Jogoya at Starhill - The best buffet ever!

Recently, I went to Jogoya at Starhill Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. I would say this is the best buffet restaurant I have ever dined out. Cost at RM88, it is definitely worth it. There is a huge variety of food in it. And I do really mean HUGE. You have to even book in advance to ensure you have seats in the restaurant.

JAPANESE corner
They have sushis and many other japanese food, which I don't know since I'm not a fan of Japanese food and yet I dined out at a Japanese buffet outlet. This is the only corner for which I have not taken any food from.

DIM SUM corner

Shark fins and lots of dim sum food

STEAMBOAT corner

There are tom yam soup, miso soup, chicken soup, vegetables, fishes, prawns, scallops, and some other seafood

TEPPANYAKI corner
There are lot of dishes you can choose from and they will serve you

WESTERN FOOD corner

Lamb, grilled fish, potatoes....you name it, you have it

SEAFOOD corner

You can order whichever seafood to be steamed, fried, or whatever you want it and they will serve you

SOME OTHER ORDINARY FOOD corner as well
You can find such food in other buffet outlets as well. For example, noodles, rice, sausages...

DRINKS corner

Fruit juices, hot coffees, hot teas (green tea, chinese tea, and lots of other teas) and alcoholic drinks for non-muslims only

FRUITS corner


DESSERTS corner
I was truly amazed with the huge variety of desserts available

They even have coconut water!

Burrrrppp! Awesome!

Preacher of corporate responsibility

Accounting practitioners are supposed to be a preacher of good governance and corporate responsibility. Unfortunately, they have neglected one important group of minority stakeholders - RESEARCHERS!

One Star reader has responded today to my article, right here. She claimed that the GLCs have been very supportive to her research including allowing access to her to distribute questionnaires.

If the GLCs can be supportive of researchers, why accounting firms cannot? It is time we must change the mindset of accounting practitioners. We may not be able to force accounting firms to support researchers, but I believe, I strongly believe, we can do something to change their mindset. Now, I have this wild idea of finding ways to 'educate' those practitioners on research methods to open up themselves to researchers.

Perhaps, one day, after I graduate, I would like to seek help from my professional organisation to co-organise a forum together with my University to talk on this issue.

Researchers not welcome! Yesss, it was published!

I woke up this morning hoping for my article to be published. And there it is, printed in the Editor's column of The Star right here.

This time, I chose to reveal my name. And as usual, the article was edited.

Now, my main obstacles to my research are getting access to the organisations and getting people to respond to the questionnaire. Malaysians are infamous for not inclining in filling up questionnaires. Even my lecturer said that.

If you were to distribute questionnaires in the United States, the people there will be willing to fill up for you, including very busy CEOs and CFOs. It's because there is a strong research culture over there.

Anyway, I just wrote in to my professional organisation for help and they actually contacted me. One of the officers rang me up and said they can help in some way by distributing the questionnaires to their network members in Penang.

Now, at least there is hope.

I sent another article to The Star

I sent another letter to The Star this morning. Let's see whether it will be published or not.

I am a business postgraduate student of a local private university and I intend to do a research on one specific issue of the current employment trend among the accounting profession after reading more than a dozen journal articles and press articles. Many of these articles featured prominent figures, both local and foreign, from the accounting profession calling for a need to understand the current employment trend. One of them even urged research to be done to understand the current employment trend among the young accountants today.

In fact, I have already cited all of these statements and literature in my research proposal. Hence, with great passion, I sent my requests to the major accounting firms to seek permission to distribute questionnaires to their employees. Soon, my passion was broken when an international accounting firm turned down my request citing it is a sensitive issue. Another firm outright told me that they will not entertain such a request. And most of them did not even reply me at all.

I remember sitting in my class and one of my classmates, who is a manager, lamented that there were a lack of research publications in the top-tier journals contributed by our local academic researchers. I also have friends, who are working adults, who lamented of our local public universities’ poor ranking. I even recalled my friends telling me that filling in questionnaires distributed by students are just a waste of time. I could only shake my head now because it is these very people, who are business practitioners, who might have contributed to a low number of research publications in the top-tier journals.

I was deeply disappointed because it is the business practitioners who are complaining about our local universities and yet they are the one who do not lend support to our local academic business researchers. Another classmate of mine, who is a head of an accounting department, agreed with me that many practitioners are ignorant about research and are not willing to let researchers come in to their organisations. It seems like our local business practitioners are practising a ‘closed door policy’ towards researchers.

How are we, Malaysian academic researchers are able to produce world quality research when many of these practitioners are refusing access to researchers? I am aware that many of my peers resorted to go ‘underground’ by distributing questionnaires to their network of friends working in some specific organisations instead of asking official permission directly from those organisations. And it began to sink in my mind that this is the only practical way to conduct research and distribute questionnaires on our Malaysian shore.

Look Out Point at Ampang

I'm a little busy currently with my research...ahem, I mean my scientific research.

Anyway, I posted up a few pictures taken from Look Out Point somewhere up in the hills near Ampang. There are a couple of restaurants up there such as Gasoline (the only one I can remember, since I ate at that restaurant). Of course, there are many other restaurants as well.

As you can see below, the scenery are just splendid. You can even spot the Petronas Twin Towers and the KL Tower from up there.

KL was so congested on Chinese New Year

I headed down to Kuala Lumpur (KL) on Chinese New Year day with excitement expecting KL to be empty and peaceful.

Instead, it was so congested with people!

Sunway Lagoon was filled with people!

Massive crowd in the ice skating ring in Sunway Pyramid

Pavilion was even jam-packed!

Crowded, crowded, crowded (Pavilion)

The Curve was also crowded.

Not surprisingly, Thean Hou Temple was awfully crowded.


By just looking at the massive crowd, I am pretty sure the restaurant owner of this Chinese restaurant is laughing all the way to the bank. It was full house!

The second appointment

I had another appointment with my Project Supervisor on Chinese New Year's eve, which was actually last Wednesday. I brought along a few couple of academic journals together with my proposal.

I presented my idea to her and she expressed doubt on it. I had a similar feeling too, actually. I believed it was because the theoretical framework was rather simple.

We spent a wholesome two hours discussing a few couple of theoretical frameworks. Finally, we came to an agreement after I told her about another interesting study. She immediately liked it after seeing the framework. So, we agreed on the spot to conduct a research based on that theoretical framework.

Since this is just an MBA 6-month project, all we can do is just a replication of a previous study. A new theoretical contribution is not needed as expected in a PhD student.

Now, I have to start preparing my Project Proposal to be handed in to the University. This is the beginning of the journey of my quest to be an Academic Social Scientist/Researcher.

Happy Chinese New Year!!

To all Chinese around the world, Happy Chinese New Year!

To some, Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival.

We all know that there are the dos and don'ts on Chinese New Year.

One of them is that you should not clean your house during Chinese New Year.

Well, the logic is that you should have done so before Chinese New Year and not on the day itself.

Chinese New Year is the day you should get together with your family and friends. That is why we Chinese eat Mandarin oranges and have steamboat for dinner.