Many shades of grey

Many years ago, I heard a personality (I can't remember who) say that as you age, white hair is better than no hair! As someone who's been prematurely grey since my thirties and is also battling rapidly thinning hair, I couldn't agree more. There seems to be a trend, albeit more in Western countries, for women to go completely grey or silver and stop coloring their hair. I've been coloring my hair for more than twenty years. Do I want to follow suit?

Hail kale!

I was first introduced to this dark green vegetable when I was visiting friends in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago. I had it mostly in salads, chopped really finely and taking to almost any kind of dressing. Slowly making its appearance in Asia, it's not readily found in supermarkets yet and is still premium priced, but I figure as it grows in popularity, it'll become a ubiquitous item in the fresh produce section. Kale is truly the super food with staying power.

Rankled by wrinkles?

I'm a sucker for all the magazine ads and TV commercials that sell this cream and that serum, all promising to reverse the effects of aging, plump up the skin, erase the lines and whatnot. I've bought countless number of jars, tubes and bottles, filled with breakthrough vitamins, minerals, collagen, fruit acids, you name it. Have I found one that works yet? Is it a lost cause? Aging is a fact of life. It's a given that our bodies will grow old and wither, our skin will dry up and wrinkle like parchment. So why do we bother?

A majestic response to my cracked tooth

After my experience biting down on a staple in my salad at the Contango restaurant in the six-star Majestic Hotel, I did feel a twinge in my tooth and had to go see my dentist. It was a cracked filling and I sent the bill for it in an email I wrote to the hotel. Here was the response I received within a couple of hours:

Thank you for your feedback.  Once again, please accept our humble apologies for your experience at our restaurant, which is certainly not acceptable.  Be assured that I have shared this with the team to ensure that this does not happen in future.

As a genuine recovery of this experience, we will uptake your dental bill. Kindly  share your bank details and we will action accordingly.

In the meantime, please let me know if there is anything I can assist you with. We thank you once again for sharing with us the experienced as we strive to improve our service level constantly in order to serve our guests better. 

Kind regards

Alvin Khoo
Executive Assistant Manager - Food & Beverage | The Majestic Hotel KL
5 Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I think such a response has demonstrated why the Majestic is an award-winning hotel and it has restored my faith in it!

Waiter, there's a staple in my salad!

I was so looking forward to dinner at Contango, served buffet style, at the Majestic Kuala Lumpur. It was a joint birthday celebration for three friends in our group. Unfortunately, when I took a mouthful of my salad, I bit down into something hard and fished out a staple. That, essentially, spoilt the entire dinner for me.