There is this new place in town - not sure how new but one that I have recently discovered (thanks to a friend of mine) and it is the most peculiar place yet (in every way that is good, of course). Rustic, classic and nostalgic are adjectives that I would choose to describe this place, with brick and mortar walls, heavy, wooden framed sliding doors at the main entrance and big swinging doors on at the side entrance, menu items written on chalkboards overhanging the cashier.

Let's not forget to mention the décor - wooden stools with steel frame legs, a huge slab of wood as a tabletop, another glass tabletop supported with an array of twisted and twining wood, the vintage artwork printed on pieces of metal sheets, the cemented sink - MK Classico Caffe is a class on its own.

Before diving into the menu, let's highlight the venue. MK Classico Caffe is located on Jalan Tabuan. Kuchinglites would probably NOT know where that particular road is because we don't go by road names, we go by landmarks. Drive up to Ting & Ting Supermarket, pass Borneo Hotel, pass the road that leads up to Pullman (Jalan Mathies) and you should be able to see the large MK Classico logo on the side of the building to your left. Other prominent landmarks is Pete's Western, Ming Corner, Lok Lok and Ruai bar a little up the road just off the roundabout. I'd like to show you a map, but MK Classico is yet to be listed on Google Maps. 

*update: MK Classico Caffe is now on Google Maps! Get your driving direction by following the link in the map. 


On to the menu!

They do have wonderful range of food - from local titbits to western courses, from Cajun burgers to sloppy joe an some pies and pastries in the middle. Between the three of us the other night, we couldn't possibly order everything on the menu so we settled on these instead. 

1. Striploin Steak.

Yeah I honestly don't know what that was so I looked it up. The strip steak is a cut of beef steaks from the short loin. It consists of a muscle that does little work, making the meat particularly tender though not as tender as the nearby rib eye or tenderloin. Fat content of the strip is somewhere between the two cuts. Unlike the tenderloin, the short loin is a sizeable muscle, allowing it to be cut into the larger portions. There you go, you learn something new everyday. 

Portion-wise, I was hoping for it to be a bigger - but that's just me being Asian (LOL). It's actually just a nice portion, and I am glad it was served in a traditional manner - with a piece of garlic bread, vege and mashed potato. The steak itself, served with a generous amount of black pepper sauce was good. The meat juicy and tender, and quite enjoyable. 

2. Cajun Chicken Burger

Cajun is a member of any of the largely self-contained communities in the bayou areas of southern Louisiana formed by descendants of French Canadians, speaking an archaic form of French. When it comes to food, anything that is 'Cajun' is usually spicy - and by spicy it refers to cumin, coriander, paprika, oregano, basil etc. A good Cajun spice is based on the first three (owh look who's the new masterchef now! LOL)

By all means, the Cajun chicken burget at MK Classico Caffe is great! The sesame bun was soft, chicken was tender, vege was crispy with just a nice amount of mayonnaise. However, it did felt like it could've been more - I was waiting for the 'kick' - but as it turns out, it was another very well executed chicken burger. 

3. Chicken Schnitzels

This is a dish I am well acquainted with. the word schnitzel, is German, literally translated as slice. A chicken schnitzel, therefore is a slice of chicken (I'd be more than happy to have a couple more on my plate though >.<). The style of cooking a schnitzel is to coat it with a generous amount of breadcrumb before frying. 

So, when it arrived, instead of a schitzel (or two) I got chicken julienne. Strips of chicken coated in breadcrumbs and fried. I immediately told my waitress that I ordered chicken schnitzels, not chicken nuggets, and she answered that that was their version of schnitzel. To be fair, I may have missed the small print on the menu on how it was served, but as far as taste goes, it was awesome. 

Think of it this way - if you read novels (LotR, Harry Potter, Narnia etc.) you'll know that there are a wide variety of covers to choose from. The story is the same, but the covers are different. This is as if I wanted a hard cover but got paperback instead. I enjoyed it just the same. 


We also ordered some drinks to go with the food (cuz we don't wanna risk choking ourselves). My friends went traditional and ordered tea. Me? Haha! Chocolate lovers are gonna love this! MK Classico Cafe is the only place I know so far in Kuching that serves NUTELLA MILKSHAKE! OMG I almost died and went to heaven at first sip! (ok, a tad dramatic but whatever!) It was seriously that good, and you can take that to the bank! It was soooooo good I'm not even gonna share the photo with you (actually it was gone by the time I remembered to take photos of it.. sowweeehhh! )

I've visited MK Classico Caffe a few time since, and was never let down by the food and the service. Do note that it is almost always a full house, so be prepared to stand in line if it turns out that way. A tip is to check their Facebook Page to see if they're open for business, and when you're there, don't forget to check in on Facebook, take lots of photos, tag their Instagram and tweet with #MKClassicoCaffe‬! 



Here are some photo's for you to enjoy!

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*The above are the writer's own personal opinion and was not endorsed by MK Classico Caffe or any other third party.

I made a note to come to Merdeka Plaza today and have a look at #hivkuchingawarenessday campaign. It's high time that awareness campaigns like this be held more and more - and to add a value to it so that it achieve its intended purpose. For me, personally, this time, this campaign, is just like any other campaigns is well organised, well coordinated and well executed. I just wished our audience would be more of an active participator even if just cheering for the DJ and emcee, rather than passive onlookers. 

The Event

In the effort to raise awareness of HIV as well as other STD, #HIVKCHAWARENESSDAY is a community event supported by Sarawak AIDS Concern Society (SACS). According to the project manager of the society Rahmah Nicholls, discrimination against AIDS patient did not come from the government, but rather from the society as a whole. She further stated that "Due to the stigma placed on them, those reputed don’t go to the government hospital. This is a difficult area for surveillance" (BorneoPost Online, Feb 21, 2014)

The Sarawak AIDS Concern Society was initially set up in 1998. As a non-profit organisation, its main objective is to address AIDS related issues in Sarawak through the dissemination of information on the disease. It also aims to protect the rights of those living with AIDS as well as to support the families of those affected by AIDS.  

The Objective

1. To reject myths and misconceptions and fight HIV/AIDS related discrimination.
2. To raise awareness on sexually transmitted diseases and help young people to understand the dangers of the disease better
3. To change the “passive cultural’ through education on social environment. 

Perhaps to aid the first objective, I wish to enlighten those not in the know that HIV and AIDS are, in fact, two different conditions related to one another. HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus that infects a human through close contact with HIV infected body fluids - blood, semen and vaginal secretion are some of the examples of such body fluids. It does not, however, infect through saliva and sweat. Persons who has HIV are referred to HIV positive, and without is referred to as HIV negative. According to statistics, 169 cases of HIV positive cases has been reported in Sarawak in 2011. The number decreases to 147 cases in the following year, while in 2013, just last year, the number jumps to 190 reported cases. Do remember that these are reported cases. In many instances, persons who are HIV positive shows no particular symptom and live a healthy life until diagnosed.

AIDS, on the other hand, is a classification of the persons who are HIV positive with their CD4 count falling below 200. CD4 is a type of protein that is found on the surface of immune cells - the lower the count, the lower the body's resistance to infection and diseases, and the slower the body recovers from them. AIDS patients can also be classified when they acquire HIV-related infection such as tuberculosis (TB) as well as other various infections (honestly, the scientific names just escapes me).

In short, while the terms HIV/AIDS are commonly used together, a person may be HIV positive but never developed AIDS even towards the end of his life, but if a person is classified as an AIDS patient, his is therefore HIV positive. 

The Social Stigma

It has always been a society ruling that persons living with HIV/AIDS are sinners by default. Such prejudice against them is so thick in the society that we live in that it's almost tangible. Added with the singular knowledge that this is a "gay's disease", the persons living with the condition is condemned for the rest of his life, and even after his passing. 

This is not completely true, though. In fact, it is completely false. Numbers of new HIV/AIDS cases involving heterosexual sex is increasing in the United States. Closer to home, in Sarawak, state Health Director Datu Dr Zulkifli Jantan told The Borneo Post that most of the reported cases are male and transmission was from a heterosexual relationship. Such stigma and prejudice is unjust and barbaric, and should be purged from the society. 

Community Awareness and Support

Events such as these: #hivkchawarenessday, small as it may be, is a great start and provides continuity in the support of persons living with HIV/AIDS and those affected by it. It might be a small move, but I've always been a believer in the saying Rome wasn't built in a day. It makes me sad to admit that I am one of those few affected by HIV/AIDS, having made privy to the secret that the community believes should be kept between four walls and closed doors.

It was also the missing element in the campaign that was organised by SACS. No, I am not asking for those living with the condition and those affected by it to come forth and announce to the world - though I am not against that as well if it's to raise awareness. The campaign only showcased one side of the story - prevention. It is better than cure, but to those already living with it and to those affected by it, their input and contribution is just as valuable.

We all have a story to tell, and theirs are extraordinary. Once made privy, instead of pity or sorry, you suddenly gain a higher sense of understanding and a totally different perspective of life. The value that visitors take home with them even after just being a passive bystander is what I would like to see.

How? is the question to ask. In this era where communication is supported by technology, I am quite surprised to find that the event did not have it's own Facebook page. But that's on the promotion side. I believe Plaza Merdeka has very good and diverse traffic. Like I said earlier, the value that the community can take home is much more worthwhile in achieving the objective of the awareness campaign.

I look forward to an awareness campaign whereby visitors can engage with the persons living with HIV/AIDS and the persons affected by it through multimedia interaction should there be a need to protect the identities. Audio and visual recordings, two way interaction through multimedia applications, or even a creative representation of the daily life of persons living with HIV/AIDS can effectively show how their lives are no different than ours. That way, perhaps we can address the social stigma that was imposed to them, and remove the stone hard prejudice against them once and for all. 

Here are some of the photos I managed to snap during the event.

Did you know that the 4th of March is the National Grammar Day? Bet you didn't! The part of the world that I live in has little concern over National Grammar Day. Having said that, the schools I've attended when I was younger; as in about a decade ago (OMG! that's young?!!) still has English Observation Day for one whole day every week. I never had too much problems with it, but I do remember my classmates and friends struggling a little - having fined 10 cents per non-English word spoken. I digress. >.<

Sometime not so long ago, I remember posting a blog entry of The Chaos, a poem by Gerard Nolst Trenite. The poem itself highlights about 800 irregularities in the English language. You can have a go at it here.

This time round, I'm going to be talking about grammar and how some sentences can sound crazy, but are grammatically and sensibly correct.

Let's start off with a line from Grucho Marx :

One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I'll never know. 

Those with a perverted mind (like me) gets it the first time. For those of you who are innocent, let's corrupt you! Muahahaa!!!

Take advantage of the fact that the same sentence can have more than one structure. Consider the first sentence :

[One morning] [I shot an elephant] [in my pyjamas].

[One morning] [I shot] [an elephant in my pyjamas].

Got you thinking yet?

Let's move on, shall we?

The horse raced past the barn fell. 

hamaigaad.. what the fish?! (as my good friend would put it). Hold on to your horses, readers - I promise you will be amazed! If you do study grammar to the letter, then you would know all about reduced relative clause. In a nutshell, this particular clause allows us to restructure our sentence from, for example, "The mobile phone that his uncle gave got broken" to "The mobile phone given by his uncle got broken".

Has the realization setlled in yet? No? Well, consider the following :

The horse [that was] raced past the barn, fell.

I added the comma before fell to help you out. Get it now?


Let's move on. I promise I have a lot more baffling sentences that are still grammatically and sensibly correct!

Let's try this one out.

The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. 

This one is simple. >.< . I'll give you a hint : Try to identify the nouns, verbs and adjectives.

---------Hey, no peeking! Give it a go first!----------

---------Can you make sense of the sentence on your own?----------

"Complex" is so commonly used as an adjective - a complex problem, a complex arrangement etc. However, consider it as a noun - a housing complex, an apartment complex etc.

"Houses" is also commonly used as a noun, but in this sentence, it played the role of a verb.

As for "married', it usually is a past tense of the verb "marry", but let's change it's role here to an adjective and voila!

[The complex] [houses] [married and single soldiers and their families].

Feel free for laughing your butt off for reading that as

[The complex houses] [married] [and .... well you didn't even finish the whole sentence, did you?


March 4th!!

The rat the cat the dog chased ate the malt. 

Hehe! Let it be known that by now, I am smirking at your misery and pain! (yeah I'm sadist that way).

This is a good example of multiple center embedding in English language - meaning putting a clause in another clause. In this case, look at the 'malt'. What happened to it? The 'malt' was 'eaten'. By what? Can you continue from there?

If you can figure out the sentence above, take a piece of paper (or copy and paste this next sentence into a word processor and try to make a sense out of it.

Anyone who feels that if so many more students whom we haven’t actually admitted are sitting in on the course than ones we have that the room had to be changed, then probably auditors will have to be excluded, is likely to agree that the curriculum needs revision.

If you've made it this far (with maybe one or two extra wrinkles), CONGRATULATIONS!!! Here's a riddle to just relax yourself. Just remember, sometimes, it's ok to take things literally.

What is a word made up of 4 letters yet is also one made out of 3. Although is written with 8 letters, and then with 4. Rarely consists of 6, and never written with 5. 

<<< Good luck! >>>

Though I'm proud to say that I like to read, that given the choice to be paid to read I would probably become a millionaire very very quickly, I'd like to clarify that I don't remember too much of what I read. More than "not being able to remember", I'd say I "don't want to remember because I tend to live inside the novel and get caught in my vivid imagination". Sounds crazy, I know, but trust me, I have been know to drive myself crazy. 

The Yellow Birds is such a book that would drive me insane. Written by Kevin Powers, a veteran of war himself who enlisted with the army and joined the Iraq war serving as a machine gunner, The Yellow Birds was something like a memorabilia of his experience of war. Set in the northern city of Al Tafar in the eyes of Private John Bartle, the book tells a story of a brotherhood of men in the army, of a broken promise and of betrayal. 

21-years-old Private Bartle together with 18-years-old Private Daniel Murphy enlisted into the army and was placed under the command of Sergeant Sterling - a decorated war veteran. The sergeant, worn and battle-scarred, would punch them in the face one moment and clap them in the back the next, as they together with the rest of their platoon endured basic training. 

Before their deployment, Private Bartle made a promise to the mother of Private Murphy that he would take care of his son. It was revealed that the promise would be broken in the early chapters of the book, and it was Sergeant Sterling who stressed that such promises should never have been made in the first place. 

The book was non-lineally structured - jumping between the years of which Private Bartle and Private Murphy fought in the war to when Private Bartle returned home, without private Murphy with him thus breaking the promise he made, to the brief time they had spent in Germany for their post-battle health evaluation, and finally when Private Bartle was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Division for the crime he and Sergeant Sterling committed regarding the death of Private Murphy. 

The climax of the book, in my opinion is when Private Bartle returned home to his mother. and began reflecting on the things he did back in Iraq. He felt like he did not fit into the society - whom was very grateful for his service but to him he was wrong for returning home unharmed while some of his army-men never had the chance to return at all. As he drank and slept his days away, counting the second when the CID would finally catch him, he reflected on the promise that he made to Private Murphy's mother, how he should've seen how Privatee Murphy began to lose himself to the war, and how he felt responsible for not setting Private Murphy straight. 

This is my first book with army and war theme in background, but more than that the inner-thoughts that made up for chase scene made up of words and phrases, like music that crescendos into fast paced allegro vivace to a melancholy adagio, it carries me to a different world - an slight and if only made-up understanding of the state of a soldier returning from war. I find myself worrying about our own men coming back home from war, and I hope they don't go through what Kevin Powers describe it to be in this book. 

Driving around Kuching is an experience by itself, and I find it (mostly) calming (minus traffic jam, accidents and pot holes on certain roads). On more than a few occations driving along Jalan Sherip Masahor heading towards the Third Mile roundabout, a banner would catch my eye : Chef at Home. I never did got the chance to try dining there, mainly because I don't have any company to try it out. 

They used to operate in a (what looked from the main road) big house with big compound, much like Swanky Sarah (this, however is located off Greenroad and is non-halal) but have since moved to a new location in the cluster of shophouses across Saberkas (nearby landmark would be the Astro office, Unimas Holdings / Klinik Sebayor, and SK St. Paul). Featuring Western Menus and local (as well as imported) coffee and tea (quite rare will you find eating pasta accompanied with nescafe or Milo) as well as signature desserts (which I forgot to try because I was too full!)

Going with a friend always adds more fun to trying out new things and places to eat. I went with a good friend sporting Baju Melayu in the spirit of Hari Raya Aidilfitri - albeit having Western dishes for dinner! 

Although the new Chef at Home is located on the ground floor of a shoplot, they managed to create a somewhat homey ambiance : well spaced tables, seats for four (and less), seats for 6 and two family size tables with probably 8 or 10 seats. Me and my friend sat on one end of this table while a family of three sat on the other end with plenty of spaces between us. There is also an indoor section if you prefer it. One of the drawback was that since it is a shoplot, parking space literally meets the outdoor seatings, so when the drivers park into or exit out of the parking, you get the gas smell from their exhaust for those few moments as the car engine runs. 

That aside, me and my friend agreed on a main course each and share a bowl of soup. Because it was my first time, I let my friend select the soup (plus I wasn't really that interested in soup - until it arrived, that is!). I didn't pay attention when he placed the order : Mushroom Soup served in a Bread Bowl. I figured since we're sharing then together with the soup was a bowl of bread - again not putting any more thought into how wrong that actually was! When it arrived, the 5-year-old in me popped out in awe, because the soup was literally served in a bowl made out of bread!

Mushroom Soup served in a Bread Bowl

Next to come was my main course : Cheesy Linguine in Carbonara Sauce. I love pasta, and between the common Bolognaise and Carbonara, I prefer the later because of the creamy taste that fills me up with delight! >.<!  A few minutes later came my friend's main dish : Beef Steak cooked medium. On the side was some carrots, broccoli and potato stewed in aluminium foil. 

Cheesy Linguine in Carbonara Sauce -->

<-- Beef Steak cooked to medium

I have to say I rather enjoyed myself dining at Chef at Home. On a yummy scale of 0 to 5 where 0 is blueeekkkk! yucksss!! and 5 is THAT WAS SCRUMPTIOUSLY DELIGHTFUL CAN I HAVE SECONDS AND THIRDS PLEASE??!!! I would say the soup was a 4.5, linguine carbonara a 4 and the steak a 4.5 (because I wish there was a proper salad instead of just a couple of cut carrots and broccoli). I also wished they'd be a little more creative with putting up the sign for the new location (because it is at a shoplot) to add something like Away from home! or something since they no longer operate literally from a house. Then again, my two cents on this matter does not in any way hamper quality of food and services at Chef at Home. Definitely coming back here!