Pork and Gulden at the Pigs & Wolf, Pavilion KL

With a restaurant named Pigs and Wolf, you'd probably have an inkling of what sort of food's served up: Pork, pork, and more pork.

The restaurant's located on the 7th floor of the Pavilion KL shopping mall, on the opposite end from Tokyo Street, sharing a little cubby with a half dozen other new(ish) eateries.


Decor is decent but functional: You wouldn't bring a companion here for an anniversary celebration. But for a gathering of friends, family, or colleagues after work it's perfect. The darling and I are here on a Sunday afternoon, so what better to wake us up than a couple of Lattes? (RM 9 each)


We're tempted by the breakfast platters that Pigs & Wolf serves til late on weekends, but we decide instead on more 'lunch-ey' items: Starting with The Wolf's Favorite (RM 31). What this is, of course, is a spaghetti carbonara with a heaping of bacon. The pasta's nicely al-dente, the cream has a nice consistency and is pretty well flavored. I personally prefer my bacon chewy rather than crispy, but that's just nitpicking in the grand scheme of bacon-laden things.


Next up: the Mighty Piggy Burger (RM 30). A comment, first, about that salad in the background. It's laden with about ten times as much vinaigrette as is necessary and is therefore too sour to the point of being inedible. The burger's pretty good, though. Juicy, flavorful, substantial. Fries are decently crispy too.


So where does the wolf in the name come into the picture? If you were expecting some gulden dishes you'd be disappointed - no wolf meat here (yes, wolf meat is called gulden, and yes, I had to look it up for this blog post).

With a final bill of close to RM45/person after service and taxes it isn't exactly cheap. But then again, I suppose that's pretty par for the course for KL eateries these days. Pigs & Wolf opens 7 days a week; Reservations probably aren't necessary but you can dial +603 2110 4438 to make sure. Non-halal.

At time of writing, 1.00 SGD = 3.03 MYR.

Kuching Waterfront Food Guide Malaysia!

Kuching, the capital city of the state of Sarawak in Malaysia isn't perhaps on the top of the list on most peoples' tourist destination lists. There are some attractions, though, so you might perhaps be here to visit the Sarawak Cultural Village. Or maybe you're just in town for some other reason - maybe your cousin is getting married, for instance, which happens to be the reason the both of us were here for the weekend!


As we mentioned in a previous post, we stayed at The Ranee Boutique Suites on the Kuching Waterfront. So naturally we walked around the area trying as much food as our stomachs could handle. We ended up only trying three main areas (in the map above), which we'll cover below. So let's get started!

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1. Carpenter Street Food Court (Lao Ya Keng - 老爺間)

Really easy to find - just walk down Carpenter Street until you see a food court opposite a Chinese Temple.


Fish Ball Glass Noodles. Decent springy fishballs, although the portion is a little small. We also thought that the soup was a little too lightly flavoured for our tastes. 2 stars.

Kolok Mee. Outside of Sarawak, you might see these noodles spelt (and pronounced) as "Kolo Mee." But in our observations over three days in the city, it really does seem to be more accurately "Kolok Mee." This bowl was pretty delicious, actually, and fairly generous on the portions. Check out the fats on that slice of pork belly! 4 stars.

Sarawak Laksa. The other famous noodle is Sarawak Laksa. The bowl here is quite nice, with generous portions of chopped chicken (rather than shredded chicken meat). 3½ stars.

Pork Satay. This food court is quite known for its' pork satay but we found it mediocre at best. The meat used is almost all lean so there is none of the fatty, porky, charred goodness. Note also that the satay auntie only starts selling at around 1pm. 2½ stars.

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2. Electra Food Court (also Old Market Kuching).

If you're having trouble finding the exact location, 'Jalan Power' or 'Electra House' in your GPS should bring you close enough (The food court is directly opposite Electra House on Jalan Power).


Ais Kacang. Par for the course. Not particularly worth coming here for, but you wouldn't be disappointed if ordering as a thirst quencher on a hot day. 3 stars.

Ah Mui Beef Noodles (Mee Sapi), stall 32 - Our favorite bowl of noodles for the day by far. Delicious, al dente Kolok Mee with beef brisket, meat and tripe. 4½ stars.

Kolok Mee and Sarawak Laksa, stall 39. This particular stall serves up a lot of different kinds of noodles, and the lack of specialization shows - neither of the bowls we tried were particularly good. 2½ stars.

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3. Bing! Coffee

The Kuching equivalent of Starbucks or Coffee Bean. We tried the Hills Shopping Mall outlet.


Latte, Mocha and Caramel hot drinks are decent at best. We're not big fans of chain-store coffee, we find that the outlets typically overcompensate for poor coffee by overloading on sugar and other flavors. 2½ stars.

Chocolate Truffle Cake and Brownie. The truffle cake was pretty nice, actually. The brownie was disappointing though; came totally drenched in a chocolate gravy that made it taste like a chocolate fudge cake rather than a brownie. 3½ stars (chocolate truffle cake), 2½ stars (chocolate fudge cake Chocolate Brownie).

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So that concludes our one single day of eating ourselves around the Kuching Waterfront! If you're in the area, hopefully this gives you an idea of what's good, and what's not worth wasting your calorie quota on! Let us know in the comments if you agree (or disagree) with our ratings of each item, or if you've got any other recommendations!

Hotel Review: The Ranee Boutique Suites, Kuching.

Greetings from Kuching, over on the Island of Borneo! We were here over the long weekend to celebrate a cousin's wedding, and were advised enthusiastically that The Ranee Boutique Suites was the "best hotel in town." So naturally we had no choice but to book a room!


The Ranee certainly lives up to the 'boutique' portion of its name - the entire hotel is renovated off a couple of shophouses and has just 24 rooms. We use the word 'rooms' intentionally, because these really are just regular hotel rooms despite the hotel's self-declared "suite" naming convention. It's got a terrific location right smack on one end of the Kuching Waterfront, right around the corner of a shopping mall (Plaza Merdeka) and within easy walking distance of a myriad of food, handicraft and other miscellaneous knick-knack shopping options.


Check-in and check-out times are 2pm and 12pm respectively. Check-in was quick and easy, with a mini welcome amenity of iced lemon tea and cold towels. Now we might be nitpicking a bit here perhaps, but it was a cold, rainy day so we would have much preferred hot towels and hot tea instead.


The interior is gorgeous, striking just the right balance between the modern (televisions, fans, air-conditions and sofas) and the traditional (retro bicycles, furniture, fittings and art pieces). There's even a small mini-"garden," complete with a shared seating area for relaxing. It isn't the biggest or most authentic of gardens, of course, but we quite liked it, especially since we could lounge around in air-conditioned comfort.


We were booked into the "Standard Suite," which as you can see in the photos below was really just a standard hotel room. That's fine, though, because the room itself is really nice and clean (we particularly like the feel of the timber flooring). The bed and pillows were very comfortable and just the right firmness - although the linens weren't quite up to 5-star hotel standards - and we were impressed that the drinks and snacks at the mini bar were very reasonably priced. None of that $10 per can of coke nonsense here.


Bathroom was huge, clean, and completely and uncharacteristically modern. Fully stocked, too - shampoo, soap, toothbrush & paste, razors - everything you'd need to freshen up after a long day.


Breakfast is served in the bar/cafe; As this isn't a huge hotel they've wisely opted for cooked breakfast to order rather than try to put out a decent buffet line.


Each breakfast comes with juice, coffee/tea, fruits, and a choice of about a dozen different 'main courses,' ranging from Angmoh big breakfast, to Malaysian staples like roti canai, and Sarawak Laksa (rice noodles served in a curry-like broth). The options we tried were decent enough - I don't think it would qualify as good by any stretch of the imagination. Can't expect a 3-michelin starred chef in the kitchen in a hotel this size, I suppose.


The main negatives of The Ranee, thanks to its' (small) size, centre around the lack of hotel facilities like gymnasium, swimming pool, function rooms, business centre, room service or a proper restaurant. At around MYR 285 or SGD 106 nett, it's also pretty pricey - room rates are even slightly higher than those of the nearby Pullman Hotel (slightly lower than the Hilton).

Having said that, if you're in town and don't need big hotel chain facilities, we'd totally recommend The Ranee, thanks to its' charm, decor, and killer location. Check out their website for reservations (or you can also head to the usual suspects like agoda or expedia). 4 thumbs up.

Sydney Trip Itinerary - Fruit Picking, Terrigal, and Pelican Feeding at the Entrance!

For a recap of the entire trip, table of contents and links to other posts, do click here: One Week in Sunny Sydney - Full Trip Itinerary!

We're on a Northbound road trip today! We had initially planned to go all the way north to Newcastle, but as it turned out that was a bit too ambitious. So instead we did five hours in total of driving covering 300km to the Canoelands for fruit picking followed by a drive northwards to The Entrance, before turning back and heading over to Watson's Bay to catch the sunset before dinner.


The first checkbox on today's agenda was to find an orchard and do some fruit picking. There are dozens of farms all within an hours' drive (or two) from Sydney, many of them with different crop types. Unfortunately as we only visited one orchard we aren't really in a position to give recommendations on which ones are better - you'll have to do your own research on that. We can, however, give you a quick guide as to when each particular crop comes into picking season - so tough luck if you're here in the cold winter months of July-September when nothing is in season.


Anyway we settled for Tangerines at Canoelands Orchard, about a one-and-a-half hours' drive from Coogee. There's a $5 basket rental fee (i.e. entrance fee) and then you're set loose among the fruit trees in the Orchard, free to pluck as many Tangerines as you like. It isn't a fruit buffet, though - after you're done you still need to pay per-kilogram rates for whatever you'd like to take home with you.


While it was quite fun wandering around the orchard hunting for big and ripe fruit - sort of in a go-back-to-your-ancestors'-time-and-forage-for-your-own-food kind of way, to be absolutely honest the actual fruit wasn't that great. Most of what we picked out was either under-ripe or just "meh, okay lah" on the sweetness scale. Probably better to leave it to the experts next time, and just buy our fruit in the markets.

After that's done we head back into the car and continue our road trip North. If you're hoping for grand sweeping vistas and majestic cliffs, you won't quite get it on these roads. Yes there's lots of foliage and the roads have an occasional interesting twist and turn, but by and large the drive is rather uninspiring. Check out the fast-forwarded video below for what we mean (and do disregard the cheesy royalty-free music):


After about an hour-and-a-half we stop to stretch our legs at Terrigal, a quaint little seaside town with a nice, almost-deserted beach, and a row of shops selling food, ice cream and other curios ...


... and a further half hour after that we stop at The Entrance to check out the daily 3.30pm Pelican Feeding!


Taken from the town's Official Website:

"Just over twenty years ago, the pelican feeding started by accident when staff from a local fish and chip shop would throw out scraps. It became such a ritual that whenever the staff were late in throwing their scraps out, the pelicans would cross the road and come up to the shop to be fed.

One of the main objectives of the pelican feed is to keep an eye on the pelican's medical conditions as many have hooks and lines tangles up in their gullets, wings and other parts of their body. The feed is a chance for the co-ordinator to assess their well being. It's certainly an amusing show to come and see."


By the time we're back on the road it's already well after 4pm, so we abandon our original target of Newcastle and turn around to head back to Watson's Bay, making it in time to catch the sun setting majestically over the Sydney CBD skyline:


Sunset means dinnertime, and Watson's Bay has a well known seafood joint called Doyle's on the Beach. It's really expensive though so we settle for salt & pepper shrimp and pork belly sliders at Watson Bay Hotel's Beach Club instead. Sipping coffee and eating sweet sticky sliders while watching the sun set - an awesome end to the day.


After dinner we head back to Coogee for an early night as five hours of driving does get a bit tiring. Plus we hadn't fully recovered from the lack of sleep on the overnight flight from Singapore.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series coming up soon!

One63 European Bistro & Bar near City Square/Komtar JBCC in Johor Bahru!

Today we head across the Causeway to the city of Johor Bahru for a quick dinner review at One63 European Bistro & Bar! If you're one of the tens of thousands of Singaporeans who occasionally take a bus across the bridge for some shopping, food, massage, etc, you might be interested too - This restaurant is just 400-500m walk from Komtar JB. It's in the row of shophouses on Jalan Trus/Jalan Ngee Heng, directly opposite the Doubletree by Hilton JB hotel.


One63 is helmed by Chef Kelvin who has previously done stints with three Michelin-starred restaurants in France, but strangely has a heavily Italian-weighted European menu. The meal starts off with a somewhat oddly-shaped and flavoured bread, which if we're honest wasn't very good.


The Cream of Mushroom Soup for RM 10 was delicious and value for money, though, with a good proportion of mushroom to cream in the flavour profile. We thought that the texture was spot on, too - not too creamy or starchy, and not too chunky.


For mains I had the Seafood Risotto - a proper arborio rice'd one with seafood, saffron, white wine and parmigiano cheese - for RM 36. The risotto was pretty good - not too starchy not too soupy. It came with a generous amount of shrimp, mussels, squid and scallops. We suspect that some of the items may have been frozen and not fresh, though, as there was a hint of fishiness in some spoonfuls of the rice.


The darling tried the Braised Lamb Shank with eggplant salad, potato wedges and garden vegetables (RM 37). Lamb was braised til tender, and very tasty. Vegetables and the supermarket-bag potato wedges were par for the course I suppose.


We were a bit disappointed that only the two least-enticing options off the dessert menu were available - crepes and Panna Cotta (RM 16.30). As you know, panna cotta is an Italian dessert generally made of thick cream, egg white and honey, and which generally isn't served in a small glass vial. Nevertheless I quite liked both the cream and the passion fruit glaze on the top, but the darling thought it was overpoweringly sour.


At a final bill of RM 132 (SGD 60) for two people, we thought the food was overall fairly good. Ambience in the restaurant was decent, if a tad bit noisy thanks to the lack of any sound-absorbing materials, and service was pretty standard "Malaysian-mid-range-restaurant" - that is to say the wait staff were competent but not particularly friendly nor knowledgeable about the menu.

One63 is open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week. If you're in JB for the day, I'd say it is totally worth the short walk for a meal if you're tired of all the fast food options available in City Square or Komtar. No pork served.

Sydney Trip Itinerary - CBD, Sea Life Aquarium and Madame Tussauds.

It's our first day in Sydney! Although the darling's been here many times in the past thanks to her time studying in Melbourne, it's my first visit and I'm excited! For a recap of the entire trip, table of contents and links to other posts, do click here: One Week in Sunny Sydney - Full Trip Itinerary!

Trying to be as efficient as possible we had chosen a red-eye, overnight flight from Singapore to Sydney (transit Kuala Lumpur) on Malaysia Airlines. The flight was really quite restful - and we had satay, which is probably the best anything we've ever eaten at 35,000 feet - thanks to a really cheap SGD150 upgrade to Business Class! Do check out our previous post on the flight if you're interested.


Upon landing we cleared immigration and customs - all the while looking around for film crews in case they happened to be filming another episode of Border Security - and boarded a shuttle van to Apex Car Rentals to pick up our Hyundai Elantra.

A note on car rentals in Australia: The major rental chains like Hertz, Budget etc have really exorbitant excess charges - anywhere from AUD2,000 to AUD4,000. This excess is the base amount that you need to pay if you get into an accident, even if it wasn't your fault! So you normally either pay an extra AUD20-40 a day to reduce this excess, or just suck it up and eat the risk.

The smaller, boutique rental shops like Apex tend to have more reasonable terms, though - we paid just AUD43/day for this Elantra with zero excess. This zero excess also applies for accidents that are your fault, so it's great having peace of mind of not ever needing to pony up extra money for any mishaps while driving in a foreign country.


The next note on driving in Australia is that parking rates in the cities are insane. And if you think I'm exaggerating, check out this AUD79 for 3 hours madness in a CBD (Central Business District) car park:


It isn't all that bad, though - there are a number of ways to reduce your parking costs - first of which is a fixed flat daily rate from AUD8 to AUD17 if you're visiting the Sea Life Aquarium or any of a number of tourist attractions within the CBD. It's still not cheap, but in our opinion a very reasonable rate to pay. As of time of writing the below six car parks qualify for the flat rate parking - just park your car, take the ticket, and have it validated by the counter staff at the Aquarium when purchasing your tickets. Do also check out the aquarium's cheap parking website as well for the latest updates, just in case they remove or add any participating car parks.


In all, there are five CBD attractions that have common ticketing:

- Sea Life Aquarium
- Manly Sea Life Sanctuary
- Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum
- Wild Life Sydney Zoo
- The Sydney Tower Eye

As you might expect, you get significant discounts when purchasing multiple attractions at once. For example, a single Sea Life Aquarium ticket costs AUD40, whereas Sea Life Aquarium + two other attractions is AUD70. You get even better prices by purchasing online. As always, make sure you take note of any T&C attached to these discounted tickets.


Anyways, if you've never been to an aquarium then the Sea Life Aquarium is similar to pretty much every other aquarium (like KL's Aquaria KLCC or Osaka's Kaiyukan): there's typically a huge central tank housing the really big fish - sharks, tuna, etc - flanked by dozens of smaller tanks with smaller fish and other marine life from around the world. Most aquariums also have a touch pool which lets you reach in and feel different rays and starfish, etc. It's a perfect visit if you've got young children - and a very good one if you don't.


Do make sure you check out the feeding times for the various tanks! Two of the more interesting-sounding feeding times (in our view) are the shark feeding at 11am and the penguin feeding at 3pm:

"11:00am - Reef Theatre: JAWsome Shark Feed
Sit back and relax while we feed the animals in our largest tank in front of the best view in the aquarium at Great Barrier Reef. If you're interested in feeding the animals yourself check out the Glass Bottom Boat for a hands on experience!

3pm - South Coast Shipwreck: Playful Little Penguin Feed
Get your happy feet down to the South Coast Shipwreck and watch our cute and cuddlycolony of gorgeous Little Penguins having lunch."


One thing the darling and I didn't count on is the fatigue from the previous night's lack of sleep. In hindsight it was perhaps rather ambitious to plan an overnight flight and immediately launch into a full day of sightseeing - after all, even though the flight itself was 7-ish hours, we only slept for perhaps two thirds of that. We were so tired we had to find a bench inside the aquarium, sit down and take a 15 minute nap!


After the aquarium and a short water break, we move on to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Not going to go into too much detail here as you probably already know that Madame Tussaud's casts life-sized wax replicas of various historical figures, politicians and celebrities for visitors to pose and take photos with. We're not sure if we'd pay the stand-alone entry fee of AUD40; but as a reduced-cost package it was a pretty nice visit.


One thing we did notice was that Madame Tussaud's hasn't seemed to have mastered the proper skin tone for Asians yet - check out the below rendition of "Jackie Chan with Jaundice":


After filling up our camera memory cards we walk over to the Sydney Tower Eye for our third and last CBD attraction visit for the day. The Tower Eye entrance is actually inside Westfield Sydney, on the 5th floor. The observation deck sits at 250m above sea level, and although it's perhaps not quite as high as newer towers like the 450m deck on the Tokyo Skytree, you still do get pretty impressive views of the city.


If you still have time to spare, you could kill an hour or two at places like the Queen Victoria Building (shopping mall). By the time we were done with Tower eye it was quite late, though, so we walked over to Sepia for dinner. We chose Sepia because it has won Sydney's Restaurant of the Year award three times in the SMH Good Food Guide 2012, 2014 and 2015 editions, and it didn't disappoint! Food's really, really good - you can head on over to our previous blogpost for the complete dinner review.


Completely stuffed and satisfied after the dinner, we pick up our car from the parking lot and head home! By home, of course I mean our home-away-from-home temporary accommodation. For holiday accommodation it's tough to give recommendations on a blogpost because everyone has different needs (single traveller vs extended family), and different budgets (backpacker vs elite luxury traveller). Having said that, we rented a lovely two-bedroom apartment less than 200m away from Coogee Beach for around AUD200 per night (four beds, six adults) off stayz.com (airbnb clone).

Stay tuned for the next post in this series coming up shortly!

One Week in Sunny Sydney - Full Trip Itinerary!

The darling and I recently spent a week in beautiful sunny Sydney! Our overall itinerary is listed below, and we'll be progressively updating the blog with more and more details over the next few days.


Day 0: Business Class overnight flight from Singapore to Sydney
Day 1: CBD, Sea Life Aquarium, Madame Tussaud's and the Sydney Tower Eye
Day 1: Dinner at Sepia, Sydney's best Restaurant
Day 2: Daytrip North: Fruit picking, Terrigal, The Entrance and Watson's Bay
Day 3: Daytrip South: Hyam's Beach, Dolphin Watch Cruising from Jervis Bay and the Kiama Blowhole
Day 4: Sydney Opera House and The Rocks
Day 5: Bondi Beach, Sydney Fish Market, Paddy's Markets and Chinatown
Day 6: Daytrip West: The Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves
Day 7: End of visit: Jetstar Flight to Melbourne.

OK so if I'm particularly honest it's more like just six days (ahem). Stay tuned!

The Cheapest way to fly Business Class (probably) - Malaysia Airlines MH Upgrade to Sydney!

Perhaps the most dreary part of going on holiday is getting cramped up in that small economy class airplane seat - especially if the flight is longer than a few hours. The combination of dry, thin and stale air, barely a few inches of knee room and a seat that hardly reclines means travelling is often a lot more tiring than the hours of just sitting around might suggest. Moving up a class to the Business Cabin is also not an option to most of us thanks to the prohibitively high fares ...

... except if you're flying on an airline, like Malaysia Airlines, which allows cheap upgrades!

Dubbed MH Upgrade, MAS allows you to "bid" an amount of your choosing on each individual leg(s) of your flight to upgrade to the next class. 48 hours before the flight if there's space available (and you bid higher than anybody else) - tadaa! You get bumped up. We bid the minimum of SGD50 for the SG-KL legs, and SGD300 for the KL-Sydney legs, which meant paying a total of SGD1,220 return for a business class ticket to Sydney and back - an absolute steal!


Despite being a bargain-basement fare, this ticket comes with the full suite of Biz Class privileges, including 40kg baggage allowance, a separate check-in counter, and access to the Airline's airport lounges. The MAS Golden Lounge in Singapore's Changi airport is practically deserted - which is a plus for us as we have our pick of sofas in the main lounge area plus 'private' usage of the Massage Chair room.


A more business-oriented traveller or high-flying corporate guy might find better usage of the business center - equipped with PC's, a multifunction printer, and an assortment of magazines and journals.


But as hubby and I are on holiday we find ourselves more interested in the food - free flow of soft drinks, juices, hot drinks, some beer and a limited number of dishes. Soup, satay, some fish, vegetables, rice and noodles. The food isn't anything great - if anything it's a lot below par what's on offer in the other Changi Airport eateries.


For the 40-minute flight from SG to KL, we're in the regional Boeing 737-800. This is one of Malaysia Airlines' newest cabins, but it's designed for short-haul and regional flights, so we get a recliner seat (instead of some sort of flat bed). It's plenty comfortable, though - an additional 4" of seat width and 12" of leg room compared to economy. Plus cushioned arm rests and a small table area for cups and glasses.


With only 8 seats in the Business Class cabin, you get a lot more attention from the cabin attendants, so no problems whatsoever in getting as much drinks, snacks and food as you can swallow. The SG - KL flight is really short though; after considering take-off and prepare-to-land time there's barely 10-15 minutes to wolf down whatever's served.


While transiting in KL we also naturally visit the Golden Lounge in KLIA. It's pretty much the same story - sofas, tables, free-flow drinks and subpar food. Oh, and the lounges do supply towels, shampoo and shower gel - hubby went ahead to take a shower and brush his teeth for the heck of it.


Onwards to Sydney, then! We've got the Airbus A330-300 for this leg of the flight. These Business Class seats get a nominal 2.5" extra seat width but a whopping 28" of extra leg room as compared to economy. Plus when you're ready to get some shut-eye it reclines to an angled, 6'3"-long fully-flat bed!


Emphasis on "angled," however. MAS' other premium-airline competitors like Singapore Airlines, Qatar, Emirates, Cathay etc have all started upgrading their long haul Business Class seats to fully-flat, so MAS is perhaps lagging behind a little bit. The angle on MAS' seat means that in the natural course of tossing and turning you gradually slide lower and lower until you need to wake up and 'push' yourself back up the bed. Hubby also thought the TV was a tad bit low for his height (he felt he was "looking down" too much).

Standard amenities supplied: eye mask, mouth wash, socks, toothbrush & toothpaste, noise-reducing headphones for the in-flight entertainment.


Meal time comes around and we're started off with MAS signature Satay (chicken, beef and kambing available), served with liberal amounts of peanut sauce. The satay is surprisingly very, very good (for airplane food standard lah) and we dare say the best dish we've ever eaten while cruising at 30,000 feet.


In-line with other premium carriers, MAS Chef on Call service allows you to pre-order your meal from an extended range of 10-15 "fine dining" dishes. I go with the Omelette with Cheddar Cheese with chicken sausage, baked potatoes, asparagus, sautéed mushrooms and cherry tomatoes ... which turns out pretty bad, actually. Perhaps eggs just don't survive the reheating process that well.


Hubby's Pan Fried Silver Cod with Soya Glaze, with rice and vegetables is much better and pretty nice (again, for airplane food standards).


The best part, though, is the Express Arrival card! For some strange reason Australia immigration has express lanes for Business / First class passengers ... which allows you to skip the sometimes long queues. On our particular arrival time at Sydney the non-express arrivals had what seemed like two hundred or so other passengers.


So there you have it - MH Upgrade - flying Business class at a fraction of the cost. MAS product is falling a little behind its' prime competition but at these upgrade prices there really isn't anything to complain about. Do note that the chances of scoring a successful upgrade are dependant on seat availability so it'll probably get harder and/or more expensive as MAS starts filling up their planes again.

Hope you've enjoyed this trip review and do leave us any questions, etc in the comments below!