An early morning breakfast@Restoran Kita, Kota Bahru

Restoran kita is one of the most popular breakfast spots for locals and out-of-towners. It is packed to the brim with all walks of races. Chinese, malays, indians all happily enjoying their morning meal together. This is the should-be Malaysia aspires to be.

One thing great about the eggs and poultry in this side of town is that their chickens are all 'kampung kai', meaning not in-breeding farmed methods but chickens roam free. Hence the meat is leaner and somehow the eggs are strangely larger.

That aspect makes eating these half-boiled eggs so awesome. The yolks are golden, glistening and large. The egg whites are also firmer, viscous. A dash of pepper, a dash of soy sauce. Whoah-lah, happy moments!.

The toast bread was only so-so, a bit too hard for me. But I could see most are having nasi lemak, am guessing this is their specialty. Next round!

Porky Affair@Swine, Publika, Solaris Dutamas

It has been a while since I dined in any of Ben's foodies in Publika. Since they removed the benefit of free corkage charges if one opens a bottle of wine purchased from Ben's grocer in any of his restaurants, I haven't gone back to any since. I still buy from wine from the grocer of course.

My friends decided to have a porky affair one night, to celebrate my friend's new job and promotion. And what a pleasant surprise indeed to find out that the free corkage benefit still applies in Swine!

We bought 3 bottles: 2 reislings and 1 red. Happy faces!

From the pictures themselves, you can tell the boys did the ordering. And the pictures I were not even half of what we ordered that night. 2 gigantic bowls of fries, 2 bowls of pasta, 1 plate of fatty grilled pork covered with mash potato not captured. BOYS and FOOD = the ugly glutton in us comes out.

The appetizer pigs in the blanket, essentially pork wrapped with bacon were quite yummy actually, but slightly pricey . Each tiny piece was about RM3 plus.

The pork sausages I gotta say were my favourite. The sausages tasted home made, not like most bars or pubs where those tasted mass manufactured. The smell was a bit wee porky than the usual and it did get a bit of getting used to before the enjoyment came in. The fried mashed onions were amazing, especially dipped in sour cream sauce.

My eyes widened, bewildered by the serving size of the BBQ pork ribs. Never have I seen such a long plate on a tiny dinner table. The ladies shook their heads and warned the boys to swallow up every single bit of food thanks to their "ambitious" ordering.

The ribs were OKAY. It looked tastier than it seems. Morganfields and Malones served better ribs in my opinion. Nonetheless, having a set of ribs for dinner with a group of friends is always an awesome choice. Watching the barbaric side of every single decent soul surfaces as one bites through the meat and licks up the sauces from the bones is great fun.

All in all, food was rather good but my happiest take home message from Swine is...no corkage fees. YAYYYY! I hope this applies to Plan B and Bens too. Time to find out.