Gathers In restaurant

I recently found out about a small restaurant that serves more uncommon types of western food, at affordable prices. Online reviews said that the braised lamb shank was a must-try, so we made sure we ordered that. We even reserved in advance so that we could be sure their lamb shank wasn't sold out.

By adding on RM6, we could get a set meal with drinks, mushroom soup and garlic bread. Not too special...

The highlight was the lamb shank! (RM28.90) The meat was nice and tender, and the vegetables were cooked just right too. No complaints here!

Beer batter fish and chips (RM14.90) for the non-lamb eater. Nice and crispy as expected.

The clone of a famous tomyam

I have heard again and again of a certain tomyam noodle shop (or stall?) in Raja Uda. Recently a friend told me that they had a branch in Air Itam. Since I am rather lazy to cross the bridge over to the mainland (which is why I haven't tried the Raja Uda tomyam till now), we went to try the one in Air Itam last weekend.

We could select the ingredients we wanted and then choose our soup/noodles. We could also choose rice or porridge (there was even tomyam porridge!). I took maggi tomyam.

The white piece is a fish-ball thingy. (not exactly a fish ball since it isn't ball-shaped, right?) The soup was nice but I didn't find it exceptional. My friend said that the fried fish slices were smaller than the ones in Raja Uda. According to her, even the soup looked and tasted different. So I guess I haven't really tried the Raja Uda tomyam yet.

Pre-raya at work

This post is long overdue... so why not delay it for a while longer? Which is why I am writing and then scheduling it.

Firstly some belated raya wishes. (this was meant for office use anyway)

And a few days before raya, we received the first shipment of 23-inch external monitors! Our manager rushed downstairs (from 7th floor to 4th floor) to tell us to go and collect ours... because it was on a first-come first-served basis. Those who didn't get their monitors this time would have to wait for the second shipment (which has just arrived this week).

Also a few days ago, we also received our new headsets. Somehow they want to move conference calls to online conferences instead of dial-in phone conferences (to save money), so they are investing in proper headsets (with microphone) for us. The headsets are of the Audio Technica brand (the model is S100iS if you want to look it up), which I hear is a very good brand. Not that I would know much about that...

More caramel goodness

So... recently I posted about finding this caramel candy again.

Later, when a colleague went to Poland for a business trip, I asked him to help me buy some.

RM6+ for a packet (after conversion)

This is what the candy looks like, simple and unassuming.

The inside is soft and crumbly.

I remember that I've had one with a semi-liquid interior, but I don't know whether storage temperature can mess things up.

Anyway, this makes me happy! :D

Sunrise in Sungai Lembing

During Raya, I went back to Kuantan for a week. And I finally managed to go to Sungai Lembing to see the sunrise! This was after maybe two years of trying to plan an outing there. Previously I had only been to Sungai Lembing town, but never climbed up the hill (it didn't seem worth it if we arrived after the sun had risen :P ) It wasn't until I was in Penang that I met lots of people who actually made the trip to Kuantan to visit Sungai Lembing and climb the Bukit Panorama to catch the sunrise. It made me really want to go there as well... and I wouldn't even need to book a hotel!

We departed from Kuantan at around 3:30am, reaching Sungai Lembing town before 4:30am. There were some people at the food court before the hill, but when we reached the bottom of the hill, there was no one climbing it. We only saw a few cars parked there.

Not wanting to climb up in the pitch-dark on our own (we had torchlights, but there were only two of us), we hung around for a while until another group came and started climbing. As we started to climb, a few other people came and followed behind us.

Not even halfway up (not even a quarter, maybe :P ), we were already tired. Mainly because the slope was rather steep, even if there were stairs (thankfully!) cut into it. But after a while it became a bit less steep... and then steeper again... and then a little less... and so on. Here is how the trail looked like. These photos were taken on our way downhill, when the sun was already up, so it starts from the top of the hill.

The walk up took about 40-50 minutes. Then we waited there for quite a while before seeing the first rays of the sun at around 6:30am.

(click for bigger picture)

There was mist surrounding the hills on the west. Lots of mist... like a fluffy blanket that we would love to throw ourselves onto. While going downhill, we met someone who told us that there was a lot of mist that day because of the rain the night before. Luckily it didn't rain too heavily and we were still able to see the sunrise!

At first we thought that was all we were going to see, because the sky had already gotten bright enough. But then we saw the sun peeking out of a valley.

I love that sequence of photos... one by itself would not be as pretty.

I also took some panoramic shots with the sun floating at different heights in the sky.

Later, as the mist cleared, we could see the river below us. This is the river that always spills over and floods the Sungai Lembing town during monsoon season. Looks so meek now, doesn't it?

Mission accomplished! Finally I can properly say that I have visited Sungai Lembing! :D

Pikachu colleague

We use Gmail at work. As I was typing in the "To" field, a Pikachu came up!

I didn't want to use Pikachu as a profile picture at work, because I felt it would give a rather unprofessional, and maybe childish, image. But it seems that someone doesn't mind that!

Correction

I laughed it off, and was not going to blog about it. But it kept coming back to me, and I was like, I need to remember this, it's going to make me so happy to recall it in future. So here it is.

 Someone who corrects their spelling mistakes! :D

Food case

The other day I received a work e-mail containing the details of a bug that we had to fix. It said:

Bad case: [short explanation]
Food case: [short explanation]

Food? Mmmm...

Of course, it was supposed to be "good case". Gave me a good chuckle...

Fancy letters

When I was small, I bought some fancy letter stationery to write to friends (at least I think it was friends... or maybe it was family too). Recently I discovered some leftovers.

There were only a few envelopes left, and even fewer sheets of paper. I decided to use them all up, pulling out some addresses I had, sending to those I thought might like it.

Little did I think that I would receive a customized Pikachu stationery in return mail! :D
 

Pika-pika!

When I mentioned the letterpad to my mother, she reminded me that I still had another set in Kuantan. I remember that I received it as a gift... it came in a lovely box so I never got around to using it; instead I displayed it as a decorative item. So on my next trip back, I will get those... and then try to find some people to send it to. I hope it hasn't yellowed... :P

The ayam percik story

Last week I wrote about a kuih that I had discovered the existence of.

Well, today I managed to buy it! There were only two boxes left. Roti jala, on the other hand, there were about five or six boxes left. I bought one of each.

So this is kuih serabai.

kuih serabai with its sauce

together with the roti jala I bought from the same vendor

I cut open the kuih and put a dollop of sauce on top for an introductory photo.

The inside is fluffed up like the Chinese huat kuih (that pink one... search online if you can't figure it out). The sauce is really thick and creamy. It tasted okay but I don't think I can eat much of it because of the richness. The taste is nothing much to shout about either... but it's good to have found out what it is. :)

(When actually eating it, I put a lot more sauce than that though)


The stall just beside the kuih jala and kuih serabai was selling ayam percik Kelantan. Six ringgit for half a chicken... minus the leg. The seller asked me whether I wanted the sauce. I said yes, but could he put it separately for me? He said sure... and proceeded to scoop the sauce into a container for me. After that I went off to buy some bread for tomorrow's breakfast... and then, fearing that WW wouldn't have enough to eat, decided to buy some extra kuih from some other stalls further down the row.

As I was picking kuih from a stall, I heard someone say "sorry..." from beside me. I was standing beside the stall at the time, which means I was in between two stalls (the stalls were in a long row by the roadside, on a raised sidewalk). I thought I was blocking him, and moved slightly to let him pass. But instead, he held up a container, saying "Sorry, I forgot to give you the sauce earlier".

I was totally surprised! (and pleasantly so :) ) Okay, so a food seller forgets to include the sauce, that happens easily. But it wasn't like he came after me as I was leaving his stall. I had gone to a shop (in a row of shophouses) to buy bread, and then I came back to the stalls, at the other end of where his stall was. As he found me?? Wow. Maybe he guessed that I would go to the other stalls, I don't know. But really, that was nice of him. :)

So this is the ayam percik (and its sauce with a story)

ayam percik Kelantan

It doesn't look that good in the photo, but it did at the stall. Because you could see that it was smothered in spices. And believe me when I say the taste was great! Even without the sauce, the taste of the spices was already amazing. I don't know when was the last time I had ayam percik this good. So I'm a happy girl today. :D