Baby Weng's Fullmoon Party

Today my hubby's family is throwing a fullmoon party for baby Weng, sis-in-law newborn. She's turning one month old on 20th. We all indulged in her. ;-))

Whilst the caterer set up the buffet line, i am writing away here. I miss our little blog here very much!

I've been busy in new office and every time i had some free time, i am either sleeping or having meals. Other than that, i don't have anymore spare time! Well other than adapting and coping in new office, the highlight at the moment is baby Weng. She's a new addition to the Ooi's family tree and she's a sweetie pie!

 *Pic taken after the buffet line is ready. ;-)) *

* Hello, i am baby Weng and i am turning one month soon. Yay!*

I will post up more photos of baby Weng soon... XOXO!

Valentines Day Omelette

On Valentines' Day, I got up late. Real late nowadays for my standards. We were to go to Almere and hubby's alarm clock with the bird chirps only make me sleep more. I am immune to these sounds now.

After wishing hubby a Happy Valentines, I headed off to shower; my mind still groggy. I was surprised when hubby was not still in bed as hubby normally waits for me to get ready before he gets out of bed (due to the reason I am slower than he is with my make-up).

I went to the kitchen and saw that he had prepared this lovely omelette for my breakfast. He shaped the tin-foil himself after not being able to find our omelette heart-shaped metal maker. Yes, we actually have one of that. It was a present we received from his friends.

Hubby added rucola leaves on the ready-made omelette and then it was time to eat. Delightful because it was made with love. I, however did not cook hubby anything for breakfast as he said he would eat cereal; following strictly to our two week diet.

The omelette was the highlight of Valentines, because our restaurant dinner in Almere was anything but romantic! We were seated too close for comfort from the other couples. Hubby could hear the couple on our left bickering while the couple on our right forged a friendship with the couple on their right.

The restaurant was cashing in our Valentine Day business; it was very obvious.

Despite it all, we enjoyed our pasta meal. We talked not of matters of the heart (too many people listening!) but of general stuff...though it did raise the eyebrows of the couple next to us on the right when I said I made two elderly women cry with my piano music!

After that, I was all prim and proper seated in my chair just like a scene from Downton Abbey...fancy hard-rock muffins with plain tea, anyone?

Huji Sweetieland

Well, Valentine's Day was over. The fuss (errr...or effort) to make the day special for one another for some was also over. So here's another post about our Shanghai trip to send us back to a series of romantic flashbacks:-

 -The best sago in thick sweet milk I've had in the longest time. The ones in Malaysia are so diluted and the milk used not fragrant like this one-

 -First time trying papaya steamed in sweet milk with snow jelly. It's love at first try. If only hubby lets me finish the papaya skin as well-

 - Steamed rice ball with mango puree filling coated with fine coconut shreds. Okay but the other two dessert beats this one hands down-

 - The dessert house is actually a converted train cabin-

-Outside the unique looking dessert house-

At the end of the street, loud fire crackers were litted for at least 10 minutes where we stood in the cold to get our eardrums "fried". Mind you these fire crackers were only loud, not colorful nor beautiful.

This is the 1st winter Chap Goh Mei (Chinese Valentine) we experienced, more so in our ancestors' home land makes that very night surreal.

It was one of those dreamy nights you wish the day never comes...

Valentine's Day(s)

Hubby & I have trouble re-collecting where we had our 1st Valentine's meal as we have our Valentine's dinner at home last night.

Too many celebrations over the years. After looking through the pictures we took (thankfully, we took pictures), it must be Victoria Station. ;-))

The following year, we had our belated Valentine's dinner at La Caritas, a Mexican restaurant. Food and drinks were excellent i remembered and that was also the year hubby proposed.

Last year, we celebrated Valentine's Day at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Pavillion by the name of Al-Amar. The dining experience was "memorable" but not exactly in a good way and foodwise, it was mediocre for me. We felt a little out of place there as we were the only 2 chinese there the whole night.

This year, a few days before Valentine's Day, hubby announced that he will make lamb chop and i agreed quickly. ;-)) I love lamb chop and have never tried hubby's version.

I got home close to seven yesterday and from the walkway, i can smell the aroma coming from our kitchen. Hubby was home early and was already halfway preparing dinner, he was frying the chicken thigh to be exact. I was surprised as i was only expecting lamb chop. I then quickly cut up 2 china pear and an orange as dessert later.

Within an hour, everything was ready and the sight of it was just sweet, hubby's efforts in it and love for me.

 - Garlic bread take-away from Pizza Hut and i ruined it by microwaved it for too long and it became rock hard but still good to go with the Campbell's pea&bean can soup where hubby added butter and cheese to make it creamier. It's the best pea& bean soup i've ever tasted-

 -Close up pic of the extremely juicy fried chicken but a little too salty & BBQ marinated shoulder lamb rack-

 -Another shot of our meal with a surprise bouquet of teddy bear with Famos Amos cookies & Ferrero Rocher chocolates, hubby knows me well. I am a sucker for chocs & cookies- 

-Lastly my ready in 3 minutes dessert soaked in red wine- 

It was the best Valentine's dinner i've had thus far in our own cosy dining pad. I used my fingers to eat the lamb chop and fried chicken throughout the meal instead of knife and fork. ;-p

Hubby is a person whom does not fancy celebrating Valentine's Day but for me, he put up with it. In fact, i too don't think it's a necessity to spurlge for this day. I simply love to be romanced, so  we celebrate the day nevertheless.

For all lovers out there, remember to romance your partners every now & then, so Valentine's Day is another good reason to do so! Cheers!

Good Times in Malaysia

One month has passed since we arrived in Malaysia. Felt very short because we enjoyed ourselves so much with family and friends. Meeting up with good old buddy Michelle and Kaie was simply a delightful time! Caught up with old friends, bumped into acquaintances here and there...in between family's gossip....eating...no time to write now...dinner! See how fast time flies! Thanks Mic and Kaie!

A Happy Belated Chap Goh Meh wishes to all!

This post is about our recent trip to Wuxi,Suzhou & Shanghai where we sampled amples of good food and we would like to share it with you:-

The 1st dish we had in Wuxi, China at a restaurant named "Mama Chau Chai" (direct translation from Mandarin to English would be "Mom's frying vegetables". ;-)) We love this pot of creamy soup loaded with brocolli, mushrooms, carrots, tau hu pok with fish pastes, black fungus and Chinese potatoes (i.e arrowroot). Yummy & healthy?!

We also ordered a pot of pork belly cooked in thick sweet sauce. Although the gravy is very oily, we enjoyed it nevertheless.

Hubby enjoyed this pot of lamb & fish slices whereby the soup base taste similiar to the 1st dish except this is meat based as compared to the 1st dish. Hubby is always greedy when comes to ordering food and pestered me to allow him to order another dish on top of the 3 dishes above. Luckily i stay firm and said NO. It's wasteful to over-order and not finish what we can consumed. True enough, we can't finished the dishes above as we were completely stuffed from the mega portion served for two.



I enjoyed this Shanghainese vermicelli at a restaurant named "Guo Jia" (direct translation from Mandarin to English is "Crossing Bridge") in East Nanjing Street. Their vermicelli is different from the vermicelli we had before as this is a thick version and is similiar to what we called "lai fan"- rice noodles.

What we did was to pour all the side dishes (i.e sausages, needle mushroom, prawn, cuttlefish and fish slices, goji berry, pickled vege, etc.) given to us into the hot soup and then add the rice noodles. It was perfect for winter. ;-)) The soup became very sweet from all the side dishes added into it.

 (from left:- "tang pau = "soup dumpling" : be very careful when you sip the hot soup from the straw. It can easily burn your tongue, beef ball with glass noodles, black sesame in rice balls)

 (from left:- "tau fu fa" with dried shrimps, pickled vege & vinegar, "wo tip"= flour dumplings with chinese cabbage & minced pork, glutinous rice wrapped in fried egg skin)

We had the above as brunch on our last day in Shanghai at the Yu Yuan Garden. If you visit Shanghai, you must go to this place as it is a food paradise! We can only take in this much although there were hundreds to choose from. We are keeping some stomach space still for lunch. Hee......

Look at the beautiful lanterns at Yu Yuan Garden. It's very lively here with all the CNY decorations.

 -Beef rice noodles-

-Porridge with pork bits & small shrimps- 

Opps...that's our lunch after the heavy brunh. We licked everything clean. Told ya, hubby is a big eater. (Sorry, me included this time as well).

The pictures above only illustrated 4 meals out of the 4 days trip we had.

On average, we had 5 meals a day. ;-))

Hehe, we ate like a king indeed for that 4 days.

I hope you had a romantic & delicious Chap Goh Meh celebration with loved ones. Hubby & I had good fun there and we came back with a happy and rounder tummy!

Count Your Blessings

Often we greet our day with routines and sometimes with frets, grumbles and regrets as we cruise along the way. Today, like any other day, i would like to give thanks instead for all the goodness and blessings which we tend to forget or take for granted. Where do i begin to count my blessings?

I'll take you to a weekend earlier which was spent with my college bestie, Yi Lin & her hubby Niels together with my hubby. It was a splendid, fun filled weekend and we've done more activties than what my hubby and I ever done over a weekend! ;-D

I hope the pictures & illustrations below will help us to re-live that happy moments in our memories by reading it over and again & to be remembered till we all grow old, so here goes:-

I will always remember this moment as one of "the road less travelled" moment as put by Yi Lin because our original plan to have dinner at one of  the Look Out Point restaurant became...

...having piping hot but incredibly juicy and delicious chicken satay by the road side stall plus siping cold Milo ice. Oh tough luck the access to the Look Out Point area has been blocked by the local authority. For whatever reason, we are unsure, but we are certain we had a good time nevertheless with the simplicity of good food and great companies.  After we hung around for an hour there, we decided to have dinner at the Snow beer restaurant in Cheras, followed by a drink with our old collegemate, Ellice & her husband. Next, we went for our supper at "Shi Fu wan tan mee"  & a midnight movie title "All's Well, End's Well" and got home at nearly 3am.

The next day, we started our day with hot pot at Shabu Garden. The location of the restaurant is at one of the unfamiliar area to us and thankfully with Niels' GPS, we arrived there without getting lost. One of the yummiest hot pot i've had thus far, double good! 

 I love their set meal which comes with white tofu, needle mushrooms, thinly sliced meat (we chosed pork slices), meatballs, fish slices, abalone slices, mussels, prawns, veg and more which will be cooked in an individual pot of soup. Yi Lin chosed pork bones soup, Niels picked chicken soup, hubby had the ginger wine with chicken soup and i go with kim chi soup. We enjoyed our self picked soup flavour a lot and the feasting starts!

 Oh, i love their ample choice of sauces too.

My hot pot ~ hot & spicy level just right for my liking.

After our meal, we head out to Pavillion to see the United Bears and the Chinese New Year decorations.

 If only these Chinese pussy willow flowers were real! They are beautiful nonetheless.

Very impressive decorations to create the year of Dragon's spirit  at the concourse area where we watched a dragon dance performance there too.

 Beautiful Chinese lanterns greeted us at the main entrance of Pavillion.

After our "sightseeing", we got restless and needed a pit stop to munch and to drink. We happily ordered ourselves cold milk chocolate & a slice of Godiva chocolate ganache to share. Immediately our moods were lifted from good to jolly good!

Well, you must have thought our adventure of the day ends here but no...

...I-CITY, a place to go if you like colors and romance. Go see it yourself!  

If you asked me to count the number of special moments in just that one weekend, i would had lost count. To sum it up, it's one BIG blessing to have friends whom you've shared countless moments with and you know you will have for life!

Thank Yi Lin & Niels for being that friend to Kaie & I. We hope we can do this every year!

7.43PM CNY Eve

As i was typing this, the time shows 7.43pm and it's the Chinese New Year Eve. This is definitely one of the stranger moment in my life as i normally have reunion dinner with my family at this hour. Celebrating Chinese New Year at hubby's place for the 1st year is all different as we had our reunion dinner at 5pm! We finished dinner at 6pm where the sky is still bright and hubby together with his parents are busy cleaning the house for the final round whilst i am left idling. So here i am writing this post, feeling a wee bit disconnect from the world as i never had such space & time for myself on a Chinese New Year Eve. 

I remembered when i was still in primary school, Dad would played a game with us on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. The game was simple yet we anticipate the most as a child. Each of my siblings and i would pick a number and each number entitles us to draw an angpow with a different amount in it. I remembered how we squealed in excitement and our laughters still rang in my memories. How I missed that very moment. I did not miss having reunion dinner with my family though as i know i will be seeing them soon enough, i.e on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year.

Here wishing everyone a Happy Reunion Dinner. I hope your home is filled with peace, harmony, love, unity and faith. Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!

Some pictures snapped earlier to end this post:-

Abalone, sea cucumber, mushroom & brocolli

Dried oysters, "fatt choy" with "pork hand".

"Foo Kui Hua"= fortune flower blooming at hubby's home garden

  

Angpow all packed & ready to be hand out tommorrow

Happy New Year 2012!

Our sparklers at the balcony.

 We celebrated New Year’s eve by inviting our family over to our penthouse. Our preparations for the evening had started out early as we had planned to make oliebollen which is a traditional Dutch flour pastry. Its texture has similarities with Malaysia’s yu cha kuey (crispy Chinese cruller). The one difference I find is that whilst the latter is normally very oily, the former is not. So we have started the new year healthily enough.

The Dutch normally have oliebollen for new year’s eve and hubby would like to stick to tradition. We had bought an oliebollen pre-mix and all we had to do was to add water and eggs with the mixture. Then we waited half an hour for the mixture to rise.

Hubby did most of the heavy-duty work. Round balls were formed with the mixture and deep-fried in sunflower oil. At the same time, hubby also made appel-flap (apple douhgnuts) and ananas-flap (pineapple doughnuts) with another doughnut pre-mix. We had to add our own apples and pineapples inside the mix.

The pastries were delicious and they gave the whole penthouse the scent of a 24 hour bakery. We opened our windows (one of the rare occasions which hubby is comfortable with windows open during winter) to air our modest accommodation.

We started work at 3.30 pm. Hubby was the chef while I was the assistant chef who on and off checked my laptop for interesting movies to download to watch with our family later.

Hubby’s family arrived at 8.00 pm. We had a relaxing evening with food – the oliebollen and flaps were succulently tasty, chatter and dance. Towards midnight, we got festive and had bubbly champagne.

At the stroke of midnight, a dazzling display of fireworks all around us lighted up with bangs. They were a breath-taking sight from our balcony. The fireworks continued for thirty minutes. We lighted up our own sparklers and played “pop-pop” (the type of fireworks you throw on the ground to produce a spark).

My new year resolution for 2012 is; simply put to be at peace at mind. And also to quote my father-in-law who said that health is everything. If you have health, you can achieve all your resolutions without problem if you have the will-power.

My more tangible goals is to run the Dam Run in Amsterdam sometime September. It is a 16 kilometre run which I have to start training for. I also hope to get a good job to kick-start my career here. Besides that, I want to be an inspiring teacher to my students when I start teaching in February once I return from Malaysia to Holland. It is a voluntary job at the refugee centre which I have undertaken.

Happy New Year to everybody. All for one, and one for all!

Waiting for the oliebollen mix to rise. And rise it did from half a bowl.

 The mixture was pretty sticky and thanks to hubby's skills, he managed to shape the balls.

 Almost done oliebollen - wait for it to turn into golden brown.

 Oliebollen and doughnuts on the table ready for our guests.

 The Chef concentrating on his task. It was quite hot in the kitchen with all the deep-frying till hubby had to tie his hair with my rubber band. See the cute pony-tail behind!

Fireworks on display around the city centre as viewed from our balcony.

Our first wedding anniversary

During lunch today, my officemates and i were sharing about our New Year Eve's whereabouts and  stories. One of my colleague did a movie marathon with her hubby which i think is utterly sweet. Another colleague played hide & seek game at a friend's place. I am the least happening one as i slept at 11.30pm on New Year's eve. Heee...

I followed hubby and his family to his aunt's housewarming party for dinner but i left with hubby's family at 10pm. Hubby stayed on and enjoyed his countless cans of beers. I surprised myself as i opt to go to bed early instead to stay on at the housewarming party. I guess it was a wise decision as i was still tired from our Kuala Lumpur to Penang travel in the morning and my body has been pretty unstable, i.e showed signs of UTI and with a sore back. Hubby on the other hand, fell ill on New Year's day with a severe cold. He was already unwell on New Year's eve with fever and sore throat. I guess the long distance driving, drinking and lack of proper rest lowered his body resistance further.

Hence, on our first wedding anniversary which was yesterday, we did not do anything special. We travelled back to Kuala Lumpur from Penang and poor hubby sneezed at least ten dozen times in a day! Hubby also suffers from body aches and a stuffy nose. Despite all the above, hubby brought me to one of his favourite Chinese restaurant for dinner.

 Hubby's favourite goose's claw with sea cucumber,giant mushroom and some greens. I didn't touch the goose's claws but happily took more greens.

 I had 3 of this big head prawn (ironically minus the big head) grilled in the restaurant's recommended Yu Lan sauce. Hubby is skilled in emptying the big head filled with the prawn's roes. Hmm...i think i didn't want to master this skill on purpose to avoid the cholestrol intake from the prawn's roes. *wink*

 Fried rice with waxed duck meat and Chinese sausages. This dish is very fragrance and i had 3 full bowls.

To end the meal, i had a bowl of peanut cream dessert which was not thick enough to my liking.

The bill came to a whopping RM145 for dishes above. Frankly, i am not a fan of sea cucumber, giant mushroom nor big head prawn but hubby thought it was our 1st wedding anniversary and decided to order these premium items. Thankfully, hubby didn't order any shark's fins soup to wow me. I didn't mind eating those fake ones though served at Chinese wedding dinners but i am against the idea of ordering real shark's fins soup for consumption. As we were leaving, we saw a table next to ours ordered 5 bowls of soup which was heated up individually on a gas cooker. We were told it was shark's fins soup and it costs RM175 per bowl and they looked very delicious. If only the restaurant served shark's fins soup minus the shark's fins, then it would be a win-win for me, pocket and principle wise.

I hope poor hubby gets better quickly and i hope everyone had a happy and prosperous New Year with a note, health is wealth! A timely reminder to myself and everyone close to me to love your body like how you love your food.