Shabulicious Restuarant

We usually not  a big fan of steamboat or hot pot.  I dont know why but the inclination to try that never been there in our mind.  Funny right?  Afterall I think hot pot or soup based dishes could be tasty sometimes.  I dont remember when was the last time we had one.  I only had a blurred memory of one steamboat dinner we had when we were in Beijing back in 2008. 

But then last night out of nowhere I called my brother and asked him where is the best steamboat restaurant in town, and he recommended Shabulicious Restaurant at Batu Bersurat without hesitation.  He said they are good and the price was quite reasonable.  So we decided to give the place a visit and I am not dissapointed.  I love it! 

My brother and his wife have been here a few times so he explained to us on what or how to order and what to eat lol..  And they even recommended which dip sauce was the most delicious!

I love everything about the place.  The venue is quite chic and ultra modern, the set up is cozy and nice.  And the place is packed!  Luckily we booked a table earlier.  One long wide table could accomodate 10 pax or they divide it into two settings to be shared by two group of patrons and sectioned by a Shabulicious sign.  Clever!  They even have a side bar too.  Very similar concept with Excapade Sushi restaurants.

The menu was really extensive.  They have different portions of dishes or you could opt for set dishes with different prices.  Lots to choose from.  They also have lunch set.

Then at home I wonder what Shabu-Shabu is?????  Then I found out that Shabu-Shabu is a Japanese variant of hot pot.  It consists of different thinly sliced meat and vegetables dipped in different sauce, more here.  At Shabulicious, they go all the way with different types of seafood and all those thinly sliced meat to choose from.  Alhough last night I didnt get the chance to try the thinly slice meat at all.  Maybe I was just too overwhelmed with the whole thing hehehe.  A good enough reason for me to be back... Oh.. and I love their cencaluk sambal dip!  Yummy..

The exterior of the restaurant

The clan

Me occupying the corner part of the table

Studying the menu

My parents being served

Aeizul

As usual.. in the act hahaha

The utensils

Love the sign

The menu

Some of the items in the menu

The large set which costs B$8.00

The condiments or the dip or source, free flow...

The yellow noodles which cost B$2.00 per plate

My choice of source, the sauce on the right is awesome!

All the ingredients mixed together to come up with a delicious mee soup

Taddaaa............

My half drank drink

The place was packed

The damage hahaha..

 

Borneo Tropical Rainforest Resort - Part 2

Our night at the resort was peaceful and quiet until a big and noisy jungle cockroach decided to pay us a visit....

One hour after we went to bed, hubby and I were awakened by the noise of this big jungle creature humming around in the room.  We were both startled and didnt know what to make of the noise at first until we saw it flying to its next touch down! We were panicking and when I thought about it now its just so funny that we got scared of this creature, hubby didnt even dare to come out of his blanket and I came to the rescue by hitting it with a bundle of newspaper lol... And when it fell I put a cup on top of it so it didnt fly away again until we left the room the next morning.  We didnt remember to take a picture but it was really hilarious hehehe.

Anyway, the next day we decided to join the free resort tour.  The tour started around 10am after breakfast.  Breakfast was ok too, the venue was at  their One Tree Hill Cafe, outside the main building.  We didnt realise there were alot of people staying and having breakfast at the resort, it looked rather quite from where we stayed.

The tour was ok nothing special, we were taken around in a open bus like vehicle and then we got to go around the resort lake by a boat.  The tour brought us around the resort and we didnt really like the part where we had to pass by the animal and chicken farms because we thought its a bit unhealthy and unhygienic. It was smelly and some of the chicken looked sick!  The tour took around 1hr and 40minutes and it consisted of visiting the animal farms, the lake, the mini waterfall, the water park and walkabout along the wooden bridges, the same place that we explored the day before.

After the tour, we needed to check out and left the place.  We didnt have lunch at the resort so we left around lunch time.  Had dinner at Pizza Hut Miri and it was really yummy.  We also went to look for Durian and other fruits.  And there were so many of them with a very reasonable price.

The outing was ok though, I enjoyed it.  But I dont think we would be back, hubby didnt like it that much so it might be our first and last haha

Part of the One Tree Hill Cafe where we had our breakfast, completely disconnected from the main building

The walk way to the cafe

The cafe sign

You had to take off your foot wear before entering the cafe, dont know why and i dont think there is any reason at all, just to make it fancy I guess...

Some of the breakfast spread

Hubby helped himself with a cup of tea

Some of the guests having breakfast, I didnt see them around at the resort though except here

My breakfast

The rice porridge, my must have when I am on holiday

Enjoying our breakfast

The place where we waited for the transport for the resort tour

On the transport and ready to explore!

The tour guide giving a brief explaination of what we were about to see

We stopped at some area to explore on foot

Some of the birds we saw

The chickens, passing this area was really stink!

About to embank into the boat to tour the lake

Life jackets were provided

Ready to go!

Some of the resort staff did the kayaking on the lake

Scene where the tour guide gave food to the fish on the lake

People were excited to watch the fish scrawling to get to their food

The transport to bring us to the next stop

At one of our stop, the mini waterfall

Continue on...

Desnse jungle

Time to go back

Our room was here, taken during the resort tour

And thats it. 

Borneo Tropical Rainforest Resort - Part 1

Just wanted to post our short break here in this blog and not in my other holiday blog.  Too lazy to update there...

A quick and unplanned break for hubby, my daughter and I.  So short this break that it just flew by!

Hubby and I decided to spend the weekend away in Miri at the last minute, lucky we got a room.  We wanted to try and stay at the Borneo Tropical Rainforest Resort after reading and knowing about the resort.  Its quite far from Miri town, approx 36km away and another 3.9km from the gate of the resort to the main building  Didnt know what to expect except we know its right in the middle of the jungle.

And how true!  The resort is not that big, not that sprawling and hubby didnt like it much, he said he preferred to stay in beach resorts.  Which is quite true, its rather small and very quite.  Although they did offer alot of activities such as horse riding, kayaking, fox flying, abseiling and so on, with a price of course.

They offered different room and rates with packages.  We opted to go for Meranti package (thats the name of the room) with cost us around RM378 for one room on stilt facing the lake, breakfast and dinner, free nature walk, swimming pools and resort tour.

But I must say I like the room, it made up of wood (or timber?) not sure but its really cozy and clean.  So thats a plus.  And the room is on facing the lake (which I thought was a bit spooky hehe with the brown water and all).  But we were assured by the tour assistant that they dont have crocodiles there hehehe.

The place has mosquitoes too so dont forget to bring your insect repellent.

Another thing that I like was, the nature walk.  Its been a long time since I walked in the jungle.  Its quite serene, and I like the wooden bridges.  It did bring us closer to nature for a bit :)

What we didnt like is the location of the horse stable.  They are right at the side of the main building.  And when we arrived we were greeted with a strong and pungent smell of the horses poos and pees, yuck!

We did walk alot exploring the place in the afternoon so thats another plus to break some sweat.

We had a good dinner which started around 6.30pm and spent some quite quality time at the lobby after that which is rather nice for a change. 

Long queue at the border

After the border, we tried the Drive Thru Mc Donald in Miri



My first time trying the drive thru 



Lunch

Our daughter with her lunch, in the car!

On our way to the resort which was quite far, I think it took more than 30minutes to reach there

Almost there!

The sign board to show we had reached destination

The gate to the resort, where our car licence was recorded, another 3.9km to the main building, with not so good road inside

We had reached destination!

Checking in

On our way to our room, I like the wooden bridge

Our daughter enjoying our outing so far

To get to our room, we had to go down this wooden staircase, so exotic!

This is our room, really nice right?

The tv and side table

Our room facing the lake, view from the window.  But the water of the lake was brown and muddy, maybe because of the rain earlier, they said.

Me and hubby in our room

At the verandah in our room, quite spacious and quite

me enjoying the scenery

Hubby doing our nature walk

Look at our room, right in the middle of the jungle, nice....

The lobby of the resort

The lobby and reception area

View of the main building, where there is a new building being built

Exotic jungle flower

New building being built

Our daughter trying to climb the long wooden staircase, naahh... too tired to do that.

Enjoying our walk

At the water park, swimming pool

Jungle fever!

I like this picture, so serene.

Video time

Colourful boats

Dinner time

This eating establishment is Halal

Enjoy your food darling..

My dinner

Nice and quite

The dim light to our room at night. 

People who love nature must love this place!

OK to be continued!...