EASTERN EUROPE WITH PARLO TOURS (MALAYSIA) 2016

After my beautiful trip to Western Europe two years ago, I was looking forward to another adventure to fuel my passion for travel. After being captivated with the sceneries of Eastern Europe during winter, I decided to join a tour by Parlo Tours which was strongly recommended by a friend. It met the three criteria I was looking for namely good food, beautiful sceneries and comfortable hotel.

The tour during Chinese new year covers five countries namely Germany (Berlin and Munich), Czech Republic (Prague), Poland (Krakow), Hungary (Budapest) and Austria (Vienna and Salzburg) over a period of 12 days or 10 nights. Some may argue that Europe is best explored on a free and easy trip which I agree to a certain extent if don’t mind spending time to plan for the trip and the hassle of dragging your luggage bags across five different countries which may be troublesome especially in the winter months. On negative side, if you follow a tour do expect to have little control on where you will be going or even what you are going to eat. Expect visits to very touristy areas which may limit interaction with locals and hence little exposure to the local culture. In the end, it really depends on what your priorities are.

11 Days 9 Nights Eastern Europe Tour By Parlo Tours

As far as I am concerned, I would love a little of both worlds and that means to have a combination of joining a tour and a couple of days travelling on a free and easy. This is where Parlo really exceeded my expectations. Where some travel agencies discourage or do not entertain stay extensions, Parlo has no issues with it. My reservation and subsequent correspondence was done predominantly via phone calls and emails and was pretty satisfied with the service level provided by their sales staff.

The following are the places that we visited.

Day 1 - Travel to Berlin via Doha

Day 2 - Berlin (Germany)

Day 3 - Dresden (Germany) / Prague (Czech Republic)

Day 4 - Prague (Czech Republic)

Day 5 - Krakow (Poland)

Day 6 - Krakow (Poland)

Day 7 - Budapest (Hungary)

Day 8 - Vienna (Austria)

Day 9 - Salzburg (Austria)

Day 10 -  Munich (Germany)

Day 11- Day 13 - Free & Easy in Munich

Day 14 - Return to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia 

Lai Po Heen, Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur Review

Wifey and I decided to spent a weekend at Mandarin Oriental. After we checked out at noon on Sunday, we decided to have our lunch at Lai Po Heen Restaurant as I suddenly had cravings for some good Tim Sum. Once you enter the restaurant, you will notice the open kitchen concept where you can basically see the entire kitchen through a glass partition.

Wifey and I were seated near the window where you will have a nice view of KLCC park and overlooking the sight of the city centre.  

The first dish we had was the sea cucumber congee. Honestly, I never thought that sea cucumber goes well as porridge and was sceptical at first. It turns out to be pretty good with a nice flavour and I especially liked the "chewy" sea cucumber cubes in the porridge.   

For tim sum, we ordered lobster flower roll, prawn tim sum and bean curd roll all tasted good and fresh. 

We also ordered a plate of steam rice roll but we happily munched it down and was too late to realize that we have yet to take a picture of it. To finish it off, I ordered durian crepes and mango sago ice cream for dessert.

The durian crepes is the restaurant specialty. It was good with real durian meat inside but honestly I have tasted better ones at other places.

This meal for two was about RM200 including tax and service charge. It is a bit pricy but well compensated with the excellent customer service, nice view and food quality. The fact that this restaurant was full on a Sunday afternoon (with people queuing outside) means many concurs with my opinion :).

A day with Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur

After weeks of hard work at office decided to have a weekend off in Mandarin Oriental. I checked into the hotel sometime around 2.30pm and headed straight to Lounge In The Park for the afternoon tea session.

I ordered the tea set which comes with assortment of sandwiches, scones, durian mochi, cakes and pudding, I liked the scones the best which goes very well with the various types of jam provided.

After tea, we checked into the Twin Towers View room facing the Petronas Twin Tower. It was a comfy and spacious room that comes with the basic necessities normally found in a 5 stars hotel but I especially liked the working table which allow me to do some computing work comfortably.

Check out the view from our room. Wow....

I also found this complimentary drink on the table. It was a apple and vanilla flavoured soda. Not bad... I give this hotel extra points for this.

In the evening, we headed to Mandarin Grill for dinner. It is a fine dining restaurant. Wifey and I ordered half dozen oysters and and a bowl of clam chowder as starters. They also served a complimentary plate of cheese with two types of dip sauce.

What else can I say? The oysters were really fresh and the clam chowder was delicious and goes very well with the complimentary bread. The cheese was not too much of our liking.

For the mains, we ordered a plate of lobster and sirloin steak each to share. The service staff was helpful enough to arrange it to be separated on individual plates. In fact they also did it with the clam chowder which was great so that Wifey and I were able to enjoy our dinner comfortably :).

Right after we asked for the bill, we were given a box of chocolate that went quite well with the white wine that we ordered.  Overall, I find the food quality to be quite good but I think the customer service is the one that they really excel in. The staff were friendly and do try to strike conversations with us at times. On the downside, the restaurant menu was quite limited and I would prefer a wider selection of choices.

Concluding this blog entry with the picture of Petronas Twin Tower at night which was taken right outside from my room. :)