GNK on the Go!

Flower Girl Kay

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 01:38:00 +0000

This was Kay's first starring role as a flower girl; for my cousin Adrian's wedding.

When the request first came in, we didn't put much hope on it seeing how Kay is usually so sticky. But we thought we'd just go for it and see what happens.

Because we weren't really expecting it to work out, we were pretty laxed about it, and we hadn't really been pshyche-ing her up earlier for the role until one or two days before the actual date; which was on her birthday: February 22nd!

What a day and what a role to be playing on her own birthday. She is now officially and technically 3 years old.

Being more anxious than her, I showed her some amateur Youtube videos of little flower girls walking down the aisle, for reinforcement. I also had to do a little research about how the hair and flowers go together cos we weren't sure how it works. But hey, my involvement stops there alright? Less you think I'm into pinky glittery princessy stuff. Ah Ma & Nee did the actual work.

Kay did well for the rehearsal the evening before and she seemed more independent and self-confident this time around. We could stay some distance apart from her in a radius and she'd still be okay. I must admit I was a bit skeptical that she'd want to do it on the actual day with an actual crowd staring at her.

But lo and behold, she creamed it.

And we've never ever seen her sitting so still, for so long. Doesn't this look like a preview into the future? [sob sob]

I guess school has got something to do with it. She got through that big separation hurdle; you know, the one where parents had to eventually dump their kids and they think their parents are leaving them forever? I guess after that everything else became less frightening in comparison.

Either that or she just really wanted to be a princess so badly.

She also scored in both the pre-wedding and the wedding dinner, exercising her PR skills on unsuspecting dinner guests; fluttering from one table to the next.

Our baby girl is now a little more grown up. I'm even beginning to call her Kay more often now. There will still be more changes, for the better I hope. She's transitioning from Terrible Two to Terrorising Three at the moment, packed with all the tantrums, stubbornness, power plays, and the state of no apologies and no public toilets. In the meantime, I have collected a couple of plastic balloon sticks for reinforcement. Parents have to transition too. This is not Sweden.

A Damai Puri Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 06:30:00 +0000

Nee had a UNIMAS project meeting over the weekend at Damai Puri. As usual, this is one of the ways a bloated public institution spends the Rakyat's money. This also meant a short weekend getaway for the participants, and their family members. We were not the exception, and were quick to take advantage of this perk.

The renovated room was clean & most importantly it had wooden flooring, instead of tiles; and this lent a certain level of comfort and warmth to our stay. Surprisingly, against our expectations, the room was very acceptable.

The main asset of Damai Puri was their larger than usual pool & I thought their stretch of beach was much wider & private as well. We were not aware at all that there was more action in the children's pool as it was sort of hidden & not visible. So along with most people, Kay just played in the larger infinity pool.

This was Kay's first experience with the arm floats. And it worked better than the rubber ducky ring ones cos this made her think she could really swim.

I didn't really want to do this post cos I thought it was more of a personal family holiday but gosh, I am just so enamoured with Kay's photos that I wanted to share them with the world.

Being parents ourselves now, we could finally understand why every other parent would think that their own kid is the cutest in the whole wide world, even though they may not really be, in the eye of the public. For us, we're just fulfillingly content being ignorant about that.

Sigh. Blink blink. Flutter flutter.

In the end, the little sleepless monster of eternal awakeness finally flattens herself out.

Damai Puri turned out to be a little pleasant surprise for us as most of the Damai range of hotels had an air of monopolic arrogance. It's true that Damai Puri will charge for every little additional thing like RM15 or so for a pillow/towel etc. We've read a lot of complaints about the non-existence of service but we were lucky enough not to have required them, and that probably spared us. We were also fortunate enough to be given a clean room which seemed more recently renovated. So yes, we will be back and Damai Puri will be our choice over the more crowded & smaller Damai Beach Resort, for now.

CNY in Bali: The Arrival

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 08:03:00 +0000

Despite the hype, and the Eat Pray Love fiasco, we've never been to Bali. Although the place had crossed our minds a few times before but the trip somehow never happened. So this time round we thought Bali would make a good Chinese New Year break for us.

The trip wasn't that well planned although we did have some ideas of what we wanted to eat, and the places that we'd wanted to go. In retrospective, I think it wasn't so much of being well-planned, I think the trip needed less planning instead. We didn't know it then but the mistake was that we planned Bali the way we did with our other holidays.

We were booked for Aston Bali Resort in Tanjung Benoa Nusa Dua, down in the southern peninsula of Bali, about 40km from Denpasar & 30 minutes from the airport.

The airport experience wasn't that great cos we arrived around evening 6-7ish & there was a sense of hurriedness & at the same time an anxiety over being approached by taxi touts, porters, etc. We ignored the touts as advised, and we bought our tickets at the counter for IDR90,000. However the 3 porters got to us, and in Bali it takes 3 of them to handle one luggage. Later we found out that the touts charged even cheaper, but we weren't sure the same rule applies in general, and we wouldn't have wanted to take that chance.

Nusa Dua is the place where all the resorts are at, and in keeping with the resort traditions, a bit far from everywhere else. It's fine if you're planning for a quite getaway of doing nothing but lazing around. That's what we should have done, but we did our usual sightseeing & food-hunting, and the trip ended up as an exhaustive one filled with horrible traffic jams on single lanes cos the main sites like Ubud & Denpasar were far away. Nee almost suffocated herself in the car, & Kay had a couple bouts of puking from car sickness. Bali's infrastructure has obviously not yet caught up with the demands of its burgeoning tourism.

The Aston Bali Resort wasn't really what I had in mind for Bali, but Nee's family was already there and the whole point of it was for a family reunion sort of CNY holiday. My ideas for staying by the padi fields with a sarong & a Teck Kong Ah Pek singlet didn't happen.

The resort despite being 4 stars was a bit anti-climaxing. You can tell from how the room looks.

I think the lighting was a bit dark & we could see that Kay wasn't too excited by the room as she usually is with almost ANY hotel room. She wanted to make sure that EVERY single light was switched on in the room, every single night.

These were some of the decor at the lobby. From the moment we stepped onto the hotel, you could tell that Bali was a place with an abundance of skilled craftsmen, and that is why it has an inarguable strong identity in the art world: the unmistakable Balinese style.

Later on I came to learn that Balinese art is deeply rooted in their rituals of dance, music, sculpture & carvings which were mainly done for their many temples. And that explains the rich tradition that it has in its arts & cultural practices.

This is the view from our room's verandah. The lighted area in the center is one of the restaurants where they were going to have lion and dragon dances; which was going to be Kay's first delightful encounter with the celestial creatures.

Here's Kay adoring the candlelight.

There are three major things which Kay responds to right now: Food, Light & Swimming.

The first night was just for us to settle in. We wouldn't have the time nor energy for any more adventures after Changi. And so we had to be contended with just hotel food.

Roasted Pork Belly

Satay Bali style

Oxtail Stew

I think one of the highlight was for Kay to see Roger (Big Jiu Jiu) again. And it's always interesting to see how Kay takes to Roger very quickly even after not seeing him for so long.

I guess blood will always be thicker than water, and that Skype probably also has something to do with it.

From Changi to Bali

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:59:00 +0000

We haven't been posting for a long while and as a result we have a whole backlog of posts to catch up on. I've promised myself that I'd get this done, slowly but surely, and hopefully it's not going to be more and more like doing homework.

It's becoming more urgent to do this now because our memories are starting to fail us. We've always wanted to record and document our journeys anyway, more as a personal 'diary' for ourselves. I keep imagining both Nee & I as old farts 30 years from now looking back at our old blog posts thinking, 'Did we look hot way back then?'. And if the answer is Yes, then it will clearly be because of the weather.

Anyway, here's a post about our love for Changi.

We did our very first Bali trip during the beginning of this year, on the second day of the Chinese New Year celebrations. We took the Airasia KCH-SING-BALI route. Cheap wasn't the main reason, although it was cheaper than the KL route. Changi was the honey cos we wanted a comfortable transit for Kay; and if you have an active toddler with 4 hours to kill, KLIA is not going to be your option.

Changi has always been our first preference (if we had a choice), and we knew it was a good place from the way Kay took to it like a rabbit to the fields. There's just so much to see and do, and the space is just awesome for a toddler; miles of thick carpets to run and fall safely on.

We were there during CNY and it was a delight to see the effort they had put into the CNY festive landscapes & this sort of made up for the celebrations that we left behind in Kuching.

Of course this went down very well with Kay cos she started this Love for Lanterns phase. She would make redundant sentences about lanterns every time she encounters one, 'Look. So many lanterns. This one is small. That one is big. This lantern is on. That lantern is off. Why is this lantern off? Daddy switch on the lanterns!'

Much like a mini-Singapore, Changi had mostly what the city state has. It's like a sampler.
There were mini art galleries which pleasantly pop up at random places.

These were the Birds in Flight by Baet Yeok Kuan.

Kinetic Rain were made of 1,216 computationally controlled bronze raindrops; which has since become Kay's eternal association with Changi: Raindrops = Singapore airport.

Mommy & Baby sculptures; Mother & Child by Han Meilin

This reminded me that Kay needed a diaper change; Thanks to my extra-sensory paternal hormones.

M&Ms with a durian (& a hedgehog).

Free art activity for kids; this one Daddy like.

Note to diary: Kay pooped at this point.

If your kids haven't had enough of Angry Birds on your iPads, Changi had them also.

Angry Birds Planet, to be exact.

I'm thinking this would make a giant bad-a** omelette.

Have you ever wondered how the eternal flow of the Qi energy looks like?

Yes, like this.
Kay becomes the physical manifestation of that when she's at Changi.

Except for when she's up against older kids. Then she pulls the brakes & exercises extreme caution & stillness.

And then to Kay's delight, there was also the Koi fish pond.

And next to this was a butterfly farm, which I didn't have a picture of. Can you believe that? I mean the farm, not the picture.

Train shuttle rides between the three Terminals.

There's shopping for mommy.

Like all things in Singapore, Changi is very well thought out. Unlike the colder KLIA, Changi feels warmer, safer, and much more comfortable to be in. Everything you need is there, and in abundance. Free phone charging stations. Sleeping Lounge area. Free 4-bar WIFI (he-llo KLIA!). Free internet consoles, without the waiting. Lots of seats, and lots of everything.

Oh, there's more. If you're a hardcore gamer, you might appreciate the XBOX KINECT, XBOX 360, PLAYSTATION 3 and movie theatre at Terminal 3. You can play till your blood vessels pop cos they're all free.

With all that, four hours was easy to kill. And we're pretty sure Kay had some new neurons connected and synapses fired up within that short span of time. So if you need to transit, remember, Changi is the honey.

KLIA, I think you'd better up your standards. Think FREE. Think abundance.

Gawai Break on the Beach @ Damai Sentral

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:01:00 +0000

When faced with long holidays, it is imperative that you get out of the house when you have a 2-year old toddler. Otherwise, chaos will run in your home as your sweet little one turns into a monster. We were fortunate this time around. Some friends suddenly had an idea for a trip to the beach on the 3rd day of Gawai & remembered to include us.

When Kay saw Nee packing her brand spanking new swimwear the night before, she wanted to go right away on that night. We had to restrain her & explain the concept of tomorrow to her: something about then being night & the need to sleep, and the sun needs to come up then the beach trip is on. When the next morning came at 7am, & the sun came up as promised, her eyelids flew open at the mention of the word beach.

Here she was in heavenly bliss. Nobody was going to take the beach away from her now, for she would take it back.

Here she was doing something irrelevant like pouring seawater into the sand. I'm glad she wasn't hooked on this or else I'd be worried about her IQ level.

There were small fishes in the shallow waters but I couldn't catch them. Otherwise they'd be some BBQ going on.

By this time, it was all about the sand & her pail & shovel set. She hadn't really entered the water yet.

Pit stop: She gulped down one whole burger. Ah yes, you can see her girly painted nails here. They glow in the dark.

Part Two: It's water time again. See, it's just like the F1; refuel & run again.

I think hanging out with older kids helps to give her the confidence to get into the water. It's good to let her get a bit of salt water into her system & overcome that fear. Sometimes when the wave gets too strong, she'd wrap herself around my legs, 'Scared scared.'

By now, she's thinking that she's really swimming. I got her to place her hands onto the sand and let her legs float up, and I think she caught the feel. Pandalela baby!

One of those rare occasions that we'd get ~~our family~~ my photo taken; thanks to Eng Hean.

We managed to drag Kay out of the water & left for lunch when the crowd started setting in at about 11-ish. I promised her ice-cream cos food always does the trick. Learnt that from the circus shows.

Lunch was at this little known place called Ah Soh Buntal Seafood. The owner of this place was an old man who would snap at you if you didn't behave. Steven called him a gangster, potential cabinet minister & political analyst. He'd sit down & rant his politics if you'd let him. We made sure he didn't get his chance.

And he made us get up to get our own drinks, and ice, and cups, and chopsticks. We almost wanted to ask him if we'd have to cook our own meals, but I think we didn't want to push it, less we'd also have to wash the plates.

The place is surrounded by a decent view of kampung houses, fishing sampans & the water. But it really doesn't look as good as the photos below cos I filtered them.

In the commercial world, you'd call this false advertising. But it's not relevant here cos I wasn't paid for posting this.

Ok. I'd shut up for a while now & let you take the feel in.

This place was supposed to have good food at reasonable prices comparative to the other restaurants at Buntal. You'd just have to know how to take the old man's abuse.

This was Kay's favourite.

Steamed prawns, as fresh as they can get, literally from the sea in front of you.

This was kailan vege with beef I think.

Pretty good Oyster Omelletes; different from the ones I've eaten before in a good way.

Nee thought the tomato koay teow was just so so; not enough frying.

This could be the specialty of this place: roasted free range chicken. We both agreed that the herbs could have been stronger, and the salt, less. It was good but it didn't hit Nee's spectacular meter.

Kay had a whole drumstick.

See, did you realise that I was not in any one of the photos here?

I think I seriously have to start camwhoring.

This is the gang that we hang out with; loving & supporting friends who keep each others' feet on the ground. Food & Laughter is our motto.

Kay's First Gawai Adventure: Day One

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:39:00 +0000

It's very rare that both Nee & I get a chance to drive out of Kuching, and it feels quite embarrassing that we've been to more places outside of Sarawak but we haven't even begun to explore our very own backyard.

Therefore when Gawai beckoned, we hit the road to Kampung Bantang in Serian, without a single clue where that was. We just knew we were going to have our lunch settled there. Fortunately we had Ma (Nee's colleague) who had the directions, and we just trailed behind his car.

Here were the directions:

Drive towards Serian, and when you see a signboard on the left saying SMK Taee, take the right turn.

Yup. That was it. When you live in Malaysia, you do not get luxury GPS-precision directions. They don't spoil you like that. They'll just give you enough to get you going, and you'll only know the rest when you get there. Don't get me wrong, it could be a good thing. You learn survival skills fast that way.

But of course it came with a price. What was supposed to be a one hour journey ended up being two, with Kay puking all over mommy.

The real directions are available here on Google map .

This wasn't SMK Taee. I like taking photos of old houses & I found this at the intersection into Kampung Bantang. By the way, a word of warning, all photos on this post were taken on, edited on & uploaded from a Samsung Note 1. So please forgive me.

I must admit that there were a few points in the journey when I almost decided to just quit & turn back. I wanted to shout are we there yet a couple of times but I was the one driving, so I kept my mouth shut. Fortunately I didn't chicken out and the wild ride rewarded us with this breathtaking view when we got there.

There's something about living at the foot of a mountain with an awesome view like this. Just imagine waking up to this every morning. I don't think you'd need anything else. It wouldn't matter if the ruling government sucks, or that there was corruption, or that the new GST is setting in. That could exactly be the reason why the folks in the interior don't need anything else. They've all got a piece of land to build their houses on, plus another piece to farm on.

Oh wait, there's more. Up on this mountain, there's a cave where the locals gather birds' nests from, and the cave passageway runs from this village all the way to another. When the weather is dry, you can walk all the way through to the other side and the journey takes 24 hours.

And little beknownst to people of Sarawak, there's a gazetted cavern with cave writings/paintings somewhere up there.

On top of that, there's a natural cool water spring somewhere in the backyard. We didn't get to see any of these cos we were too busy eating but you can see how it looks like on this blog that I found.

Hey look, you can see the mouth of the cave!

Ok, this is going to be unfortunate for the foodies. We didn't take any photos of the food cos I wasn't intending to do that for this trip & hence didn't bring my DSLR. But I should have done that cos the food was really awesome & now I'm regretting it. Let me see, there was the bamboo rice stuffed with pork pieces which I thought looked very unassuming. But it tasted really good and Kay even asked for seconds. Apparently we learned that the rice was just freshly harvested & that was why the aroma was strong, and the pork came from their own family farm.

It seemed like this turned out to be very fun trip after all. There was the scenery, and the food, and it was like the old MacDonald's farm visit for Kay.

...and on his farm he had some fish

... and then some ducks

... and then a dog

... and then some pigs.

Look ma! I can stand! Evolution just happened.

We were brought to a family-owned pig farm just a short drive away. A fully grown pig can sell for about RM3-4K. My apologies, the pig couldn't control the bladder when he/she heard that.

I'm not sure which, but one of them was kept for the purpose of mating.

And there were the little cutsie ones too.

I thought this would have been educational for Kay cos half of her book collection had pigs in them. Now everytime she looks at the pigs in her books, she would probably be able to contextualise, and also smell them.

The farm also had a bit of dragon fruit, pepper & buah langsat trees, among others.

Fire those synapses girl. Work neurons, work! Daddy's doing all this for you. Otherwise we'd rather be sleeping at home.

I was apprehensive at first about making this trip cos my last Gawai experience many years ago had me driving & getting lost in the maze of kampung roads for 2-3 hours just to visit one single house. But this experience has regained my faith in backyard adventure & I am looking forward to more.

I really want to thank our hosts who have been so gracious to open their house & their dining table to us. Believe me, when we eat, it's not a pretty sight.

This trip was definitely an eye-opener cos the family that we visited was a Bidayuh with mixed Chinese-Bidayuh parentage. So it was really interesting to see both Chinese & Bidayuh relatives coming in & out through the door speaking a plethora of Bidayuh, Hokkien & Mandarin. We've always known that the communities in Sarawak had very strong racial integration but to be able to experience it personally reminded us that the integration is much deeper than we thought. Any attempt to politicise race would almost be impossible here.

The other thing which we've learnt was that it looks like corruption is not going to have any immediate impact on the communities deep in the rural interiors for now (unless if their lands are taken away from them, God forbids!). The new GST is not going to have any impact on them as they are self sufficient. They've got their own land, mountains, spring water, ducks, chickens, pigs, fruits and vegetables. If war happens, they'd still be able to survive.

I think I would need to start farming in my backyard soon. In the meantime, we would like to wish all friends and readers a very Happy Gawai & Gaya Guru Gerai Nyamai!

Structuring This Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 04:02:00 +0000

See how time flies. We are feeling very horrible for not posting anything and how things are on this blog.

We will be spending some time trying to restructure all the posts into more sensible arrangements.

Please bear with us and we will be back soon.

Osmanthus in the Wind

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:40:00 +0000

Osmanthus in the Wind

Meeting up with Aunty Terri in KK has been great. She was very hospitable and kind to bring us to various food places. But most importantly, when seeing her passion in the food, she has inspired me to write and blog about food, recipes and eating again. Having baby Kay is a joy but she is a little tornado that completely changed our priorities and lives. As most of you know, her arrival has been full of drama and the first 4 months has been torturous for first time parents like Greg and I. I would rather hit the bed or watch tv drama if I have the time what more to say cook, bake and take photos and blog.

So meeting up with Aunty Terri and the trip has reminded me of the things we had loved doing ~ baking, eating, cooking, travelling and now with Baby Kay in tow, it is still fun even though in a different way. So here I am back on my feet, i think. I had a sudden urge to clean up my house, get some new furniture, patch up anything that is not working, rearrange the photos, and most of all to cook and bake (other than for Nee's), come out with new recipes and blog about them. Anyway, Christmas is hitting straight in my face and Mommy needs to think also about Baby Kay's first Christmas ~ decoration, presents and menu.

Well, to come back to this blog, I wanted to do jellies (as inspired by Terri at hungerhunger.blogspot.com. I really enjoyed talking about jellies and recipes with Terri during the trip. You can check out all Terri's creative and beautiful recipes here. Check out the Sakura Jelly, Summer Jelly, Kinabalu Jelly, Mt Purple especially as they are my favourites!).

Terri and along with 9 other bloggers are competing in the Royal Selangor Jelliriffic! Challenge, which is to to raise funds for the Breast Cancer Welfare Association of Malaysia. This association is a non-profit organisation set up by medical specialists to help women with breast cancer. The bloggers were given the jelly moulds designed by Nick Munro for RSP and were to come out with recipes using the moulds for 30 days in the month of October. Others like me (Yes! I bought these shiny gorgeous babies and they have just arrived on Thursday) and you can purchase these lovely and highly versatile moulds from RSP and proceeds will go to the Association. I bought the moulds thinking of those pretty gorgeous items I can do for my Baby's future parties. And to give our absolute support to Terri (I hope you win this and you should) and the Royal Selangor Jelliriffic! Challenge.

The first jelly I did was Osmanthus in the Wind. Osmanthus flower (Gui Hua) comes in tiny pieces, light, gold to yellow in colour and has a beautiful scent, not overly flowery with a fruity apricot like scent. Commonly used in China and Hong Kong as tea and desserts. Commonly seen the Guilin China.

This flower reminded me of Women. I thought of Women in the older days, especially Asian Women, who do not have status, rights or identity even. There is a famous Chinese saying that goes "Women follow their fathers at home, when they are married, they follow their husbands, and when they grow old, they follow their sons" See the word FOLLOW here. These women were like Osmanthus in the Wind. They were not allowed to have opinions, dreams and ambitions, they were not even allowed to go out from their home, and in some culture deemed as worthless. Basically they had no control over their lives! Just like the Osmanthus, blown and dropped onto wherever the wind shall bring them.

But little Osmanthus is beautiful, and they are resilient. They survived! Just like those beautiful, strong, resilient fore-mothers of ours. They had supported their husbands, raised their children and with little acknowledgement, they had held up half of the sky. Osmanthus in the Wind is a tribute to these women who had walked the journey of pain, abuse and put downs quietly to allow us(the women) to enjoy many rights and privileges today. I hope those women suffering from Breast Cancer can also draw their strengths from these women.

Osmanthus in the Wind Jelly is a combination of
Osmanthus flower and dried and canned longan.

For one 200 ml mould:

Osmanthus Layer:

1/2 tsp of Konnyaku powder

200ml of water and Osmanthus liquid ( infusing 1/2 tsp of Osmanthus flower with 1/2 cup of warm water)

20gm of castor sugar

1 tsp of Osmanthus Flower

1) Osmanthus tea is yellowish, depending on how yellow you want your jelly to be, use some of the Osmanthus tea with the addition of water.

2) Mix Konnyaku powder with castor sugar in a pot, stir to mix them. Add Osmanthus liquid.

3) Bring to a boil, stirring all the time. Turn to low fire and keep the mixture warm, that is why i used 200ml as evaporation will reduce the liquid.

4) Rinse the mould and sit it in a glass. Drop a few pieces of the Osmanthus flower into the mould. Add a tiny teaspoon of the mixture. Osmanthus flower is very light and will sit on the jelly mixture. For the swirling effects, I drop a tiny pinch of the flower on top of the jelly siding to one side of the mould (say 3pm position). Scoop some more jelly mixture onto the other side(9pm position) of the mould first and finally covering the flowers to as much as possible push in down. Do this to 1/4 of the mould. Let it cool a little.

5) Continue the above by the dropping the flower at the 6 pm position up to 1/2 of the mould. Please try to push the flower down with the jelly mixture.

6) The final layer will cover the 3rd quarter of the mould, dropping the flowers more on the 6 to 9 pm position. When you reach the 3rd quarter top, sprinkle the flower over the entire base lightly. Wait til semi set to place the pieces of canned longans.

Longan Jelly

10-12 pcs of dried longans

3-4 pcs of canned longans

some warm water to soaked the dried longans

1/4 tsp of Konnyaku Powder

10 gm of castor sugar

Some more water

1) Soften the dried longans with warm water. Blend it in a blender.

2) Add some more water to make it to 120gm

3) In a pot, mix konnyaku powder with sugar. Stir. Add the longan blend. Bring it to a boil and stirring all the time.

4) Pour over the canned longan and Osmanthus Jelly.

5) Chill for 2 hour to set.

Have fun! The difficult bit is dropping the flowers and pushing them down to the jelly. See what I say about resilient.

Nee's Durian Fiesta

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:01:00 +0000

The whole Kuching town is going mad with durians or so it seems. There's a durian seller at every roundabout in Kuching, and they line up all the way to Kota Samarahan. And I've just heard that the imported Mao Shan Wang are back in town.

Being a durian lover, I thought hey, I should join in the fun. And it has been fun spending two afternoons dabbling in the kitchen mixing and concocting new durian recipes. It felt good to get my baking engine started again after such a long post-pregnancy break.

But this also meant that poor Baby Kay had to be passed around between the grandmas. Every time she comes near the kitchen, mommy can only say hi and kisses and see you later, baby. I think she misses mommy especially today.

LAdies & Gentlemen, these were the new recipes that I came up with. All of them are available at Nee's from 6.30 pm onwards today. If you missed it today, fret not, we are open again on Tuesday 2pm to 11 pm (Nee's is closed on Mondays). I promise you there will be more to come.

Durian Cheese Cake

The rich king of fruits blended into cream cheese making it a super yummy combination. A must for cheese and durian lovers.

Durian Delight

Light sponge layered with special rich durian mousse making it a delightful combination. One piece may not be enough.

Durian Swiss Roll

Nee's Special Durian Cream gives traditional swiss rolls a delightful twist.

Cream Puffs with Durian Cream. Ehmmm...need I say anymore?! Slurping yet?!

Greg & Nee Do Durians

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:10:00 +0000

Nee & I don't usually take the trouble to go out to buy durians as this would be one of those things on our lazy-to-do list. Normally, someone else like our parents would buy them in a bunch from somewhere and we'd sneakily get our share as well.

But this year, I don't really know what had hit us both. We've become pro-active durian hunters. Maybe it's the new baby or something else, although I can't see how the logic works.

I didn't fare too badly with the hunt. The stall beside BSN bank at Tabuan Jaya had a good selection of kampong durians selling from RM10-14. Being not able to tell a good durian from a bad one, I usually go straight up to the guy & ask for yellow ones, and yellow ones I'll get. He sold me two small ones with short thorns and they were as yellow as Big Bird. And I thought I was already in heaven.

But then came along these which were at the top of the game.

Do you see how yellow they are? Can you almost feel the texture in your mouth?

These were the original Cat Mountain King (Mao Shan Wang) aka Musang King aka D197 aka Butter Durian aka Raja Kunyit originally from Gua Musang, Pahang (some say Kelantan), and they cost RM35 per kg here in Kuching.

We got these babies through Jo, who placed special orders with the people that brought them into Kuching from Pahang. Apparently they were selling them somewhere next to Yow Kee cafe at 101 Premiere. We got two batches, and these were the last of the season (to come into Kuching), or so we heard.

Mao Shan Wang is known for its sweetness with a tinge of bitterness, and its small flattened seeds. When you bite into it, it's soft enough to melt in your mouth without becoming too mushy, and it's tender enough without being too chewy.

Now how can you ever resist this? Stanley Ho couldn't.

Baby Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 May 2011 06:32:00 +0000

The gifts started coming in early 3 months ago but we hadn't had time to record our words of thanks until now. So here's a BIG THANK YOU to all who had generously showered baby Kay with your blessings (all the phone calls and messages; we can't thank you enough), gifts & ang pows. We think she is such a lucky baby just by looking at the amount of gifts and ang pows she gets and some sent specially all the way from Australia, Canada, Singapore, Sibu, KK and KL.

Uncle Raymond had thoughtfully bought us an Amway water filter five months before Kay's arrival, which in his words, good for his little niece and she will need it. Uncle Roger had showered her with a MacLaren XLR stroller in which he claimed that he only have one niece at the moment, so no expense is too much. Aunty Winnie and Uncle Felix got her her latex mattress with a whole set of cot bedding set, which they insisted, as it was safer and cooler for her to sleep in.

These beautiful creations were knitted by Greg's mom.

Baby Kay's collection of shoes has started. I hope she doesn't go down the same path as Imelda Marcos.

Beautiful gift packages with gifts of clothings and knick knacks such as photo albums, frames and even a clip fan, teething ring and rubber ducky.

And she has clothings that will probably last her till one year old at least. And they come in sets.

Greg: I hope this doesn't become a habit. "Daddy, I want the whole collection, now."

Initially we thought Baby Kay had too few toys as we had not bought her any. I think now we can rival Toys R Us. She has all sorts, probably the whole collection from wrists and feet rattler to play gym, courtesy of our many good friends and collegues. Special thank you to FS who specially send the toy over from KL.

Loved these, from Caryn. Look at the hot pants! And such beautiful hand sewn blanket you bought.

And finally, this has got to be the ultimate. Baby Dior pacifier.

Made in Germany. Thank you Leonard & Claudia!

Greg's hair is turning white. He's thinking what have we gotten her into? Flash forward 16 years into the future - super spoilt brat covered in branded attire from head to toe, and still wanting more. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

P/S We did not manage to thank every single one. Your love and kindness for baby Kay is so very deeply felt by us. And most importantly, Thank You so much for sharing our joy and giving us the support that we both needed during the pregnancy through Kay's birth and her time in hospital, and now the whole new journey of parenthood.

The Adventure Begins!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:24:00 +0000

Despite our pleas & bibery, our confinement lady left us yesterday evening. So last night both of us were left alone with Baby Kay. She's on a 3-hour feeding interval and we thought we could outpace her by getting things ready even before she wakes. Well, we thought we could. That's as far as we got cos we were flat after every feed.

I think both of us are looking like pandas now. And the news is that it's only the first night. A friend told me that by the 3rd night, we'd be goners.

There is no Greg & Nee. Greg & Nee do not exist anyore. It's only Baby Kay & everything is about Baby Kay. Pretty soon this blog is just going to be Baby Kay on the Go! cos Greg & Nee is not going anywhere.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 04:19:00 +0000

"Finally, I feel like a real cow."

- Nee (March 12, 2011)

Power Puff Babies & Other Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Nee started letting me play with fondant quite sometime ago. While it is definitely much more manageable compared to marzipan (in terms of its durability), I am still lunging myself at it like an amateur.

Like photography, my attempts have been mostly intuitive, lacking the technical superiority of other sugarcraft artists.

These were a few of my attempts for Nee's customers who wanted something a bit more on top of their cakes.

This fairy cake was a bit tough cos to make fairies, you have to feel like one, to become one with them; and for a guy, that's not easy.

I used to love these girls until I had to sculpt them in 3D. These Power Puff Babies were tough. It took me 4 hours & cracks started appearing.

In between all these were also a pumpkin for Halloween & a 3D sports car (no photos unfortunately) which made me work my butt off.

A word of warning though. If you're looking for aesthetics above the quality of the actual cakes, you can do better if you try places like Mita or Taka cakehouses (I don't think they would hire me in a million years).

However if the quality of the cakes is more important to you & the decor is just a bonus distraction, then Nee has got the right stuff for you.

Happy Chinese New Year 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 04:34:00 +0000

This is for those who have not seen us for quite some time (7 months to be exact).

Due to her special condition, Nee will be mostly resting at home this festive season. We'll do the ocassional necessary visits to our relatives (during meal times).

Happy Chinese New Year to all our readers & patrons of Nee's.

P/s Despite what's on my Polo-T, I am not 100 years old.

p/p/s Nee's will be closed for the Chinese New Year celebrations & will open again on Feb 9 onwards.

Taipei Day 3: Ximending

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:25:00 +0000

The rain did not stop on our third day in Taipei. In fact, it kept pushing into the night. We left the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall for a place called Ximending which had more people than the rain.

Ximending is one of the older & therefore better known hangouts, being the earliest & the biggest pedestrian centre in Taipei. This place was probably where your parents went to in one of those huge tour buses full of Malaysian tourists in the 70s or 80s (that gives you only one hour to shop).

This is the place to come for fashion & to experience the subculture.

Gramps doing the subculture thing, probably doing a bit of shopping for his grandaughter.

'Dang! You ate my coin!'

Doraemon aghast at the menacing robotic hand which had probed him before
in unspeakable areas.

Right at the heart of this place is the historical Red Theatre.

It was originally designed & built by the Japanese Occupation as a market; which thenn strangely turned into a live performance house. Today, it houses designer/artist boutique stores on the ground floor & a performance stage upstairs. I'm sure once upon a time this place holds much romantic charm.

Today, it's an interesting place to shop for designer souveniers; not the usual run-of-the-mill Taiwan keychains or fridge magnets.

These are DIY sew-yourself dolls.

Postcards with people that pop-up at the back.

Old Taipei pop up cards.

And of course there's always food anywhere you go in Taipei, with long lines of people. I would have gone for this with both eyes closed & my mouth open but Nee was looking for something soupily-steamboaty.

Till today, I regreted not finding out what that rice flour thing was.

When a restaurant doesn't need to provide chairs & tables, it must be selling something really good.

By day 3 in Taipei, it became natural that my reflexes were re-programmed to gravitate towards anything that had a long line of people, including this.

But as it turned out, this shop was selling innards, and I quickly gravitated to the exit.

Then there was another bunch of crowd around this stall; a different one, mostly women, both single young ones & also aunties, obviously gawking at Tom Cruise doing the cocktail thing.

But those were not cocktails. They were white bitter gourd drinks (about RM4.00). I wasn't sure whether these ladies were there for the drinks but they tasted good. Note: the man on the right probably had dubious gender preference.

Potato balls! You can see this in every night market. It's a very Taiwanese thing.

For RM5, you'd get a big bag, RM3 for small. I don't want to go back to inflation-fested Malaysia.

The whole Ximending place was like a maze & the multiple alleys did not help. We kept plodding on hoping to come across something really nice. Nee wanted something hot & soupy like steamboat but we weren't sure where the good ones were.

Out of extreme hunger & famine, we dropped into this place that actually looked like a chain restaurant. I didn't have a good feeling about this place but we were losing our sugar level fast.

Nee looked happy. I think the food hadn't really reached her tastebuds yet.

I don't think these were any more special than any other place.

The set came with some smelly tofu plus smelly innards stuff but it didn't work for us.

Nee came out so so but I was extremely disappointed, and now I stunk of stinky tofu. Not entirely satisfied with the evening, we decided to pursue further even though our bloated stomachs were screaming in agony. But the god of gluttony was smiling down on us that night. So was this store owner.

The standard Taipei oyster pancakes which still amazes me. The prices are always up there on the signboard.

This felt like Kuching fest & we were feeding ourselves silly. There is NOTHING like Taipei stewed minced pork rice (Lu Rou Fan). I can have this ten times & I'd still want another ten more.

Children in impoverished Africa probably will never know the feeling of being full. Here, we were beyond their imagination, way beyond what their minds can fathom. We were extremely & disgustingly beyond full.

FREE CNY Kittens!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:52:00 +0000

It's that time of the year again. It's strange but somehow kittens always come around this time. Maybe it's a good time cos in every house, there's sure to be an abundance of food. I've said it before & I'll say it again. The mom really knows family planning.

Kitties imprisoned for illegal free-loading.

Anyone wants one, or the whole bunch? Seriously. We're giving them away for free. You can let them wear head bands with fake pink ears & pretend they're bunnies.

Photo copyright by Raymond Ting.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 02:50:00 +0000

I bet you were out partying last nite, or wining & dining at a classy restaurant somewhere overlooking the panaromic city landscape, & by midnight, watching the fireworks display.

I bet you wouldn't be able to guess where we were last night.

We were having an 8-course (I think) dinner at a dilapidated Foochow restaurant which got stuck in the 70s, with walls that smell of lard accumulated over a span of 4 decades. Adding salt to the injury, the food came late (the management insisted on 8pm when we inquired).

And there we were, not fitting in at all with the 7-8 tables of Foochow aunties & uncles who seemed to be having the greatest time of their lives, karaoke-ing away the whole night with speakers blasting, and even sharing poetry in hokkien (which I found amusing). I saw 3 bags of party hats on the next table from the corner of my eye. Do we have to stay till midnight?

At one point, a particular uncle at our table (who got louder once they started serving him red wine in a liquor glass & he asked for ice) started dipping his used chopsticks into the shared platter. There was obviously a common ladle there but he didn't seem accustomed to it. So we shared more than the meal that night.

After that event, we had to be at the cafe to close down (cos Nee's brother was away in Singapore & probably partying & countdowning away). But maybe that saved the night, cos it was drizzling, the air was cool & both of us sat out there with a hot chocolate in hand & a smoothie in hers. At least it still felt like a date.

That night I slept like a log before the fireworks came out, not even aware of the sms-es that came pouring in. Another year has passed & we're really getting older.

Happy New Year Everyone!

p/s Kuching Mandarin Restaurant is officially my most hated place to be but I have no means to avoid it since it's my mom-in-law's absolute favourite. We hope that God forbids the baby's full month to be held there. Just the thought of it is traumatising enough.

Taipei Day 3: Cultural Learnings of Taipei Make Benefit of Malaysian Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:35:00 +0000

Much to our embarassment, we have not finished blogging about our Taipei trip which happened during the CNY this year. So without anymore self-pity-wallowing, we're gonna get down to it. This was Day3:

We were surprised that we could find art in Taipei underground MRT, particularly at the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall station. Excellent use of existing public space.

This was an exhibition that featured beautiful ethnic women in their costumes, some referring to historical & legendary figures. You can read more about it here.

And then there were wierd installations like this which could be quite petrifying to Nee. I don't encourage exposing her to displays like this anyway lest it disrupts her cooking & baking.

Killer blowup dolls which pretend to be cute. They will electrocute you if you come too close.

This was our destination on our 3rd day in Taipei - The Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. We thought we shouldn't miss this since Taiwan was founded by this guy after all.

The 3rd day was still as rainy, as wet & as cold, & we were already thinking of hot food.

Sorry to disappoint keen fish hobbyists, the activity in the water is not fish-related. It's raining.

Much like the Lincoln Memorial, the giant statue of Chiang Kai Shek sits gallantly in the great hall.

This was the bugger that was mainland China's biggest thorn in the butt for a long time. I bet that smile was for Chairman Mao.

You could actually witness the change of guards here but we missed it that day.

The guy in the suit is in charge of checking the guard's uniform, straightening out what needs to be straightened.

In the other part of the building is the man himself. This used to be his administrative office where he stragetised on how to be a bigger & more painful thorn in China's butt. Here he looked like he hasn't aged one bit. I wonder what he thinks of Ah Bien.

The same building also housed a collection of all things that once belonged to the General; like his letters, documents, photographs, clothes & even his bullet-proof car. I didn't bother to take any photos of those though.

These were some kind of lantern exhibition on display.

The building also holds a few art galleries exhibiting the more traditional Chinese paintings which weren't very impressive unfortunately. We LOVED these carvings though.

You can view some of the woodwork here.

The Memorial Hall faces a huge courtyard right down below; something much like the courtyard in the Forbidden City. Normally that is the place where the masses converge to celebrate the National Day but for now, there was a long row of tents selling food & fun fair going on.

I can tell you that in the cold weather like this everything that is steaming & hot feels good. We stopped at this stall selling various soup and fried noodles cos they had reasonable crowd size.

The fried noodles were nothing to shout about, but they definitely gave us the carb we need. If we remember correctly, this is like NTD 50-60 (RM 5-6).

However the bowl of soup is definitely what we wanted. Piping hot dumpling soup, with meatballs, bamboo shoots and strips of carrots. They called this the Flower Stem Soup (Hua Zi Gen). NTD60-70 (RM6-7)

I think this the Ping Tang Hu Lu, a Chinese style kinda fruit lolly. We didn't try this cos we couldn't help imagining what it'd taste like in our mouths.

These were some potato snacks. They sell them by the whole stick I reckon. Now looking back, I regret not trying them out but at that time, we were really full & had to prioritise.

These fried sweet potato ball snacks were in every night market, every where you turn your head. Yummy stuff. Anyone has the recipe for this?

There were also high-cholesterol quail eggs.

We forgot what these were cos we didn't try them.

And just before we left the place, we found that the best cream puff in the world was in Taipei.

Day 3 was supposed to be more of a cultural trip & it was, but somehow it ended up with food again.

Something Nice from Nee's

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:43:00 +0000

Saw these two delightful cakes coming out from the kitchen today. Just thought that I'd share the ~~cakes~~ photos with you.

This is a Chocolate Cheesecake with Almond Toppings.

There's one mom out there that's a very lucky mom today!

Nee hasn't made this one for quite some time now but she's quite happy that someone ordered it. It's a Blackforest Cheesecake & it turned out quite well.

And out of the many Terry's out there, there's also one lucky one!

Nee's Birthday at Raintree Restaurant BCCK

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 07:07:00 +0000

Kuching is really running out of good places to dine in.

"Western Cuisines" in Kuching revolve around Aussie and/or American-influenced, huge chunky plates of typical BBQ, roast, deep fried meat, sausages, fish with mash potatos and garden salad. And it is always ceasar salad, and they can't even do one properly (Ceasar sauce suddenly becomes thousand island or worse; plain mayo). Once in a while, we would get a place with a slight fusion of Japanese or Thai or Vietnamese-infused western cuisine.

Every year, at this time of the year (I don't mean Christmas), when my birthday is just around the corner, Greg gets very nervous. This year there's no more Sarah from Magenta to depend on, nor is there a romantic island getaway (which makes the food part inconsequential). This year there's only Kuching & Greg can do Junk & Blablabla only so many times & it doesn't work anymore. Four Points & Pullman feel the same.

But guess what, the last-minute Greg managed to pull another rabbit out of the hat. If this one wasn't good, he would have been in trouble but it was good. Either God really loves him, or maybe it's just a case of good timing; happened to be looking at the right page of the newspaper when Raintree happened to do a press release on its Christmas promotions, and atoms subsequently collide.

This is Raintree Restaurant at the new Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching. The modern building structure itself is a sight to behold on its own, not to mention the interior. Greg didn't take a photo of the building exterior, so this is what you'd have to contend with.

Excellent use of the Orang Ulu Design on the ceiling. This completes a whole 360 degree environment that envelopes you as soon as you sit down.

Nice use of moving projection. Somehow it worked here. I think normally this is a risky thing to do in a classy restaurant cos it may backfire & the whole place can turn into a seedy karaoke lounge. But those guys did it well.

It's always a pleasant surprise to find a musical trio. There's another female pianist hidden somewhere behind the wall off-frame. And the best thing was this wasn't a group of old musicians playing cob-webbed John Denver or Cliff Richards. And the guy with the guitar sings.

The restaurant takes the shape of a semi-circular stucture, with panoramic windows that look out onto the courtyard & the wide river below. In fact, the BCCK sits on an island-peninsula-like plot of land in the middle of the huge Santubong River.

Although it may look like Tiger Beer Garden at night, but I'm sure you can see the vast expanse of the mighty river & be in awe during the day. I can imagine a Western outdoor wedding out here.

So with the music playing & our stomachs drumming, we began to do what we came here to do.

Sesame bun ~ served warm and soft.

Our appertisers: juicy scallops pan seared to the just-right tenderness. Topped with tapenade and water crest salad. Presentation is delicate and pretty.

Cream of asparagus soup with chicken potato quenelles (dumplings). Served piping hot which is what it is supposed to be. Maybe being Chinese, I don't have a thing for lukewarm soup. The soup was a little runny though. Then again, thicker, creamier ones would probably be an overkill. Quenelle was yummy in the soup.

I had the turkey gallantine. This is excellent stuff because it is always hard to cook edible turkey. The chef, Virginia Kedit (whom we had an opportunity to chat with later), had done a excellent job by doing a roulade with thinly sliced apple, chestnut and sage stuffings. Very tasty, tender, definitely not the usual tough and bland turkey meat that needs lots of cranberry and brown sauce to cover up what's lacking. The cranberry sauce and pumpkin potato puree add to the layering of flavours. I didn't know I could do it but I walloped the whole thing to a knockout.

Greg had the roast rack of lamb with the potato hash and spinach, instead of the cod fish which I advised against (otherwise he would have to make very good friends with the toilet when we get home).

We had the meat done medium rare, which came as nicely juicy with a crispy outer layer, probably from the honey, and served with a dollop of your choice of English, French mustard or mint sauce. See, this is what I'm saying. There's none of that need for the usual pepper or mushroom or brown gravy as cover-ups. Serving a dish as it is tells you a lot about the skills of a good chef in the kitchen. Virginia is one chef who knows how to bring out the original flavour in her meat. Oh, the hash is really good.

Ok. I should have expected this since it's done before but I was surprised again. Greg must have put something in my drink.

Raintree arranged a special treat of ice cream cake coated with meringue for this occasion. We find the staff attentive, polite and generally friendly. No As for the singing though, but they did try. TQ Raintree for making the effort.

I've always been intrigued by this thing. I've seen it in restaurants several times now. Apparently it's called gooseberries & they're imported. Anyone knows where we can get this in Kuching?

And finally, the dessert: Christmas pudding with cinnamon ice cream. Thumbs-up for this. The pudding was coated with chocolate. It had the right sweetness and very rich, and it went really well with the cinnamon ice cream.

The Raintree Restaurant is the definitely the place to go when you have functions. It has the right environment, the right space, the right music & most importantly the right food. We'll definitely recommend this place to friends & family & we'll be back for more. We also hope that the quality stays consistent.

Thank God there's one more place to go to in Kuching. That should help us pull through the next year.

Nee’s Christmas Series

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:51:00 +0000

It’s only about 9 more days till Christmas so we thought we’d post this before it’s too late. We’ve been meaning to blog for a long time but so many things have been happening; but just to let you know that we really miss blogging & we hope to find a way to do this more often!

This is Christmas at Nee’s.

There’s usually some kind of promo going on at the café even on normal days, everyday of the week. The promos change quite often but you can keep up by checking out Nee’s Facebook Group here to see what’s the latest up for offer.

The cake display fridge is now highly populated. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being in there with them at all.

The infamous CocoNana; Easily the tallest cake in the café & one of the best sellers. But thanks to people like Marvin, the Rocher has also entered the Hall of Fame.

The Christmas Series #1: Nee’s Fruit cakes

I didn’t take any close ups of Nee’s Fruit cakes (I presume you already know what they look like), but those are the packaging that comes with them.

The Christmas Series #2: Nee’s Christmas log.

This one just drifted in from Baleh. Soft & immaculately made swiss roll with fresh fruits & covered with good quality imported chocolate. Makes a presentable gift without spending a bomb!

The Christmas Series #3: Drunk on Chocolate.

Rich Chocolate Cake mixed with Rum & Rum raisins. Can be taken warm or cold. Find out what rum & choc tastes like together.

The Christmas Series #4: Blueberry Creamcheese Brownies.

This is a wonderful mix of rich chocolate brownies, rich cream cheese & blueberries, with a zest of orange.

The Christmas Series #5: Sticky Date Pudding with Butter Scotch Sauce.

A perfect combination between rich pudding made with dates drizzled with warm butterscotch sauce. A beautiful dessert to end a hearty Christmas dinner with family & friends.

Look at the Butterscotch sauce dripping like that onto the plate. That’s what my saliva looks like now.

The Christmas Series #6: Apple Pecan cake with Butter Scotch Sauce.

This is a very addictive cake filled with loads of red apple & Pecan nuts served with Nee's Butter Scotch sauce. The nuts were flown in from Melbourne but we only have 1kg of the Pecan. I don't know how many cakes 1kg of Pecan can do but you'd better hurry!

I had a poor first impression of the cake. I thought it probably would taste like any other normal grandma cakes. But when I tried it, I couldn't stop. Seriously. And you know what? I actually had it without the Butter Scotch sauce! Wait till the sauce comes, I can eat the plate as well.

I believe it’s going to be difficult to find these cakes anywhere else in Kuching (except for fruit cake & the log). That is why they make the perfect gift to share with family & friends this Christmas! (You like my marketing line? ;P)

Now here’s the thing: The Christmas Series is only available during the Christmas season. So Nee will only be taking orders for these cakes from now until Dec 31st. So if you think you want to try something really new, do it PRONTO.

Sorry if this post sounds commercial. We just had to get this out of the way. Will be back to posting the usual stuff soon.

In the meantime, have a Blessed Christmas!

Love, Greg & Nee

KFC Sucks!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:29:00 +0000

I got Nee a KFC Chicken Fillet Burger yesterday. Just to reassure you, we haven't been having KFCs for quite some time now. Apart from the email rumours that we've read concerning the way they rear their chickens, we've always felt that Chicago 7 has much better broasted chickens.

Well, Nee has been having a craving for chicken sandwiches with fresh tomatoes, lettuce & cucumbers. Unfortunately we couldn't find any really good ones at a time like this & so we thought this pretty much looked like a good substitute.

And so I went hunting, clubbed this chicken & dragged it home like a caveman.

But what was behind the wrappings shocked me to near death. This burger was sickly off colour & it didn't look like the one we saw in the picture. The lettuce died & the chicken fillet was shy.

KFC, I really don't know what's wrong here. I mean, this thing could fit into the palm of my hand. An I bet I could finish this off with just two manly bites.

I wonder what happened to the good old days when you could hold a burger with two hands? Well look how much it has shrunk. For your information, the green apple next to it is not a giant Fuji apple. It's a Granny Smith & it's small.

I was mad of course. I thought I bought a burger but got a pastry instead.

There is probably a small print on the KFC advert somewhere that tells you that the picture is not necessarily reflecting the real product. And these are usually in small print because they hope you don't see it. But come to think of it, that's like saying ok, we may be lying but we told you, so don't sue us.

I found out that in other places, the Fillet burger is called a mini burger. Read this article here.

Lunch @ Nee's

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:06:00 +0000

Just in case you're wondering, Nee's still busy juggling a full-time job with a cafe & she's baking like it's Chinese New Year everyday.

That explains why our blog has been quitely dormant for quite some time now. Don't get us wrong, we still love blogging & we miss it. And we want to come back more consistently when things settle down a little bit more. Right now, our blog feels like an overturned turtle trying to get back on its feet.

Oh by the way, she whipped up these lunches & they're now available at her cafe. They're supposed to be healthy & simple lunches which you could grab & go, if you've run out of ideas what to eat for lunch, or if you're just plain sick of the lard & recycled cooking oil out there.

This is one of her better known signature savouries. Nee's Chicken Mushroom Quiche - Chicken & Mushrooms in Soft Creamy Custard baked with Pie Crust.

There was a 7-8 year old kid who chanced upon the cafe & he dragged his grandpa in. He ordered 2 of this & he walloped them all. Then he asked if he could wash his hands. A couple of days later, he came back with his mom & swallowed another 2 of this & asked to wash his hands again. Later we found out from the mom that he doesn't usually like anything. But she was happy cos at least this was healthy! Oh, by the way, she makes this to order as well.

Cottage Pie - Saucy Beef dish with Mashed Potatoes on top grilled with Mozzarella Cheese.

Chicken Avacado Sandwich - Smoked Chicken with Avocado slices in rye bread.

All lunch is served with Nee's home made Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar Salad.

In her own words, these are supposed to be simple & healthy lunches that fills you up but not put you to sleep! Now available at Nee's!

Nee's Cakes & Desserts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:23:00 +0000

Nee's cafe basically consists of two main display sections, if I can describe it in that way. At the front of the shop, she calls it the Angel section, for reasons which may or may not be so obvious.

Is it obvious yet?

I guess it's now very in-your-face obvious.

This is for Hello Kittys, Care Bears & Barbies. The magic is not in the fruits. It's in the crust and the cream. I've tried these & I would eat these even though they're on the floor.

Strawberry fruit tarts.

Kiwi fruit tarts.

Killer Apple Crumble. The pastries kill and these come with ice-cream.

Banana Crumble. My favourite simply because I'm a banana kinda guy.

Do not miss these creme brulee. They come with strawberries, and a fire show. And next to it was supposed to be panna cotta but the photos didn't turn out well so I didn't put them up.

Strawberry Cream Cake is one of those cakes where everyone seems to like, the young & especially the old. Maybe because the sponge is as soft as cotton & that's friendly to the old folks' dentures.

The traditional cheesecake series.

These will be served with strawberries.

Banana Crumble cheesecake and they are selling like a Michael Jackson concert.

Now this is another hit with old folks & all the health freaks out there if they conveniently forget about the cream cheese frosting. Butterless carrot cake! Doesn't it look angelic!

Also missing from the photos were the caramel walnut cakes which was also a hit.

And as you walk into the shop, to the other inner part of the counter, you'd find the very sinfully rich devil section, for chocolate addicts. All cakes here are made of high-quality Belgium chocolate and Nee only uses good quality cream cheese and only Mascarpone cheese for tiramisu. From left to right, top to bottom: Coco Nana, Chocolate Royale, Rocher, Double choc fudge, White chocolate macadamia cheese, choc hazelnut cheese, fruits for pure fruit juices and tiramisu.

This is a very excellently well-balanced cake.

White Chocolate Macademia would be very rich & just nicely sweet. If you can take two pieces in a row then my hats off to you!

This has always been one of my favourites. A lot of places misinterpret what an original fudge is supposed to be. When Nee leaves this in the fridge over a period of time, I can finish all this off on my own. Sometimes I don't know what impresses me the most. The cake, or myself.

CocoNana. One of my other favourites. I can do 4 pieces in a stretch. This is a very light cake but the chocolate's just as rich & there's layers & layers of fresh bananas inside. This cake sold out so fast that it felt like it just walked out of the door.

This is Nee's latest creation. It's called Chocolate Royale for a reason.

This is the only cake that uses 70% Dark Belgium chocolate and thus the name.

And of course, Nee's chunky cookies:

Nee's also carry Bundaberg, including Sarsaparilla.

Nee's OPENING HOURS:

Tuesdays-Saturdays 8.45am - 10pm
Sundays 10am-10pm
Mondays CLOSED

Nee's is open until 10pm tonite. Tomorrow it's closed for recuperation. :) If you're heading there tonight, do it quickly cos the latest report is that the cakes and the tarts are going fast. Coffee & tea will always be there.

BTW there's lots of parking in the basement. YES, THERE IS BASEMENT PARKING!