dahmakan - A Review

*Disclaimer: my brother works for this company.

Some factors led me to have dahmakan become my first choice way to have my meals whenever I’m alone without my family, regardless of whether I’m at home or at work.

There have been a few phases of how I would have my home meals ever since I moved back to KL. There was cooking steamed chicken marinated in Nando’s sauce. Then a long phase of pan grilled steak before switching to my current choice. In between there was also a phase of air frying ready to cook chicken.

I first tried out an ala carte order, then moved up the Prime memberships until going to the highest tier as I finish my meals of the lower tier.

So what do I like about dahmakan? So far for me, there hasn’t been much of the food that I’ve bought that I don’t like. This is even more true with their premium meals. My current favorite order: 1 premium meal, house chicken caesar salad and a Coke Zero.

What does this solve? First they claim to use the freshest ingredients with healthy cooking. I get my protein fix; not small pieces of meat covered in thicker fried flour. And there’s no time spent thawing ingredients, cooking (not so long with cooking steak, much lunger with making steamed chicken), cleaning. With the need to balance all of my commitments, saving time on eating was the obvious way to, but of course at a price I’m willing to pay. And so far the quality of food has been excellent in terms of being consistent. The vegetables are really always the freshest, and the taste has never varied from one order to the next (especially for someone like me who doesn’t really experiment with ordering other stuff).

Some cons do come with the service.  A Prime costs 26 ringgit ala carte (based on the Prime section of the website). A premium meal would cost 31 ringgit, while the cheapest meals would cost 15 instead (though on the menu section of the website they cost around 29/24/15 respectively). This makes it expensive as a once in a while choice. If you were to try out this service, I’d suggest subscribing to a Prime 10 subscription, try it out and see if you like it or not.

The amount of total meals prepared for sale is limited, and ditto for the number of drivers; if you order late, you either won’t have the desired delivery slot available or the meal would be sold out altogether. My guess + inner birdie talk: no wasted meals = no wasted cost, and food is always delivered freshly cooked.

My value proposition for this is that even when buying through another service (like Honestbee), a lot of times if you are ordering alone you might need to deal with service and delivery fees if you don’t meet a minimum order. Ordering via dahmakan with a Prime account is potentially cheaper in the long run (without the delivery charge and service charge usually waived with most ala carte orders. But you’ll need to fork out money upfront.

If you’re interested to try it out, do download the app here (via iTunes). You can also use the code MUHAMMRNO to get RM35 to try out dahmakan. See here if your area is covered.

FCAI Clinical Exam Spring 2019 at Dublin, Ireland

I will divide this topic into 2: one on the experience and another on the academic aspect (topics). So yeah, I passed this exam, making it 4 passes out of 4 attempts but taking 5 years, which is much longer than desired (but the way the journey had to be due to various circumstances).

I flew with Emirates. My process was to initially screen the flights available via Expedia (for available times and general price range), then I individually booked the flights and hotel separately via their respective websites (to get the best discount). Being someone who lifts weights, not sitting in the aisle was not an option (to give me the best sitting space for comfort). I spent some extra money ensuring I’d get those seats, and I did not regret it. The food was definitely good.

From a colleague’s recommendation, I decided to stay at Kildare Street Hotel, which was definitely the right choice. The price was cheap, the room has WiFi, and close to the important places (Dublin Bus Airlink bus stop, exam venue, college, and shops).

To get to Dublin from the airport, I rode the previously mentioned Airlink bus by Dublin Bus. By buying the ticket online, I was able to get a € 1 discount on the € 12 2 way ticket.

I tried to survive without turning on roaming and succeeded. With WiFi being ubiquitous for the most part (airports, some restaurants, and even on a couple of the flights), there was no need for cellular data. For navigation, I’d turn it on before leaving the hotel (to load the needed directions and locations of additional  nearby places) , then allow the phone’s GPS to handle the rest.

The main place where I would have my meals was The Cedar Tree, with it’s fulfilling portions, WiFi and nice ambience. On my final day in Dublin, they even served some Baklava and Turkish coffee, on the house. I’d highly recommend this place. In between, I’d have yogurt and milk to minimize hunger and focus on last minute studying. 

At the Cedar Tree

The exam itself was held at the Chartered Accountants of Ireland building, which was around a 10 minute walk at most and near the College. The place itself didn’t have free WiFi, but it wasn’t needed. 

I brought my pre-ground coffee and cold brew bottle, but in the end it was not needed. Coffee is everywhere in Dublin, including the hotel, in more than enough supply. The coffee wasn’t weak unlike the standard stuff in Malaysia. Even during the exam, there was free flowing coffee, tea, and milk. In the end, I had to “force” myself to finish my cold brew coffee before going back.

You don’t need a fridge here to make cold brew coffee

Waiting for the bus back to the airport

There was a major problem on the flight back: there would be only a small gap in between the flights from Dublin and Dubai. This gap became non-existent when the former flight departed late. On arrival a group of Emirates’ staff was already ready to hand us new tickets for the connecting flights; the problem was that the flight would be delayed by 12 hours.

To solve that, the new tickets also included a stay at their airport hotel with free meals. By the time we got there via the shuttling coach it would be around 11 am Dubai time, with an eight hour gap before the shuttle back to the airport. Lunch and dinner buffets were available on the house, and thoroughly enjoyed.

“Among” the foods I ate. When a trip gets delayed, the airline had better pay me well. And pay me well they did.

In general, typical of me, this was a “business trip”; study, exams, rest, go back. No sight-seeing/any meaningful shopping. Like the inspirational Snakes and Bosses: get in, destroy the objectives, get out (except with Hideo Kojima there’s a lot of drama that comes along with that).

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Ah... It's Been A While

I’m not dead yet, and there have been some good news in my life. Let’s see if I can get this blog going again.

(Even though my Facebook account is still active, I’ve made a decision to not open it. I only use it to open sites where I’ve used my FB account to log in; even this is not secure at all nowadays)

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