Jaya Grocer Japanese Wagyu A5 and Angus Filet Mignon

We sure do love our meat.

This is an overdue post. We purchased this meat fresh from Jaya Grocer on 6 November 2021 and cooked it immediately.

Words do not do it justice. Buttery and simply melts in your mouth.

Its good to ignore the price to overcome the initial shock.

Out of the package, even with the slightest body heat from my hands the meat began to melt. Look at the gorgeous marbling.

Basic marinate of Pink Himalayan rock salt and freshly ground Sarawak Black Pepper. Cast iron searing it the best. Topped with butter, garlic, rosemary and thyme at the end.

Check this out. Still drooling when typing this blog. Just seeing this picture makes me want to raid the meat section of Jaya Grocer.

Angus cooked the same way as the Wagyu. Only difference is I cooked it tied with butchers thread to maintain its shape.

 

Straight Razor

Men have fascination with Blades, Cars, BBQ and Man Caves. Not in that exact order but the gist is there.

How did my fascination with blades begin? No!, it was not with Wesley Snipe's Blade or Rambo or Kill Bill. I guess when I really ponder about it, it started being imprinted into my mind at a much earlier age. Back, before I reach puberty and my dad use to bring me to the local wooden barbershop nearby a huge tree back in Johor Bahru. Managed and solely operated by one middle age Indian man.

He used to whisk out his black handled straight razor. Some call it cut throat razor or open razors. Give it a few passovers the leather strop and then goes straight to business with adjusting my sideburns.

Back then there were no disposable blades or alcohol solutions to disinfect the blade. Contamination, infection or viruses was not in their vocabulary. The world as my barber knew was free from Ebola, HIV and Coronavirus was non existent back then.       

I guess that's how the memories and fondness for blades got imprinted into my DNA. 

Imagine how I felt at that impressionable age. A burly guy with a sharpened blade goes to work on your face. Don't get me wrong, there were cuts and light bruises wherever the blade went but it was all good. I felt like a million bucks after that. Nice crew cut with a clean face free from unwanted hair.

I have been looking for a Straight Razor since a few years back. Always wanted to try it for a close shave. Personally I think it is more macho. Suicidal at times maybe, since I had no idea what I was doing and I had never used one before. But hell yah. You need to do so at least once in your life.

So here are some of my acquisitions.

The pierre de resistance Dovo Bergischer Lowe

This was my first razor purchased from eBay over the US. 10 years ago. The Seller was unable to provide me much information as he purchased it through an estate sale. It has sentimental value to me. My wife has a close affiliation with the Company. Made by Kropp, Germany for A.S Watsons & Co. Hong Kong.

The blade needs some care. These are pictures before I did some light maintenance. 

Birds of a feather flock together. I was always attracted towards German Zwilling J.A. Henckels knives. Here it is with my wife's 2021 birthday gift of kitchen knife set Twin Cuisine and my straight razor Henckels from the 1960's.   

Although the blade is sharp and usable. At the moment is just on display with the Kropp in my antiques showcase.

I am most delight to find the box in such condition. It is new old stock (NOS) meaning the blade is unused from the manufacturer. A rare find indeed. Henckels Friodur 72 1/2 Inox. Hollow ground stainless steel blade. 

 

Last but not least, the crown jewel that I will be actually using. I have not so far. Brushing up my knowledge before that actual shave. 

Dovo Bergischer Lowe 6/8 carbon steel Spanish point, Clad in 24K gold plating. Can't wait to use this baby.

 

Handle is Black Ebony wood.

I will use it this weekend. 11th December 2021. Wish me luck!

Galen Leather

In the September, my birthday month, I had made numerous purchases. One of them included some beautiful crafted leather items from Galen Leather Company.

Established in Istanbul, Turkey in 2012.

Must is written on their products to great fanfare. You can read more about them from various blogs, reviews and YouTube.

What I liked about Galen Leather are mainly 4 things. Handmade, extensive variety, fast delivery and a pleasure to deal with.

I found that their leather products were made with care. You can tell from the attention to detail that customer satisfaction is priority.

I was mainly looking for someone providing quality washi tape dispenser. There are many on Shopee, Lazada and etc but one look at them and you would rather pass. That lead to other purchases from Galen Leather. 

All items were beautifully packed and their boxes were of quality and sturdy which led me to repurposing them and not end up in the recycling bin. 

I also received some free gifts which is always welcome. My son loved the tea and coffee. He has now given me a KPI to buy more of the same tea and coffee locally. Also included was a 10% discount for future purchase and a charm to ward of the evil eye. Cool!

Now my washi tapes are not all over the place. Quality is top notch and sturdy. Now I need to get more washi tapes to fill up the gap. 

Dual case pen holder. Immediately I had noticed the beautiful mushroom like umami smell of all their leather products. A round roller stick is also provided to expand the slots should you have oversized pens.  

As noticed, the size is not small and will fit most bigger pens. That is the other thing that I found about their products. It is big. So unlike the products I usually order online based on pictures and measurements provided on websites. When I receive them, I’m usually in shock as they are tiny. Just fitting the product they were intended for and cannot be used for other bigger items.  

An added bonus is that the splitting compartment separating the 2 pens extends all the way to the bottom. Even the Montblanc case I was eying did not have that, which resulted in me not purchasing it.

The single pen case. Nice and simple. I had an unfortunate accident with this case. I placed a slim Ferris Press Brush fountain pen it it. As I had used this case for some time the leather had expanded slightly and without realizing it I picked up the case from the table upside down and the pen just slipped from its slot. If fell about 5 feet to the solid tile flooring. Lucky me the cap was fully covered and its a metal pen. So damage to the nib was averted and there was hardly a scratch on the pen.  

Pencil boxes. As you can see from the first pictures in this blog. They are large and have space for more items.  

Some other items purchased to complete the set.

   

Graf Von Faber Castell Epsom Cognac Pen case

I purchased this on my Birthday 15 September 2021.

By accident actually. Well, I mean I did not go around hunting for it.  

I was at KLCC heading towards Kinokuniya when I came across a small Faber Castell outlet that had their higher end Graf Von Faber Castell series. 

It was just a curious stop to look and see. I was not intending to purchasing anything. There was no sale signs. But I noticed that there was a beautiful pen case that had a discount card placed.

I enquirer and they informed that the case was 60% off. 

That is how I ended up with the purchase. 

This is my first Graf Von Faber Castell product. 

My advise is head on there as they had informed me the items are on discount until year end. But why wait? Go before its sold out.

This single sleeve retails for more than RM600+ prior to the discount. The magnetic catch was super strong that attracted me towards it.

Uniquely designed with tight inner grip to ensure your pen does not slip off if you overturned it

Sailor Pro Gear Mustang King

I jumped into the the Mustang king band wagon rather late. More precisely, I started drooling over this pen after it was sold out.

It was my mistake. I was just like any typical buyer. Let’s wait and see. I can purchase it another day. That was my thought process. Although I was aware that only 388 units were made.

I waited and waited until one fine day, I decided to do a random check at Pen Gallery’s website and found out that it was sold out.

Remorse immediately sank in. When it was available for purchase, I did not buy it. Now, its sold out and I’m hunting for it.

The review from Gourmet Pens in YouTube just made it worst. Ahhhhh! Why, did I not purchase it when it was available? Everything Azizah from Gourmet Pens said, I fully agreed. 

As a durian lover in particular mustang king, this fountain pen ticked all right boxes.

Mustang king is the cream of the crop. The 7 series in the BMW lineup. 

Hats off to Mr. Lai from Pen Gallery. This collaboration between them and Sailor was fruitful. No pun intended. It is truly a remarkable fountain pen that does not stray from its durian roots.

From the packaging, color of the pen and its emblem, it screams durian.

The pen arrived in this beautiful outer box. No mistaken it for anything else other than its source of inspiration. The durian.

The box inside is just a simple white box. I long for a day when packaging could me made more simpler like the Lamy Safari packaging. Simply a paper box package that will be recycled. You save space as you will not be keeping the box and furthermore, price could be lowered due to the cost savings in the packaging.

Included inside are 2 ink cartridges, pen instructions, serial number for this limited edition and 1 converter. I must say, the ink provided is a beautiful color. I cannot pin point the color but its nice. A wiring sample is provided below, towards the end of this blog. 

Sailor emblem is nice and crisp.

The ring states Sailor Japan Founded 1911 

Just in case you have forgotten that the color of this pen reflects the color of the flesh of the durian fruit, there is a reminder of the durian logo at the bottom of the pen. Cool!

My pen is numbered 243 out of 388. 243 in Mandarin means damn easy life. I wonder who purchased 007, 008, 088, 168 and 388? Lucky buggers.

Oh! I forgot, you must be wondering how did I purchase this pen as it was sold out? 

Well, one fine day in June 2021, Pen Gallery did advertise on its social media platform that they still had a few pieces left in Japan and it will arrive in September 2021. Nuff said. I jumped on it.

Beautiful 21K nib. Most pen’s I know comes in either 14K or 18K. 

The pen wrote smoothly out of the box at the first attempt. Impressive. It is a far cry from my Ferris Wheel Press Brush Fountain Pen. Even if I do not use the Sailor pen for 4 days. It writes on the first attempt. The Ferris Wheel on the other hand has hard starts up and takes numerous attempts before the ink flows, if left unused for days. 

All in all, I’m pleased with the purchase. Only my Montblanc is a smoother writer. This is my first Sailor pen and my first Broad nib.

But I must say, the Sailor Professional Gear Mustang King is a beautiful to behold.

Loyal Stricklin Johnny Wallet Olmo Pueblo

I am a big fan of EDC items. On one of my escapades in my quest for EDC knowledge, I stumbled upon a YouTube channel, Excessorize Me.

I was hooked by Vincent Tse comedic way of presenting the products he had reviewed. You need to listen carefully to understand his comedic punches. Usually below the waist line. 😂

Vincent is a content creator based in Toronto, Canada. His YouTube channel created on 30 August 2012 has a following of 631K subscribers with more than 75 million views. Highly recommended to check out his channel. 

In his video dated 25 February 2020 he reviewed what was in Peter McKinnon’s pocket.

Peter had this beautiful minimalist leather wallet. I was smitten by its looks.

A quick search in the description link disclosed that it was made by Loyal Stricklin and simply called the Johnny Wallet.

I was in dismay when I found out that they do not ship to Malaysia and some countries near us. But they do however, ship to Singapore. Hmmmmmm! I wonder why? 

Opportunity arose on 1 September 2021 when I found a seller on Carousell Malaysia from Johor  advertising for sale a preloved one in good condition. I made payments on 3 September 2021 and the seller was kind enough to ship it out the same day by J&T Express. 

I received it today, 4 September 2021 and immediately tore the package to see THE beauty.

Wow! Stunning! No regrets what so ever.

I had to put my personal touch and some elbow grease to bring back the luster to the leather.

These are some of the tools of the trade.

Brushed it to remove some minor dirt on the leather surface and then proceeded to use a basic Staedtler eraser to remove some minor smudging on the inner suede side of the leather. I did not have a proper suede eraser, so the pencil eraser made do.

Removed some minor grime with saddle soap. You can see the leather was brighten after the cleaning process.

Once properly dried under the fan. Leather oil was applied and once the leather had absorbed the oil, I applied another layer. Nothing fancy, just using my index and middle fingers as tools to rub the oil.

The leather had come alive but I knew I could take it a notch up. I finished the moisturizing process with mink oil.

So soft and lively to touch. The moisturizing process had brought out the umami mushroom like smell of the leather. I am now satisfied.

Loyal Strickland Johnny Wallet Olmo Pueblo wallet measuring 3.5 x 4 inches is made from a single piece of leather with no stitching in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The full grain veg leather is sourced from the Italian tannery Badalassi Carlo.