Chinese New Year 2023

On the 3rd day of CNY, the mil made a trip to Ipoh with her besties. Her bff who's aged 78 drove an MPV and she's the same age as the mil. I'm always amazed by this aunty. At 78, she's still running a car workshop in PJ, and drives to Ipoh frequently with the mil.  

With the mil in Ipoh for 2 nights, we had really simple dinners at home.  On the 4th day of CNY, Sherilyn made a quick and easy Yosenabe, a basic Japanese hot pot where you can cook whatever ingredients—any kind of meat, seafood, tofu, and all kinds of vegetables—in a delicious dashi-based broth. 

Sherilyn used two types of instant dashi for the soup - one is a seafood dashi from Melaleuca and another one is a chicken dashi bought from Japan recently.  In the hot pot were a variety of items that we could gather from the fridge - tofu fishball, stuffed beancurd (foo pei), prawns, pork, egg tofu, cauliflower, and some green veggies.

Yosenabe is a very easy one-pot dish that anyone can prep at home. We all love having this dish for dinner as we can throw in all our favorite veggies and meat into the pot.  If you're lazy to wash your veggies, you can get ready-to-eat triple-washed veggies, ready-to-cook shabu-shabu sliced pork, chicken, beef, meatballs, and fish balls and throw them all into the pot for a quick and satisfying meal.  

I always have a stash of good quality instant dashi at home for making quick soups. We use it to prep hot pot soup, to cook dumplings, noodles, and other dishes.

As there was still some soup left, we had Yosenabe for dinner again the next day.  Sherilyn added another sachet of dashi and more water to briefly simmer the dashi, before adding in a whole head of Chinese cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, pork belly, a whole head of radish (my favorite), foo pei, egg tofu, and big onions. 

Dinner on Chor 5 - Yosenabe and ginger + egg + siew yoke + sesame seed oil fried rice cooked by the girls' grand aunt who lives 2 floors below us.

On the 7th day of CNY, we had our yearly CNY gathering with our close buddies at Restaurant Pin Xiang @ Aman Suria.  

The mil didn't attend this time as she was down with a bad bout of gastric after she returned from Ipoh. I sent her to the clinic to get some meds from the doctor in the morning.

Our sumptuous lunch with a bill totaling over RM2k+.  There were 9 adults and 8 kids. Actually, our kids are no longer kids but adults now and eat like adults too!  

After lunch, we got ourselves coffee and milk tea from a Pakopi truck parked outside the restaurant.  In my opinion, I think their Hong Kong milk tea with jelly is way better than many other popular boutique bubble tea brands.  And it's way cheaper too.

But I regretted downing the cup of kaw kaw milk tea that afternoon coz that night I suffered from insomnia. Damn the caffeine overload!!  And the following night, which was the eve of Pai Ti Kong (9th day of CNY)), I didn't get an hour of shut-eye as well as there were thunderous sounds of fireworks throughout the night. Dang it! 

Photo of KL city night sky taken from the 5th floor of our condo - KL Towers has been illuminated in red since the Eve of CNY.

Random Events Before CNY 2023

The few days leading up to Chinese New Year were busy days for me.  No, I wasn't busy spring cleaning (I clean the house every day) or shopping for CNY stuff but busy with the girls.

On Thursday (three days before CNY), I attended Sherilyn's graduation ceremony at the Pearl International Hotel. Parents and students must reach the hotel ballroom at 7.30 a.m. sharp and I got up at 4.15 a.m. to do some chores before we left the house before 7 a.m.   I spent half the day at the hotel and reached home at around 2 p.m.

Sherilyn's high school graduation ceremony in January 2023 vs.

Primary school (SJKC Kuen Cheng 2) graduation ceremony in November 2017. 
How did 6 years just fly past us without us realizing it?

I can't wait to attend Sherilyn's university graduation in 4 years 🙏😊

On the day of Sherilyn's graduation ceremony, Alycia had to miss her trip back to Ipoh for CNY with her grandparents as she was down with food poisoning.  Instead of feasting on yummy food in Ipoh with my parents and her cousins, she ate bread and was feeling nauseous with persistent purging.  

Eve of eve of CNY ~ I brought Cass to Sunway Pyramid to have her ice skates molded to make them more fitting and comfy. Her new skates were a tad stiff and were causing her painful blisters.  We later found out that molding ice skates is actually baking her skates in the oven for a brief 3-5 minutes.

After getting her skates molded, I coaxed Cass into getting a new t-shirt for CNY.  This girl of mine is not bothered by what she wears and doesn't understand why I keep forcing her to get new clothes 😂.  She's the kind of girl who can wear the same set of clothing that she wore to sleep last night to the mall or restaurant the next day and couldn't be bothered with what people think of her 🤣 and this drives me potty.  

Thursday, 12 January 2023

I went to the dentist again today for a checkup as the filling that the dentist did last week didn't really stop the sensitive feeling in my tooth. It did help, but not 100%.  The affected tooth felt weak and doesn't have the full strength to bite on hard food.  Just a recap - a small part of my lower back tooth was chipped off after I bit into some sand in the marinated spinach appetizer at a Korean restaurant.   Since that fateful day, I have now developed a phobia of biting into green leafy veggies or anything hard.

The dentist did a checkup and sensitivity test on the tooth and told me that because the top part of the tooth (the crown) is chipped, this has exposed the nerves and blood vessels in the pulp (the inner soft tissue of your teeth) underneath, leading to increased tooth pain and sensitivity.  A filling cannot be done on the crown.  The best way to resolve the issue is by way of a tooth crowning.  And that is going to cost me between RM900 - RM1,200 per tooth, depending on which type of crowing I want.  I need crowning for several teeth as a few of my teeth have chips on the crown.  And that's going to cost me a few thousand bucks in order for me to eat better and look prettier!  

I'll put this dental need on the back burner and relook into it in another few years.  I hope I don't have to proceed with the crowning procedure earlier.

Today's damage is RM180 for two fillings.  The procedure today was to remove the old and black fillings from two front teeth and had them replaced with new fillings the color of my teeth.  

Dentists earn really good money. Seeking dental treatment for pain relief or orthodontic treatment is inevitable and not something that we can ask Google and self-treat at home. I'd spent almost RM20k on braces for Alycia and Sherilyn.  

And this is why there are about 10 dental clinics in my neighborhood.  Half a dozen of these clinics were opened during the MCO.  I hope my two younger daughters would consider a degree in dentistry as I see so much potential in this career 😬

The mil cooked this broccoli dish with garlic in the Thermomix, our German kitchen helper.  She had chosen the wrong speed (higher speed) and the broccoli became half-blended. She was so disappointed with her error but I actually love the texture.  For someone with weak teeth, I prefer soft veggies coz there's less work for my teeth to do 😁.
Yesterday she used the wrong speed again when cooking pork porridge with sweet potatoes and the outcome was a sticky and thick pudding-like porridge.  The girls didn't want to eat it and the mil and I finished it. I added some hot water to it, soy sauce, and pepper and it was palatable again.

Haru Turns Two!

We're not exactly sure when Haru was born but we guess that she was born circa the end of December 2020 or the first few days of 2021. When hubs first discovered Haru and her siblings outside his office doorstep, it was in mid-January 2021. Sherilyn and I first went to see the kittens on 15 January 2021. Haru and his siblings were about two weeks old.

15 January 2021 ~ Our first time meeting Haru. It was love at first sight for me. Out of the six kittens in the litter, Haru was the cutest and the most active, and the nosiest. She was also a spicy cat from day one, hissing at us each time we went to see the kittens.

So we decided to make the date 31 December Haru's birthday, a day after hubby's birthday.

Sherilyn made a birthday cake for Haru's 2nd birthday. It's composed of Haru's wet food, grain-free kibbles, and creamy treat.  

The kibbles were pounded using a dough roller, then mixed with wet food, and molded into a cake shape using a circular tart ring.  Haru's name and the number '2' are made up of creamy cat treat.

Haru couldn't contain her excitement when she saw the cake and loved it!  We gave her half for supper and the other half for breakfast the next day.

Haru has been a huge joy in our lives ever since she came into our home two years ago. I should have known earlier that cats are just as awesome as dogs!

Throwback Food Snaps in Ipoh

Here's a recap of the simple yet delicious nosh that we had during our recent trip back to Ipoh from 24 ~ 27 December 2022. 

We didn't venture into town as both the road and human congestion were horrendous. It was Christmas and school term break, a period when all the touristy spots in Ipoh were jam-packed with long queues. 

We had all our meals at restaurants that were located within a 5-10 minute drive away from my parents' house.  Had the hubby followed us back, it would be another story.  He's a bit more adventurous when it comes to hunting down his favorite foods, and thus will brave the congestion and long queues to satiate his cravings.  

Dinner at Poh San @ Ipoh Garden East.

Dinner at Choy Kee Seafood Restaurant @ Ipoh Garden

We love the Kung Po style fried eel as well as stir-fried fish slices with scallions and ginger from Choy Kee.  Portions were really huge.

Dim Sum for brunch on Boxing Day @ Kok Thai.

There used to be a Kok Thai Restaurant in Ipoh Garden East where my parents' house is but sadly, it shuttered down in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.  The Kok Thai outlet that we went to for dim sum is located on Jalan Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah, just next to the old Casuarina Hotel. 

Kok Thai - a clean and spacious restaurant.

This is not food-related but a pet peeve of mine.  What I find totally gross and scuzzy is the headrest of public transport, especially trains and buses. So in order to have a restful 2 hours 40 minutes train ride, I wore a hoody jacket (with hoody over my head) and placed clean kitchen rolls over the headrest before resting my head on it 😜

I also wiped the seat with wet wipes before sitting on it. But the girls couldn't be bothered with the dirty seats though. They wore a hoodie or a cap to buffer their head/hair from touching the greasy headrest.

And mind you, it's not just plain kitchen rolls, but kitchen rolls with cute and colorful prints on them.  Can't blame an OCD  😬