Month: March 2010

Great Free Kitchen Design Planning Software

I find myself at a dead-end whenever I try to figure out what I want to do with my new kitchen. I mean, I have a general feeling and idea of what I want: industrial, heavy duty and still cosy but for the life of me, I’m not able to find any remotely close inspirational pictures on Google images. I guess it’s not easy…how the heck do you combine industrial and “still cosy” together aye? I know -_-

So I searched around the Internet for a software that allows me to design a kitchen without needing to know any 3D rendering skill. The most popular one seems to be the one from Ikea, but I found the kitchen planning tool limited and the 3D render not so impressive. I’ve also tried Google SketchUp before. Well, it’s not for the fainthearted as you’d end up with a gigantic fridge and a oven fit for the use of an ant. Crazy ratios -_-

After searching around more, I landed on a website called Free Kitchen Design Software. To be honest, I was very skeptical because of how the website looks like. It’s dated and looks more like a spam site then a genuine website. The URL alone screams spam central. I don’t know what possessed me but I thought I’d give it a try and I’m glad I did.

What I found far exceeded my expectations!!!

#1 – You can customise the size of your space, number of windows, doors and their positions.

#2 – Then you can drag all the wall cabinets, floor cabinets, appliances and other things onto the 2D plan of your kitchen.

#3 – You can also customise the colours of almost everything including cabinet handles, floor finishes, wall finish, cabinet material, worktop material etc. It’s awesomesauce to the max!

#4 – You can only drag the objects onto the 2D plan but you can view the results in 3D. This is my favourite part of the software :)

Think the colours are a bit depressing eh? No problem! Just click the Design button and fix it there.

#5 – Wooden cabinets for a fresher look. You can also rotate the 3D render to view it from a different perspective.

You see what I mean by how versatile this software is? It is also very stable, unlike the Ikea kitchen planning tool which have a tendency to hang on my computer. That said, there are still several things that I feel are lacking on it, primarily the objects. I want wall cabinets that suspend from ceilings as well as aluminum shelves, which they don’t have. I don’t like the gap between ceiling and cabinets cause it’s gateway to dusty-ville.

So, while I can kind of visualise more accurately how my kitchen will look like with this application, it’s still not 100%. I’m leaving that to a good friend who is a kitchen designer. Happy kitchen planning!

Grilled goodies at Yakiniku

Thanks to Ah Ring, #porkgang got to enjoy some yakiniku at Yakiniku, Pandan Indah. It’s very near my parents’ place so I was pretty excited to discover a new place to eat near where I grew up.

To go to Yakiniku, just drive as though you’re going to Steven’s Corner. Once Steven’s on your left, go straight and turn left at the traffic lights. Then turn right when you see Hong Leong bank. Yakiniku is right opposite the bank.

# Some porkers.

# 2 porkers.

Food was pretty good, especially for the price. Like a plate of pork bacon slices goes from RM5.90.

# The grill.

# Yummy mussels with butter, pork slices and enoki mushrooms.

# Spot the awesomesauce marinated chicken gizzards. I practically nommed the entire plate.

# More chicken gizzards with sweet corn.

# One way to eat the delicious grilled meat is wrapped in lettuce then dipped in the special sauce.

Besides grilled stuff, they also serve other ala-carte dishes.

# Kimchi fried rice. If you love kimchi, you’d love this.

# Kimchi soup. Wholesome and tasty.

# Deep fried soft shelled crab. Crispy!

# Chicken katsu don. Delicious and light.

Yakiniku also has a huge selection of rather sweet but very addictive drinks. If you want to lay off the sugar, they do have good old green tea and fantastic sour plum ice blended.

The best thing about Yakiniku?? It is pet-friendly! Charlie, Fatty, Ally and Koyuki were sitting INSIDE the restaurant with us. Of course, if you’re thinking of bringing your furkids anywhere, make sure they are well-behaved in the 1st place ya? :)

I’d highly recommend Yakiniku. True, the food is not amazingly great but really exceeded the quality you might have expected with the price. It’s a place to go when you’re bored with your regular choices of food. The atmosphere is nice and comfortable, service is great and it’s dog-friendly.

p/s: pictures were taken with my Bold2. Not too bad aye? :)

Restaurant Yakiniku
20G, Jalan Pandan Indah 4/8, Pandan Indah, 55100 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03 4295 4833

My favourite cendol in the world.

I love cendol more than ais kacang. Whenever I go to Malacca, there’s one place that I definitely won’t miss, because it has the most awesomesauce cendol in the whole wide world.

The place is called Jonker88.

First of all, my apologies for my dreadful style of blogging – completely devoid of charisma and my usual banter sort off. I have successfully exhausted all creativity and energy into work. So I’m just going to be simple, succinct and straightforward.

Jonker88 is awesomesauce to the max.

# Jonker88.

It’s the home to a quaint stall that sells all kinds of ice shaving goodies and of course the ultimate cendol.

# The menu.

The stall is operated by a middle-aged lady and boy is she fast. I never really had to queue for more than a minute even at its busiest time.

# The proprietor and her assistant.

The cendols they sell are a class of its own. The gula melaka (palm sugar) they use is thick, sticky and very fragrant. The way it becomes chewy upon contact with the ice shaving is unlike anything I’ve tasted in my life. Other cendols that use watered down palm sugar just pale in comparison to Jonker88’s cendol.

I mean, just check out this beauty!

# Sticky, gooey gula melaka drizzled all over the coconut-cream soaked ice-shavings with bouncy cendol and red beans buried underneath.

The atmosphere of the place is also something worth noting. Housed in an old Baba Nyonya house converted into a restaurant cum art gallery, eating there is like travelling back in time.

# The beautiful converted Baba Nyonya traditional house.

It remains to be seen whether I’ll find any other cendol that could match the one from Jonker88. I really don’t care, I hope it sticks around forever.

# Nom nom nom.

Jonker88 also has another stall that sells delicious looking assortment of laksa noodles. I’ve never tried it, but I heard they are pretty good too.

Jonker Dessert 88
88, Jalan Hang Jebat,
75200 Melaka