CNY Lunch At EGG: Eight Gourmets Gala @ Bandar Sunway, 20 February 2015

On the 2nd day of CNY, many of the eateries at our neighborhood were still closed. Our favorite restaurants were also fully booked.  This leaves hubs with not much choice but to drive all the way to Bandar Sunway  to lunch at his friend's newly opened restaurant,  EGG - Eight Gourmets Gala.






At EGG, diners experience a new level of gastronomic delight where you can choose from eight eateries within the same restaurant; local café fare from Caffeinees, fresh seafood from Hook & Cook, snacks, wine and spirits from Malt Berry Apes, vegetarian fine dining from Yi, premium hawker dishes from Hakka Crab, authentic Japanese cuisine from Chiyo Sushi, soups, salads and sandwiches from Nibbles and exquisite desserts from Confessions of Lady Laura.

The first dish that came was the lou sang with fresh raw salmon slices. This was a tad unique from the other lou sang that we'd eaten as Japanese sesame salad sauce was used.








Steamed prawns...




Stir-fried three-variety beans - petai (stinky beans), long beans and ladies fingers in sambal belacan. This was a very flavorful dish and my little cili padi who is also a petai lover whacked most of the stinky beans!




We ordered this fried mee hoon with petai and lala clams (RM28) specially for visiting sil from Hong Kong who is a petai lover.  It was so delish that we ordered another plate.




Braised yee mee with lobsters, ginger and spring onions...




Crabs, ala Hakka style. The crabs were very fresh and  since we have 3 crab lovers who snatched away all the crab claws leaving the adults  with none, we ordered another crab dish - this time fried with salted egg.




Salted egg crabs. This time, the claws were for me!








Eight Gourmets Gala
Suite G-01, Ground Floor,
Pinnacle Annexe, Persiaran Lagoon,
Bandar Sunway,
47500 Selangor.
Tel : 017-948 8684

Sherilyn's 10th Birthday

Today is my drama queen's birthday. It's her first 2-digit birthday!  I will never forget how loud she made her entrance into this world. What a cry baby she was crying and yelling non-stop as she took her first few breaths.   Yes even 10 years on, she is still loud and still very generous with her tears. She is full of expressions and indeed a drama queen. Even when she was a day old, she caused a tad of drama in the maternity ward when she bit off off a small nib of my teat!!  Can you imagine the pain she caused me?  I did not understand and still do not understand how a day-old baby without teeth could bite off a part of my teat! It was bloody and painful and now I can laugh about it though I was writhing in pain each time I nursed her back then.

Yesterday she celebrated her birthday with her 2 besties - Berlyn and Charlene.  Sherilyn's and Berlyn's birthdays are just a day apart.

While making her birthday wish during the cake-cutting session, the drama queen blurted out her wish!  Scroll down to see what she wished for OF ALL THE THINGS!




A puppy, awwwww!!  I love puppies too, especially a Golden Retriever pup but this is an impossible wish for now as we live in a condo.  Do continue to wish for this Sherilyn.  I do believe in the law of attraction.  What you yearn to have may come true one day when your daddy is rich enough to buy a landed house so that you and I and your 2 sisters can finally own our very own Golden Retriever pup :)





Happy birthday Sherilyn. Daddy and mummy love you very much and hope that you will grow up to be a very good person with good values and wisdom.  May God bless you with good health and many more happy birthdays   

Bracu Restaurant And Pavillion @ Bombay, Auckland

On our second day in Auckland, we had a very sumptuous dinner at Bracu Restaurant @ Simunovich Olive Estate . It was a dinner to celebrate the birthdays of Alycia and my MIL.   Just 40 minutes from central Auckland, with breathtaking views across the vast olive grove and the rolling pastures of the Bombay Hills, Bracu is Auckland's finest country restaurant.

Bracu Restaurant offers elegant and contemporary fine dining in a truly exceptional setting.


















Had we gone there during the day, we would have captured the breathtaking green pastures of the olive grove at Bracu.

That evening, we were seated at the patio, as shown in the picture below, the picture of which is taken from the Bracu website...



The road up to Bracu is a tad windy. Too bad it was pitch dark and we could not see how awesome the sceneries there were.  Street lights were far and between and the drive down to the expressway was one of the darkest and creepiest for us!   Hubs, his mum, BIL and sisters were in separate cars.  SIL no. 3 was driving in the car that the girls and I were in while SIL no. 4 was navigating the way by relying on Google Maps on her mobile phone. Half way down the hilly road, we lost data connection and got lost.  It was very cold and very misty that night with no street light on most stretches of the road. All we could see in front of us was total darkness with patches of mist floating.  We felt like we were in one of the scenes of Nightmare On Elm Street and Bewitched! lol!

This is the road leading to Bracu, picture taken from the Bracu website...




Our sumptuous morsel that evening at Bracu....




The cheesy quality of the pictures taken with our mobile phones (in dim lighting at the restaurant) does not do justice to the actual dishes that we had.














Every dish was tastefully and aesthetically decorated with fresh flowers and ingredients.  You can sense that both the heart and mind are involved in their inception and execution.




One of the freshest and juiciest fresh oysters that we had ever tasted...




One of the kids' meals...




After a meal of intense flavors, we had dessert of house-made ice-cream to cleanse the palate.

Everyone had an enjoyable dinner at Bracu. We were pleasantly surprised when we were given Olive shampoo and Olive body shampoo as door gift at the end of our meal.  This brand of skin care products is pretty expensive in Malaysia.  The only setback was the long waiting time before our meals finally rolled in. And of course the creepy ride home when we got lost in the  still of the cold and dark night at the olive grove.

Appointment With Urology Surgeon

A week ago, we were supposed to meet the urology surgeon to discuss Cass' MRI report (MRI done on 30 Dec 2014) but what do we know? The nurse lost the report!!  Though I had called a few days before the appointment to confirm the date, the nurse did not tell me about the missing report... not until after we had waited for 2 hours at the hospital, WTF!! Cass was so disappointed that she blurted this out to the nurse upon hearing the bad news "WHAT?? You made me wait here for nothing??!! And you made me skip school for nothing!! "  My acidic words were also about to spill out at the edge of my tongue BUT I knew I had to remain calm and not loose myself coz hello, this is a government hospital. I better not make those nurses angry, or they will make my life difficult. So I swallowed back my venom  and  'yannnnnn'!!

Fast forward to a week later. At the eleventh hour, I got a call saying that Cass' MRI report was found. And I was supposed to meet the doctor in a few hours. What?? Hubs was mad with the last minute notice but what to do, yannnnn!  I had to pick Cass up from school a few hours before school dismissed so that she had time to eat going to the hospital. We always have to spend at least 4 hours at the hospital and on some occasions, the whole day.

And after a 3-hour freaking long wait, we finally got to see the urology surgeon and head of pead.  The MRI scans were 'degraded' as the images were not clear. The doctors could not rely 100% on the report. So the next thing for Cass is a Cystoscopy scan in June 2015.  Cass must be under GA in the OT room for this procedure.  SIGH... why must my baby girl go through all these difficulties and invasive procedures just to find out what is going wrong? I know there must be a reason for all these but He will only reveal the answer much later...

Mission Bay, New Zealand - 22 December 2014

After our sumptuous and absolutely delightful brunch at Puhoi Valley Cafe And Cheese Store,we drove to Mission Bay, a seaside suburb of Auckland city, on the North Island of New Zealand. The suburb's beach is a popular resort, located alongside Tamaki Drive. The area also has a wide range of eateries.










There were rows of Pohutukawa trees (New Zealand Christmas tree) with an abundance of stunning red flowers along  Mission Bay.  Quite a sight to behold.  From afar, they look like our very own rambutan trees.





The girls, especially Cass got another round of sun kisses  from this beach outing.  They played football at a park opposition the beach. Cass spent 2 hours scanning the beach to pick up seashells (one of her latest obsessions). You can see from the picture below that she now spots really tan hands, legs and face, so much that she does not look like a Chinese anymore! LOL!

Rails For Support

Whether you know someone elderly who has a hard time getting out of bed or someone who is confined to the bed except to get up for necessities, a bed handle would be convenient. Some handles come on a rail, making it more of a benefit, especially if you assist the person while getting in and out of bed.

When the person is in bed, the rail can be used as a support for the person to sit up in the bed to eat, to watch television or simply change positions. The rail can also be used to help when the person wants to roll from one position to another. If you are caring for someone, then you can use the rail to lean on while you are getting the person out of bed to use the bathroom or help the person sit on the side of the bed. It can be used as a support so that the person doesn't fall back on the bed while they are sitting. An adjustable rail is ideal for those who can do more activities unassisted as the rail is easily moved out of the way. Rails can also help keep the person safely in the bed while they are asleep. Learn more online about kinds of rails for beds.

Our Sunday - 18 January 2015

After church last Sunday, we went to Jaya One to search for something really quick to satiate our hunger pangs. It was already 1ish pm and we wanted something quick.  After making a 20-minute survey of what was available, hubs was drawn to the buffet brunch at Robata Monkey Bar & Grill Japanese Restaurant.  Actually that was not at all my choice mainly because of the price. But since hubs was so insistent, ok la, we settled for the buffet brunch.






Our chawan mushi came first, then this fresh sashimi platter.   I devoured on the raw fish like a hungry bear!




The girls and my all-time favorite Japanese dish - grilled squid!








Grilled salmon belly - this dish had us ticking at all the correct boxes -- crispy on the outside and soft and juicy on the interior with a briny taste. It was so yummy that we ordered two portions.



Chicken yakitori...












Tasty morsel of  lamb cutlet teppanyaki...




Tempura vegetables - very crispy and delightful but not the healthiest choice to savour vegetables though





We went bananas over the monkey yaki, a  delightful skewer of three  grilled bananas, each wrapped with a slice of smoked duck breast that tantalized us with its combination of sweet-briny flavours. A skewer was not enough to satiate us and we ordered another skewer.




After  tucking into our delish sizzling meal with gusto, we adjourned to get some coconut ice creams at one of the kiosks before going to Old School (also at Jaya One) for the girls to play.  Sherilyn and Cass each made a clay key chain while Alycia went to the book store with her grand aunt.  I went grocery shopping but was a tad disappointed with the Cold Storage at Jaya One.

A Historic Week For Cass

I just realized that I have not updated this blog for 9 days!  Wow, that's how busy I have been for the past 9 days, with Cass especially as she just started Primary 1 a week ago.  I spent my first 3 days with her in school and on the 4th day, I followed the transporter to school in the afternoon to pick her up. I am so glad that we survived the week without any drama, albeit I fell sick (flu and scratchy throat resurfaced) as a result of lack of sleep and being brutally burnt by the scorching hot sun for 4 days while in school. I did mention before that I am allergic to the sun, didn't I?  :D

Last week was a historic week for Cass. There were many firsts for her.  Apart from the transition to primary school, she also sat on a school van for the first time and bought food from the canteen on her own for the first time (and bought junk food too, despite me reminding her repeatedly not to do so!). She gained her new found freedom and was really thrilled to be able to buy things on her own at the canteen.  On Saturday, her long awaited day came. She had been looking forward to her first piano class since 2 Saturdays ago.  Her teacher is a 19-year old law student.  I hope her interest will still be this strong many years down the road.





Cass' first pop piano lesson on 17 January 2015...





Last week also marked the week that Cass finally succeeded in learning how to skate on her roller skates shoes.  Her aunt SM gave her a pair of roller skates shoes when we were in Auckland but she did not know yet how to skate on it when we were in Auckland.  When we came back, she kept practising on her roller skates shoes. On New Year's Eve at our dinner with friends, she saw her friend skating on a roller skates shoes very gracefully. She observed intently and the next day, she practised again and voila, she finally got it!  Since then, she has been wearing her roller skates shoes out whenever we are out to the mall or restaurant. She can now skate effortlessly just like her friend. This was one of her happiest and most victorious moments!


Can you see  Cass' bulky roller skates shoes? My toes had been squashed by the weight of her on the shoes umpteem times!  So were her sisters! We are now terrified of her each time she wears this pair of shoes lol!




Cass at Old School @ Jaya One, PJ today, enjoying coconut ice cream.  Love the wall mural of this bas sekolah!!






Hari ini dalam Sejarah.... Cass at 6 years 9 months :D

Kids' Indoor Activity In Auckland (5 - 24 December 2014)

My girls had never played this many board games in their lives as they did when they were in Auckland.  When we arrived in Auckland, it rained quite a bit.  Everyone was saying that we brought the rain from Malaysia to Auckland!  And after we left Auckland, it was hot and dry!  Can you believe it? haha!

So on rainy days, we had to shelf our plans to do outdoor visiting. Due to the wet weather, we did not manage to visit Rotorua, the farm to see farm animals and to the strawberry plantation to pick strawberries. The girls would play board games like UNO, Monopoly, etc with their cousins on wet days.

One of the indoor activity that they did was decorating their own gingerbread house.  The girls' aunt Sarah from Hawaii bought a few packs of gingerbread house from Hawaii for the kids to work on.  And here they are at work, a few days before Christmas...





Cass decorating her gingerbread house with colorful candies. Well, I think the house structure was made of ginger biscuits and they smelled really good too!




Sherilyn and Cass applying edible cement (made of really gooey and sticky icing) to the gingerbread house.









The final product - 7 colorful ginger biscuit houses. The inviting aroma of ginger biscuits wafted in the air in the living room...  so inviting that I was so tempted to pinch out a part of the roof or the walls to pop into my mouth!