder why I ordered this breakfast platter during the lunch hour? I just simply feel that by looking at this hearty platter already make me drool so much, and I don't want to have sandwiches and burgers for my lunch. When the waiter served this up, I had some hard time on how am I going to start this platter; after-all I started with the bread and the slice of turkey ham (or beef bacon on your choice) is meant to stuff into the bread. Platter consist of scrambled eggs (milk makes the eggs so juicy with smooth texture), a golden hash brown, one jumbo chicken sausage, sauteed mushrooms and grilled tomato (both of these are my favorite, just the sauteed mushrooms are a little bit too salty on my last few bites). 

Creamy Tomato and Chicken Spaghetti . RM20.90

Other than the breakfast platter, this is the second highlight of the day. Unlike other bolognese spaghetti, the chef cooks this with tomato puree (I believe so as it really taste different) and the mix of cherry tomatoes and chicken cubes are kind of delectable. It finished up with blend of cream and parmesan cheese, sprinkle some basil leaves on top and here come our spaghetti. Normally I can only have this creaminess from cabonara spaghetti but I can have the same taste from this dish its own. 

Kaffa Espresso Bar served food with no pork, it's a great news for my Malay friends. Currently they are expanding their business and you will see a branch at Penang International Airport pretty soon! Stay tuned for that and follow their Facebook for their updates. 

Kaffa Espresso Bar
Location: 22, Green Hall, 10200 Georgetown, Penang.
Business Hours: 8am - 10pm (Daily)
Contact Number: 04-2622822
Website: www.mykaffa.com
Facebook: Kaffa Espresso Cafe - Green Hall

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Please wait for my Vietnam trip blog post . Coming soon