Baked fried rice in whole coconut

Tried something unique at Kao Lee Dim Sum restaurant in Ipoh Garden when we were in Ipoh recently. It's fried rice baked with cheese in a coconut. The rice was very flavorful with the aromatic taste of coconut. Dim Sum served in this restaurant was quite good too but the rat incident and the long haggle between my dad and the restaurant staff over the issue of over-billing us left us with a bitter taste and we vowed not to go there again.

Our 2011 X'mas

After morning church service today, we spent our X'mas day at Sunway Pyramid. First at Tony Roma's for their delish ribs and later spent the next few hours at the mini indoor theme park of Sunway Pyramid located on the ground floor.


Picture taken on X'mas Eve... Cassandra's X'mas pressie from daddy, which is a princess set in pink, including the klik klok clogs, which she adores to bits but is however a tad hazardous for her to wear.















The girls' maiden ride on the ferry's wheels. They have never ridden on one before, can you beat it? haha!




The bumper car rides are the girls' favorite and they spent almost an hour in total queuing up for 4 rounds of rides. Each person is charged a whopping RM6, though only one car is rented. Hubs spent over RM100 just on all the rides. The owner of these rides must be laughing all the way to the bank throughout the 6 weeks of school holidays as the mini park was teeming with kids and all the rides ain't cheap.

Dong Zhi Reunion Dinner At Han Room @ Gardens, Mid Valley City

We had our Dong Zhi Reunion dinner at the Han Room restaurant last night. This Chinese restaurant is hubs' favorite Chinese restaurant and he even has membership at this restaurant. He often brings his customers to dine at Han Room @ Gardens, Mid Valley and has tried many of the dishes on the menu. After a few recent lip-smacking and finger-licking moments with the Spanish Pork Ribs with his friends and customers, he ordered a huge portion of this dish for us to try last night.


The Grilled Spanish Pork Ribs is the chef's specialty. The pork meat was very juicy, uniquely flavorful and indeed bone licking good, really down right tasty till the bone! Would give a double thumbs up for this dish, which does not come cheap. I choked when the hubs told me the price for that place of porky dish! Quickly asked for the left overs to be packed back for our lunch today!




Double boiled fish maw, sea cucumber, dried vegetables (choy kon) and mushroom chicken soup in a pumpkin.


Butter prawns - another lip smacking dish which will surely have you lick the platter clean! Love the deep fried shredded eggs.



Stir fried Chang Loong Choy with fresh lily bulbs - a common Chinese restaurant veggie dish.



Braised tofu with crab meat and crab roe... and there was also a fried rice, which is Alycia's favorite. She is the 'fan toong' of the family!





Plain tong Yuen with ginger syrup, which was on the house. I never liked plain tong yuen and as a child, had trouble swallowing the starchy balls down my throat. My later maternal grandma would sort of force us to eat them on each Dong Zhi festival hehe. The number of tong yuen you have in your bowl signifies your lunar year age. So I had to eat 15 balls when I was 15 years old! I prefer tong yuen with black sesame and peanut fillings.

What's In That Pressie?

The hubs carted back a really HUGE X'mas pressie late last night. When the girls saw the pressie, they thought that it was yet another pressie for them but no no, it's mine, haha! I am itching to know what is beneath the gift wrapper. Could it be something that I have been eyeing from Ikea? I have penned down a few items that I want from Ikea and have been bugging the hubs to bring me to Ikea to grab them with my gift vouchers but my man is always bogged down with work. But he likes to give surprises hehe.

I hope the pressie is either a little side closet next to our big closet, to put Cass' clothes. I am also hoping that it is the clothes hanger I told him about. And I am wishing that it is this water-saving tap too. Our kitchen tap now gushes water out at a really heavy flow at the lift of the lever. I think half a liter of water is used just to wash a spoon that is not oily! Our water bill is shocking at almost RM100 a month! Piped-in gas another RM120 and electricity bill another RM400+!! Horror!

This water-saving water tap from Ikea comes with a flow control function, thus saving us flowing amount of $$! I snapped this picture when we went to Ikea last month. In fact, I have taken pix of all the stuff that I want from Ikea so that I can go straight to the section to check it out when we go to Ikea next.




Can you spot the BIGGEST pressie? It's MINE, HO HO HO!!!



Here's also wishing everyone happy Winter Solstice festival, Merry X'mas and flowing happiness throughout 2012!

Down Memory Lane

I was going through my pictures folder to save some pix into my thumbdrive when I came across this pic. This picture was taken almost 4 years ago at our old house. Can you recognize the cute little girl seated next to Alycia? Barb - I almost forgot that you came to visit us 4 years ago :D

Sherilyn was seated on the lap of our previous Cambodian maid. She was not even 3YO then.

Orange Sorbet @ Hai Nan Town, Tg City Marina, Penang

Our first stop for lunch when we reached Penang for the past 2 trips was at Hai Nan Town Nyonya & Hainanese Restaurant @ Tanjung City Marina, between QEII and the ferry terminal. We like this eatery, though it is slightly more expensive than Sin Kheng Aun (which is also the hubs's favorite eating place for decades) because the ambience is more conducive, cleaner, has air-cond and the toilet is a far cry from Sin Kheng Aun's pre-war one. Our favorite dishes are pomfret fish assam, braised chicken for the kids, jiu hu char (braised turnip) with fresh lettuce leaves, deep fried spring rolls and pan fried prawns. This time, we tried their orange sorbet for dessert :


10/10 for presentation, 9/10 for taste and 7/10 for price. Will definitely try this again next year, when we make our year-end 'pilgrimage' to Penang :D

Lazy Bum!

After a visit to the hair saloon just now, we stopped by a road-side stall selling fresh coconut to quench our thirst on this sizzling afternoon. When we told the man that we wanted 4 packets of coconut water, the seller told us that he does not provide service to chop off the tip of the coconut and pour the coconut water into bags. When we requested him to do it, he told us arrogantly that he does not sell coconut water in this manner. He then pointed to the soya bean milk stall next to his and told us buy from the soya bean milk seller instead, as though telling us "too bad I won't sell to you. Drink soya bean lar, it's more convenient"! Most people would find it very troublesome to lug home 4 huge and heavy coconuts, spend half an hour chopping off the tip of the coconut to get the coconut water and flesh, and messing up the kitchen, just to have a glass of refreshing coconut water to drink.

Wonder why some people are so lazy when it comes to earning money. Money is hard to come by. Make hay while sun shines. I'll bet he will earn double or maybe even more if he sells not just whole unopened coconuts but also fuss-free coconut water. No wonder that bugger has such a gigantic beer belly, lazy bump!

Cute Things She Says

During shower time just now...

Baby - when I grow up I will buy you many things and sayang you. I will go to the market to buy you lots of food. I will spend a lot of money on a big bungalow for you too.

Me - what will you buy me from the market?

Baby - yummy mushrooms, fish, 'char siew', hanger, panties, (and then named out a long list of things that she will buy for me in future.... when I am OLD, LOL!!)

Baby - and I will buy maggie mee for daddy because he likes maggie mee. But I won't put a lot of salt for him when I cook. I will put LITTLE bit of salt on his maggie mee and some vegetables, just LITTLE bit salt only.

Me - will you take care of me when I am old?

Baby - yes. I will also take care of che che, er che (sister no. 2), koong koong, granny and everyone. I love everybody.


My sweetie pie at 3 years 8 months.

OMG, Neglected For Over A Week!

OMG, just realized that I have neglected this first 'baby' of mine for over a week. Have been away in Penang for a few days and am still in Ipoh with the girls and my helper. After our trip from Penang, I felt a tad under the weather and feel slightly better today.

You can hop over to my dot com blog to read updates. Meanwhile, here are some pix taken in Penang.

The girls in the jaccuzzi @ G Hotel, Penang





Check out my hau por model wannabe LOL!



Night view of Gurney Drive from the 14th floor of the Executive Lounge @ G Hotel



Surfing the net at the Executive Lounge



My not even 7YO daughter, who is always dressed up to the nines in necklace, bracelet, headband and hair accessories. She is always the fastest to pose whenever my camera is fished out from my bag.






Sweet splash of freedom for Baby! Her surgeon said no problem to go swimming, yay!


A crabby lunch at Tg Tokong before heading to Ayer Itam to tapau asam laksa for my dad.

My Precious Baby Is 8 Today!

10 years ago, I stayed at the maternity ward of SJMC (Sime Darby Medical Centre now) but not for the delivery of a baby. It was for a Laproscopic Ovarian Drilling of both my ovaries so that I could conceive. A year later, I stayed at the maternity ward of PMC but did not have a baby too, but lost a pregnancy. That was the saddest and most painful day of my life. Staying in a maternity ward twice and hearing cries of newborn babies but leaving empty handed is a very painful experience. The following year, I stayed at the maternity ward of SYMC. This time, I was the happiest woman in the ward. I had a beautiful baby to cradle in my arms. That was 8 years ago on 5 Dec 2003. That day will forever be the happiest day in my life. Thank you very much dear Lord for Alycia. May you bless her with many more happy birthdays and grant her good health and happiness always.


Pic of Alycia at the same age with Cassandra now - 3.5YO

Funny Conversation With Cassandra

I had wanted to jot down this funny conversation with Baby last night but I was so sleepy that I dropped all my work and went straight to slumberland.

I was feeding Baby her before bedtime soy bean milk and we were watching SpiderWick (a thriller for kids on goblins and unruly creatures) ...

Me - baby, what if these monsters entered our house and climbed up your bed? Scary eh?

Baby - this is NOT real.. this is only a movie, it cannot be real, YOU SILLY!

Hmmm, my 3.5yo baby girl out-talking me yet again!

After she had finished her milk, I stroked her hands and legs...

Baby - why are you touching me mummy?

Me - why? You don't like me to touch you and sayang you?

Baby - is it because I am C-U-T-E?
and then gave me her cute smile :D

Cassandra at 3 years 7 months