Cheap And Tasty 'Tai Chau' Food @ Old Klang Road, KL

We had lunch at this 'tai chau' coffee shop housed in a shack located along 4 1/2 Miles at Old Klang Road KL. From the outside, the place looks really uninviting but the food is tasty and reasonable. This restaurant is famous for their 'phei phar ngap' (roast duck). We went there for lunch on a hot and sunny Sunday. Though there was a misty fan in the restaurant, I was sweating profusely and didn't quite enjoy myself. The place is not baby/toddler-friendly and if you are a health / clean freak like moi, you will not enjoy your meal there.


Here's what we had:

Phei Phar ngap (roast duck), which is the restaurant's signature dish. Almost every patron who goes there will order a roast duck.

Roast char siew and siew yoke...

Stir-fried lala with ginger and garlic....

Steamed pork ribs....

Deep fried chicken with 'nam yue' (fermented beancurd)...

Deep fried tofu, which iLike!

Steamed fish. This restaurant is also well known for its steamed fish dishes. We ordered 3 types of steamed fish!

Deep fried prawns...

Stir fried koong poh sotong...

And after lunch, hubby walked outside to a nearby roadside stall to buy mangosteens, which everyone had as dessert.

I can't recall the name of this 'tai chau' restaurant but here's the name card, written in Mandarin, which I could hardly read, except for the word 'meng' (the shop's name). This 'tai chau' is located on the same road with the Old Klang Road market.

The bill came up to RM247.20 for 10 adults and 3 kids. Pretty cheap eh?

Overall, the food is tasty (plenty of sauces, seasoning and MSG used) but I wouldn't go there again in the afternoon because of the hot weather and the restaurant isn't air-conditioned. It's also not toddler-friendly and hygiene is not up to my standard.

Built-In Human Auto-Sensor

This morning I woke up early in the hope of completing some of my online assignments and read some of the Amazon books that I had bought. But my plan rarely ever goes into place smoothly ever since my kids came along. Baby woke up at 6:30am and whenever this happens, I can’t do much. Lately, this fella has been waking up really early. She sleeps late and wakes up early too. It’s as if she has a built-in human auto-sensor that can sense me leaving her. Sigh… can’t wait for her to grow up so that I can have my ME TIME once again!

Sherilyn's Antics

These are some of the things that only rascal #2 will do :

She finds it amusing and appetizing to eat porridge with her hands.... novelty always attracts this fella who likes to try new things! Many times, she will scratch her head with her OILY hands, eeeeesssshhhh!!

And on some days, she would even doze off at the dining table. This fella, it's a challenge to get her to nap in the afternoon and by 8:30pm, her batteries would be almost konked out. Plus getting her to eat rice + dishes (which is something that does not whet her appetite), that would surely bore her and induce her to lalaland....

Finally After 27 Months

For 2 years 3 months, I had not had my menses as I was and is still breastfeeding Baby. Over the past 1-2 weeks, my milk factory has sort of shut down by default. It sort of wants to tell Baby to stay away from mummy's boobies as she's getting older now. 2 days ago, my menses came back after 27 long months of experiencing menopausal symptoms!

When Baby saw the pad stuck to my panty, she was terrified! She kept saying "What's that on your panty? I don't want!" I guess the pad reminded her of some pads used after her surgery. Her memory is very good and she still remembers the hospital, the X-ray rooms and I think she still remembers her 3-week stay in the hospital after her surgery last year.

Yesterday, she saw the red stuff when I was in the bathroom. She showers with me together everyday. She was both stunned and curious.

BBC - why got blood? Cheh cheh hit you?

Me - no....

BBC - lizard bit you?

Me - no....

BBC - cockroach bit you?

Me - no....

BBC - why (got blood)?

LOL!!!! She's too cute with all her questions and expressions. Naive and simply adorable.

Things To Occupy Her Time

When I need just 15 minutes to get some work done on the computer, one of the best activities to give Baby is a hard-boiled egg for her to shell. She, like her 2 jie jies just loves shelling eggs. Perhaps I should boil a pot full of eggs and assign her the task of shelling the eggs so that I can have a good half an hour to rush off some online assignments haha!

Would You Spend A Few Thousand Bucks On A Fashion Item?

The most expensive thing that someone ever bought me in my life was a branded leather handbag from my previous boss. It cost a few thousand bucks! I still have it with me now though I hardly ever use it. Even if I were still working now, I don’t think I would spend so much on a Gucci bag, shoes or a designer dress. Call me el cheapo but I really don’t buy the idea of spending a few thousand bucks on one single fashion item. Would you?

Ups And Downs Of Running An Online Store

Yesterday was the first day I started selling sandals and ladies shoes in my blogshop. Response has been pretty good. Barely 5 minutes after uploading the pictures, I had already received orders. My good blogger friend advised me to state clearly in my website that these are only RM36 shoes, thus customers should not expect to receive Privo quality shoes. I have been really upset and hurt by one customer whom I considered my friend for writing negative remarks indirectly about my online store in her blog. She had only paid RM37 for a dress (with free postage) and was disappointed when she did not expect the kind of superb quality in her dress. Most of my customers are easy-going and about 70% of them are return customers. I have a good number of customer who have been supporting me ever since I started my business. Well, in business you’ll get good customers and difficult customers. For those difficult customers, you just have to deal with them with a pinch of salt. Business has to go on.

The Girls' First Real Karaoke Session

The girls had their first real karaoke session about 2 weeks ago during koong koong's birthday celebration at Unique Seafood Restaurant. We had booked a private room and the girls enjoyed themselves to the max singing. The room was also very big and Baby ran round and round the room as if she were jogging in a football field.


Alycia and Sherilyn belting out 'You Are My Sunshine'......


As there were only 2 mics that were in working condition, #2 and #3 had a tug of war over the mic.....




We had a scrumptious lunch. I was so busy eating that I had forgotten to snap the pix of the food and only remembered my camera when this unique-looking dish was served. Check out the tofu at the pic below this pic..............



... this is a tofu treasure box. All of us were in for a surprise when we flipped the top of the tofu over and found some 'treasure' inside consisting of prawns, scallops, mushrooms and veggie. YUMS!!! iLike!

Cheap And Good Worksheets For Primary Students

I had wanted to get these type of worksheets for Alycia to practise in preparation for her exam recently but did not know where to get them. I told my mum who was a teacher and tutor and right away, she knew where to get them.





My mum bought these worksheets for all the subjects and before her exam, she helped me drill Alycia with these.



These cost only RM2-3 each and can be purchased from Popular bookstores.

Sleeping Child

Here's yet another snapshot of Alycia dozing off. Ever since she started attending Primary 1, this girl has been very sleep deprieved. On school-going weekdays, she could just doze off anywhere - on the couch, on the floor and even whilst eating her lunch. Since baby, this girl of mine needs lots of sleep, unlike Sherilyn who is always bursting with energy and is seldom sleepy.


She dozed off while waiting for her slow-coach and dilly-dallying sister get ready for Mandarin tuition.

Homemade Chicken Chop

My kids and I, we love chicken chop. It's easy to prepare and I can cook a big batch and deep freeze them in smaller portions for future consumption.

This is the chicken chop with lots of big onions (my girls and I are onion lovers) that I whipped up, with no particular recipe.



I marinated the deboned chicken with soy sauce, sea salt, pepper, honey and Lea and Perrin sauce for about a couple of hours. Then shallow fry the chicken until they turn golden brown. Use the spatula and push the chicken aside. Then add in the big onions and fry them until they turn brown. Mix the chicken and big onions and serve hot. Cut some cool cucumbers to serve with the chicken. The cool cucumbers can expel some 'heatiness'. I cooked 8 pieces and thought of deep freezing half the batch but they were so tasty that my 3 girls walloped them all in a jiffy and licked the platter clean *satisfied grin*


Do hop over to my other blog to check out my homemade almond-cashew nuts bread spread!

Catered Food For Dinner

I started to cater food for dinner on Monday. I was promised that the food will be delivered to my doorstep by 6:30pm but on the first day, the caterer only reached our place at 8pm! Apparantly, her car broke down at Federal Highway during a heavy downpour. By the time she delivered the food, we were already almost done with eating our dinner - I dug out whatever frozen food I had in the freezer and reheated them as my kids were all complaining of a rumbling tummy. On the 2nd day, the food was delivered at 4:30pm! She said she had to send her konked out car to the workshop, thus she was early.

On the first day, we had these dishes:

Minced chicken with tofu...

Chicken chop with fried potato wedges. Tasty but I find that her food has too much 'wok loh' (burnt carbon from the wok).

Stir-fried long beans. My girls love the beans as they were sweet. I suspect she put sugar / oyster sauce.

On the 2nd day, we had fish curry, stir fried cabbage and foo yoong egg omelette.

On the 3rd day, we had these:

Fish bergedil (a Malay dish made out of mashed fish, potatoes, big onions, spices and chillies)...

Stir fried 'tai yee ma kar lui' (gourd with glass noodles, shredded carrots and fishballs) and the dish on the right is spam meat cooked with potatoes and curry leaves. This dish was SUPER SALTY and I didn't allow my girls to eat.

Overall, the caterer's food is quite satisfactory. Low in MSG and I don't feel thirsty after eating. But quite high in oyster sauce / sugar coz all the dishes are sweet! I'll see what she will serve us today.

Goodies from Singapore

My eldest brother and sil from Singapore were in KL last weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday. They had recently returned from the U.S. and had bought these goodies for us:


Original Polo Ralf Lauren shirts for everyone (not in picture)....


Chocolates, nuts and candies....





These cute cuppies are from Singapore. My sil's friend who had a baby shower party gave these to her...



Who can resist them eh? Even I ate them, minus the colorful icing and decor...






Cute Hello Kitty headbands for the 3 angels....



Even Alycia who has tomboyish taste in fashion liked the headband and she agreed to wear it!!


...and my mum even got an original COACH handbag, which was sold at a song from the COACH factory.

My Homecooked Dishes

Though super busy with my online store, I sill cook for my kids - twice a day and I find it very taxing and time consuming. Though I have a helper, she just cannot get it right whenever I leave it to her entirely to cook. She will surely screw up something like putting chopped tomatos and onions (meant for cooking spaghetti sauce) into our pot of herbal soup!

So I've decided that from tomorrow, I will cater food for dinner. I'll try out for one month and see how it goes. According to this caterer, all her dishes are free from MSG. I'll see....

Here are some of the dishes that I whipped up last week:

Fish coated with turmeric powder and pan-fried. My kids lurve this crispy fish!

Chicken cooked ala Hainanese style with big onions and canned peas, seasoned with pepper, salt and Lea & Perrin sauce.

Square fried tofu cooked with minced chicken breast and fresh shiitake mushrooms.

Things That Only Sherilyn Will Do!

One of the things that only rascal #2 will do is to eat with her hands and mind you, it's not the refined hand-eating method like some people do. She would place the rice on her palm, then squeeze the rice as if she were making sushi or preparing dough... and after playing with her rice + dishes, she will put the yucky looking food into her mouth. This fler is known to take hours to finish her food but with food-playing, she can finish her food in a jiffy and she enjoys it too! Are all hyper-active and inquisitive kids like this?

And she even eats her porridge with her hands! GAWD... I was shocked to see her do it and this, I reprimanded her!


Rascal #2 eating rice with turmeric chicken. Can you see how terribly messy it is? And the worst part is she will scratch her head with her oily hands and send me yelling at her.. That's why she needs to shampoo her hair twice a day.


Kek sei ngor mou you say??!

I Want To Go Inside

Baby loves books, if only I can afford the time to read to her everyday I think she would be a very good reader. Many times she gets too excited and absorbed and would tell me that she wants to get inside the book to be with the bears and animals in the story books muahahahahahaha!!!

I think she looked too cute when I saw her putting her leg on a colorful page of a Dr Seuss book the other day... and she told me "mummy, I want to go there!"

Self Entertainment

These days, Baby can entertain herself when I am too busy to entertain her. I'll just have to close one eye when she takes stuff from the kitchen to play with, like this:



Well, as long as she ain't playing with a fork, knife, scissors or anything breakable, anything is A-ok with me.... as long as she can give me 1/2 an hour of time to do some serious stuff on my computer, anything is A-ok with me haha!


And sometimes when I desperately need 15 minutes to draft an adv to submit to the advertiser before the deadline, I'd even close 2 eyes when she strews my papers everywhere on the floor....


But this fler is a sweet and thoughtful little girl... she would pick up all the papers... piece by piece when asked to clean up the mess after she's done with the excitement of strewing them everywhere!

Novel Way Of Eating Lunch

Baby and Sherilyn decided to do something new over lunch time. Instead of eating at the dining table, Sherilyn brought her food to the kitchen, pulled a chair there and sat there to eat. Baby the copy cat followed suit and both of them kwai kwai finished their food in the kitchen!



But they created a mess - food was dropped everywhere on the floor and I made #2 clean up the mess haha!

Check out the cute Minnie Mouse swimming cap Baby is wearing here. Sometimes I put the cap on her head so that she will not dirty her hair with her oily hands muahahahahahaha!

New Temp Store Assistant

She's my new temporary store assistant and the best ever... but she's only going to help me out for the next 1 week and then she'll return to her hometown :(

Yesterday was a super duper hectic day for me. My stock from 5 suppliers arrived on the same day, coincidentally. Thank God my mum is here and she helped me check the clothes, else I would have to work round the clock to check, sort and pack the clothes into Pos Laju bags. Order for the past few days have also been high. I have been working 15 hours non-stop for 2 days. I am really burnt out and jaded. I need a breakie today!

Check out those beautiful kawaii hats. I LOVE them all!! I have bought 2 hats for my girls and now I am tempted to buy more!!


Pic taken this morning.... pos laju bags waiting to be picked up by the postman later.

Do check out my online store http://oldandnewstuff4sale.blogspot.com/ to shop for cute kids clothes, hats, swim wear, costumes, kids accessories and chic ladies wear at very affordable prices.

Charmed?

I read with disgust from the newspapers that a 38-year old man had married a 108-year old woman recently. The woman is old enough to be his great grandmother. I wonder if he has been charmed by the woman that made him attracted to the old woman. This old woman has had many husbands previously. She uses ‘special massages’ to prevent his man from straying. I wonder if she would use spy gear to spy on him soon, when the charm ‘loses’ its effect haha!

Sherilyn Naps The Weirdest Ways

Sherilyn, this girl of mine is super hard-headed. During the day she would refuse to nap. Even when threatened by the cane, she just won't take her nap, citing that she is not sleepy at all. If she ever naps in the afternoon, I would need to check her temperature to see if she has a fever or ask her if she's not well.

By dinner time, her batteries would be almost flat. At 8:30pm every night on end, I will say the same thing to her "quickly finish your food and drink your soup!!" She will be the last to finish her food every night. On some nights, this is what happens:


Dozing off while drinking her soup....


and I think she has perfect balancing skill....