When the Mood Strikes

Mood-less

gerrie7 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:20:12 +0000

Yup, have not been in the mood to blog. Photos were taken for “blogging” purposes, although the timing to put words down have been at best “misses”.

Till the mood resurfaces, it will be all quiet on this front. Live your best life, everyone!

“Reset” Bento

gerrie7 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:42:37 +0000

This was an attempt at packing a healthy bento for brunch. This was mine:

1) Mini sandwiches:

– cheese and blueberry cheese;

– kaya and butter

2) Home made yoghurt with manuka honey.

3) Mixed fruits of papaya pieces, sugar plums, and seedless grapes; and roasted almonds.

We recently discovered a really yummy way of eating papayas with yoghurt, passion fruit and “limau kasturi”. Passion fruit is not easily available in fruit shops here, so may have to plant it!

This was my daughter’s:

1) Cheese squares and smarties.

2) Cheese stick biscuits (from CNY of course).

3) Papaya pieces.

Doesn’t her box look more appetising? He he.

Have a good week ahead, everyone.

A Distant Aussie Memory

gerrie7 — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:35:18 +0000

When I first went to Perth to do my matriculation, I had to do undergo an overseas students’ orientation program (I don’t think such programs exist now!). Together with about 30 or 40 other malaysian, singaporean and bruneian students, we were put up in this centre, called Noalimba (I had completely forgotten the name, but managed to google it up) Centre. Meals were provided, and I think one of the first lunches that were served were beef pies, which made an impression, though not immediately. The only other pies I had prior to then were the chicken pies my mum made when she had the time, and when we all behaved well for a period of time, so it wasn’t often that we got to enjoy the chicken pies. That first beef pie was square, and it was gooey when I pierced my fork through, and I remember thinking…”sh*t!!!*. It did taste alright though, different from my idea of pie, but was alright.

Pies in Australia are pretty standard fare, and I spent the next 4 years trying out various types of pies. I think I must have bought at least a packet (of 4 pies) every month. One of my favorites was Beef & Mushroom pie, but swore off Beef & Kidney pie after one bite. The kidney bit of it was rather disgusting. In UWA’s “Ref” (the Refectory Cafetaria), pies were normally served with fat chips (sprinkled with salt and vinegar!) and you can opt to have gravy as well. Good times!

Now that we have quite a healthy selection of aussie products in the supermarket, it was not surprising to see aussie pies in the freezer section as well. My favorite has to be this brand called “Mrs Macs”. These are normal sized pies, just nice for lunch, although I don’t have them with chips anymore.

There’s this other brand “Four n Twenty” which I have not tried till recently. I bought the “party pack” as I wanted to include them in my bentos. If I’m not mistaken, Gundot’s kids like this particular brand.

I actually packed a couple for my bento, but accidentally deleted all the photos. Will do another post when I next pack them.

T’was Christmas Past

gerrie7 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:39:03 +0000

Better late than never! The food we had for 2008 Christmas Eve dinner.

So I finally caught up, and can now erase this folder from hard drive….ok I confess…I am clearing space in my hard drive.

Back to Routine

gerrie7 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:12:47 +0000

After all the feasting and activities over Christmas, and then just recently CNY, I am happily ensconced in my routine once again. This also marks the re-appearence of my bento meals, which I have missed preparing, as strange as it may sound. This was the first bento of the year.

I made two type of sandwiches, ham & lettuce, and curried mayo egg & cucumber. I included papaya pieces, prunes (in single serve packets, which is so convenient!), and some almonds.

I read the number one new year’s resolution EVERY single year is “lose weight”. So I shall jump on the bandwagon, and hopefully stay on it for a while till I reach my “desired” weight goal, whatever that magical number is!

Grand Portview Restaurant, KK

gerrie7 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:32:15 +0000

Yes, it’s been a while, and seeing as we are already in February, I thought I better post something to get the blog going, lest it becomes Lazarus (thus said STP!), only not important enough to be “revived”.

I have taken lots of photos, and thoughts of “…ahh..blogworthy, this….” were prominent and often, just didn’t really have the time nor the inspiration to add words to the photos.

We’re in the middle of the 15 -day CNY celebrations, and festivities are winding down, with kids going back to school this week, and many adults back at work, if they have not already done so, end of last week. With the bleak economic outlook for the year, many have downsized this year’s celebrations, most evident in the purchases of firecrackers and fireworks. The one activity that seems still economically inelastic at this point, is dining out. My brother-in-law and wife treated us for dinner at the Grand Portview Restaurant in KK, last night, and the place was bustling as usual, no sign of recession at all.

Anyway, we had the venison, which was delicious. Both kids loved it, so that’s further proof (my kids especially my son has a very “discerning palate”, so much so that we suggested that if all fails, maybe he’ll make a living being a food critic!).

This was followed by a very small portion of “siaw pai chai” (apparently green leafy vegetables are scarce and thus rather pricey),

Next up was clams, which was just okay, as have had better before;

One of my daughter’s favourite food was next, the yam ring, and this photo was taken after it had been “dissected”. I thought this was just mediocre, nothing really to rave about.

The steamed prawns followed suit, and in my opinion, the best dish at this dinner. My SIL was trying to determine the ingredients, and came up with garlic (lots, as one can see), some sort of rice wine, and she swore some MSG. The prawns were steamed just right, succulent and tasted “sweet”.

We then had a braised mushroom and oyster dish, and the last one was a claypot seafood tofu dish.

The service deserves a mention here. We arrived at the restaurant around 7.30 pm, ordered the above dishes, and prepared to wait a long while, as the place was packed. To our pleasant surprise, the first dish was served about 10 minutes later, and the rest were served in quick succession. We left the restaurant at about 8.40pm….not unlike eating in KFC or other fast food joints, eh?

On Hiatus

gerrie7 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:48:30 +0000

Yes, it’s been a while, and it will be a while more…..the festivities keep me busy, and there’s still CNY. I’ve taken quite a bit of photos, but have not sorted them out.

I’ve started packing bento boxes again, but have been told it’s not okay to eat in the gym. Looks like I’ll have to be extra nice to the coffee-shop owner, so he’ll let me sit at one of his tables, without ordering any drink. The coffee they make is really quite awful!

Better late than never, here’s wishing everyone a fantastic year ahead, with excellent health, an abundance of love & joy, and it has got to be said, bountiful wealth…!

Catch of the Day

gerrie7 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:19:13 +0000

Everyday, they will come like this:

even like this,

bringing with them, “gifts” from the sea. Well, they actually come to sell their catch, and they’re normally small catches, such as:

This all happens at the Floating Eateries, along Jalan Buli Sim Sim (my son asked who bullied Sim Sim, but that’s another story), Sandakan. One will see cars parked along the road, as the various “lorongs” (lanes) that lead into the eateries are accessible only by foot. The eateries are always at the very end, and you will walk pass many stilt houses, on the way in. The one we went to was in Lorong 8, and when we got there at around 1 pm, we hit the lunch crowd as well.

Whenever a fisherman unload his catch, there will always be a crowd waiting to see what is available. There was one group of men who were obviously waiting for some specific fish or some other seafood, as they were always the first ones up from the table, to the jetty area, and they did this at least 6 times, when we were there. They were still waiting when we left, which led me to wonder how exotic or elusive the particular seafood they were seeking!

However, one is not able to purchase outright from these fishermen, as there is already an understanding between the fishermen and the owner of the eatery ( I wouldn’t call it a restaurant), that is exclusive. So you end up buying from the owner, and I notice that a lot of patrons select their seafood, and have the eatery cook for them, there and then. It’s a rarity to be able to enjoy seafood this way. We were told the seafood would have been caught just a couple of hours before being brought in for sale. For most of these small time fishermen, it would have been a couple of hours’ work in the morning. Most, if not all of them are of filipino descent, and apparently making RM30 is good enough for the day.

You simply can’t beat the freshness of the seafood here. There was only three of us for lunch, as the son was down with indigestion or some mild food poisoning, so opted to skip lunch to rest his stomach. We ordered the seafood noodles, and steamed prawns with chinese wine.

Yes, both dishes were simply delectable, the prawns were so “sweet” and juicy, and its flavour further enhanced by the chinese wine. I had most of the prawns as hubby is very averse to high cholesterol foods, and with one child already down with stomach upset, we decided not to give too much prawns to our daughter. Best to play safe when travelling, especially where kids are concerned.

I decided to NOT know about calories nor cholesterol in our two days in Sandakan.

And this was the entrance to the eatery:

Local KK Delights

gerrie7 — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:31:10 +0000

The one glaring difference between Kuching and KK is the lack of food “courts” in KK. In Kuching, going to a “kopi tiam” means going to a food outlet where you will find at the very least four different food stalls, with “kolo mee” and “laksa” as “anchors”. In KK, every “kopi tiam” or eatery specialise in a specific food, so you actually go to a particular shop for a particular food, be it “tom yam”, “beef noodles”, “beaufort fried mee”, “tenom fried mee”, etc. I think the concept of “food court” didn’t really take off, and one can only find them in the relatively new shopping centres that are spouting up in the city.

Whenever I am asked for food recommendations in KK, I never really know how to answer apart from the usual seafood (so expensive now) restuarants. More often than not, visitors are more keen to try the local, non-seafood delicacies, ie, what the locals eat when they go out for brunch or lunch.

As we are currently without a domestic helper here, we have been going out for lunch pretty much everyday. Recently we were at Kedai Kopi Syn Lee, Towering (along Penampang Road), where we had the “Tenom noodles”. There was 6 of us, including my two teenage nephews. Except for WW, we all had the house specialty, the noodles. WW opted for the rice with “char siew”.

Note the extra “char siew” in the noodles – a normal plate is RM6, the extra sets you back another RM2. Total bill RM55, including drinks. Yup, eating out in KK definitely puts more dent in the pocket. Including drinks, one would be looking at RM8 – RM10 for lunch, each. (I do wish all eateries just stick to using white plates!)

The more popular fried noodles in the city seem to originate from the smaller districts, a couple of hours drive from KK. Today, we had “Beaufort noodles” at “Restoran Foh Chuan”, really just a “kopi tiam”. The four of us shared a plate of noodles, “char siew” omelette (kids’ favourite), and sweet and sour pork. Bill came up to RM31, including 3 drinks.

As far as noodles is concerned, “Beaufort” tops “Tenom”, in my opinion. I have to say though that I don’t mind not having noodles (of any kind) for the next few days!

The weekend beckons once again, wishing everyone a good one!

Ps. In case anyone is wondering, the first two photos were taken with my mobile phone camera (Nokia N82), and the last three with a DSLR, ergo the difference in quality.

(Another) Birthday dinner at Grazie’s

gerrie7 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:01:10 +0000

We had a birthday dinner for our son at Grazie’s last night. As usual, we left it to Signore Marcello to come up with the dishes for the evening. A close family friend, who happens to be a priest, also joined us for dinner this time, and he came, fully kitted with his camera, his very newly prized Nikon D90, plus his wide angle lens, and bags of tricks. He very kindly snapped the following photos.

We started off with a calamari and cos lettuce salad;

Birthday boy wanted a pizza as well, and this pizza was personally prepared by Signore Marcello himself:

(Thin crust pizza, with just fresh mushrooms, salami, onions, and some mozzarella cheese as toppings, absolutely delicious!)

We were also served lovely white bread and tuna carpaccio:

Then came the mains, and Signore Marcello himself served this rather delightful seafood (crayfish, mussels and calamari) linguine. We had this the last time we were here, and so thoroughly enjoyed it, so we were very happy he chose to serve this again, this time.

Next, the beef tenderloin on a bed of fresh sauted mushrooms and thinly sliced potatoes;

Followed by burrumundi in white wine sauce.

We finished with panne cotta with toasted almonds, and unlike our previous dinner where we all shared one serving, we requested for three servings to be shared among six of us. Of course the birthday boy’s was slightly special.

Grazie’s is undoubtedly, our current favourite italian restuarant, as every dish was stellar, and we think it is because Signore Marcello lends his personal touch every time we dine there. Now we’re trying to come up with a plan to get other family members to agree to a family reunion dinner (Chinese New Year 2009) at Grazie’s. If that happens, it will definitely be a major shift in tradition! We’ll see.