Red Onion

It is time to let go... Ah Ma has gone to a better place and we must all move on with our lives.

Guess what I am going to blog? LOL... No way you are going to hit the bull's eye.

Guess....
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Try again!
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Nope!

Haha.... I found out that I have in fact another folder of pictures back from the Houston days which I have not blogged! Yea, yea I know.... it's like a never-ending sudden popping up of events that are over a year old.

Can you believe that? It's been approximately 16 months since I've finished my training in Houston! Time passes by so quickly, it's scary. I definitely miss those moments in the USA. Including the three weeks I was frozen to the core with the acquisition crew lol. Now that's saying something.
On the last week us Georisers in Houston, our trainers were gracious to organize a lunch out at the Red Onion. Now, I am going to depend solely on my memory (or the lack of it) to describe the food and place lol (ok, with also the help of google). It is, after all, been 16 months since.

Red Onion serves a blend of food from Mexico and Latin America. I think we left early from our class to arrive around noon for lunch.

I recalled craving for a juicy fat piece of steak. Anyways, these were ordered as appetizers. Let's see if I can figure out what these are....

It's probably a sampler of sorts. Chicken wings.... umm... corn .... *sheepish smile* guacamole...uh... well some fried stuff... and..... other stuff.

-_-

I'm not sure lah why all of us look so ghostly. We were seated right opposite the windows I suppose. Left is the ever kind Eve, our Immigration manager. Sweet Wen Ting was on my left lol.

Hah. I can clearly remember what I had.

Medallion de Beef Colombia
4 ounce medallion of fillet mignon, coated with fresh roasted ground coffee, seared on a hot skillet, served over a mango BBQ sauce. Comes with grilled veggies, plantains and fried onions.

Ok, confession I remembered because I took a shot of the menu with my main on it. Nevertheless, I bet you were very much impressed.

The meal was glorious, thank you very much. The steak came medium, the way I like my reds. And the grilled vegetables yummy yummy. Plantains are similar to bananas, here they were served deep fried, tempura style.

Ghost image with red nose #2. I believe I was fairest at that point. Rarely had any outdoor activities, and even so, the sun is not as strong as the tropical Malaysian blazing sun I am so accustomed to.

A shot of Jocelyn's main. Can't remember what it's called.

Most shots didn't turn out very nice so I wouldn't bother to upload those.... Contemplating on posting up our group photo... Oklah.

After dinner that day, a few of us hung out for one of the last time in Houston at our favorite pub, Sherlock's. Had numerous lessons with Lukasz and Shangar on pool. I am going to shamelessly admit that my skills at pool has increased exponentially. Well, it's probably going down the bell curve now that I barely have a chance at practicing it.

Don't you just miss the $1 per pint of beer? Sigh...

And finally a group picture of the Georisers... I seriously cannot recall if I have ever posted that up lol....

Bottom group picture taken with our trainers. Next to Shangar is Alain. French guy with an obvious thick French accent. Funny chap. Neil, two heads right of Lukasz. Great trainer, but always seem to be on edge lol. Steve Clark, on Lukasz's left. We call him the popcorn man because he's always dumping in a bag of popcorn into the microwave for lunch. How crazy is that? And on the far right, the very nice Francois, who Hannah aptly described as being quintessentially French haha... Great people, great experience.

*End of filler post*

Survival Skills Guide in Houston

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.

Marquis at Westheimer & Vibrator Talk

Sunday, 8th march, got up early to have breakfast at the hotel and then got down to the lobby at 12noon where Eve, our Immigration Manager got us all gathered at the hotel and assigned keys for our new apartments. Cars were also assigned, 3-4 to a car. Our group were separated to 2 different apartments because they could not find 17 apartments to fit all of us in. Did I say it right? 17? Hell yea! All of us got individual apartments! It got me to think... this apartment must be crappy loh, are we supposed to share toilet... laundry? Nevermind, still tolerable, right?

To my surprise, my apartment...

Behold, The Marquis!

Just outside my apartment, amazing view, no?

1334 is at the 3rd floor, which is the highest level. (without elevators, it's quite a pain)

I feel no words are necessary, hence, only pictures. (some)

Kitchen equipped with microwave, stove, pots and pans, plates, bowls, utensils, oven.

Laundry washer and dryer, and no, these aren't shared.

Closet for shoes

Bath.

Walk-in closet with iron & board, vacuum.

I am very, very pleased with the generosity of the company... Apparently we are the first bath to be able to have our own apartments. Previously the Georisers share apartments. Although I must admit that it is kinda lonely to have this huge apartment all to yourself. It would probably have been nicer to have a 2-bedroom apartment and share it with just another person.

Anyway, our Georise group were separated into 2 different apartments, about 15 minutes drive apart because they weren't able to get enough apartments for all 17 of us. The other apartment was in Briar Forest. So, those sharing a car with me, Uriel, Irwin and Shangar decided to get some groceries that evening with the other group in Westheimer, Hannah, Kasia and Magda.

Before getting groceries, we decided we were too hungry to do any shopping and decided to pay an Italian pizza restaurant a visit...

We ordered 2 huge pizzas.

When I say huge, I mean huge.

This is the Z-special pizza or something like that. Has pepperoni, oyster, olives, green pepper and what not. It was really good! Crust was not thick and not that thin to the crispy point, it was just nice. love!

Then the chicken pizza. We had this to complement Shangar's tastes as he does not have beef.

Told you it's huge.

Bill came up to around $70, including tipping was $80 which was not bad, approximately slightly over $10 per person. Oh, we didn't manage to finish the 2 pizzas. I think there was a leftover of 3 slices or so.

Our rented cars: I got the navy blue one on the left.

Later on went to Costco just opposite the pizza place. Everything is sold in bulk there! I think I only got myself cereal and apples there. We later dropped by Wal-mart and I then got milk, frozen dinners, vegetables, cooking stuff etc.

Monday! Back to the Houston office there. We had our tour around the CGGV building finally.

The computer room, they call it. Lights blinking on and off everywhere like entering a dodgy sci-fi movie.

This is Melanie from Vietnam. She will be working in Singapore. Sweet girl. She reminds me of Wei En.

The background was totally boring, but we didn't care.

Kids playing with huge screens. These are in the lobby where you have this huge touch-screen. You can zoom in on the Google maps. It's cool :)

Our training room for processing: 37" I think? Apple monitors..

Ice-breaking session with me stoves! Hahahahha! Naturally it was for some good reason that the others decided not to go out and have dinner. We will be having a presentation on Thursday, so everyone's being good and going back early to study and prepare and shit like that. So am I.

First stuff I cooked:

Instant brown rice (boiled), and steamed stuffed jalapeno peppers with long beans.

Kinda had the long beans overcooked cos after they were cooked, I turned off the heat and left them still covered so the beans were still cooking, but still tastes good anyways.

Stuffed peppers: Minced pork + pepper.

And the next day I made some special spaghetti LOL.

Ingredients: Minced garlic, chopped onions, minced pork+few slices of green chillis, Prego (mushroom and green pepper) spaghetti sauce, water, handfuls of spinach and linguine paste of course.

Anyway, my presentation went pretty well I think! My title was on Vibrators and I was the 3rd speaker... So at least I didn't have to go throught the torturous wait and accumulated tension. I can at last deserve a good weekend, exploring Houston. After our presentation, which took the whole day (I never felt so tired), we decided to have a drink (at like 5pm? Siao).

Borrowed formal clothes from Wen Ting. Top too tight for me. And obviously I didn't drink anything.

After about 15 minutes there, some of Asian group decided we were too hungry to spend any more time there and we hopped over to an Indian cuisine restaurant... It was so darn cold! 8 degrees outside and I didn't bring my coat along. Supposed to be cold for the next few days too with showers forecasted.

I ordered a Lamb Curry and it comes together with rice and pita bread (?)

The serving was huge! But it was goooooood. I requested for mine to be extra spicy and then I took more chilli and added... Oooooh, it's the best remedy for cold days like these. The other half I tapao back with extra chilli hehehheh. Who knows it may come in handy this weekend. Cold weather expected.

Coming up, NBA game this Sat!