A Visit to the Park

Last Sunday, I decided to bring my daughter to a place with a bigger playground. There are a few playgrounds around my neighbourhood and Clarisse had visited a few of them. This time around, I decided to bring her to somewhere which I passed by many times but had never step foot into the place until last Sunday.

Taman Jaya is a park nearby Federal Highway which has a lake in the middle of the park. The lake has been a popular fishing spot for people who has the patience in angling or fishing. Everytime I passed by Taman Jaya on the lrt, I can see many people exercising in the park, adults jogging around the lake, kids immensing themselves on the playground. Life is a bliss seeing everyone enjoying themselves and sharing laughters and moments of togetherness.

The playground is well-maintained overall. The rides and plays still look new at least. I didn't have the opportunity to jog around the park though as has been entasked to look after personal properties since my wife accompanies Clarisse in playing the rides at the park. But I did get a walk around the lake with the family before we headed home. At the same time, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to snap some photos of the park and the playground.

The rides still look well-maintained

A monument in the park

Lots of fun for the kids

Various exercise equipment for adults

Another playground area in Taman Jaya

Tarzan on the chain? Or Spiderman?

Various fountain points on the lake

My favourite photo - a reflection of the TNB building

A Less Than Wonderful Lunch

Last Saturday, I took a nice afternoon drive to Subang Jaya for a lunch at Allegro Café Trattoria Italiana. Subang Jaya always hold a fond memory for me as I received my tertiary education there before moving to Perth for my final year. In total, I spent about 2.5 years in Subang.

Allegro Café is not hard to find as I know my way pretty well along SS15 as well as I have looked up the place from Google Map. What surprised me is that most of the roads in SS15 have been turned into a 1-way street and you have to drive a big round if you overshoot your spot.

Allegro is an Italian café nicely situated on the 1^st floor of a 3-storey shoplot. The deco is very warm and relaxing. You certainly feel at ease with the choice of colour and furnitures in this café. There are about 10 tables inside the café while the balcony holds 2 tables that easily seat 3-4 persons per table.

Our balcony seat oversee nice garden deco

As I reached Allegro around 1:00pm, the place is already packed with diners. Armed with my Groupon voucher which gave me a wonderful Italian lunch cuisine for 2 pax at RM20 only instead of RM90! The waiter told me that all the tables inside the café are fully taken. Luckily, I saw an empty table at the balcony area and quickly asked for its availability. “Yes! You can sit there” was the best 4 welcoming words at that point in time.

In about 5 minutes, a Caucasian came to our table with the menu. I presume he’s the boss by the authoritative ways he speaks. Let’s call him the Boss right now. The menu is a tad disappointing as it just a sheet of A4 paper with a fix menu printed menu of in. You have a mushroom soup with garlic bread, a choice of 3 different spaghetti to choose from, a drink and an ice-cream dessert. I made my decision very quickly as it’s a simple menu which my wife was undecisive over the which of the 3 spaghetti to choose from. It was less than 30 seconds for her to decide but Mr Boss is already running out of patient and asked us to decide fast. I do understand that the place is packed to the brim and there are 2 waiters serving the hungry lunch pack but at least he can be more courteous. Annoyed by Mr Boss’ attitude, both of us ordered the same main course and drinks.

While waiting for our set to come to our table, we saw more and more diners coming in with vouchers which I presume must have purchased from Groupon. They all left with disappointment as there’s really no more empty tables. Waiting is not an option as the café is compact and does not have a designated waiting area. Mr Boss decided to bring our ice lemon tea after more than 20 minutes. And 10 minutes later, our mushroom soup and garlic bread came. I find the ice lemon tea lacking the tea flavour while the mushroom soup is a bit salty for my liking but my wife thinks the mushroom soup tasted OK for her.

Mushroom soup and ice lemon tea

After being glued to our seat for about 1 hour from when we first sat down, Mr Boss came back with our main course. How wrong was I to think that since it’s a set lunch, the meals will be served fast. I totally got no idea why it took 1 hour for the main course to be served! When the spaghetti arrived, I was dumbfounded. To think that this meal is originally worth RM90 for 2 must be a big joke. The spaghetti is really a small portion. I would think that this meal is worth RM10 instead of RM45 per person! The serving is really small even for a small eater like myself. I quickly chow down my spaghetti in no time seeing that the café is getting more and more crowded with so eager diners coming in and leaving in disappointment as all the tables are taken.

Though nicely flavoured, it's really a small plate

After finishing the main course, Mr Boss came out again with the ice-cream. This time I am totally convinced my meal should rightly cost RM10. The single scoop of ice-cream is pathetically small. Mr Boss is so courteous to serve the ice-cream without a spoon. Maybe he does expect us to swallow the whole scoop since it’s such a small scoop. Furthermore, he has the guts to say “After you all are done with the ice-cream, you all can leave. They’re many people waiting to be seated.” That was said when he served the ice-cream without the spoon. While we were seating on the bench, looking at the ice-cream melting away before the presence of the spoon, Mr Boss has moved on to take orders from other tables. He doesn’t even want to care if you need to scoop the ice-cream with your fingers or swallow the whole mini scoop. You just have to wait for your spoon to arrive like how you wait for 1 hour for your main course to arrive. YOU JUST HAVE TO WAIT !!

Never will I step foot into this place again. Totally disappointed….