Birthday Celebration … just the way I like it!

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My mother in-law brought Jared for holiday in Penang. They took a train up to Butterworth and took a ferry across the sea. It was my mother in-law’s idea. She wanted to spend some time with Jared and also to let Jared experience the ride to Penang on public transports. At the same time, we told Jared to take care of his Ah Ma.

After they came back from Penang, mother in-law stayed with us for a few days. We invited mother in-law to join us for our family dinner at my parents’ house. It was Hubby’s birthday too and I knew my parents and sister would prepare a feast for the birthday celebration. My youngest sister told me that she would make a cake for us too.

 

These were the dishes cooked by my parents and my eldest sister, Annie. Inclusive of soup, there were 9 dishes all together. It was like CNY reunion dinner. We really enjoyed the food and the great company of family members.

After dinner, my dad went out to get some soda drinks. He knew the kids love it.

My youngest sister made this Tiramisu cake for us. I’ve never tried making one whole Tiramisu cake. It takes lots of skill and confidence to make such cake. I’ve only made Tiramisu cakes in small glasses. Of course, I did not use any gelatine to hold the cake together.

The Birthday guy too busy for the Birthday gal.

The cake was so lovely with our names printed on wafer and had 3 layers. 

It was a simple dinner cooked by my parents and eldest sister, with lovely Tiramisu cake made by my youngest sister and celebrated with my parents, mother in-law, kids, sibblings, nieces and nephews … just the way I like it!

 

Early Birthday Treat at Le Midi Restaurant @ BSC

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Hubby’s and my birthday is just a few days apart. Auntie YC offered to take us out for a lovely birthday dinner. She wanted to take us to Le Midi Restaurant at Bangsar Shopping Centre. Since it’s a long festive holiday, we decided to have an early birthday treat on Monday, the 2nd day of Hari Raya.

The restaurant setting.

The waiter told us that their dinner set menu was not available on that day. Probably due to short of staff working on that Raya holiday.  

Jelly fish in designer aquarium

Photo taken by Jaden

Since Jared is having holiday in Penang with his grand mother, we brought Jaden along for the dinner.

Lemidi chef variation of appetizers (RM68++)

To start with, we had Lemidi chef variation of appetizers and Mediterranean Seafood salad. Hubby likes the seafood salad made with extra virgin olive oil, seasonal vegetables, cherry tomatoes, garlic and lemon.

Mediterranean Seafood Salad (RM38++)

Broth of Scallops (RM28++)

 Auntie YC had this scallops broth. She didn’t quite like it as the broth was a little blend.

Cappuccino of Wild Mushrooms, Black Truffle foam (RM30++)

 Mushroom soup … Jaden’s favourite.

Grain fed Wagyu Sirloin with Balsamic reduction and rocket salad (RM118++)

If we are eating out, Hubby is very likely to order beef, since we do not cook beef at home. Hubby gave a thumb ups for this Wagyu Sirloin that he had it with red wine.

Dutch Lemon Sole, Fennel sauce with glazed vegetables (RM98++)

Auntie YC ordered this pan seared Lemon Sole and had it with White Wine.

Perreney Lamb Rack with Rosemary, Red Wine reduction and seasonal vegetables (RM108++)

Jaden chose to have lamb for main course and I ordered this lamb rack to share with him. I like the taste of the lamb with the red wine.

Dessert Platter (RM68++)

After dinner, Auntie YC recommended that we should try their desserts, especially this is for our birthday celebration.

We requested the restaurant to recommend their desserts. The restaurant owner, Ms Melissa Groot suggested that she will ask the kitchen to prepare a dessert platter for us to experience the few varieties of desserts that the restaurant offer.

Lemon Ricotta Tart, Panna Cotta, Profiteroles and Almond Parfait

From Top, left: Lemon Ricotta Tart, Panna Cotta with passion fruit coulis, Profiteroles with warm chocolate sauce and toasted almond and Almond Parfait.

All of the desserts were yummy. We particularly like the Panna Cotta and Lemon Ricotta Tart. In fact, the Almond Parfait was very nice too and so was the Profiteroles. So, all of the desserts were good. I would love to return to the restaurant just for the desserts. 

The Happy Me with the lovely dessert platter.

This is also my first photo with my new hair cut (cut it two days ago).

Haha … the clean plate. Who is on diet?

Thank you Auntie YC for remembering our birthday and also thank you for the lovely dinner.

Jaden said he would tell his brother what he had for his dinner. We tested him “What did you have for dinner?” and he said “I had bread with butter. Then, I had mushroom soup with squid and prawns (from the seafood salad). For main course, I had lamb. Then, we had desserts”.

Le Midi Restaurant

3rd Floor, Bangsar Shopping Centre

285 Jalan Maarof, Bukit Bandaraya, Kuala Lumpur

For Reservations Telephone: +603 2094 1318

 

Roast Pork

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I love to eat roast pork. I like to eat roast pork dip with chili sauce or mustard sauce or go with a bowl of curry noodle. So yummy!

Auntie Jenny makes lovely roast pork. The roast pork has crunchy skin and without the porky smell. I’ve watched Auntie Jenny roasted the pork when she was preparing dinner for us at their house in Penang for 2010 Christmas. Even Timothy Tiah came to her house to pick up roast pork that she prepared for his family. I did not know who Timothy Tiah was then though Auntie Jenny did complimented him for his successful set up of Nuffnang. Back to roast pork, it was so tedious and so much work that I did not bother to attempt to roast myself at home. Hubby loves the roast pork made by her.

A few months ago, my youngest sister roasted pork at home and brought to our parents house for our usual family gathering dinner. Hubby loves it too.

I thought I must attempt to make roast pork at home too but I wanted a simpler and easier one. Found some recipes in Kuali and from my recipe book.

This is the mix and match version of roast pork recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1kg pork belly with skin
  • Seasoning:
    • 1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
    • 1 tsp sugar
    • 1 tsp sea salt
    • 1 tsp ground pepper
    • 1/2 tsp cooking wine
  • 1/2 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice
  • 1/2 tbsp rock sea salt

 Request butcher:

  • for the cut best for roast pork
  • remove or debone ribs from pork belly
  • score all over pork belly skin using a sharp knife

Rinse the pork and dry the meat with paper towel.

Place the pork belly skin side down, rub seasoning into the meat side, right into the crevices.

Turn the pork belly back over, brush the top of the skin with vinegar or lemon juice.

Rub salt over skin.

Hang on to hooks in a cool dry place until the skin is dry.

Use paper towel and pat dry the skin and remove excess salt.

Preheat oven to 200C.

Place the pork belly skin side up on a rack / grill tray, in the middle rack of oven for 30 mins.

Remove the pork belly from the oven and prick the skin all over with a sharp metal skewer or pointed blade of a knife.

Return the pork belly to the oven to roast for a further 10 mins or until the top of skin turns evenly brown and crispy.

Let roast pork rest for 10 mins outside oven before cutting.

Serve hot with mustard or chili sauce. 

 The roast pork has crunchy skin with juicy meat.

 

Lego Mindstorms ShooterBot

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The school holiday started two days earlier due to early holiday break for Hari Raya celebration.

Due to the last minute, we could not make any holiday plan.

Hubby suggested Jared to create new robot using his Lego Mindstorms. This time round, Jared decided to make ShooterBot.

Jared used his notebook and Bluetooth to create remote control.

He fixed it all by himself, with very minimal guidance from Hubby. This is a good way to keep him occupied over school holiday, rather than watching TV or playing Ipad and computer games.

Jared was very happy and had great sense of achievement for building the robot and bluetooth remote control.

 

Kumon and Self Discipline

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Jaden is doing Level D of Kumon Maths now. He’s doing advance multiplication and division.

The good thing about Kumon method is it instills self-discipline and time management with its daily homework.

Jaden was doing his homework while I was having my usual cup of Nescafe. I observed him doing his Kumon homework. After he completed his homework, he went upstairs and came down with calculator in his hand.

I was wondering what he was doing and then, I saw this.

Jaden checking his own answer sheets using calculator after doing it manually first.

Jaden did his Kumon Maths homework and time his work. After he finished the homework, he self-check his work. His little fingers pressed on the calculator slowly as he checked each questions of the worksheets. 

He marked those equations with wrong answers.

For those equations with wrong answers, he marked them and did the corrections thereafter. He did the corrections himself without the help of calculator. The calculator was only used to check his answers.

Jaden playing Ipad after he finished his Kumon homework.

Jaden knows that he has to finish his daily Kumon homework before he can play any Ipad game or watch TV. That’s the good self-discipline from Kumon method of studying.

There was once Hubby asked Jaden “How many mistakes do you have for today’s Kumon?”

He replied “3 mistakes” and Hubby teased him and asked “Why 3 mistakes?”

Jaden impatiently answered “3 only what. Why are you angry?”. Hubby said “No, I’m not angry. I’m just asking” and he said “But you raised your voice”. 

Jaden sets self expectation on himself and also try his best. He will speak up if he thinks he’s right as he has tried his best. That’s what we like and wish our boys to grow up with. Always try their best and speak up if they think they are right.

Hubby gave Jaden a BIG hug!

Kid Ran Away from Home

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When I came back from work yesterday, I saw our neighbors at the security guard house. They were viewing CCTV. I asked the security guard on duty what happened and he told me that our neighbour’s daughter followed a car out and never came back.

This morning, Hubby saw the same neighbor talking to another neighbor outside of the house. Apparently, their 16 years old teenage daughter went out in a friend’s car on Sunday night and did not come home thereafter. After 24 hours, they made police report and provided the name of friends that were with her and also the car registration number that came and pick her up.

Consequently, her friends that had been named on the police report send their daughter home to avoid more trouble. She came back yesterday night after almost 48 hours.

Teenage years are the hardest to manage. As parents, we really need to know who our kids mix with, the names of their friends, where do they stay, their contact numbers, etc. It will be good if we can get to know their parents and family background too. In case of emergency, these information are really helpful.

Watches for Kids

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For the recent 3rd term school exam, It was the first time that Jared was tested on essay for the Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia papers. These essay carry 30% mark. The school teachers and tuition teachers paid a lot of attention and emphasise on these essay.

When Jared brought back his exam results, we were happy with his essay writing. As I turned to the last page of his BM exam paper, I noticed Jared did not answer the last page of the exam paper. Jared said he didn’t have sufficient time to complete the exam paper. He spent too much time on essay writing as that part of the exam paper carried 30% marks.

We did not scold Jared but instead realise that we did not teach him on time management during school exam. More over, Jared did not wear watch to school. We should train him to monitor time over the exams.

Over the public holiday, we brought our kids to 1 Utama Swatch shop. I wanted to buy a manual watch with hands and face (Number 1 to 12) on the watch, not digital watch. This is for Jared to learn time management and have better sense of time and timing.

Jared refused all the cartoon styled watches. According to him, those are too babyish.

Jared first chose this white strap watch (RM165). The watch look alright but not very nice on him.

Then, he chose this Army styled watch (RM195). This watch looked better on him. But he knew, this was not it.

Then, he tried this black and red watch that have Lego style of strap. As the strap was hard, it was not easy to put on and take out the watch.

I saw the above set of watch inside a glass cabinet and asked the sales girl to let Jared try. This watch (RM250) fit perfectly on Jared’s wrist and the good thing is, he liked it.

But, Jared said he choose the first, white strap watch. I was surprise. I asked him why and he said that’s the cheapest watch ie RM165 compared to this RM250 watch.

The sales girl said Jared was such a good boy. At the end, I bought this watch for him as he liked this watch the most, it fit perfectly and nice on him and the watch set came with this silver pendant.

Jared wore the silvent pendant necklace.

We asked Jared to wear his watch to school and all of his other classes. We need him to start learning to have better sense of time and timing

What an Irresponsible Parents

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Jared was invited to his ex-classmate’s birthday party at McDonald. Since his school exam is over and Jared could meet up with his schoolmates from his previous class, we agreed to let him attend the party.

Hubby dropped him off at the party about half an hour late. He told Jared to call him once the party is over for him to pick him up from McDonald.

When I got home at 6pm+, Jared was still not back. I made a turn to go and pick him up from McDonald. The moment Jared saw me, he cried. He said “Mommy, I miss you!”. He told me the party ended at 4.30pm, which means he had waited for us for 1.5 hours.

Jared continued crying and I realised he was frighten, waited for us all by himself for such a long time. Hubby and I were very angry with the parents of the birthday girl. How could they left the party venue, hosted by them when Jared was alone there? They could have at least give us a call to inform us the party is over so that we could go and pick up Jared.

Over dinner, when we related the incident to Auntie YC, she was upset too and complained how could the parents left Jared alone at McDonald.

This morning, when I talked to Jared about the incident again, I realise they did not even give food to Jared when he arrived at the party half an hour late.

What type of parents is this? And these parents of the birthday girl, did not give any invitation card, no food for Jared who was late for half an hour and left Jared all alone at McDonald.

When I organised birthday party for Jared, I did the following:

  1. give invitation cards to the kids – for kids parents to know the party details ie venue, what time the party start and end.
  2. I would ask for contact numbers – in case of emergency; and also
  3. ask if their kids are allergy of any kind of food.

My advice to parents out there … if you find it troublesome to do the above, I’ll suggest that you do not invite other kids to celebrate your kids birthday but to celebrate among family members only.

 

Nuffnang Blogopolis 2012

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When I first started blogging, it was meant as a place for me to treasure my memories of those joyous days, to cherish and remember people I care about and events that I attended. They give me great pleasure and they are very special for me to treasure the memories. It is also a place for me share information and good experience with my family and friends. After all, good things are meant to be shared.

After a while, I find blogging to be very useful. It is like my virtual library, for me to note down important facts and to make reference to. There are several occasions when my friends asked me about Maid Renewal procedures and also about Kumon. I asked them to refer to my blog. And it was it.

Human lies but Numbers don’t lie

When I knew Nuffnang was going to have it’s first ever Blogopolis workshop, I signed up for it and surprisingly, Wendy decided to attend the workshop too.

Yes, I was very excited. Counting down to the event.

The set up

Official Broadband partner, P1 and its Bat Man, The Dark Knight Rises.

Twitter board for the event and competitions.

Wendy and I did not have any Twitter account. By the time, the MC announced the contests and prizes up for grab, we realised that Twitter is a necessarily tool. We signed up for Twitter accounts on the spot and … we did not win any prizes.

Nicholas Chay, Country Manager of Nuffnang Malaysia

 

Master Class 1: Idea Sourcing & Content Generation

Ken Wooi, Lim Chee Wah (Editor of TimeOutKL) andThe first Master Class was on Idea Sourcing and Content Generation where the speakers shared about key sources of finding blog post idea.

Master Class 2: Opportunities Gained Through Blogging

Huai Bin from sixthseal and Hui Wen from Revel in Me shared about the opportunities gained by them through blogging.

Master Class 3: Blog Design 101

Eric Cruz, Firdaus Haris and Lionel Chin talked about things to note on blog design, its compatibility across browsers, social media and blogs are the new magazine.

For the Master Class 4: SEO & Analytics for Dummies, the session was cancelled as the speaker, James Yeang from Google Malaysia was unwell. 

Master Class 5: Building Your Brand

Vivy Yusof from Proudduck and Beautiful Nara talked about understanding brand and what it stands for.

Master Class 6: Blog Photography 101

Sue Anna Joe and Carlos Nizam shared photography tips for blogging.

Master Class 7: Finding Your Voice in the Blogosphere

Prior to this Blogopolis, I have not heard of Wendy Cheng of Xiaxue. She is one of Singapore’s top blogger. She shared with us the reasons of her wanted to blog in the first place and her blogging life. Based on the overwhelming respond from the floor, I guess she was the highlight for the day.

Master Class 8: Using Different Platforms to Optimise Your Blog Traffic

Comic blogger, Ernest Ng together with Maria Elena had fun talking about the different platforms in blogging. This was the session that the MC had no chance to speak.

Master Class 9: The Malaysian Blogosphere

Premesh from Malaysiakini, Timothy Tiah (co-founder of Nuffnang) and my favourite, Kenny Sia who has won numerous awards for his blog. They talked about the future of blogging in Malaysia.

It was a very informative sessions. The master class topics were well chosen. I wish the discussion session can be more lengthy with more in-depth knowledge sharing.

Steam Fish Hong Kong Style

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Auntie YC had her holiday in Sabah. She bought us some fresh seafood. One of the seafood was the expensive “Hoi Lee” which cost RM50.60 (RM110 per kg) for a medium size fish.

Over the weekend, Jared wanted to eat steam fish the restaurant style, not the usual steam fish style that Moch prepared at home. Hubby did not want to eat out. But this is expensive fish and I did not wish to steam it wrongly and wasted such an expensive fish.

I googled on internet and after reading a few posts on fish steaming, I decided to take a risk and steam the expensive fish at home.

Ingredients:

  • 1 fresh fish (grouper, sea bass, etc), less than a kg weight
  • 1/4 cup fine fresh ginger strips
  • 1/4 cup fine spring onion strips
  • A few sprigs of fresh coriander leaves

Seasoning sauce:

  • 4 tbsp light soy sauce (good quality)
  • 2/3 cup of chicken stock (1 tsp of chicken stock powder with 2/3 cup of hot water). We use our chicken stock that we prepared for our soup the same night
  • 1 tsp of castor/rock sugar
  • 4 tbsp oil

Method:

  1. If the fish is thick, cut a few strips on the meat or butterfly it.
  2. Lay the fish on a heat-proof or plate suitable for steaming, such as a metal plate.
  3. Scatter ginger strips over the fish, in between and some under the fish.
  4. Put sufficient water into wok and boil it.
  5. When water is boiling, put in the fish. Steam the fish at high heat for 10 minutes (10 mins for 600g fish and add 2 mins for every 200g).
  6. While the fish is steaming, prepare seasoning sauce. Mix hot chicken stock with sugar, light soy sauce and stir until sugar is all dissolved. If using chicken powder, mix it with hot water, sugar and light soy sauce. Do this step just before the fish is cooked so that the sauce is hot.
  7. Use a fork or chopstick to dig into the thickest part of the fish (usually middle of the body) and lift up the flesh. If it comes clean off the bone easily, the fish is done. If not, leave it to steam for another minute or so and check again. Do not overcook, as fish will still cook even it is taken off the heat.
  8. When the fish is cooked, carefully take it out from the wok and pour away the liquid or transfer the fish into a new plate.
  9. Pour the seasoning sauce which should still be hot all over the fish.
  10. Quickly heat up oil until smoking (be careful the oil is very hot). Pour the hot oil all over the fish. You will hear sizzling sound once the hot oil.
  11. Garnish with ginger strips, lots of spring onions and coriander.
  12. Serve the fish hot.

We should reduce the spring onion and corriander leaves garnishing on top of the fish. Probably because we have spice garden at home and can get them easily.

Moch and I were happy with the results of our first steam fish Hong Kong style. Jared extremely loved the fish, especially the sauce which was sweet and the freshness taste of the fish. He gave us 11 out of 10 marks. We asked him “11 out of 10?” and he said “Yes. The fish is very nice, nicer than restaurant”. Hubby gave 8 marks. Of course, the fish is not as good as the way Unique Seafood does but it is not far different from it.

I would summarise below the learning tips from this fish steaming:

  1. Put in fish for steaming only after water is boiling.
  2. Cook at medium high heat
  3. Drain off all the juices from the steamed fish to avoid the fishy smell and taste
  4. Use good quality soya sauce
  5. If the plate is too hot for you to pour away the steamed fish liquid or if you wish to present the fish in a nicer and presentable way, transfer the fish instead to a nicer serving plate.