Duffy - the unboxing

Duffy arrived almost two months ago. Unfortunately, I've been putting off writing this post, maybe because I wanted to do it the justice that it deserved.

Duffy first came around when I wasn't home, so the postman left me a card to go and fetch it from the post office myself.

It already made my day when I saw "plush toy" written on the box.

The package was extremely battered:

They even marked it as "received in broken condition". I guess they wanted to say, "Not my fault!" lol

Opening the box from a torn area. Fluffiness!

There was a postcard included.

Duffy has travelled over the world more than I have! So here is Duffy, out of its box!

The reason why it sits a bit crookedly is because it is actually a pouch, with a zipper in the back. The pouch was empty, so its body was sagging. I haven't taken any photos with its body filled up yet.

For size comparisons, here it is next to my Pikachu! 

If you want to know the story behind Duffy, I've posted about Duffy before, here.

And last but not least, thank you so much, Catherine and Albin! :)

Trying out Western-style eateries

After the local food previously, here are some Western dishes instead!

We went to Arang Coffee for dinner one day, and ordered chicken and fish parmigiana.

chicken parmigiana

fish parmigiana

We felt that the chicken was better. Maybe because it was the chicken thigh, and the fish was a bit dry.

Then we ordered an affogato to try.

Unfortunately there was too little ice-cream and it was already melting, so we felt a bit cheated. This cost RM9 or RM10 I think. The parmigiana dishes cost around RM20 each.

We also tried out Uncle Albert's fish and chips at Straits Quay. A lunch set cost RM25 each (we had to add on service charge and government tax too), and it comprises of a plate of fish and chips, together with their soup of the day and iced lemon tea.

The soup actually came first, and they brought the fish and chips after clearing away our soup plates.

The fish and chips were pretty good, and the batter was very crispy, but to go all the way to Straits Quay and pay RM25 for it is still a bit pricey.

Glutinous rice flour adventures (Episode 2)

So maybe you don't remember episode 1...but here I am attempting the mochi cake again. After the first failed attempt, I tried checking how many grams two cups of glutinous flour was supposed to weigh. There were varying measurements, from 260g to 300g. The first time, I had only used around 150g!

This time I used 300g of glutinous rice flour, with 400ml of milk (the same as the first time). And I think it turned out like it was supposed to!

While baking, there seemed to be air pockets under the cake, and it rose and fell like waves. As you can see in the picture above (if you look closely), when first taken out of the oven, the cake isn't completely flat; the upper right corner for example has risen a bit!

But after cooling, the cake fell back down (you can compare the upper right corner).

The edges were slightly crispy, and the interior was soft and chewy, pretty much like the first attempt, but maybe not as soft (there was more flour this time, after all).

I definitely prefer this version! Now I know why the recipe was actually for "mini" mochi cakes, because the edges taste better! Unfortunately I don't have a non-stick muffin/cupcake pan... and I don't think using paper cup liners will yield the same results. (I'm also too lazy to make more than one batch in the oven when I can just do this :P )

Signature Hokkien dishes

When my parents were here at the end of April, we went to quite a number of eateries that we seldom go (or had never gone) to. One of them was Ingolf Kneipe that I had already written about.

Another was Sin Lean Heang, a Hokkien restaurant that we had visited before. But I haven't posted about it before, so here's what we had:

No. 1: bak kee soup
A signature dish that you can't find elsewhere, the soup contains meat that is coated with tapioca flour (I think; unless if I mixed up the flours) and cooked in a soup together with cabbage (and some other side ingredients). You can have meat together with prawns and/or oysters too (with the prawns/oysters cooked the same way as the meat), but we opted for only meat.

Since there is a lot of soup and you can hardly see anything in that bowl, here's what it looks like when you serve the meat and cabbage onto your own plate.

No. 2: oh chien
Fried oysters with egg, this one can be found elsewhere too, in other coffee shops or food courts. The one at this restaurant is nice though :) 

No. 3: oyster noodles
Also something that can be found elsewhere, but a bit less common. Again, the one here is really good.

No. 4: five-spice tau kua (beancurd) with leeks
Also a signature dish because of the five-spice tau kua which you don't find elsewhere.

There was a no. 5 too: fried rice. I didn't take a photo of this one, because it is nothing special; we only ordered it because there was someone who doesn't like any of the above dishes (and was forced to come along because everyone else wanted to eat this).

The total bill came up to RM85 for 4 people, with the chinese tea that we ordered.

By the way, we reached at around 2pm and had to wait an hour for our food. When we arrived, they immediately told us we had to wait for an hour. It seems to happen every time we go there... unless if we reach at exactly 12pm when it opens (it opens at 12 and closes at around 6pm). That's good business for you!

The wild wild...trees?

You probably haven't noticed, but it's been a while since the last Photo Friday post. There was no theme sent out on the 28th of April. The theme for the 5th of May was wilderness. (Yes, I'm a bit late posting the photo this time; yesterday's theme has already been received. But the photo was taken earlier, so it still meets the deadline!)

There's not that much wilderness to speak of when you don't go into the woods, but beside some roads here you can take a peek into the wilderness beyond. At least for now... who knows when the area will be cleared for more apartments! 

La lutte des souvenirs

Il était une fois, on m'a dit ceci:

Je l'ai sauvegardé pour me soulever les esprits si un jour j'en aurais besoin. Mais quand je l'ai revu, au contraire, j'ai senti un goût amer...

Quand quelqu'un te trahit, quand quelqu'un fait quelque chose que t'aurais jamais pensé possible de lui (ou d'elle), c'est difficile à oublier. Quand tu vois le nom de cette personne, il suffit de te rappeler ce qui s'est passé, bien qu'il s'est passé des années depuis.

Plusieurs fois, j'ai pensé à enlever ces gens-là de mon Facebook, mais à chaque fois j'hésite, comme j'ai mal à jeter des choses.

Mais ce qu'a dit Philip Wang: Friends come and go, but it doesn't make any of them less valuable while they were with you.

J'y crois. Je fléchis entre cette vue optimiste et la vue pessimiste que me dit que ces personnes-là ne servent à rien, il n'y a qu'à les oublier et les supprimer de ma vie!

J'ai pas envie de les voir, j'ai pas envie de parler d'eux ou d'en entendre parler, parce que ça me rappelle de mauvais souvenirs. Mais en même temps, une petite partie de moi se demande s'il aurait pu être différent, si on aurait pu rester amis, si on pourrait redevenir amis si un jour nos chemins se recroisent.

Pour certaines personnes, la réponse à cette dernière question est non. Je n'ai pas encore guéri de la plaie qu'ils m'ont infligée, je ne sais pas si je guérirai. On dit que le temps guérit tout; on verra... mais ça a pris bien longtemps! Peut-être parce qu'on oublie jamais rien, on vit avec...

Crooked letter

I've finished reading Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. Good storyline, but the writing style does not suit me. It took three sittings, spaced out quite a bit. Not that gripping; at the second sitting I wanted to continue because it was getting interesting, but after putting it down I did not feel the pull to get back to it.

At the end there was a loose end that they did not wrap up, but I guess it was acceptable since it was something that none of the characters in the story could know about.

One big complaint that I have about the book, though, is typos. Some of the dialogue was probably supposed to reflect the local slang, like using "gone" for "going", but I don't expect "sacred" can replace "scared", whatever slang you are using. I'm not so sure how many were actually typos and how many were intentional, though.

One of the praises for the book was about how it was written like a classic, but with a mystery. Well, I guess that's it... I liked the mystery but not the classical style of writing. It got boring, and I was tired of interpreting the slang.

A bright sky

A bright sky on a sunny day. And brightened even more by using long exposure.

A German meal

On Saturday we went to Ingolf Kneipe, a German restaurant/pub all the way over in Tanjung Bungah, for dinner.

We ordered a butcher's platter (RM66.90), supposed to be for 2-3 people. It came with a bowl of sauce and mustard, and chilli/tomato sauce packets.

Zoom in on the platter:

The piece on top is breaded chicken, and beside it seems to be pork knuckle (or simply roast pork). Below them are ham and bacon, and the thick squarish piece (actually it's rectangular) is minced pork with seasoning and herbs (meatloaf, maybe?) You can see four sausages in the photo, but below all the meat are two other kinds of sausages. Too many sausages, we felt... we would have preferred more grilled meat.

Beneath the sausages was some sauerkraut. None of us liked it... but the taste seems "correct", from what I had tried in France. We just can't appreciate sour cabbage, I guess.

We also ordered beef rolls (RM32.90), which also came with sauerkraut, but another kind (maybe made with purple cabbage?). This was less sour than the normal kind above, and the others even said it was tasty at first, but we didn't finish it all either. Not something we can eat a lot of.

Inside the beef rolls:

We can't really taste what was inside, because the taste was covered by the beef. But the whole thing was pretty good, together with the sauce, and the mashed potatoes were good too (though I can't eat a lot of that).

And the last dish was currywurst (RM28.90). It was advertised in the menu as exactly what we can find in the German capital (Berlin), and having tasted the actual thing (although it was in Munich), I have to say it lived up to expectations. :)

The three dishes we ordered were all the "recommended" items on the menu. The portions were huge, so this was a lot for four people!

But somehow we found room for dessert. :P

One is pannacotta (RM10.90). I think this is my first time trying it, even though I've heard of it many many times before.

Verdict? Nice, creamy but not too much so... just nice :)

Then there was a German dessert called rote gruetze (RM11.90). It is a dessert of red berries and sago (the sago is coloured red, and I think flavoured with berry syrup as well) with whipped cream (at least I think it's whipped cream; it could be some other cream as well :P )

You can find more information about this dessert here on Wikipedia. There are also lots of recipes online, but I doubt I'll be making this myself; where would I get the berries? (plus it is seriously unhealthy with all the cream...)

We were lucky enough to go there during a promotion for Ingolf's 19th anniversary, so we received a 20% discount if we paid by cash.

A light in the night

In the night
when there's a light,
Shadows will splay
where there are none in the day.

When I saw that the theme was night, I immediately thought of taking a photo of my neighbour's balcony garden when it was lighted up at night. Unfortunately, all week long, I didn't see the lights on once!

Last night, reaching the deadline (it was the last night before the next theme arrived, after all), I took a photo of a light that we seldom switch on at home. The resulting shadows were pretty interesting, so I decided to use that as my Photo Friday picture instead!

Here is the actual light with the shadows.