Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Lets Celebrate Harvest Festival with Tapai

Harvest Festival is coming up! We have something old and familiar to celebrate this Harvest Festival with you at Vedablu. Presenting... Tapai Ice Cream (Rice Wine Ice Cream) and Tapai Cake (Rice Wine Cake). We call this the Fiesta Delight.



We had this last year for Harvest Festival. Our brilliant Production Manager, Laura actually came up with the idea when we were thinking of what could we introduce in our outlets. We were brainstorming and when asked outloud what could we do for Harvest Festival, it was synonymous. "Tapai!" Some customers may like it and some customers may not. Tapai or Rice Wine is unique tasting and normally more loved by the locals. For the adventurous, alcohol lovers, and tapai lovers this is a must try. I don't like drinking Tapai but I love eating the Tapai cake, so I have been having these daily since Monday! The cold tapai ice cream mixed with the tapai cake is so yummy. Having one now infact...and took a picture of it few seconds ago so I can upload it here.

HAPPY HARVEST FESTIVAL IN ADVANCE!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A little of everything ! (ALOE)

I have been trying to recuperate for the past few days. Catching up on sleep, trying not to stress out at the same time, thinking, I can't sleep now 'coz I have lots of unsettled things to do. I keep listing them down in my daily planner. Sadly I never can finish them. Then I tell myself to breathe...

So many things happen in a day for me. I wish I could like state every little detail here so this blog will really be about my journey. Because I've missed many of my chances of writing the little 'beautiful' details that always happen. Would like to share some of the little joys that happen daily in my life.

Like this quick snapshot I took on my flight to Tawau several months back that I meant to post up but never did. Glorious clear sight of Mount Kinabalu. We were passing over the mountain so fast, barely had time to adjust the camera settings. I just snapped.

Then, in last few weeks back, I taught my staff to be more diligent in our ice cream pan display decorations. I believe we first feast with our eyes then our mouths. Although pan re-decorations can only be done during the not so busy times. On weekends,for the busier outlets, not practical to be doing re-decorations all the time, because staff are too busy serving customers to even have the time to re-decorate the ice cream pans. On one particular day I walked into the City Mall Vedablu outlet and was happy with what I saw. Beautiful ice cream pan decorations =)Little things like this make my day.

Today I dedicated my day to cleaning the clutter on my desk. The picture is only half the clutter I had on my desk. I think seeing the clutter on my desk and not having the time to clear them adds to the negative energy I am feeling. Seeing my desk clean and my room tidy now really does lower down my stress and anxiety levels. Haha. Psychology...


Another task which I have been trying to get done is to get online to purchase a new laptop, taking advantage of the 12 months 0% interest. Plus, after reluctantly having to pay extra income tax this year, I have given myself a justification to get myself a brand new lap top so that for YA2008 I can claim the extra RM3000 deduction. I think I have an emotional attachment to my current lap top. Its the very heavy 15.4" Travelmate 430. Bought it back in 2003. Its nearly 5 years old now. Didn't realize it was that old. Well its Pentium 4. Only that the graphics card can't play the latest games. I upgraded the Ram to 768MB. However, this laptop is falling to pieces slowly. Half of the letters on the keyboards are gone, the bluetooth receiver is kaput, the internal wifi receiver is spoilt (so I am using a wifi card inserted to the PCI bus), the batteries are dead (no more in production), and the direct receiver for the Network Cable is spoilt. The funny thing is that after a year not being able to connect to the internet from my my lap top in my home (because I don't have a wireless router) I remembered I had this external ethernet PCI card which had that network cable receiver. My old lap top before this one, had no network cable receiver and I have to purchase this external ethernet PCI card in Australia. So I ran up to my room, rummaged through my old box and found it! This really made my day. Now I can go online in my home without a wireless router!Amazing stuff... was sharing my excitement this story over MSN Messenger to a friend and he said I was so 'sot' or silly. Little things really make me happy. High time today anyways as I was not in a good mood today. Feel sick actually.

Anyway, I have thought alot of what lap top to get and after being a loyal user of Acer notebooks, I shall make my switch to the Dell XPS lap top. Wanted to get the one with the gaming specs but alas, pulling myself out of dream land and putting myself into the right frame of mine, I decided to go with what a lap top should be for me now at this point of time in my life. Lightweight and good performance.Wanted to get the XPS1530, and was reminded by my friend that will not be any different from my current lap top. It will still be heavy. So, I am settling for the XPS1330, with a processor speed upgrade and a graphic card upgrade. I must at least be able to play the games I wanna play on this new machine. Dell does not give option to upgrade the machine to a graphics card higher then the Nvidea GEForce 8400M for this model. Why...?? To solve the problem of playing my games (if I ever find the time to play) on a small screen, I will plug the new machine to a existing LCD screen. Sad thing was, Dell was having this RM300 rebate for purchases RM4000 above. I missed the boat! Darn... so today after contemplating, I will wait for another week to purchase this new machine. They have rebates every month or so. RM300... could buy me a spa package~~ Very kiasu but its not that I need the machine immediately.

Ok... I will continue part 2 of 'a little of everything'(ALOE) another day. Too long read for a blog entry if I post too many little things in one entry.

For now, good night!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Vedablu @ Tawau


Vedablu Tawau: Sitting area Outside


I touched down in Tawau last Saturday at 10am and went straight to the outlet. Alot of things to be done, local tawau staff to train, food materials to prepare, etc. There was only 3 days to the opening. On Monday morning, my team from KK arrived.That night we worked till 1:30am. The next morning we woke up at 6am, to go to the outlet for the opening. Opening was at 10am and customers started pouring in. It was non-stop from there till 11:30pm. We went home at 12:30am. I just collapsed on my bed out of exhaustion but it was worth every effort we put in. There was alot of good feedback although there were few hiccups. I guess as all openings are and staff are new. However, the product I can proudly say speaks for itself.


Nanie (Vedablu Pastry Chef) & George (Vedablu Outlet Supervisor)



Vedablu Tawau: Inside sofa sitting area, minutes before opening



Vedablu Tawau: Counter area and display freezer, minutes before opening



Vedablu Tawau: Up and running...full house


The outlet I must say was tastefully done. It was more beautiful because of the flowers that were sent to our franchisee. I couldn't resist taking some photos of them.


Vedablu Menu with Tulips and Roses in the background



Lilies and Roses. There were two huge flower arrangements like this and many other flower arrangements.



Vedablu Signage at the Front



Lee (owner operator of Vedablu Tawau) briefing me on the layout plans of the Vedablu outlet few months back.


On 20th May 2008, Vedablu has officially now opened in Tawau. Although tiring but seeing passion turn into reality is always fulfilling. Vedablu is thankful to have good partners, friends and commited staff like George and Nanie(who is still there working round the clock in Tawau as part of our commitment to help our franchisee start on the right foot).

More stories and adventures to follow. For now, thank you for the support to those that came (even from KK) and customers who are loyal fans of Vedablu ice cream and products.

Cheers!!

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Spreading East of Sabah - Part 2

Opening a food and beverage outlet is no easy task.From the first drawings, to design & construction, ordering of cutleries and food equipments, food preparation training to serving training and opening doors to our customers. Alot of coordination is required between our staffs, suppliers, contractors, etc. The tawau outlet will be our sixth outlet and belongs to our first licensee/franchisee. The journey towards the opening 6th Vedablu Outlet has been an exciting one for me. Tiring but I know we have done well and delivered all we have promised. This being our first franchised outlet we work extra hard to ensure our partners will do as well and better still if they do better. There is no one side win in any successful business out there. It should always be a win win situation.

Vedablu Shop in Tawau, located along Jalan Chong Thien Vun, will have its soft opening on the 20th May 2008 (Tuesday). Those in Tawau please come and support us. In our KK outlets we have many Tawau customers, but now our Tawau customers can enjoy Vedablu in Tawau.

I will upload pictures of the opening and the outlet soon. In the mean time go to our official website to obtain more information on our products and promotions.

I will be in Tawau from the 17th to 22nd May 2008. See you there! ;)