Sale At My Online Store!

My online store, Old And New Stuff For Sale is turning 1 month old on 4 January 2010 and is growing stronger by the day. To celebrate this occasion, I am offering a 10% discount on items that begin with the code ID for the period 1 Jan 2010 - 7 Jan 2010 only.

Don't miss out this great opportunity and quick hop over to Old And New Stuff For Sale !

Here's wishing all my readers and customers a very blessed and happy new year!

Ribena Ice Lolly

Whenever I'm too busy to entertain my 2 older brats, they will self-entertain themselves. They even 'self-service' themselves to the food and drinks in the kitchen and fridge. They made themselves Ribena ice-lolly here...


While Alycia licked the ice-lolly neatly, rascal #2 used a fork and kept pricking on the ice lolly... then poured the melted Ribena from the cup into a bowl... and created a big, big mess....
She tried to clean up the mess and pulled heaps of toilet paper! I can never ever leave her alone to eat or drink anything, aaarrrghh!!!!

Check out the sticky Ribena spilled everywhere. I told her "that's it, no more Ribena ice-lolly for you, EVER" hahahaha!

Here's wishing all my readers and customers of my online store a very blessed, happy, prosperous and smooth sailing 2010! Thanks for visiting my blogs and patronizing my online store.

Homecooked Dishes And Homemade Bread

This is a backdated post.

My mil cooked these dishes the week before she left for Hong Kong:




Chinese basil leaves omelette.


Stir-fried celery, yellow capsicum, fresh lily bulbs and sweet peas.


Pork chop with big onions and green peas sauce.

On another night, she cooked these dishes:

1) 2 types of steamed minced pork (one is with egg and the other is with preserved veggie - toong choy)
2) stir-fried yam with dried shrimps. She wanted to cook the yam with pork ribs but found out at the eleventh hour that there's no more pork ribs!
3) 'tai yee mar kar lui' (braised gourd with dried shrimps, left over char siew from lunch and glass noodles. I have no idea why this dish is called tai yee mar kar lui, which literally means second aunty's daughter is getting married, when translated from Cantonese to English lol!.


Braised Pork Ribs With Organic Japanese Pumpkin and stir-fried leek flowers on another night...

The flesh of the organic Japanese pumpkin is dark orangy/redish. Very tasty and creamy.



2 loafs of pumpkin bread made from organic Japanese pumpkin, organic sunflower seeds and kampung chicken eggs (free range chicken).


2 loafs of orange bread. The ingredients are orange rind, 1 medium sized bottle of marmalade jam, butter, milk, flour and free range chicken eggs.

Now that she's away in HK again for a few months, I gotta start cracking my head again to whip up tasty dishes that will whet my 3 fussy eaters' appetite, sigh...

Ong Kee Tauge Ayam, Yau Tet Shin Street Ipoh

A trip to Ipoh is never complete if you don't dig into a bowl of famous Ipoh sar hor fun (flat rice noodles) and ngar choi kai (bean sprouts and blanched chicken). To get good ngar choi kai, head over to Yau Tet Shin Street. This is a ngar choi kai street and you will find 3-4 coffee shops selling ngar choi kai. That street is a hive of activity at night and you will often see a sea of people sitting by the streets digging into their bowl of hor fun with ngar choi kai. Pretty unhygienic though but it's all the 'added ingredients' that make your bowl of hor fun so tasty, haha!

When you are at Yau Tet Shin Street, you will wonder which shop to go to as there are a few shops that sell ngar choi kai. The most well-known ones are Lou Wong and Ong Kee. We went to Ong Kee last week. There is another very well-known ngar choi kai near the Excelsior Hotel in Ipoh, which is near Yau Tet Shin Street and the price is really exorbitant. My hubs call it 'kam fun' or golden noodles coz it's frigging expensive, can even run up to hundred over ringgit eating hor fun and ngar choi kai at that shop!

We could only find a table placed next to Ong Kee shop. That shop next to Ong Kee was undergoing some renovation works and there was a pile of dusty debris on the floor. We were seated on top of the pile of dusty debris. Eeeewwwwwwww, it was disgusting but I was famished and the ngar choi kai still tasted so good, though we were eating there like some construction workers and I was all soaked in my own sweat.


Love the aromatic sauce. I think there's cee yau char (lard oil) in the sauce.


World's best ngar choi (bean sprouts) is from Ipoh - sweet, fresh and oh so crunchy.


Fish balls and meat balls.


Super smooth hor fun.

While waiting for our hor fun and ngar choi kai to arrive, the hubs went to this newly opened shop located 2 shops away from Ong Kee to have a look see. This shop called Dela Duck sells crispy deep fried chicken and duck. The hubs bought some fried chicken to try and it was only mediocre, nothing really special.




What I found special was their orange juice maker,which can juice 7 oranges at one time:
And the hubs got the girls each a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice. Each glass of juice was made up of 7 small oranges.


The shop also sells Taiwan Pearl Tea.

Dad's Homecooked Dinner On Christmas

My dad cooked up quite a storm on X'mas day. He stood in the kitchen preparing the ingredients from morning through evening. It was indeed a labour of love from him to all of us. That's his X'mas present for all of us.

Steamed smooth Ipoh tofu with minced pork and freshly chopped spring onions.


Pan-fried fish with ginger.


Stewed pork ribs with wan yue (cloud ear fungus) and dried oysters.


Stewed chicken with carrots, chinese chestnuts, fresh shiitake mushrooms and potatoes.



Dad also boiled a big pot of delish soup, made up of chicken, pork ribs, roast pork ribs, dried scallops, dried oysters, dried 'wong kai lon' (a type of dried seafood), red dates and lotus roots.

A table filled with delish homecooked food.
There were also 2 plates of blanched lettuce with fried garlic oil and soy sauce, stir-fried french beans with tofu pok and pan-fried fish cake.

Baby Slipped In The Bathroom

Baby flatlined my heart beat again 2 nights ago when she slipped in the bathroom and fell flat, face down on the bathroom floor made of ceramic tiles. This little monkey likes to move about a lot whenever she’s in the bathroom. It so happened that the floor was wet and I had forgotten to hold her hand and then I heard a thud and saw her on the floor. Thank God, she was ok, no blood, no scratches and no bruises, just shock for the both of us!

Chan Heng Restaurant, Sunway City Ipoh

My dad discovered this coffee shop called Chan Heng Restaurat at Sunway City Ipoh last year. This unassuming coffee shop which looks like a regular cofee shop that sells curry noodles, fish ball noodles and chap fan (mixed rice/dishes) serves ala carte 'tai chau' dishes too. What my dad and especially mum like most about this coffee shop is that not only are the food tasty, but the owner also charges very reasonably and there's no added MSG (at the request of my mum who is allergic to MSG, to the cook to omit the MSG).

The owners, who are a couple would sometimes not charge us for a chap fan dish when we order many ala carte dishes coz we are their regular customer. Many Sunway College students, lecturers, Sunway residents and Giant staff can be seen lunching or dining at this restaurant everyday.

These are some of the dishes that we had last week:

Special homemade tofu, their signature tofu dish. Very tasty.

Pork chop.

Fish slice cooked with tomatoes and tomato sauce. This is always a great hit with my girls.

Stir-fried yau mark tam veggie.

Stir-fried leek flower with siew yoke.

The bill came up to less than RM60 for 4 adults and 2 kids. Pretty reasonable eh?

Boy, this holiday is like a binge eating spree. It's non-stop eating from morning through night everyday. Though this holiday is nothing compared to those orlando vacations, I am nonetheless enjoying my stay in Ipoh at my parents!

Breakfast at Hard Rock Hotel Penang

Here are my girls enjoying their buffet breakfast at Hard Rock Hotel Penang:

Digging on nothing but sodium-laden sausages and deli meat, sugar-laden orange juice, sugar-frosted corn flakes and a little omelette. Not a nutritionally sound breakfast and they enjoyed it. Unhealthy food always taste so good, don't they?



The scene at the coffee house. It was a sea of people and pretty crowded.


Alycia discovered a novel way of eating her corn flakes - by immersing them in orange juice!



I started with fruits, followed by some low-fat yoghurt with muesli. Then digged on some omelette, 2 short sausages, some cuppies and


some pecan nuts. I skipped the dried apricots - too sweet for my liking. I had to watch what I ate as I had been pigging out too much in Penang. If I ate as I please, I would even need to rely on the best fat burner to help me shed some fat!

Our Christmas Eve

We had a late dinner at a nearby restaurant last night as we waited for my elder brother and sil to arrive from Singapore. After dinner and bath time, we put on some Christmas songs on the CD player and switched on the Golden lighting to create a Christmassy mood. Baby was in a perky mood. She was dancing and prancing and clapping her hands away gleefully. My 2 older girls had been waiting the whole day for the gifts opening moment. Even Baby waited anxiously... the moment she stepped into the house after dinner, she ran to the table where my mum placed the gifts and said "open"!


There was only a tiny Christmas tree. My mum did not buy a larger Christmas tree as we were never in Ipoh during Christmas all these years. This is the first time my parents celebrate Christmas with their grand daughters.


My girls searching for their pressies.



Rascal #2 ripping off the gift wrapper. She volunteered to open Baby's pressie.


Baby was so, so excited and happy when she saw her pressie, which was a white unicorn that can move and talk. My sil bought it for her from Singapore. The beaming look on Baby's face was priceless. Last Christmas, she was still a sickly girl with constant UTIs. This Christmas, God has given her the best gift ever, a gift of good health. Thank you Lord for this gift.

I'd like to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

How did you spend your Christmas Eve and Christmas?

Sin Kheng Aun Hainanese Restaurant @ Lorong Chulia, Penang

Lunching at Sin Kheng Aun is a must-have each time we visit Penang. The hubs has been eating at this restaurant since he was a small kid whenever he travels to Penang with his late grandparents and aunts. We found out during our most recent trip to Sin Kheng Aun that the restaurant manager still fondly remembers my hubs and his grandparents, though he had not seen them for over 2 decades!

Here's what we ordered this time round:



Assam tau tai chong (pomfret fish) again, which is by far the freshest and tastiest we have had. This is a must-order dish and you will see this dish on almost every table. The assam gravy is SO addictive that one is bound to finish off even the last drop on the bowl!

Pork intestines soup with loads of pepper, phew.... really hot and keng! Downing a bowl of this hot pepper soup on a hot day is sure to make you perspire profusely with a burning stomach too!


Hainanese chicken chop. I love chicken chop cooked the Hainanese way, with green peas and big onions.


Braised turnip with crabmeat, best eaten when wrapped with fresh lettuce leaves. iLike!


Signature fried assam prawn.

This restaurant located at Lorong Chulia serves tasty Hainanese food at affordable prices except for the fish which can be a bit pricey. Be prepared to sweat it out at this restaurant as it is not air-conditioned. Can be really stuffy and humid on a sweltering day.

Address:
Sin Kheng Aun
2 Lorong Chulia
10200 Penang

Tel : 04 261 4786

Business Hours : 11am - 2.30pm and 5pm - 8.30pm

Closed on every alternate Monday.

Homemade White Sauce Fish Pasta With Shiitake Mushrooms

I made white sauce fish pasta with Shiitake mushrooms for Baby several weeks back. I had wanted to buy the instant white sauce by Heinz but when I looked at the ingredients, I figured I could whip up a healthier version. I used Baby's formula milk powder, about a tablespoon of butter, a dash of seasalt, a slice of processed cheddar cheese and a few dashes of McCormick mixed herbs. I also chopped up some carrots and french beans. You can chop up some celeries too. I used Heinz alphabet and numbers iron enriched pasta.

Here's Baby's lunch and dinner:

It tasted exactly like the canned mushroom soup and rascal #2 was so hooked on it that she kept pestering me for Baby's pasta for the next few days. And know what? Most of it went into rascal #2's tummy coz Baby didn't quite like pasta cooked this way. Baby hates milk and does not fancy anything that has milk in it. She prefers pasta / spaghetti cooked ala bolognaise.

I made extra portions and deep freeze them.

Automated Hand Paper Dispenser

This automated hand paper dispenser in the loo of Hard Rock Hotel Penang caught my 2 brats' attention:


With a gentle tap on the dispenser, papers will be dispensed, really cool.



Sher being Sher, she made me so embarrassed when I turned around and saw her pulling the papers one after another. This brat is really a rascal!

Someone Visited Me

This young and pretty mum from Ipoh visited me yesterday. When she told me earlier that she could not bring baby Maine along as she's having a cold, I was disappointed. But when I saw her in the car, I was so excited. Baby Maine is such a cutie.

Agnes is such a thoughtful friend. She knows I like swiss rolls and she got me a loaf of the famous JJ swiss roll that many bloggers have been raving about.


There are many flavors to choose from and Agnes got me one that's filled with durian. She even knows I like durian. I tell ya, the swiss roll indeed is DELICIOUS! It's soft, fluffy and most importantly, not sweet to the pit of my stomach, unlike other swiss rolls. Not 'jelak' at all. I polished off half the swiss roll all by myself!

Agnes also got 2 pretty head bands for Sher and Baby...


and some wall stickers for Alycia. She knows Alycia does not fancy girly stuff and hair accessories. She's so thoughtful isnt' she?


But when Alycia saw the headband with pretty butterflies on springs, she fell for it and put it on her head immediately. The outcome was disastrous coz Sher bawled for a good 15 minutes before I successfully pleaded to Alycia to give it to her sis!


Thanks SO much for the lovely gifts Agnes. You're such a great friend to have.

Do hop over to my online store to check out some new stock!