Photo & Film Workshop with the Hutchens Bros.

The Hutchens Brothers, Jeff and Peter, Award Winning National Geographic Channel Photographer and Filmmaker duo shared with enthusiasts about their journey in making  the Somewhere In China documentary for the National Geographic Channel.

They started the workshop off with an introduction of their life, their younger days growing up in Harbin, China and how they persevered from getting their initial proposal rejected to finally realizing their dreams in doing this 6 episode documentary. (more…)

Restaurant Chicken Hot Pot

If you’re looking for a fast food restaurant but not the conventional ones, here’s one you could look at. The place is known as Restaurant Chicken Hot Pot. They presently have 2 branches, the 1st is in Kuchai Lama and the 2nd one is located at Kepong. I do travel to Kepong quite often and it’s a surprise that I’ve not really seen this restaurant there despite it being there for a year plus (since March 2007). With Cheesie and Freaky to tag along with me, this is where we experience fast food like never before, well for me that is.

Why do I call it fast food? Well, when you walk into the restaurant, the place is lined with photos of various dishes you could order. There’s 5 main dishes and a number of side dishes that you can choose from. As there’s only 5 main dishes to focus on, their kitchen can prepare and have it ready in a jiffy, hence the fast food concept.

I was recommended 3 dishes by the boss of the place and as soon as I’ve placed my order, the food was served all within the time span of less than 3 minute. It’s fast!

The first one served was the signature dish, the Chicken Hot Pot. Its tender chicken served in a pot of the famous sauce that’s used across all the Chicken Hot Pot chain. You can choose from 3 levels of spiciness depending on how you hot you want it to be. The nice thing here is, the chicken used here isn’t your normal chicken that is used by most restaurant and fast food chains but are free range chickens which are high quality chickens when you talk about chicken meat.

The next dish that came out was the Dinosaur Ribs. Basically its pork ribs cooked in gravy, which tasted like TGIF’s lamb shanks if you’ve tasted it before. The ribs are so well cooked that when you bite into the meat, you can just rib the bone out with ease. Now, just like the chicken dish, the dinosaur ribs are cooked in imported sauces and spices straight from China. After all, this restaurant chain is from China. Again, you can choose from 3 levels of spiciness as well for this dish.

The final dish served was the Scandalously Spicy Shrimp, with only 1 choice of spice level, you can’t really go wrong with it. I love my prawns and I totally clean out this dish despite it above my tolerance level.  Now, you might think with these 3 dishes, that’s it for the dishes right? Well, you’re wrong. The other secret these 3 bowls of dishes have is that you could pour in soups pre-prepared by the restaurant into the bowls and you could select from their side dish collection vegetables, meat balls and meat ingredients to put in and make it into a steamboat dish.

It’s very different from the usual type of steamboat or hot pot we eat and it’s worth several visits. I’m definitely going back again as the owner of the local franchise informed me that I should make another trip back for their fish head dish which is locally made but is endorsed by the head office in China.

Price range for the Hot Pot? For a small Bowl, it’s RM16, medium sized is RM22 and the large bowl is RM30. The Scandalously Spicy Shrimp only comes in a medium sized bowl though. The side dishes ranges in prices depending on the type you pick.

Restaurant Chicken Hot Pot

11,Jln Metro Perdana Berat 2, Tmn Usahawan Kepong,Kepong Utara,51200 KL

Opening Hours:
11am to 12am

Ratings:
Food : 4/5
Service : 4/5
Cleaniness/Ambience : 4/5
Value for Money : 5/5

Is China ready for the Olympics?

Olympics is 8 days away, and the major question in everyone’s mind… IS CHINA READY FOR THE OLYMPICS?

Well, let’s look at some of the following photos to judge for yourself.

If this post offends anyone, well, it’s my blog and I post what I want. Got it? For the rest, hope you guys have a good laugh at those photos.

A Wedding To Remember in China

For most couples, their wedding photos are the most cherished of their posession, an album which they could show all their relatives and friends, children and even their future grand childrens. It’s one that tells the love that they have for each other and the wonderful moments they have together.

Now, with the recent May 12th Earthquake in China, some newly weds have even more stories to tell their future generations. I received this email from a fellow photographer recently that tells the tale of these couples that was involved in the 512 incident and I’m putting it here to share with those who are curious and wants to know.

At the famous 100-year-old Church of the Annunciation in Pengzhou, China.

Very early morning May 12, photographer Wang went about preparing to shoot wedding pictures for a young couple, this was the test shot before the shoot…

Pengzhou is located in the Sichuan province.  It was morning May 12, 2008.

And then it happened…. the earth quake! 7.8 on the Richter scale.

Bricks fall from the building during the earthquake, which turned Wang from a wedding photographer into a journalist.

‘Thank God we were only shooting from outside the church!’ remarked a helper.

The stunned couple huddles together at the church ground during initial tremors.

‘I shouted to people, ‘Run! Run!” said photographer Wang Qiang.
‘The ground shook and we couldn’t see anything in the dust.’

As the dust began to clear, the true extent of damage was only beginning to appear…

A cracked facade was all that remained of the 100-year-old Church of the Annunciation after the quake. Most of the church ‘collapsed in 10 seconds,’ said Wang, who lives in Chengdu, capital of hard-hit Sichuan province.

Soon after the quake, the people at the seminary set out for a nearby village, but residents warned them the route was blocked. ‘We could still hear landslides,’ Wang wrote in an online account of the disaster. So they stayed overnight in a tent and made it to the village the next day, thanks to help from a truck driver.

A scarf from a wedding dress lies forgotten in front of the seminary. Wang said he thought the catastrophe would strengthen the bonds of the couples who were there that day: ‘Having gone through a life-and-death test, they surely will clasp hands and grow old together.’

No one was harmed at the above location.

They’ll sure have a Wild story to tell there Children!

Broken English on Signboards in China

Received these images from an email about the english used in China. Good for laugh… not sure if these was done on purpose or that’s really how they spell those words.

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