Tag for a meme

Today I am so excited to be posting! That is because I am tag for a meme. This is very kindly done by Sweetrosie. Wah! I don't know about other floggers who Sweetrosie is tagging, but I feel very honour to be tag.

So the rule for this meme is as follows:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Random Facts about Me

1. My favourite food is Hainanese Chicken Rice (with steam chicken, not roast chicken). I can eat it everyday and don't feel bored.

2. Even though I have travel oversea a lot both for work and for holiday, my favourite holiday place is Genting Highlands. I know a lots of people think that it is not a sophisticated place, but I like it because got so many activities to do, so many different types of people there, it is one of the cold place in Malaysia I can wear my wool clothes, and there has a lot of varieties of food to eat (from the bottom of the mountain and all the way to the top of the mountain).

3. I read a lot of books, newspaper, blog, flog, magazine, to try and improve my English. That is one of the reason I keep this flog, so that I will write more in English.

4. The place that I never go before which I very much want to visit is Melbourne. I hear so much about the lovely food and wine there, I see it on TV during the Melbourne F1 grandprix, I have friend there - I hope next year when AirAsiaX fly cheaply there, I can also visit Melbourne.

5. My dream car is a Mercedes Benz sports car. I wish to drive a SL one day. It will be gold colour and I will also buy a "8888" number plate for the car.

6. One skill whihc I make priority to acquire is to know how to take good photo. I am always very awe when I see the beautiful photo that people post on their flogs! I also want to be able to take good photo.

7. I always very easy to be influence by advertisement. In these last 2 years, I change my skin care to SKII because the ladies who advertise for it have so lovely and fair complexion. I also buy a Tag Hauer watch because it is advertise by my favourite actor, Brad Pitt.

I wish to tag the following people :

Evil Jungle Prince

Yatie

Tham Jiak

Babe KL

Lyrical Lemongrass

MeiYen

Eating Asia

I hope they enjoy doing this meme also. Thank you once more to Sweetrosie.

Fresh?

I have not post for a long time because I am very busy at work. At the end of the year, we always have budget issue, so everyone is very busy trying to do that.

I choose the title "Fresh" for today post because I am going to see Kool and the Gang concert next week! Wah ... I hear their songs for so long already, and now I will get to see them live. But I am not sure if they can still sing since it is so long since they have a hit song. But I still remember their song "Fresh", which is one of my favourite. The Kool and the Gang is sharing the concert with James Ingram, so I think so the concert will be very interesting even though both of them are probably very old by now.

But that is the thing about Malaysian people, we always like to make excuse for the things and people we like. I can say so that we are very generous people in our ways. You maybe thinking that that I am starting to talk cock especially when you see the photo of this post. But I am coming to the point.

The point is that, even though I like to eat fresh food, sometimes I am making excuse for the foods which is full of preservative. Because I like the taste very much! So once in a while I will eat the most unhealthy foods. But I tell myself, at least it is freshly cook.

Here you can see some photo from my lunches. I love the Chinese sausage or lap cheong. There are generally 2 type of lap cheong - the liver type and the pork type. Both also I love to eat. The darker one is the liver sausage (see photo below), and the lighter colour is the pork sausage (top photo). Both are full of salts, and sugar and preservatives and fats, but I really love the taste.

I also love the preserve vegetable. At home I never cook it, so when I go and eat economy rice, I am very happy if I see the preserve vege. I will surely scoop some onto my plate. This variety is the pickle mustard green, or "kiam chye". It is quite salty if it is not soak for a long time. Usually it is cook with a bit of pork and chilli and sugar which is very delicious. One time I eat it cook with ray fish, also very delicious. This is also full of salt and preservative.

Lastly, I also like chye poh, or pickle radish. There are usually 2 types - sweet and salty, and this is the salty type shown here. Sometimes it is fry wiht pork, sometimes it is stir fry with long bean, tofu, peanut and chilli, and sometime is fry with egg to make omelette. All also are my favourite.

So today I tell you about my secret addiction to preservative and unhealthy foods. I will think about that when I hear the song "Fresh" next week.

No low fat low sodium and low calories for fast foods

Today I have a lot of fun. My cousin sister from Sekinchan come to visit me. She is driving her new car - a gold colour Toyota Camry. She drive us to go for lunch.

Because she is from small town, she always love to go to fast foods restaurant whenever she come to KL. So even though I don't really enjoy fast foods, I always accompany her to eat. But this time I choose the restaurant, which is Kenny Roger Roasters. Actually I choose Kenny Roger not because the food is very delicious or anything, but it is because they say that the food is low fat, low sodium and low calories.

You may be wonder why I think about calories when I write a flog! But actually I am worry because many floggers I meet are all fat. So I also afraid that I will put on weight from keeping this flog. So I try and eat healthy when I can.

So we order the 1/4 chicken, and 3 sides with the famous corn muffin. Me and my cousin sister have the same taste so we order the same side dishes. We order coleslaw, pasta salad and cucumber and tomato salad. And we also share a pilaf rice. All are very delicious. So we polish off everything from our plate including the delicious chicken gravy. I also love the corn muffin, which go very well with everything.

So we go home feeling very full and nice. But when I check on the internet on the number of calories that we just eat, I am shock! The meal which I just have is 1100 calories! And it have too many gram of fat and sodium. Thats mean that if I count my whole day limit of 2000 calories, I eat 55% of it in one meal (the website I see is using a total Daily Value of 2000 calories, and some fat and sodium formula which the US government use, and the number you see below for DV is mean % of Daily Value).

The calorie are coming from:

1/4 chicken (I like drumstick and skin) - 270 cals (14% DV), 26% fat DV and 22% sodium DV

coleslaw - 225 cal(11% DV) 25% fat DV, 12% sodium DV

tomato cucumber salad - 125 cal (6% DV), 3% fat DV and 33% sodium DV

pasta salad - 230 cal (11.5% DV), 18% fat DV and 13% sodium DV

corn muffin- 163 cals (8% DV), 9% fat DV and 10% sodium DV

rice pilaf (1/2 portion) - 88 cals (4.5% DV), 4% fat DV and 6% sodium DV.

So all in all is 1101 cals (55% DV), 85% fat DV and 96% sodium DV! I am really shock! How healthy is that? So I realise that the actual tagline is "lower fat, lower sodium and lower calories" and is not the same as "low fat, low sodium and low calories". Now I understand why people who eat a lot of fast food usually not healthy. People say that Kenny Rogers go for plastic surgery -thats why his looks change so much, but maybe it is change because he eat too much of his roasters roast chicken and side dishes!

Very steam steamboat!

I just come back from dinner. As you may know, we in Malaysia celebrate the Hari Raya Aidilfitri 13 and 14 of this month. It is the Muslim festival to celebrate end of fasting month. So because we are a multiracial country who love food, this few weeks we have been invited to many open house.

To people not from Malaysia, maybe you are not familiar wiht open house concept. Basically it mean party with food, and it is usually during festive period. So in Malaysia, it is usual to have open house during Aidilfitri, Chinese New Year and Deepavali. Thats mean that during that time, your friends who celebrating the festival will invite you visit their homes. And there, they will prepared all the lovely foods which is according to the festival.

So for Aidilfitri, you can taste many local favourites like rendang, laksa, lemang, ketupat, satay, and a lot more. Most of the foods is very fattening and use a lot of oils and coconut milk. Many flogs have write about about this kind of thing, so I don't do the same. Instead I can tell you that for a break, I have a very plain dinner tonight - steamboat.

Steamboat is actually like a hotpot. The restaurant give you a hot pot of soup and some raw foods- meats, fish, vege etc and you just cook the food in the soup. It is very light and tasty. Tonight I eat steamboat with different. Instead of soup, inside the hotpot is porridge. In Malaysia when we say porridge it is not oats, but rice porridge (congee). This is a very delicious way of cooking the food and I enjoy very much.

There is 3 of us eating, so we order only a little bit. We have the standard order for 2 people:

and we add some meat tendon balls:

fish ball with oyster and "fatt choi" (like a thin seaweed which look a bit like pubic hair):

mussles:

slice mutton - it has many fats in it, but it taste more nicer this way:

slice pork neck which the restaurant say is imported, but not say import from where:

pumpkin (which you can see is the yellow thing in the porridge):

pig kidney and some vege. The sauce they give is 2 types - chilli sauce (red colour)and very hot chilli sauce (green colour):

When you are cooking the foods, the porridge is becoming tastier. Also because the restaurant put some MSG into the foods or it is already there in the so-called balls and other process foods. But all in all, it is a very delicious meal, and it is a different thing from the normal steamboat.

Like we like to say in Malaysia - very steam lah!! (meaning "it's great" or "it's hot" or "it's cool").

Italy come to Malaysia

I want to continue more about the story of I visit Pavilion shopping centre. As you can read below I specially go there to see Dr Mahathir bakery. But near to the bakery is a very lovely cafe. I think this is my new favourite cafe.

Some reader of this flog may not know that I love drinking coffee. My favourite coffee is latte. Last time, before Kuala Lumpur is become a sophisticated city, all the coffee I can find here is only the nescafe or the local coffee serve in the coffee shop or the filter coffee. But one day, it is all change by the sneaky tactic of the cigarette company ...

You see in Malaysia they start to ban cigarette advertising. Of course for a long time they already ban advertisement with people smoking, but the cigarette company is very smart. They advertise other thing with their brand name so that it is not a cigarette advertisement but is still their brand. Example is the "Salem High Country" (which got all sorts of mountain scenery as if smoking make the air pure). Or "Mild Seven Adventure" (which is a travel scene on the sea which as if smoking is a very fun thing). Or "Benson and Hedges Gold Centre" (which is a creepy advertisement with a figure look like the devil blowing a pipe). So when they stop all that on tv, the Benson and Hedges is still very smart - they open up a cafe.

So the Benson and Hedges cafe is open in town, and one of the thing they introduce to us is the Italian style coffee. I think it is to show that smoking is like La Dolce Vita. So that is the first time I am drinking the so called "latte", "cappucino", "espresso" and etc. Of course it is a very big adventure to me - when they give me the menu I don't know what all the coffees is, so I have to learn by trial and error. I find out that the one which is very worth it is the latte (very big glass), and the one which is not worth it is the espresso (very small cup).

This new cafe at the Pavilion which I think is first in Malaysia is call "Espressamente illy". You may have see before the illy coffee in the supermarket, but illy not only make coffee powder. It also open cafe selling their own coffee. So I read on the illy website that it have more than 120 cafe, which 70 is oversea and 50 is in Italy. This is probably a franchise because the bill at the back say "La Bodega" so I think it is open by the people who open La Bodega.

The place is very beautiful decor and classy looking. But it is a bit disorganise, maybe because it just open and it is very crowded. But it is quite OK to stand at the counter to self-service because the gwailoh making the coffee is very good looking. So I don't mind waiting for my coffee.

I order a cafe latte which is serve in a glass - look a bit like martini glass (you can see the first picture above). The coffee is a bit expensive, but it is very good quality coffee. I recommend everyone to go there and try it.

Look East Again

I say before on this flog that I love Japanese food because of Dr Mahathir, our former prime minister. Now I think I love Japanese bread also because of Dr Mahathir.

Dr Mahathir when he first become Prime Minister introduce to Malaysia a new policy call "Look East". Thats mean that we Malaysia (truly Asia) should look at other Asian country as example of success, and not only to the Western country. Example, Japan - which at that time in the 1980-something is a successful economy, not like today. So all of us look east, and now is already a habit to look east.

But one thing about Dr Mahathir, when he say something he really mean it. Until today he still look east. Why I say this is because recently Dr Mahathir do a bakery business. The bakery is selling item baked in Japanese style. His business partner is Japanese name Jiro Suzuki. I think this is the same Jiro as the one last time is running a debt venture fund in Malaysia. He move from one dough to another.

Anyway, Dr Mahathir first open his bakery call "The Loaf" in Langkawi. You may not realise that Langkawi today is successful because Dr Mahathir give a lot of encouragement. Like the LIMA air show and the tax free of Langkawi must say thank you to Dr Mahathir.

Now The Loaf is open in KL at the new shopping centre call "Pavilion". It is a very big and luxury shopping centre and I go there during our recent hari raya holiday. I straight go to Dr Mahathir bakery because I read many thing on his daughter's blog about it.

It is a lovely location facing the main road. And you can sit on the sidewalk to enjoy the food and drinks. The decoration inside is also very nice.

As you can see the bakery is pack with people of all kinds - old, young, local, foreign. And all are mentioning Dr Mahathir name. So maybe he is like a magnet. And people are buying the breads like nobody's business. Even though the price is quite expensive, everyone is taking the bread like it is free. I think so sure this bakery is making many profits. You can see here that the bread looks very lovely but it is cost RM20 a loaf! (To compare one normal wholemeal bread loaf is RM2.50). I am not sure why if this is Japanese bakery why the name of the bread in French - it mean "country cheese", but the ingredient are not country-style or cheese. If I open a bakery next time also I will give all foreign name to the bread so that it sound more high class and I can charge more money for it.

And to make sure it is high class, the Loaf also give a very nice tray and bag for you to take away your bakery goods.

Since so many people rushing for the bread, I just grab whatever I can - so I buy 2 croissants and 1 gorgonzola + rosemary bun. The croissant is RM4.60 each, and it is only normal size. I think it is expensive. But when I taste it, I am fall in love with it - you can really taste the butter in the croissant. Very lovely and flaky. But the gorgonzola cheese bun (RM3) is disappoint - it is dry like it bake for too long in the oven.

Here is a photo of the baker. He is making the bread at the Loaf bakery itself.

I feel like telling the baker that the bread is bake too long, but since this is only the first few weeks it is open, I think we can give chance to the baker.

Giles Coren - You don't know much about char koay teow lah!

Sometime I read the foreign newspaper to try and imrpove my English. I usually read online. I like reading the UK newspaper with the same name as our Malaysian one - so I read the Times, the Sun and hte Mail. Since I start writing this flog, I read the food page of all those newspaper.

I read the column by the Times writer, Giles Coren. He is writing something like my style of writing hwich is copying the Jeremy Clarkson style. He usually also start his article talking cock about something else not related to food, then after 5-6 paragraphs only start to talk about food.

Usually I like to read about what he write. He is quite funny but he always sound like he think he know a lot about everything. I usually believe that he know a lot of thing because he write for the famous newspaper. But I realise that many gwailoh don't really know what they are talking about, but they can sound like they know a lot. Very pandai to talk! It is the same thing as if you watch on tv the cooking and travel show by Keith Floyd. He talk like he know very much and he can cook very well in so many country! So I believe until I see the episode he film in Malaysia. And he cooking so-called Malaysian food on tv. Then I know that he is also talking rubbish. I cannot imagine the taste of the food that he make! In the first place, not like Malaysian food, and in the 2nd place, even if he make his own recipe, the food is sure to taste very weird because of the way he cook and the ingredient that he combine in the food.

So I was talking about Giles Coren. You must read his article on a Malaysian restaurant in London, the so-called "Kiasu". Already when I read this, I know something is wrong. Everyone know that Kiasu is a word which is more Singaporean than Malaysian. If I am not mistake, there is a cartoon book on "Kiasu" which is definitely Singaporean.

Anyway, the article is talking partly about his visit to KL where he is taken to see some prostitute and after that, he go and eat char koay teow. At first I think - "Wah! This gwailoh also like the same food as me." But then after reading his article, actually I don't know what kind of char koay teow he is eating. I show you the main part here :

"Mostly, though, the marathon eating sessions came at char kuay teow stalls dotted across the city, many of which we rushed to in a fleet of cabs straight from the previous joint, if we heard word that it had something special to offer.

They’re not clean and they’re not pretty. They’re all about
side-alley canyons pocked with air-con units pumping legionnaires’ disease into the foetid night, rats, plastic crockery in dirty washbowls, young men looking old, standing at giant, sparking, charcoal-fired woks cooking as long as they can before their eyeballs melt, chunky slimy noodles, crunchy pork crackling, egg, shrimp, little bowls of fiery chopped chilli in soy sauce on the side, the taste of fire and earth, your own sweat in your eyes and nose, and cool Tiger beer in your throat. So much scarier than a cheap hooker with bad tatts, you’d think, and yet we lapped it up."

Of course I know that talking about eating char koay teow is not really interesting, so he must make like it is an adventure. He never tell his reader that char koay teow is so easily found in many coffee shop or cafe or even hotel restaurant that he doesn't need to go to the side alley to find the stall. And then, for everyone who eat char koay teow before, when have you see it serve with "little bowls of firey chopped chilli in soy sauce on the side"? Actually the only place I see it serve like that is in hotel restaurant. That is so Malaysian style, NOT! Which make me think that actually the Giles Coren only eat char koay teow in hotel restaurant, so he must make a side alley story to make it more intersting.

Either that or actually he don't really know how to eat char koay teow, so he always eat it with the chop chillies with soy sauce. Because you can read in his restaurant review later that that is what he is doing in the Kiasu restaurant too.

If anyone know Mr Giles Coren, you can please tell him that that is not the way to eat char koay teow. If he want it spicy, the chilli paste is add into the char koay teow from the beginning. If he eat it the way he write about it, most Malaysian will know that he is eating it in a hotel restaurant or a Malaysian restaurant with a Singapore name which also serve ngoh hiang (which we hardly get in Malaysian restaurant, but easily find in Singapore). It is so Keith Floyd.