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!

More Of Hard Rock Hotel - Dining Al Fresco, By The Beach

On our second night in Penang, we had dinner at Pizzeria @ Hard Rock Hotel. The ambience and scenery at the semi-open air restaurant were magnificent. We were seated facing the sea and I felt really groovy sitting there, admiring the sea front with my loved ones surrounding me, with the crisp, after-rain sea breeze slapping my face. How often can we do that right? Having dinner at a classy restaurant by the sea and watching sunset. Really awesome feeling!







Picture perfect - a postcard scenery of sunset at the sea...




Here's what we had:

Seafood spaghetti and french fries.


Spaghetti Carbonara.


2 pizzas and a bowl of salad.

The food was mediocre and the only thing to shout about on the food is the price. The bill came up to RM180 for the above items!

Hop over to my other blog for more pix of Hard Rock Hotel.

Vacation In Penang For The Next 11 Years

After our recent family vacation in Penang, I think our next vacation will only be in June, during the school term break. We also have our next appointment with Baby’s surgeon in June. I’d love to go to some florida vacations with my hubs and kids but I guess that will have to wait. For the next 2-3 years, it looks like our only vacation will be in Penang as Baby has to have an ultrasound scan of her kidneys (to monitor the growth) twice a year for 2 years and thereafter once a year until she turns 12 years old. The hubs said he does not mind as he loves Penang food too much. So it looks like we will be visiting Penang for the next 11 years until Baby turns 12 years old.

Oriental Food Stall

On day 1 upon arrival at Penang, we went to our favorite 'chap fan' (economy rice) stall - Oriental Food Stall, located at Macalister Street. The hubs discovered this unassuming stall during our 3-week stay in Penang in May this year. He used to pack lunch and dinner from this stall for me and brought them to the hospital. Food was one of the things that cheered me up and released my stress during my nightmarish stay in the hospital with Baby. Though this stall looks really uninviting and the place looks pretty run down, when you step in, the place is pretty clean. All the dishes taste really good, some even taste better than restaurant food. Many locals flock to this stall and it is a common sight to see a long beeline during lunch and dinner hours.

Oriental Food Stall is situated next to this hawker center - Pinang Delicious Food Court.


There are almost 50 mouth-watering dishes to choose from...


All types of dishes are availabe. My favorite dish is their signature fried turmeric fish with asam, a dish not many people know how to cook.









These are some of the dishes that we ordered:

Otak-Otak, deep fried meat balls and omelette...


Curry stingray fish...


Fried fish and loh kai (braised chicken)...


Another curry stingray fish...

The bill only came up to a little less than RM50 with almost 10 dishes plus drinks. Very economical indeed to feed a big family! Eating at this chap fan stall is like eating restaurat food at hawker's food price!

Apam Craze

I am absolutely crazy over this Apom Guan at Burmah Road, Penang. His apoms are really soft, fluffy, has generous amount of eggs, not sickening sweet and absolutely tasty. The best part is he is selling it at 30sen each. I wonder how he can make a profit by selling it so cheap.

I have been badgering hubs to get the apom even before we arrived in Penang yesterday. After we left the hospital yesterday, we passed by the stall on our way back to the hotel and since there was a place to park his car, hubs decided to get some apoms. And I regretted asking him to get them for me at that hour (around 4pm) coz he waited almost an hour to get his apoms. There were 2 customers ahead of him, one of which was a tour guide who had ordered 100 pieces!

But when I saw how Baby loved the apom, it was all worth the wait. In the car, Baby chomped down one whole apom and once back at our hotel room, she chomped down another half.

The 30 pieces of banana and sweet corn apom....


And I chomped down 5, wanted to chomp down 1 more but tried hard to resist. I skipped running yesterday morning and I had to make sure I eat 250-300 calories less (that's how much I burn each time I run). Input must be less than output! What a health and diet freak I am eh?



Baby enjoying her apom.

Hop over to my other blog to read updates on Baby's 1st post-surgery ultrasound scan of her kidneys.

Also do hop over to my online store. I've just uploaded pix of some new dresses.

Create Your Own e-Greeting Cards FOC!

Remember my earlier post on this cool website for parents? Well I logged in today and found out that I can send e-greeting cards to my friends and family at their website. There is a cool function at the Excellence Begin Young website, the baby milk website on child development, that enables just about anyone to upload their favorite pictures into their system and then choose a matching theme and send the pretty e-card to anyone that they want to. You can create endless number of e-cards and send them to everyone that you know. You can choose from such themes as Christmas, Chinese New Year, Happy Birthday, funny themes and to your mum or dad too.






The e-card feature is very simple to use and anyone can do it, even your 5-year old who can read can create the card. Here are some of the cards that I had fun creating:

A X’mas e-card for my big brother Ray and SIL Marene in Singapore.





And an e-card for my mum.





With this e-card feature that is FREE to use, you can save serious money on your greeting cards from now onwards. Not only that, you also stand a chance to win RM200 shopping vouchers if you send the most e-cards! 5 winners will be chosen each week from 1st December 2009 until 8th February 2010.

Go try and create a few e-cards too and send them to your loved ones and friends today. Or get your kids to create them. I’m sure they will have fun creating the e-cards. This is one great activity to fill up their time this school holidays!

Ipoh And Penang, Here We Come!

We will be driving back to Ipoh today and tomorrow, we'll head up north to Penang. We have an appointment with Baby's surgeon on Wednesday for a follow-up check up and also to do an ultrasond scan of her kidney.

This time, we will stay at the newly opened Hard Rock Hotel. It will be the gals' first experience staying at a beach resort. I can't wait to eat my favorite Pasembur Indian rojak, Burmah Road apam, Sisters char koay teow, prawn mee, Assam fish at Sin Keng Aun, baked crabs at Northam Cafe and the list goes on.

Stay tuned for my updates!

My Very Own Cawan Mushi

After countless times trying to make the perfect, smooth and creamy cawan mushi (Japanese steamed egg), I finally succeeded. I added 1 part water to 1 part egg. Eg. if the egg is 2 ounces, the water should be a little less than 2 ounces. For room temperature egg (i.e. not from fridge), I steamed the egg mixture for 3 minutes under medium flame, then turned off the flame and let the cup of egg sit in the pot for another 5-10 minutes. The girls' former nanny makes super smooth and creamy steamed eggs. She told me that she steams the egg mixture for 1 minute, turn off the fire and let the plate of egg sit in the wok for another few minutes.

Here's the cawan mushi that I made for Baby. I put about 1/4 teaspoon of Bragg's Amino Acid to the egg and she loves it. I prepapre cawan mushi for her several times in a week.


My mil bought this cawan mushi cup from Japan. Nice hor?

On A Typical Day...

... this is what my little cili padi, samseng does:

Ransacking drawers and throwing out clothes...


...most times she will try on her jie jies' old clothes or socks...


... then she performs dare devil stunts....
"I'm ready to jump mummy..."

...and flatlines my heartbeat...


... then she carries her jie jie's bag and walks round the house, pretending that she's going somewhere...


... then stops by and asks mah mah for food. When she says "peash, I wan, peaaaassshhh, I wan", no one can turn her away. She's too cute to be turned down. And she's darn polite too, always too generous with her "peash" (please), "tan" (thanks) and "coming" whenever you call her.

My Girls Never Fail To Flatline My Heartbeat

Yesterday, Baby flatlined my heartbeat for a few seconds when she jumped from the bed onto the mattress on the floor with rascal #2 lying on the mattress. What made my heartbeat flatline was Baby landed on rascal #2's tummy. The moment she landed on her jie jie's tummy, rascal #2 yelped out and screamed in pain. I sure hope nothing has broken or burst inside rascal #2's tummy. I kept asking her if her tummy hurts and she kept saying no. One good sign is there's no vomitting and no blood in her pee. I kept looking at her panty too, just in case there's blood. 'Thankfully' Baby is lightweight and only weighs a pathetic 9kg. But I can imagine how painful it is having a 9kg weight thrown on your stomach. Fortunately it's Baby who landed on her jie jie's tummy and not vice versa... or I dare not imagine the consequences!


This is how Rascal #2 likes to eat mangoes...
... and I hate the aftermath - juice dribbling everywhere from her mouth to her chin, her chest, her clothes, the table, the floor, her arms and just everywhere!