Desire to win

Aren't their eyes burning with a desire to win?

With a theme like desire...it was hard to think of what to take a photo of. Luckily these two fierce Pokemon came to my rescue :P

Otak-otak from Eastern Wishes

We visited Eastern Wishes again after a long time. I have posted about it twice before.

We basically ordered usual dishes again, trying two new dishes which were seafood otak-otak and pandan chicken.

The otak-otak was very unusual...even though it was good, I actually feel cheated because it is actually seafood in otak-otak sauce, with egg, instead of actual otak-otak.

The pandan chicken had a nice taste, but some pieces were too hard. (over-fried?)

The other dishes were what we had ordered before, so I won't say anything more about them...they tasted the same as on our previous visits.

Revisiting Mak Jah

We had previously visited Mee Udang Mak Jah during a trip to Taiping, which I had written about here.

This time, we dropped by on our way back from Ipoh.

During our first visit, they told us they didn't have sotong goreng tepung, despite the fact that we had seen photos of it in reviews of the place. This time, we discovered that the sotong goreng tepung was from another stall, which had not been open during our first time there. The stall also had cucur udang, which seemed to be very popular, from the number of tables ordering it. So we tried that as well.

I was surprised that the sotong came as whole pieces of smaller sotong, and not cut into rings like most places do it. The batter is really crispy, and I feel it is similar to the batter for the fried prawns (see old post, or below...)

The cucur udang was not as special, though it was not bad either. It comes with tau kua and peanut sauce (like satay sauce, without the satay)

From Mak Jah, we ordered mee udang again, and of course the fried prawns. We also ordered a plain mee udang (without prawns), so that we wouldn't take too much cholesterol :P 

And we tried a char kuey teow, which wasn't as good as the mee udang.

I don't know what's the thing with Malay char kuey teow, but the kuey teow portion is always extremely small!

This time round, the taste of the mee udang (and the fried udang) was similar to before, but the prawns seemed less fresh. Some of them were soft. And some were smaller in size. There were more prawns in the fried dish this time, probably because of their smaller size.

Cottage 75 again

On our last trip to Ipoh, we ordered food from Cottage 75 Cafe again. This time we had a few Grabfood vouchers, so we used it order these!

The prices have definitely gone up since before, plus we were using Grab which jacked the prices up further...so I won't bother checking the prices to write here. I just remember that the lamb shank cost 40+, and the other two were probably at 30+.

We tried the lamb shank for the first time, because we had the vouchers. It would have been too expensive otherwise!

It's nice that they packed the sauce separately. The sauce had mushrooms in it.

Then we ordered the two dishes that had made the biggest impressions during our first visit: the beef burger and the emerald seabass.

Although they don't look as good when presented in boxes, the taste was still yummy!

Boring work

This week's photo theme was work. Possibly one of the most boring themes...so many possibilities, none of them very appealing :P

In the end I decided on a photo of my laptop bag. When going to work, bringing this is a must!

The same laptop was featured in the previous Photo Friday...I promise I shall not use it for next week's!

Lots of symbols

The theme for this week was symbols.

I just received my new laptop at work, and besides all the symbols on the keyboard, there are two semi-transparent stickers with other symbols on them!

Two cool towers

Very cool indeed...

This was at Taiping's Larut Matang Hawker Centre. The green one is kiwi-flavoured, and the one on the right is normal ais kacang, but higher!

Since last week's photo theme was cool, these towers are perfect for the theme.

At the bottom left of the last photo, a tiny bit of satay can be seen... A lot of stalls were closed because of CNY, so we didn't get to try a lot of things, but the satay was very good. There was pork or chicken; both were good, but pork was better. (No photo because it just looks like normal satay)

A strange blob

I was sweeping up some leaves (a ton! -_- ) on the porch when I noticed something strange among them... 

What is it?

There was a smaller piece nearby.

I usually wait till the end of the week before posting my Photo Friday pic, so that I can choose the best fit for the theme from any ideas or opportunities that might arise throughout the whole week. But this is so strange that I think I won't find anything better. (or even if I do, I would still want to post this!)

Catching 'em all

So Darlie has this promo where you get a free mug or bowl when you buy a box of two tubes of toothpaste.

Needless to say, I was tempted to “catch ‘em all”.

And guess what...

They’re all here! (well, almost…)

I first managed to get the Charmander mug from Giant. I bought two boxes, wanting both the Pikachu and Charmander mugs (there was not a bowl to be seen at Giant!), but when I got to the free gift counter, I was told that there were no Pikachu left. :'(

Luckily, they allowed me to return the second box of toothpaste (they didn’t refund me, but I got to exchange it with other products)

Here's what's on the other side of the Charmander mug:

And on the bottom:

It looks like the only time I buy Darlie is when they give me mugs…I still have the previous box I bought, when I got a Hello Kitty mug!

Like I said, I only managed to get a Charmander mug from Giant. So where did the Pikachu mug and Eevee bowl come from?

When I went to Sunshine, I decided to check at the free gift counter whether they had any of the mugs or bowls left, and in what designs. There was only one Pikachu left! I asked the lady at the counter whether she could keep it for me, and she said no (as expected). She said that I could go in and buy the toothpaste immediately.

I hesitated for a while, because I didn’t want to be extra-disappointed if I went and bought the toothpaste immediately and then have someone else take the Pikachu away before I reached the counter… But then I decided to just go for it. So I bought one of each (there are different kinds of toothpaste for the mug and the bowl), paid for them immediately, and went to the counter to claim my gifts.

And so here they are! This is the design on the other side.

During my first visit to the counter, I had also checked that they had Eevee available. (There were only two or three left, I think) When the lady took out the Eevee bowl for me, she remarked, “There’s a Pikachu on the other side as well.” She also mentioned that a number of people also came to the free gift counter to check the availability of the gifts first. (everyone wanting to catch the one they want :P )

So the only one missing from the collection is the Squirtle bowl… sorry Squirtle, but I really can’t afford to buy any more Darlie. However, I have a lovely 3D Squirtle to complete my collection. :P

(I caught a glimpse of the other side of the Squirtle bowl as the lady at the counter was moving things around…I think it had Charmander and Squirtle on it, with the Charmander having a similar pose as the one with Bulbasaur.)

A delicate situation

When you have only one pair of walking shoes left, and they look like this:

(Yes, I'm already looking for another pair...)

Before the whole Covid thing started, I had three pairs of shoes, which I was interchanging. During Covid, I definitely wore them less...though I did try to wear them once in a while, even if it meant only wearing them to the market or to buy groceries.

But I guess that may not have been enough. They didn't immediately break apart when I started wearing them again for longer periods of time, but gradually two of them broke apart (as in, a sole separated from the shoe) So now I am left with this one...which looks to be approaching the same fate. :(

The thing is, on those two pairs of shoes that fell apart, each one broke on a different shoe (one was the left, the other was the right). Now what if I were to wear the remaining (lonely) ones with each other? :P Problem is, the shoes look extremely different; one is bright pink while the other is a light green...I wonder whether I can pull off this new fashion. :P 

Psst...last week's photo theme was delicate!