A different kind of fusion cuisine

Some time ago, a colleague said that she had char kuey teow with rice (fried together in the same dish) in her secondary school, and that it was delicious. She was surprised that no one else had heard of it before, just like we were surprised to hear about the dish!

Since she had it in her school, she couldn’t tell us to go to the same stall. But since she said that it wasn’t exactly a dish on the menu, I decided to ask the char kuey teow uncle near my place whether he sells it (especially since he sells fried rice as well).

So one day when I visited his stall, I asked him whether he sells char kuey teow with rice. He immediately responded yes, and told me it cost RM6 (normal char kuey teow or normal fried rice costs RM5, and RM6 for a big portion). I wonder whether he heard it for the first time when I asked him, and immediately said that to get some business. :P

Anyway, the other day I gave it a try. Here it is:

I ordered for take-away, so it might not look as good as a freshly dished-up one.

Before I tell you whether it was good, would you try it?

Frankly, it was more like char kuey teow than fried rice. The ingredients were the same as those in char kuey teow (instead of those in fried rice; I initially thought they would mix both :P ). Taste-wise, it also tasted like char kuey teow, though the rice added some different texture to the dish.

Adding the rice made the portion bigger, which was probably why it cost RM6. But it also made the dish a little too big for me (I never order a big portion). So all in all, I don’t think I would order it again. I would rather order char kuey teow or fried rice, but not a mixture!

A strange design

This week's photo theme was warped.

On the way home from work, I passed this building that was still in construction. The seems to be some warped string design on the walls...

I initially even thought that they had wrapped some kind of wire around the walls, and I was wondering what it was for. Then I realized that it seemed to be a painted design!

In any case, this kind of pattern ain't my cup of tea...

Muscle memory

Muscle memory is such a curious/awesome/scary thing.

Usually when I drive home, I have to use my access card to enter the neighbourhood, and then use my remote control to open my gate. Recently they are trying out a number plate recognition system, which is to replace our access card system. And every time I enter, even though I remember to tell myself that I do not need my access card, after entering and when approaching my gate, my hand reaches out to the access card first. Even when I remind myself that I should now just get my remote control, my hand still goes for the access card.

I guess it is because I usually only take my remote control right after putting back my access card. So my hand is not used to getting the remote control directly...

Don't act your age

The other day I received my birthday gift from my company, in the form of a Grab voucher. When I redeemed it into my Grab account, this message was attached:

"Remember to not act your age!"

The same day, we had our team lunch. The lunch was at Sushi Brito, which is quite near to my house, and on that day I had a bunch of meetings and code to write (before being able to test it), so I decided to work from home.

In the interest of not acting my age (because I am an obedient employee :P ), I sent this message to my team in our group chat:

Pikachu is crying… only one person wants to see it. Most are interested in other Pokemon! 

So I wore my Dragonair t-shirt to the lunch, instead of my Pikachu t-shirt. :P Turns out quite a few of my team were expecting me to bring a soft toy… hahaha. They didn't even notice my t-shirt...until someone asked where my Pokemon was, and I showed it to them.

And as a side-story, this is a screenshot from way back in July, but seems that I haven’t posted it. I had changed my work profile picture to a Pikachu, after seeing someone else using a Pikachu (and mine’s cuter!) (side note in the side-story: actually a bunch of people use cartoon characters as their profile pic in the office).

Then one day this colleague from Israel wanted to ask me something, and he started off with this:

Note: The emoji reactions to his first comment are from me.

See, some people appreciate Pikachu!

He wasn't the only one; there was another Malaysian colleague who praised my Pikachu, but it was in a less funny manner (I believe he just said something like "nice profile pic"), so I did not bother taking a screenshot of that!

A heavy Santa

I was at the dentist the other day, when I noticed a Santa that had fallen.

Guess he was too heavy. :P

A wind farm

Last week's photo theme was farm.

I had a hard time finding a farm to take a photo of, but today we had a Christmas gift exchange (rather early, ain't it?) and I received a handheld fan as a gift. So I decided to make my own wind farm! :P 

(I already had the white fan)

Don't play-play, the curtain is really moving, okay? You can see the fold being pushed to the right by the wind from the fans (the bigger fan, mainly, because the smaller one isn't really strong enough for that)

Driving on a rainy day

Today there was an extremely heavy downpour starting some time before 5pm. The sky was as dark as it would usually get after 7pm.

Luckily, I left work at 5pm and managed to avoid any jam all the way back to Relau...and there the jam started :P (side-story: The wind was so strong when I reached the office lobby, several of us - even those with umbrellas, like me - simply waited there for a while so that the wind could calm down, before going to the car-park)

This week's photo theme is driving, so this is me driving back home (I think it took another 10-15 minutes from there...where it would take less than 5 minutes without any traffic)

The rain had stopped by the time I reached Relau. Or maybe the rain started here earlier and then moved to the factory area...I doubt it could stop that quickly!