Recordings of Life: September 2009

I went through some of my picture folders and realized that there is still one more thing I have not blogged about! Stuff that I'd cooked in Houston! Hehehehhe.

All of us had an apartment each and there is a kitchen equipped with all the necessary stuff. So, one of the best ways to save up our per diem allowances is to cook. Not only I find it therapeutic but also healthy. Seriously, Texan servings are wayyyy too much for me.

Photos are pretty random and probably not all there is that I have cooked. I remembered making porridge too but I guess the honour is not sufficient to be taken a photo of. Okla, my cooking is not exactly first class, but they taste fine to me and are humble!

Fried rice.

Rice is from instant brown rice. Just cook with with measured amount of boiling water and voila, rice is ready. Also added slices of Jalapeno peppers, french beans, shrimps, eggs, oyster sauce and sliced carrots (yes I found oyster sauce in Wal-Mart!). Best ever.

Companied by a small bowl of stir-fried spinach in oyster sauce and a loadful of chopped garlic.

So-called Spaghetti Olio.

Boiled angel hair and stir-fried with spinach leaves, shrimps, sliced carrots and a whole chuckful of onions and garlic. Notice that my ingredients pretty much revolves around the same stuff lol :p

Stuffed Jalapenos.

This has been one of my favourites back in SP. Typically I would use fat and wide red chillies to make this, but since jalapenos over in Houston are pretty huge and spiiiicy so it makes a perfect substitute. Stuffed with minced pork marinated in oyster sauce and a dash of pepper, then steamed to perfection.

Fish Fillet with Assorted Vegetables.

Deep fried fish fillets in flour batter and served with baby carrots and celery. The yellow cubes you see here are cheese cubes. Heavenly.

Especially when taken with a few drops of Habanero Tabasco sauce and then washed down with a glass of orange juice :)

The Humble Kimchi Maggi Mee Su Yin Version.

Cooked with minced pork balls, spinach leaves, jalapeno slices and carrots. Taken on a rainy day, purrfect combination.

Three course Chinese Square Meal.

Brown rice taken with steamed okra, steamed egg custard and my special pork fillet stew!

Egg custard is the typical ones made in Chinese homes, eggs beaten with minced pork, add a little bit of water, soy sauce and pepper then steam till cooked.

Special pork fillet stew cooked with loads of onion, pork meat and carrots with oyster sauce, pepper and soy sauce.

Shit, it's 11pm and I'm getting hungry! Be right back, food hunting.

It was Soon Jiun's idea to have a trip down to Malacca on Raya, because he wanted to meet up with his parents and we wanted to eat satay celupz!

After that Nong and Jimmy's seafood makan, I packed and ended up sleeping close to 1am until I received TY's call at 5am telling me that he's reached the Sungai Buloh toll. The Penang group (TY, Evan, Jasmine, ZX, Swee Lee, Soon Keong, SJ, Elaine, and Ruo-wen) departed Penang at 1am.

Close to 6am, 2 Proton Sagas of different generations arriving the front of my cousin's condo. The ride to Malacca was pretty uneventful as the others are dead tired from being awake on the Pg-KL ride to keep TY awake. Anyway, by 8:30 or so we reached the Malacca town and an additional 30-40 minutes to SJ's house in Alor Gajah. We had dim sum for breakfast somewhere in between Malacca town and AG.

Wont elaborate on the dim sum place because I personally feel it's below average and anyway dim sum is not a Malaccan specialty.

Reached SJ's place and everyone, dead tired each took a bath in turn and went to catch some Zs. With the air-conditon turned on, ahhh... macam tak mau bangun. But bangun we did at half past noon with a sumptuous spread for lunch!

I tell you, home-cooked stuff are the best, plain or elaborate :D

We start with my favourite dish of the lor, the sambal petai.
Normally I would not have sambal petai unless it's the type cooked by grandma. But this one is pretty good. It's different from Ah Ma's because Ah Ma puts in 'heh bi' (dried prawns) and is a tad spicier and she also puts in lime/kafir leaves which adds the ooomph. SJ's mom did the sambal petai was a bit wet but it tastes good anyway.

See already like can faint from ecstasy

The other stuff are also oomph! Most of the green stuff, the stir-fried chai sim, stir-fried cabbage, stir-fried long beans, stir-fried leek with tofu are Hakka dish. All the veg ingredients are mixed with rice, fried sliced meat and roasted groundnuts. Then, these are drenched in Hakka tea with a type of herb which has a pungent smell. Stir everything till properly mixed and yummz!

Also chicken and potato curry and omelette :)

I think I liked the first day of Malacca the most cos it's very laidback and relaxed ^^. After lunch we proceed to watch the Disney cartoon The Lion King, but I didnt finish the movie because I was drawn to Mahjong which SJ has taken the liberty to pinjam the tiles from his grandma.

The first few rounds really sucked for me because I kept losing (not totally because I'm still new to the game but also because the tiles that I received sucked! :p) But then, after taking a bath and changing into a pink stripey undie I actually won 2-3 times! Lol.

That first night in Malacca, we went over to try the Capitol satay celup. It's really famous and queues are looooooong. We waited for an hour and a half to get tables for our group. In the meantime, TY and I wandered around taking pics.

Although Capitol is very famous and is always brimming with customers, Capitol does not have a sister branch. Then only 1 lot pulak tu. But I suppose that is one of the ways that an eatery can actually maintain its quality, to only serve a handful of customers at a time, and not mass produce like so many famed restaurants have mistakenly done.

Look at the amount of people there. Can you spot our group?

The many magazines and newspaper clippings that Capitol has been in. Mickey Mouse displays the charges to colored plates.

Contrary to my expectations, satay celup (or only Capitol in this case?) offers mostly seafood to satay. I was expecting a whole variety of meat but what they have here is something akin to lok-lok lor.

Confirm my faves are the condom Chinese sausages, shrimps, okra stuffed with fish paste, and the simple bread dipped into the satay sauce.

Comes with bread to dip too.

The satay sauce is a special mix of the restaurant, with peanut and coconut flesh (with the santan removed) mixed with Capitol's secret spices. By the time we were done with dinner, it was already 10:30 maybe close to 11pm. We took a walk to Jonker Street (pretty close by, every tourist attraction is all around the same area) and took some photographs along the way.

Too bad for us, the market at Jonker Walk are already packing up and the streets are almost empty. Soon Jiun asked us whether we wanted to go and have a drink and Zi Xiang was probably the first one to say yes.

My favourite shot.

Hokkien Huay Kuan. In my opinion the nicest building in Jonker Walk.

Later, we got our cars and drove down about 10 minutes away to the Jetty which has a happening nightlife. There is a club over there too and the party's already started. One thing that occured to me is that the girls in Malacca still have a pretty simple way of dressing up, mostly opting short shorts and that's their idea of a wild night out lor.

The Jetty used to be old and abandoned project when it was under the Govt. But once the ahem, 2nd race majority took over, they turned it into a hotspot complete with snooker and karaoke joints, pubs and bars.

We settled down at a pub called Beer Garden and had Heineken before it started to drizzle and we made our way back to SJ's place...

Day 2 @ Malacca
Thank goodness we have Evan to constantly keep our group on its track so that we can actually stick to our itinerary. Anyway the plan for the day was supposed to be Malacca Zoo (wth right) just because Mr Chiang himself told me that we are going so I innocently asked Evan whether we are going to Malacca Zoo and then suddenly that super big mouth said that *I* wanted to go to the zoo. Babi.

Good news is that we were slightly behind schedule so the Zoo plan was called off (a very good thing it was, because throughout the day, the sun was blazing and the day was as humid as a tropical country can ever be.) Instead, we will have a simple breakfast at SJ's place and then drive down to Jonker Street in Malacca town and feast on the Malaccan famous chicken rice ball called Chong Wah.

We arrived Jonker Walk close to 11am and guess what? We have to place ourselves in a super long queue, again! It was so hot and humid so TY, Evan and I went to get chendol.

40 minutes later it was finally our turn to be seated. All of us ordered an ice-cold lime juice each before Evan received a call, long story short, Lye Siong and his gf joined us. It seems to be a pretty small place too with everyone bumping into everyone. Apparently Po Koon was also there, William (an LG junior) and also Abe.

Best drink to quench the thirst on a hot day like this.

For me, chicken rice balls hold no unique position as it's just the same as any other chicken rice you can find in SP and Penang with the difference in the rice itself which is shaped into small balls. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the chicken rice very much at Chong Wah, maybe it was simply because I was hungry...

Again, after lunch we walked to A Famosa, cause everywhere is all at the same place! Took some more photographs for a couple of hours before all of us resigned to the cool air-conditioned building that is the Melaka Megamall. Soon Jiun wanted to try this Japanese layer cake in a little cafe called Nadeje.

Bloody Tourists.

In the middle of Melaka megamall.

Nadeje is somewhere on the exterior of Melaka mall, literally on top of the building.

Soon Jiun ordered 9 different layer cakes but I do not have pictures for all of them. The layered part of the cake is made of eggs, flour and god knows what else and they are hold together with cream in between. Definitely a fattening dessert :)

Not quite sure what flavour this is... Original maybe? Loads of cream though.

White chocolate cheese cake. My fave of the lot.

TY and Evan also ordered fruit yoghurt shake, blueberry and strawberry. I think the blueberry one tastes better than the strawberry. Apalagi once you've been to Raju's Cameron strawberry shake, this is like diluted shake d.

On our way back to get our cars. If you notice, there are loads of trishaws around Malacca. But dun ever underestimate these traditional mode of transport! I was shocked as we were walking serenely on the cobbled pavement when suddenly a loud techno/dance music seems to just pop out of nowhere with heavy boom-boom base. Jesus! Manatau some trishaws are actually fixed with boom box.

Eye of Malaysia in Malacca.

Initially I thought I saw that the entrance fee to one of these things are at RM20, but with student card, you get it at RM16. But to my surprise, I only had to pay RM8, if you can produce a student's card and IC together!

The wheel rotated for about 3 times, with each rounds taking about 4-5 minutes to complete, maybe less. The view from the top is not spectacular, with one side overlooking the Straits of Malacca and another part of the Malacca town. But since Malacca is still a pretty small town with only a handful of skyrise buildings, you only get to admire the trailing lights on roads that are the cars.

Night shot.

Dinner for Day 2 is at Kampung Jawa or Bunga Raya. It's a small stall by the roadside with tables and chairs all over the front of the shophouses. We were to have dry wantan mee, but instead of the dark sauce so familiar to us, these have clear sauce.

The wantan mee also comes with a small bowl of wanton soup, whereas the mee itself is slightly greasy with sambal mixed (you can also opt to not have the sambal). I'd say it's really good, I'm a fan of dry noodles hehehhe. The soup tastes just right, without being too salty. It's a yum.

Yummers sugarcane juice!

What else to do after makan? Makan again loh.

Another one of Malacca's famous, the see-hum by the drain. This place definitely won't be winning any hygienic award, but we're just here to see why is it so famed for.

One of the reasons of its popularity is the special mix sauce. 'He kor' (black prawn sauce) with sambal and crushed peanuts.

Very, uh *humble* settings, low tables and low chairs to sit on. Reminds me a bit of sushi chefs behind the conveyor belt preparing stuff.

Then we feast on the slight-raw-bloody-squishy-disgusting-but not bad- see hum!

Then...... we went again to Jonker Street @@ It's like there's nowhere else to go. But in fact, we didn't get to enjoy the night market so, since it was only 9pm or so we decided to head over there.

As the others were busy shopping, I was more inclined to head over to a pub and have a drink. We made our way to Geographer, somewhere along the middle of the Walk and I ordered the Geographer Delight, a specialty of theirs.

Mixed with vodka, and juice, which I honestly can't remember but it's good though.

Again, it was almost 1.30am by the time we got our asses back to SJ's house. Everyone was exhausted but me and Elaine, we were determined to have a few more rounds of mahjong before we leave Malacca. So, SJ and TY were the unlucky ones who terpaksa entertain their 'siew lai lais'

It's really chi kek to play mahjong when everyone's almost half asleep. Reactions were 5 seconds delayed and everyone was really blur. I only remembered that I could have gamed a couple of times but I just was not alert enough...

Next morning, (again, thank goodness for Evan the super alarm clock and tour guide, oh btw he said I kicked him in my sleep. Yay ^-^) we had breakfast at a kopitiam close to SJ's house where SJ used to go to often when he was small.