The Weekend In The Highlands

Happy Diwali and Selamat Hari Raya! How are your holidays?

We went up to Cameron Highlands with Chef & Xiao Ping for the weekend. We stayed the night in Heritage Hotel in Tanah Rata, courtesy of Chef's time-sharing vacation deal. The trip was indeed refreshing. The flowers there were so colourful that I couldn't resist snapping lots and lots of pictures of them especially at the Ye Olde Smokehouse!

The colors of Cameron Highlands

We stopped by at Kasimanis Strawberry Farm for a peek too.

Not sure if they are really "manis" as claimed

The one thing we were unhappy about was most of the restauranteer's attitudes. When we decided to try out the food in certain empty (as in REALLY empty) restaurants, especially at Ferm Nyonya, we got shoo-ed off instead coz they were fully booked for tour travellers. How does the tone "If you can find an unreserved table, then you sit la" sound to you when all the tables there were reserved?

Breakfast in Rosette Cafe really pissed us off. I was particularly interested in a set menu which has these :-

Mango juice
Fried or scrambled eggs & sausages, turkey ham or beef bacon
Toasts or bread rolls with strawberry jam and butter
Coffee or tea

We had the impression that I could choose either fried or scrambled eggs, I would have sausages as well, and I could also choose either turkey ham or beef bacon. But later on, we were told that it was either fried or scrambled eggs, and then either sausages, turkey ham or beef bacon. is my English really that bad? If it is, then Inspector and Chef would need to go for English lessons too coz both of them tried to correct the owner's punctuation mistakes. But she raised her voice, said that she had been doing it for years and had no problem with it. Either our English is indeed bad, or the guests are pretty ignorant about it and just accept what is given onto their plates. And then she yelled, "You tell me what you want la then!". So I pointed out that I wanted scrambled eggs, sausages and beef bacon. I did get them, but only 1 piece of sausage (so much for plural!) and a measly, slightly raw beef bacon. *Sighz* Chef was so pissed off that he wrote a complaint note and left it on the cutlery holder for the next customer to read. Don't ever go to Rosette Cafe!

We had great service in Restoran Cameron though, so great that they do deserve the name. We were looking for a place for dinner and watch the Man. Utd vs Liverpool match and noticed that the restaurant has a telly. We asked if we could watch tv there. The owner said that his Astro got cut off, then asked if we wanted to watch football, he could use his friend's Astro card instead. We were stumped. Hehe.. But it was good. We were there for almost 4 hours to watch the game, ordered wonderful dishes and even had steamboat, all for less than 60 bux in total. Now that's where I'd recommend you to go. Restoran Cameron in Tanah Rata. We went there for the next day's lunch as well, their western dishes were yummy too!

Before we left Cameron Highlands, we stopped by at Cameron Bharat Plantation's Shalimar estate somewhere towards Ringlet and was awed at the scenery there! We couldn't resist walking all the way down to the ground level!

Look at the cute lumps of tea bushes!

More pictures!

From top to bottom, left to right :-
1 - View at the front of our room's balcony
2 - Heritage Hotel entrance
3 - RM1 polyester aeroplane that Inspector bought while there
4 - Tea bushes in Cameron Bharat plantations
5 - Steamboat in Restoran Cameron
6 - A heart made out of pink matchsticks, found at Ye Olde Smokehouse. I wonder if the person who made this managed to declare his/her burning love for the other half
7 - The rain on the car window on the way home
8 - Souvenirs for families and friends

Despite the bad restaurants, we had a great time there. Wouldn't mind going there again in the near future. Hopefully the next time, we'll be able to try T Cafe coz it's highly recommended. Just that when we were there, it was closed for "Baking and Washing in Progress". How cute!