Eight Treasure Restaurant @ Taman Connaught, Cheras

Our girls ditched us on Sunday.  We were supposed to go out for lunch together but when they heard that daddy was going to our regular neighborhood kopitiam for a quick lunch, suddenly, everyone had something cropped up at the eleventh hour.  The girls are bored of eating the same old food at the eatery.  Just mention that we're going for Korean or Japanese, all their online classes and projects will be unbelievably postponed or someone would say that she got the dates mixed up 😐

With just hubs, mil and I, hubs decided to venture out of our neighborhood as the mil suddenly had a craving for Pan Mee at Eight Treasure Restaurant, a small neighbourhood restaurant in Taman Connaught that attracts a continuous queue of zealous diners.  The last time we were there about a month ago, the Pan Mee was sold out when we reached the restaurant at around 11-ish a.m.  The Pan Mee is one of the restaurant's star dishes and is replete of ingredients and flavor.  Eight Treasure serves good old traditional homecooked comfort food.

We ordered two bowls of Pan Mee and another two bowls for takeaway for the girls.

We ordered a portion of Hakka Yong Tau Foo. A portion comes with 8 large pieces of stuffed 'liu'. We also ordered another potion for takeaway for dinner.  Each piece of stuffed 'liu' has a generous wedge of homemade fish paste.  This is my absolute favorite dish. My late grandmother used to make very toothsome Hakka Yong Tau Foo, bouncy fish balls, fried fish cakes and stuffed 'liu' with fish paste that she made from scratch from fresh fish.  The Yong Tau Foo and 'liu' cooked in fermented bean paste from Eight Treasure taste very similar to the ones that my late grandmother made.  I should learn how to cook this dish one day when I have no more Grab Mom duties to do and no kids to mind.

The horse grass-fed chicken, steamed and served with minced ginger is another crowd-puller.  If you're used to eating antibiotics and hormone reared chickens, you will find such a huge contrast with horse grass-fed chickens. The meat of horse grass-fed chicken is very flavorful and firm with no chicken odor. For someone who does not fancy eating steamed chicken, this chicken is my only exception. It is cooked to a tee and I give it a 10/10 rating for taste and freshness.  But the price is a shocker @ RM120 a chicken.  We ordered half a chicken and the entire plate of chicken was polished clean with no leftover for the girls.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, hubs segued into Sun Ming Restaurant to get takeaway roast duck, char siu and siu yoke.  This restaurant is well known for their charcoal roast duck.  But I'm not a fan of ducks.  These roast meats were for our lunch the next day.  

While we were waiting for our bill to arrive, we saw the owner packing homemade dumplings (Jiao Zi) for a customer and we ordered two boxes @ RM26 a box as the girls love dumplings.  I'm happiest when we don't have to cook.😁

Healthy Breakfast

After a UTI attack about a month ago and a recent bout of torturous constipation that lasted almost a week, Cass' taste buds seemed to have evolved. Her love for oats resurfaced  and she's eating a lot more fruits now.  Her sudden crave for oats is so intense that she's now eating oats twice a day - breakfast before going to school and lunch. Sometimes she has oats thrice a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner! And she only likes oats with fresh milk.  This morning she added a large Korean Fuji apple and pineapple into her oats. She prepped the breakfast herself at 9 a.m. and enjoyed her breakfast with a good book before attending BM tuition at 11 a.m..  We had Char Siew rice for lunch and after lunch, she chomped down another large Fuji apple 🍎.  When we came home at 5:30 p.m. after piano lesson, she chomped down a big plate of papaya. 

My health freak eating habits have definitely rubbed off on Cass. While she had oats, I had skinny sugar-free yoghurt with melon seeds, peanuts, pistachios and homemade coconut sugar kaya (75% sugar reduced).

RMCO Day 106 ~ Wednesday, 23 Sept 2020 (Random Updates)

I'm back at churning out fruit smoothies for the girls again after a hiatus of more than half a year.  Cass has been suffering from constipation for the past week, a side effect from the strong antibiotics administered to her intravenously and orally when she was admitted to the hospital for UTI three weeks ago.  Initially she suffered from diarrhea, then I gave her probiotics and the diarrhea stopped but in came the constipation. This is the reason why I would never allow myself or the girls to be given oral antibiotics unless absolutely necessary in a do or die situation.

Dragon fruit, banana and apple smoothie with a few shakes of organic lemon juice.

The constipation was so bad that nothing seemed to work to jump start her defenseless lazy bowel. Not even enema. She was bloated and had no appetite.  Strangely, she craved for instant oats with fresh milk, a comfort food that my mum would feed me with whenever I was sick when I was a girl.   I also encouraged her to eat my skinny sugar-free yoghurt, which she surprisingly liked though it was sour.   After several meals of organic oats with milk, smoothie, yoghurt and tummy massages (using peppermint essential oil), she finally made the dump, yay!!

There was a little drama surrounding the organic oats when I was about to prep some for Cass' lunch when she returned from school yesterday.   When I opened a packet of organic oats that I bought yesterday morning from the pharmacy, a weevil crawled out and gave me a scare!  The weevil, the size of a baby butterfly fluttered its wings and was about to fly away when I quickly yelled out to Cass to help me scoop it back into the packet of oats.  Some of the oats had a layer of glue-like web and I think it must be the excrement from the weevil and its family.  Imagine the weevil survived months inside the packet of oats all the way from New Zealand.  Ewwwwww!!  This made me convinced that the oats are genuinely organic as pests can survive in it for months. This is not the first time I find weevils in organic oats, rice and noodles.   Later I brought the packet of oats back to the pharmacy for an exchange and the owner recommended a premium brand of oats to me, which costs double the price!  On top of paying an additional RM5 for the price difference, I had to pay RM1.50 for car park again, just to get the packet of oats exchanged.  😕. 

My packet of Signature Premium organic instant oats, steel cut from oat groats. I guess this should be free from pests as the oats have been steamed.  The oats taste better than regular oats as they are roasted and have a distinct earthy aroma.  

And if Cass is willing to eat oats regularly, I don't mind getting a premium brand with better quality.  Oats are incredibly nutritious and chock-full of health benefits. 

Our lunch at Seoul Korea again on Sunday - our all-time favorite and something that we will never get bored of.

Random Ramblings

  

This stupid fake lizard never fails to startle me. Hubs bought it for Cass about a year ago at a toys wholesaler in Chinatown. No prize for guessing who these two mobsters intended to scare to death with the lizard!  After a few rounds of trying her luck to terrorize me with it with no success, the lizard went missing and a few months later, it resurfaced. Though the color on the body faded a wee bit, the lizard still gives me the heebie-jeebies each time I see it on the table or floor out of nowhere as it does look frigging real!  Someone is still trying her luck! Today she succeeded as it scared the living daylights out of the mil when she saw it on the floor!

Look what I found inside the washer yesterday morning..

 

Someone had left the USB cord in his jeans pocket yesterday and despite me checking the pockets before the clothes went into the washer, I couldn't find anything. His jeans pockets are really deep and I don't stick my entire hand into them to check. Everyone should be responsible for checking their own clothes before chucking them into the laundry pail! I'm no one's maid!   I had a shock when the USB cord poured out of the washer when I opened the door. No wonder the washer had strange sounds inside during the cycle!  

Yesterday none of the girls wanted to follow us out for brunch. With just the three of us adults, hubs ventured into Paramount Garden @ PJ to try our luck getting a table at O&S Coffee Shop. When we saw a queue longer than 10 meters (expected as it was a public holiday), we segued into Choon Prawn Mee House to tuck into some authentic Penang prawn noodles.

Ice milk tea with grass jelly.

While mil and I waited for our prawn noodles, hubs queued up at O&S to get takeaway Yong Tau Fu, Indian rojak and char koay teow for our dinner.  My life is constantly filled with good food when I have a foodie hubs who lives to eat and a daughter who finds her zen cooking and baking.

And this is the reason why I must clock in an average of 13,000 - 17,000 steps a day to melt all these calories away.  I exercise twice a day every other day - once from 6:20 - 7:00 a.m. at our condo's jogging trek and another round from 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. at the park.

My Fitbit is always worn on my upper arm when I'm at home so that it doesn't get in my way when I do house chores.

And yes, I finally got myself a new smart watch - a Fitbit Charge 4 with awesome features.  It's water resistant to 50 meters, thus I don't have to freak out if I accidentally left it in my shorts pocket for an hour spin in the washer 😅. I shall write a separate post on my Charge 4 soon...

Benefits of Wearing A Waist Trainer

If you're on a mission to achieve a super small waist like your idol, Kim Kardashian or have always dreamed of having a Barbie doll-like body, there are less painful alternatives to going under the knife in a Rib Resection surgery to have a couple of ribs removed.

A less invasive and much cheaper alternative is through waist training, the process of reducing your waist size and accentuating your curves using a waist trainer, a tight-laced corset and shapewear shorts. These garments are meant to give the wearer an exaggerated hourglass figure. Waist trainers or shapewear have been around since 1500 (though known as a bodice then) but was made popular again by the popular Kardashians. Even if you're on the larger size, you can get a plus size waist trainer and you'll see the difference on your body instantly.  Unlike jeans or belts, they are extremely flexible and the stretch of these fibers is up to 500%. 

These are some of the benefits of wearing a waist trainer:

1.  Tucked in. The most obvious advantage of a bodysuit is what they were designed for: they stay tucked in!  There is no need to worry about your blouse or singlet popping out and having to thrust your hand down your skirt or pants to tuck it in place.

2.  Eating smaller food portions. Large meals may feel uncomfortable to consume when your midsection is under compression.  With a waist trainer or shapewear shorts on your body, you'll likely feel more comfortable eating smaller meals rather than large ones.

3.  Improvement in posture.  A waist trainer certainly does not allow you to slouch and keeps your posture straight and after a period of time wearing it, it becomes second nature to you to keep a good posture.

4.  More calories burnt.  When you wear a waist trainer during exercise, you will sweat profusely, especially around your waist area.  With that extra sweat, you will lose some water weight and calories.

Just make sure that you are getting the right size when you purchase shapewear – or any type of clothing for that matter.  If the garment is tight around the hip area especially it can constrict the blood circulation to the lower legs. One should use common sense and if there is discomfort, should attempt a larger size. Also remember not to wear shapewear and waist trainers for extremely long periods of time and never sleep in them.   

If you’d like to cover up those minor imperfections and give your body a more natural shape, a women’s shapewear or bodysuit added into your closet of arsenal attire might give you just the boost of confidence that you need.  To help you safe some money, you can get the best Black Friday deals at FeelinGirl.

Along with a healthy diet, exercise and proper shapewear, you will be on your way to achieving a permanent hour-glass figure 😉.  

RMCO Day 95 ~ Saturday, 12 Sept 2020

Last night I promised Cass that we'll be having breakfast together this morning at her favorite fish paste noodles stall at our neighborhood kopitiam.  But hubs doesn't want to eat the same boring food from our neighborhood.  He was in the mood to venture down to downtown KL to tuck into the best Ipoh-style 'kai si hor fun' and bean sprouts chicken in KL at Jalan San Peng Wat Kai Fan / Kai See Hor Fun. When Cass found out that her dad was going somewhere else instead, she was so upset and refused to eat what he'd ordered 😂   

After brunch, we went to a dried food stuff wholesaler in Petaling Street as the mil wanted to restock our supply of dried anchovies, red dates, dried cuttlefish, groundnuts, etc.   Then we stopped at Sin Kiew Yee Shin Kee Beef Noodles to tapau beef noodles for dinner.

So tomorrow's brunch will be Cass' call.  We'll be bringing her to tuck into her favorite fish paste noodles after badminton in the morning. 

Did I tell you that this brat got the highest marks (96%) in her BM Penulisan paper this exam? She got a tie with the top student. I was gobsmacked and think that it was purely a fluke. For someone who put in so little effort and time into revising, I really think that the BM teacher was being super duper lenient with his marks. I can't wait to find out what marks she scored for other subjects! This time, I placed very little expectation on her marks as she was hospitalized and still in a very chillaxed mood, knowing that UPSR is cancelled and this exam will not have much impact on her as she's going to high school next year.

Yesterday morning I bought a tub of orange and purple sweet potato chips from our neighborhood kopitiam and by evening today, the tub is empty! It's so addictively crispy and yummy that everyone in the house kept opening the tub to pop a few chips into our mouths each time we passed by the dining table.  Time to get another tub tomorrow morning!🤭

Wigging Out The Celebrity Way

Wigs are a commitment-free way to try on a different hair style, color and cut and sometimes even take on a whole new style identity for a bit of fun.  That's why celebrities turn to wigs to jazz things up.  Wigs these days can be bought online from wholesale hair vendors.   Celebrities change up their hairstyles on a regular basis, from wild shades to super-short pixies. But rather than chopping their tresses on a whim (and regretting it later on) or damaging their strands with excessive coloring, several stars turn to a more temporary solution: wigs and hair extensions. They are made from human hair and most times, they look so natural that it's hard to tell if they are real or faux.

As proven by some of my favorite hairstyle chameleons, including Kim Kardashian, Cardi B and Kate Perry, wigs are the easiest way to transform your look and make a major statement—commitment-phobe.  From Kylie Jenner to Katie Holmes (whose blunt bob was so convincing, everyone thought it was the real deal), many other celebs love rocking faux tresses and peruvian hair on the red carpet.

Dolly Parton, the legendary singer never hid away her love for wigs. She has been wearing wigs since 1973. In fact, you may not have seen her making a public appearance without one.  She confessed in her talk show with Jimmy Fallon that she's been wearing wigs all the time because wigs are so handy and she's always so busy.

Halsey - looking cute and gorgeous like a modern-day Ariel from The Little Mermaid, the "Without Me" songstress rocked a long bright red wig to channel the Disney princess while singing "Part of Your World" during the sing-along on May 10, 2020. 

Today, many women experiment with hair additions in every length, color and texture ~ from body wave to straight to bundles with closure.   Brazilianhairtop is an online store to shop for all your hair extensions and wig needs. They specialize in high quality human hair extensions.

Faux hair is very common in the show business and we are grateful that celebrities are so open and authentic about their wig use. This is a reminder for us that people with cancer, alopecia and hair loss are not alone in their struggle. Wigs are flexible and no hassle, and thanks to the new improvements made using high technology, wigs are extremely realistic looking!

Random Updates (RMCO Day 93 ~ Thursday, 10 Sept 2020)

 This is our edible garden on the balcony:

Spring onions (grown from red shallots), Thai purple basil, red Malabar spinach and stink grass (fragrant actually).

Chinese parsley (both pots alongside spring onion on the ledge), baby shoots of green Malabar spinach  (on the right) and red Malabar spinach. Both the red and green Malabar spinach plants were grown from stems after we ate the leaves.  The Chinese parsley were grown from the root bunch after we used the top part.  The plants on the bottom left are Sherilyn's school RBT project where she planted lettuce and chilies from seeds.

This was my breakfast yesterday: 

A packet of vegetarian meehoon with vegetables curry and fried tempeh with curry leaves as add ons. The mil and I shared this.  Lately, she's been reducing her food portion too. Guess my health freak practices have rubbed off on her 😆.  She also walks an hour a day in the morning sun. As a result, she lost quite a bit of weight, something for her to rejoice in as she was advised by her doctor to shed some weight some time back.

My new stock of pickled raw mango, papaya and Ambarella, bought from a seller on Facebook.  I didn't expect each box to have so much pickles in it and I shared them with Maria our part-time helper as well as hubby's aunt who stays 2 floors below ours.  

Today there was a little drama at the supermarket car park. After I took the parking chip coin, I dropped the coin (which is super slippery and small)  which fell through a small gap between the driver's seat and a tray and landed at the bottom. There was no way I could wedge my hand between the tiny gap and the bottom is too deep for me to reach. I searched my car and handbag frantically for anything that's long and thin to slot between the gap to push the coin out. I was so glad that I found a tube of hand cream, which is almost finishing, thus flat enough to go through the gap.  When the tube reached the bottom, in my excitement, I pushed the coin forward a tad too hard and then the coin flew away and was no where in sight. Fudge!!  

Again, I searched for the coin frantically, like I was looking for a needle in a haystack and had to squat down in my tight mini denim skirt to search under the car seat, which made things harder! With the coin no where in sight, I ran into the supermarket after going through the My Sejahtera QR code scanning and temperature check and looked for the manager. He's someone whom I'm familiar with. Told him the sob story but he said sorry, you still have to pay RM30 as the replacement coin costs almost that much.  Bummer.  I went back to my car to do another thorough scan of the car floor. This time I had to literally stick my  head and hand under the seat but still I couldn't see the dang coin. I flipped the double layer of floor mat on the back passenger seat and blimey, the blue coin was sitting underneath the mat!  And I was perturbed as to how the coin could have gone backwards when I pushed it forward!  

Happy yet flustered after I found the coin.  I think I'm going to have a phobia putting the parking chip coin on the seat next to me after today's drama. Just like how I'm now paranoid of holding my keys when I get in and out of the lift. A few years ago, the bunch of house keys slipped out of my hand as I exited the lift, fell through the elevator shaft and landed at the bottom. The condo manager had to call the elevator technicians over to retrieve the keys 😑

Random Updates On Cassandra

Today is the 5th day since Cass' discharge from the hospital after a bout of UTI attack which required her to be hospitalized for 3 nights 4 days at Pantai Hospital.  Tomorrow she'll be back to school and will be sitting for an exam.  Before Covid-19, she was to sit for the UPSR government exam from 1 - 8 September.  Then came the MCO and she escaped the exam. When school reopened after a 4-month quarantine break, the school announced that there will be a school-based exam on the same dates. And Cass escaped the exam on those dates again with an unexpected UTI attack. Tomorrow she will finally be sitting for the exam and she's so NOT PREPARED.  

This is Cass and her two best friends, A and J since they were 8 year olds with Ms L, their favorite teacher. Ms L was their class teacher from Primary 2 through Primary 4.  This will be their last photo with Ms L in the school as Ms L will be transferred to another school and it's her last day of school here.

Instead of revising for her exam, this brat spent hours on end to do a thank you card for Ms L.  Today, she rummaged through her stamp album to find unused stamps as she wanted to send the card to Ms L via snail mail to surprise her. After brunch, we walked to the post box to drop off the card.

All smiles as the trainee nurse removed the IV catheter from her hand on Tuesday.  Freedom at last! It really sucks to have a needle poked inside your hand for days which restricts your movements.

Taking a nap and it's the best time for me to steal a photo of her. She goes hopping mad with me each time I try to snap her photo 😏

I took this photo as I was bored to the core with nothing to do at the hospital.  This creaky reclining chair is where I sat and took my siesta in the room.

The nurse administering antibiotics infusion to Cass via IV. She has to be given antibiotics twice a day at 12 noon and 12 midnight.  After a week of strong antibiotics, I've started Cass on Duolacto probiotics now.

Treat and exercise after antibiotics infusion. We walked around the hospital and Cass spent quite a bit of time at Borders.  Her treat is usually a smoothie from MBG.

Cass with Dr EL, her pediatrician since she was 6 weeks old.  Dr EL is the first doctor who attended to Cass when she first got her first UTI attack at 6 weeks old.  He's the only pediatrician whom I really trust and can rely on as he's a very detailed and careful doctor who truly cares for his patient's well being.  

Today's sunrise with blue hues at 7-ish a.m.

Cass will likely have to undergo another surgery next year but she will have to go through a string of diagnostic tests first from a Cystoscopy to a MAG3 scan.  The former requires Cass to be sedated under GA and the latter requires radioactive material injected via IV.  This will be in another blog post.  

RMCO Day 80 ~ Friday, 28 August 2020 (Piano Tuning & Cassandra's UTI Attack)

Last week the piano tuner guy came.  Did I tell you that I have not tuned the piano ever since I got it from hubby's relative about 6 years ago?  And if it wasn't because of Cass who kept reminding me to have the piano tuned, I would have procrastinated even longer.  She kept telling me that the pianos at her music school sound so melodious but ours is out of tone.  Excuse the tone deaf mother who also plays the piano but I couldn't tell the difference 😬

MY BAD! 

And because the heater also conked out, the wooden keys inside the piano turned moldy. The tuner had to dismantle the entire set of keys to bring it back to his shop to clean and remove the mold from the keys.  From an initial price of RM150 quoted to me, I ended up having to pay RM1,600!!  This includes two times tuning, servicing the moldy keys, fixing the pedals, replacing the heater and purchase of a new high quality extension wire with plug for the heater. I also had to call in our in-house condo technician to help us replace a wall socket for the heater. Oh. My. Gawd.!  This is the year that we've been dealt with the most misfortunes, misevents and expenses, with the worst being the year 2009 where we had to dig our life savings to pay Cass' surgeries and hospitalization bills amounting to over RM50,000.

And on the day that the tuner came to our house again to re-assemble the piano, and caused a mess, Cass had high fever and flank pain, a result of the UTI attack that she had. From a mild lower urinary tract infection, the pain slowly went up the urinary tract as the bacteria traveled up. While attending to the tuner, I had to get a dr's appointment for Cass, made sure that her fever is under control, that she drank enough Waterfall D-Mannose and Ural  and went to the toilet regularly. The fever suppository that I had in the fridge had expired and I had to run out in the Friday lunch traffic jam to get them from the pharmacy.  Boy was I stressed out to the max!

It was the safety of my daughter's precious kidneys that was stressing me out. I was scared stiff that the longer I waited,  the more chance I would be giving to the bacteria to travel to her kidneys to scar them.  It didn't help that Dr Eric put more worry in me when he told me that Cass' kidneys could be inflamed and scarred if I didn't take immediate action. And he told me that because it's already a Friday evening, all the charges would be double if I brought Cass to the hospital now (Friday night). And charges would be double and even triple on a Sunday and public holiday (National Day holiday on Monday).  I was so stressed out and rattled that I just couldn't think straight of what to do first.  I only trust Dr Eric, the pediatrician who's been treating Cass since she was a 6 week old infant and knows her through and through.

On the day of Cass' admission, my online boss had an offer of 10 urgent articles for me to write, for submission in 2 days. GOSH that's a lot of money but I had to turn her offer down to settle what's more important to me first 😰 

The next day (Saturday), we went to Pantai Medical Center very early in the morning. Dr Eric told us to go to the A&E first for all the tests including a pre-admission Covid-19 rapid antigen nose swab.  At the A&E, we were attended to by a very friendly doctor and friendly nurses.  Her urine and blood samples were taken.  Staff were all draped in PPE suits, which would be charged to our bill!  Thank God Cass took the Covid-19 nose swab pretty well and even laughed after the 3-second procedure, albeit teary eyed from the discomfort.

Never mind about the bill and cost. My immediate worry was for Cass to be admitted for antibiotics infusion via IV catheter (her usual treatment for UTI), get an ultrasound scan done to check her kidneys, blood works done to check her renal function and urine FEME test and culture to determine what bacteria had attacked her.  While waiting at the A&E, I called our insurance agent to arrange for a guarantee letter.  My next hurdle was to get the insurer to approve the claim.  Thank God the initial guarantee letter was approved pretty quickly and my next worry is whether the insurance company would pick up the hefty bill. As you know, insurance companies will always find ways to reject claims, especially if the insured has a congenital condition.  Praise the Lord, on the day of discharge 3 days later, our claim was approved (90%).  The bill was over RM6k, a figure befitting 5-star service and 5-star facilities. We were very satisfied with everything except that there were baby cockroaches in the bathroom and room and Cass was terrified!  She Whatsapped me at 3 a.m. to tell me that she saw a baby cockroach in the bathroom 😁

During our 3.5 days stay at the hospital, Cass and I did quite a bit of walking around the hospital.  Pantai is like a mini mall with Borders, MBG Fruits, Tealive, Starbucks, Subway, Paparich, Wrap N Roll, Caring Pharmacy and other well known cafes.  I made sure that Cass clocked in at least 2k steps rather than remained sedentary on the hospital bed with eyes hooked to her phone and TV (complete with Astro!). She was feeling well with medication and looked forward to walking around the hospital to kill boredom.

We had the entire room to ourselves as the next bed was vacant. I even did some light exercises in the room.

Despite the stressful few days for me, there was a little calm during the storm:

1. The bacteria is E.Coli and is not a resistant bug. It's sensitive to a few antibiotics that Cass is tolerant to.  This also means that I can easily flush out E.Coli from Cass' urinary tract with D-Mannose at the right dosage.
2. The WBC (white blood cells) quickly went down from 200+ to 19 in  just 2 days upon starting antibiotics drips twice a day.
3. Maria our part-time maid came in to help out with the chores everyday and this really gave me a peace of mind and huge relief knowing that someone whom I trust is at home helping me while I was in the hospital.
4. We had the entire double bedded room to ourselves and didn't have to share bathroom. 
5. Our insurer approved the claim. Praise The Lord!