Miso Soup, Chawanmushi and Rice

And that's the smile you get after.
He simply loves it, the old-fashion miso soup and rice.

Rakuzen, Hartamas. 7 March 2010

Ethan turns 1

Ethan’s First Birthday

Date : 28 November 2009
Venue : The Paddington House of Pancakes

This is a delayed entry as my little one turned 1 December last year. It was all smiles and laughters at the little party held in The Paddington House of Pancakes, The Curve. We prepared him months (well, maybe 1 month) in advance singing him the traditional birthday song and putting on the “Mickey Party” hat. And yes, you have guessed it right, he loves Mickey. His first Mickey was given to him by his Uncle Chee Wah and Aunt Elaine from Singapore. I have to acknowledge that this whole Mickey thing is not just a marketing gimmick or what not, the character is actually something children just love. I remember my first Mickey, and I bet you had yours.

So, the party started with throngs of assorted tiny pancake canapés lining beautifully on the plates waiting to be served. The guests were of course excited and some ambitious to fill their plates to the brim. I was chuckling quietly seeing them getting so excited over these little delights. The atmosphere was merry and cheerful with Mr. Clown sculpting balloons to young children and those claimed young - "at heart".

I would have loved to bake Ethan's first birthday myself, except I couldn't stand the mental pressures of "what-if-the-cake... ". Therefore, after a long domestic discussion, we got this beautifully decorated 2 tier Elmo Birthday Cake. Contradictorily, we wanted Mickey birthday cake instead, but was told that the cake designer makes Elmo better than Mickey. And so, this was how we ended up with the 2 tier Elmo cake. Surprisingly, we ended up liking the Elmo cake. In fact, everyone did!

It was a blast for the little man as he saw many familiar faces. I am humbled and blessed to have almost all of our family members, relatives and close friends attend our little one’s first birthday. Of course he had people who couldn’t make it but have sent greetings, cards, presents and prayers.

When I look back at Ethan’s first birthday, what struck me really, was the one year of journeying with him in our lives. He has taught me to laugh at little things, smile at small accomplishments, and understand the fact that teaching takes immense patience while learning takes time. He has also taught me patience, perseverance, determination, unconditional love and most of all, to accept and love imperfections as it is. I love him to bits and I thank God for this little miracle.

it's a boy!

We ordered a 2kg chocolate butter cake for Ethan's full moon for my collies over at work. The cake looked lovely and it came in a shape of a milk bottle. I tried the cakes from Just Heavenly a couple of occasions and I totally feel in love with their cakes.

Ethan's full moon cake for workmates over at MB Malaysia

For the those who swears that eating chocolate actually releases endorphines, please try the Death by Chocolate. It's one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever tasted. Pair it with a scope of vanilla ice cream and you'll hit the 10/10 button! It's glorious!

I really liked the choc and cheese. I've tasted many variances of choc and cheese and this is one which I think has the best combination of classic cheese and chocolate cheese in a cake. It's not as sweet as I thought it looked and and boy, this is one time which I would choose cake over calories! Total surrender, oh, sigh...

Check out Just Heavenly.

little chinese delights

We went out for a dim sum outing at Chynna, KL Hilton. This restaurant serves Cantonese-Shanghainese fusions. That was made known when a funny looking spout (a very long spout, mind you) from a teapot handled by a waiter was tilting towards our Chinese porcelain cups. And that’s how Shanghainese teas are served!

Malaysia being a Muslim country, it’s normally pork-free in Chinese restaurants in the major hotel chains. I must say that the dim-sum served was good, well, really good for a pork-free menu.

The details on the palates were impressive (sorry didn’t manage to capture some of these creative gastronomic presentations because we were so hungry. Now that we have to sort Ethan out before leaving the house, its takes us about a good 1 hour from the time when we adults get ready. He needs to be fed, cleaned if he poos, we need to pack his bag making sure his stuffs are brought along, stroller and finally strapped down to his car seat) but they also actually taste good!

Ethan was really amused with the open dim sum kitchen and bar. Who could miss the huge red lanterns draping down from the ceiling, making the restaurant look as if it’s like a mini lantern parade. Well, by the way, if you don’t know, this little boy of ours is full of curiosity, inquisitiveness, and is nicked names Mr. Nosy!

For durian lovers, this restaurant is the only restaurant in town that offers piping hot durian- custard mini buns. They were splendid!

To end, the all time favourite chilled mango pudding with ice cream.

Well, its not just the mini buns which were good, the restaurant serves other seafood dim sums which introduces perfect combinations of various tastes. Bravos to chef for putting smiles and blissfulness in his dining hall. No wonder he was awarded the “CHEF CONGENIALITY AWARD” for the Malaysia International Gourmet Festival 2008!

Mummy and Ethan after a scrumptious lunch

Carls jr.

Lately, I had strange cravings for jap food. And knowing my cravings, it's best to get my stomach to Genki Sushi for cheap assortments of standard japanese food. Tonight in particular, we left for dinner pretty late, about 9pm. When reached Genki Sushi in One Utama, it was already closing for the day.

We found out from my sister that Carls Jr. is in town and it was just a couple of steps away from Genki sushi. So we've decided to give it a try. Afterall, I've missed it the last time when we were in Singapore.



Having the go through the menu was quite difficult as most of them looked similar except the burgers with mushrooms. For your information, if you've not heard of Carls Jr, it's another one of those American fastfood chains serving huge portion of burgers.

I opted for the Portobello mushroom burger while Adrian had the Western Bacon Cheeseburger. When we've finally made our order, the lady over at the counter asked if we would like to upgrade our fries to crisscut fries, onion rings or chilli fries. We asked how much is it to upgrade, she said RM3.00. Therefore we thought it was quite a good deal to pay 3 bucks to get chilli fries. GREAT! The total came up to close to 50 bucks for 2 sets of meal. *GREAT-EER* When checked why, the chilli fries cost about 7 bucks to upgrade. What a great way to get us to upgrade. GEE!

Anyways, we didn't make any fuss out of it hoping the serving of chilli fries would be good. When our meal arrived, we were pretty pleased to find that our wrapped burgers were in generous sizes: means to my standard - HUGE. However, to my horror, when I open up the burger wrapper, all I saw 2 huge hamburger buns with a tiny charbroiled beef patty. The patty looked 3 times smaller than what we saw in the menu and the yeah, the buns looked exactly the size - HUGE!

Oh well, without a word, we took our dinner “ quietly"

The verdict - The burgers were alright. Perhaps a 5.5/10. Yes, we were completely stuffed after finishing our meals, but that did not feel good at all. We felt we've stuffed ourselves crazy with more burger buns than any thing else. The chilli fries weren't that good either. Possibly a 5/10. As for the drink, Coke what can go wrong Coke.

The meal was nothing a shout about. Possibly it's because it;s halal here and the Asian fed cows here are just sad. To sum up, I won't mind trying Carls Jr. in America or even in Singapore. However, I don't think I will step into Carls Jr here in Malaysia again.

al naroufah

Al Naroufah
Le Meridian, Kuala Lumpur

A Date? drink
It tasted funny though.

Apparently, middle eastern meals are always served this way, table full of food!

I love these pita bread especially with the hummus dip!

Cod Fish Pilaki Tajeen
Braised Cod Fish in Vegetable Ragout (Turkish Style)

Doner Kebab
Minced Kebab Meat from Rotating Grill, served in Pita Bread, Tomato Salsa and Garlic Cream

An Arabian tea to end the meal, how soothing

Chilled fragrant mango pudding

Bubbly brunch at PJ's

PJ's
Four Seasons Resort Bali
Jimbaran, Bali

We had brunch on the deck while soaking in the waves of Jimbaran Bay.
The view was astounding while the food, top notch!



The mood at PJ's is always upbeat and casual.

Seating on two decks and at the bar provides a clear view of the beach and Jimbaran Bay.

Smoked Salmon with Scramble Egg, Bagel, Cream Cheese, Capers and Sautéed Mushrooms

Eggs Benedict and Mini Caesar Salad

After 2 glasses of Mimosa
yipeeeeeeeeeeee... pretty happy at 12 noon!

That's Jen and I

breakfast

Breakfast @ Di atas sungai
Tanjung Jara Resort

My favorite time of the day.
Having breakfast.
If you know me well enough, I do love breakfast.
All means: preparing breakfast, having breakfast, buying breakfast. Of course I do not have the luxury of doing so, but when I do have the time, I really love to have long and lazy breakkie.

'Di Atas Sungei' is Malay for 'Above The River'.
We enjoyed each of our mornings buffeting our breakfast away above this river that flows into the South China Sea.

I really like this surrounding of this area, surrounded by lush tropical greenery, and shaded by a huge Ketapang tree. I enjoyed myself thoroughly just sitting down reading the book I brought along after having the scrumptious breakkie served.

Glorious Sausages

Brotzeit German Bier Bar and Restaurant
Vivocity, Singapore
30th April 2007

Brotzeit simply means "bread-time". The inspiration behind the restaurant’s name is actually derived from a popular Bavarian expression that translates to “bread-time” (“brot” means bread, and “zeit” means time) - a simple phrase that is to be inferred to having a small meal to complement a wholesome or good beer.

We liked the chick and contemporary setup of this restaurant. Of course, not to mention that it actually faces the waterfront.

Of course with such huge juicy sausage, who won't have a great time?

One thing I know for sure, this man had just experienced a food orgasm!

How else to end the sumptuous meal than to have their house special, their warm apple struddle.
Yummmm....

3 ladies and a man!

Shook!
Starhill, Kuala Lumpur
10th December 2006

live music, tiramisu & Moet...

oh my, how we wished these were the names of our potential boyfriends.
choices, choices, choices.

a reunion of soulmates

the tired smiles

swarovski on Moet?

Pleasure of guilt

Extracted from Friendster Blog, 15 October 2006

I was so excited when I found out that max brenner's opened in Singapore late last year. Max Brenner used to be the girl's favourite hang out place in Sydney back during the uni years. So, very excited, we stepped into that oh so familiar chocolate house and I happily ordered my favourite SUCKAO. Then, slowly, I dropped in the chocolate bits into the warmly heated skim milk and sucked chocolate out from the metal straw. "Suckao is the espresso of the chocolate drinks. It is a small, dense, concentrated shot of rich chocolate. The term “Suckao” is made up of two words that describe the utensil and the unique drink it contains: Suck - to draw the dense liquid through the metal tube. Kakao - the Spanish word for cocoa beans from which this rich chocolate drink is made and which determine its quality."

Somehow when indulging this sinful yet pleasurable beverage, it made me think of those cold, winter nights back in Sydney when my girlfriends and I could just sit in Max Brenner’s for the SUCKAO and just share heart to heart tête-à-têtes. It did bring back memories tho. Really hoping to go back there, Max Brenner’s Double Bay.

That's Angeline and Yvonne, pleasuring their tastebuds in the sinful drinks. Friday, June 19th 2006.

Trattoria

A specifically Italian institution more akin to an eating club than a conventional restaurant. There are no menus, the service is casual, the prices low, and the emphasis is on a steady clientele rather than on haute cuisine. The food is modest but plentiful and is served family-style (i.e. at common tables).


Trattorie are also found in some American cities with large Italian-American populations such as San Francisco.