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giddy giddy chef at home June 25, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home, Drooling & Cooking , 15comments

My good gal pal Audrey recommends the show Chef at Home on the Asian Food Channel. She mentioned that the show features a guy with a five o’clock shadow who is also a father. I found out his name is Michael Smith and he cooks really spectacular meals with just basic ingredients in his kitchen. I watched the show last night and boy, was my tummy rumbling and screaming for the Cornmeal Crusted Salmon With Basil Mussel Broth he dished up. Of course, it helped that he had a larder full of spices and a fridge full of fresh ingredients, but I tell you, I got myself addicted to this show now. Yeah, and ain’t it great that the recipe is available online? No need to frantically jot down the ingredients and method while watching the show.

In fact, last night I was my very own version of Chef at Home when I decided to throw together a quickie dinner of fried rice. It had been ages since I made fried rice, but I was eager because one can hardly go wrong with fried rice, and since I had some leftover rice from the weekend, it is definitely a frugal step to not waste it. I added whatever I could find from the fridge into the fried rice: chopped pumpkin, baby corn, some spinach and I flicked some of the frozen carrot strips in the freezer and chopped them up too. Eggs are a must, and for the protein element, I found some lapcheong, and sliced them up real nice too. Good thing there were a couple of cili padi left in the fridge which my hubby chopped up and drizzled with some soy sauce and voila…a simple dinner for two in the comfort of our humble abode:

It’s actually quite a healthy meal because most of my ingredients are organic ones. Not bad, considering it’s a leftover meal, eh? :razz:

Food scare and frugality June 7, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking, Thoughts & Scribblings , 14comments

I woke up this morning, totally exhausted by the happenings of the previous night, and yet truly thankful it was all behind me and that today was the first day of a 3-day weekend.


Photo credits

Yesterday evening, we had Japanese food for dinner, and as I normally would, I ordered the Tenzaru Soba: Cold soba served with cold tempura sauce which was mixed with wasabi, spring onions and one raw quail’s egg.  It was delicious of course, and I downed it all with gusto.  We then headed for Queensbay Mall for some looksee and shopping, and after an hour, we headed for home.

As soon as I got into the car, I started feeling queasy.  It felt like heartburn, so I thought maybe I had eaten too fast.  Then when we reached our condo, I started hyperventillating, and was very nearly out of breath.  It felt like I was having an asthma attack, what with the wheezing and all.  I know these attacks too well, having suffered from childhood asthma when I was young, but I had since recovered from it ever since I took up swimming.  Anyway, it was all coming back to me all over again, and I could not even talk properly, but had to just sit still and take deep breaths slowly.

When I eventually started regaining my breath, I went to take a shower.  And that’s when I discovered that my face and hands were all covered in itchy raised red patches, something like hives.  The worse part was I couldn’t stop scratching, and soon the rashes spread to my whole body!  I tell you, my face swelled up like some beast woman, and my eyelids were swollen till my eyes looked so tiny!

My husband already suspected food poisoning, and it was further confirmed when I had mild diarrhoea later on.  And then subsequently, I threw up all of the nicely undigested soba meal…which made me feel really much better afterward.  Immediately after vomiting, the rashes started subsiding, and I went to bed shortly after that.

Today, my face has *relatively* returned to normal, but some of the rashes are still present.  They are subsiding though.  I don’t think I will ever look at a serving of Tenzaru Soba the same way again.  In fact, it might take me a long long while to get over the paranoia of it all.  Urrrgggghhh.  I blame it on the raw quail’s egg, which was the only thing I took that hubbs and Ethan did not. 

So of course today, I had to take food which were *kinder* to the tummy.  Homecooked food was the answer.  And although I originally intended to cook claypot chicken rice, I changed plans and cooked steamed rice with dishes instead.  For lunch, we had steamed chicken with black fungus and wolfberries…

 

…and for dinner, steamed ginger chicken.  Both meals of course had the obligatory vegetables in the form of freshly sliced cucumber and the feelgood factor of my favorite watercress soup.  Apparently the steamed ginger chicken went down better with both boys… :razz:

And with that, we succeeded in saving one day’s worth of petrol, because we didn’t even use our car today! 

Hundred-year lane lunch June 2, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking, Relax & Celebrate, Thoughts & Scribblings , 7comments

We almost always tend to ignore the simplicity of life. Meals almost always have to cost a lot to taste good. But in reality, all you need is good company, a decent parking spot near the kopitiam and hope that the shop is open. Haha….my hubby and I have had a 50% success rate with the Xin He kopitiam on Lorong Seratus Tahun. We’ve only attempted to eat there four times, and out of that, only twice have we succeeded. And now we know they close on Thursdays.

Anyway, today, since I am nursing a cough and a slightly sore throat, I will be all goody-goody and eat koay-teow th’ng. I even had ampula-sui-boey for its supposedly good and curative effects on the throat…..

…..and then I will fight fire with fire and have a bowl of insatiable assam laksa. Good?

Blown away by the breeze May 8, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking , 13comments

Who doesn’t appreciate homecooked food?  Especially if it tastes really good and arrives like 10 minutes after the order had been placed… We recently stumbled upon a nice and cozy restaurant nestled in Aboo Sitee Lane in Penang.  Actually hubbs went there with some friends of his, and he was going on and on about how good the food was, that I simply HAD to try it out.  Oh by the way, I just found out that Aboo Sitee Lane in Hokkien means Gangsters’ Lane.

So anyway, the name of this restaurant is Nyonya Breeze and upon first glance, one might pass it off as a vegetarian restaurant, simply because of its (misleading) green and white signboard.  This picture was taken as we were leaving the place.  See the two cute guys in the doorway? *grin*

We didn’t order a lot since it was only two adults and one rice-loving kid dining.  Only four small dishes and dessert.  We ordered tau eu bak (braised pork with soya sauce), acar hu (sort of a pickled fish), jiu hu char (shredded radish, carrots, cuttlefish etc served with fresh green lettuce) and huan choo heok masak lemak (sweet potato leaves and sweet potatoes cooked in a soup mixture with TONS of santan).

I loved ALL of the food.  It was a nice authentic touch that the food was all served in those old-fashioned plates with the pink flower designs.  Actually I enjoyed the food so much that I almost did not notice that the tau eu bak did not have any eggs.  I did LOVE the masak lemak dish though.  Reminds me of the one my grandma and mother makes.  Mom calls it masak titek, which I believe is the same.  I can almost taste the flavor and aroma of the santan even as I am typing this now.  Definitely a must-order when I come back to the restaurant next time.  Not to self: get recipe from Mom.

I noticed a lot of elderly nyonya-looking folk eating at the restaurant too, which goes to show that the food must be good.  Lunch came up to RM37.75, which was very reasonable.  Of course it helped that our newly approved CIMB Platinum MasterCard qualified us for a 10% discount off the bill.

A dinner story at Friday’s May 5, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking , 16comments

When we dine out, we value exceptional service, much more so than the quality of food served.  Of course, the food needs to be definitely above average, but if we do encounter a restaurant with delicious food coupled with horrible service, or rather service that makes us, the diners, feel uncomfortable, we will not think twice about boycotting it after that.

Therefore, it goes without saying that the reason we keep coming back for more to Friday’s is the impeccable service we receive whenever we dine there.  Well, save for a few instances where we were assigned dumb not-too-smart server-challenged servers, we do walk out of the restaurant feeling good about our dining experience.  Last Thursday, Labor Day, was no exception.  We ended up having our dinner at Friday’s because our initial plan of going to Soba Yoshi backfired when we discovered Soba Yoshi decided not to labor on Labor Day :P

Here’s what we ordered at Friday’s:

(sorry, no foodie pictures this time round.  I actually THOUGHT I had an old picture of the quesadilla’s somewhere in my archives, but apparently not)

True to the exceptional service, the kids’ chicken spaghetti was served first, together with the shrimp martini, and after that the ribs came.  I had almost finished my plate of ribs, but my hubby’s chicken quesadillas had not yet arrived. 

The manager at Friday’s suddenly came to our table and presented us with a bowl of mushroom soup on the house.  He did not tell us what it was for, so we thought it was to compensate the delay in the arrival of the quesadillas (or perhaps because we were regulars there *wink*). 

A few minutes later and still no sign of the missing quesadillas, we asked the manager to check on the status of our order.  Then a few minutes later, our server came to our table and asked us, “You ordered just one main course, right?” 

Duh. We stared at her and said, “No…. we also ordered a chicken quesadillas!” 

She walked off hastily, with the manager hot on her tail, *scolding* her or something.

A while later, the server came back to our table, apologized for forgetting to include the order earlier on and reassured us that the chicken quesadillas would be arriving in about 5 minute’s time.

And that’s why, boys and girls, all servers should ALWAYS ALWAYS repeat their orders.

Anyway.

After our meal, Ethan was restless so I took him out for a walk while hubby finished his meal and paid up.  Later, my hubby told me the manager came up to him and told him the quesadillas was on the house.  However, when my hubby asked for the bill, the manager decided to charge us even LESS than what he would have charged us had he only removed the chicken quesadillas from the bill.  In the end, instead of paying RM68.65 for the stuff our meal (sans the quesadillas), we ended up paying just RM44.75 for the stuff that was supposedly complimentary.  I guess it’s just Friday’s way of recording their inventory or something.  Not complaining though.  It’s a good consolation…everyone’s happy…well, except for maybe the poor server who made the mistake though.

Now THAT is what I call SERVICE.  Making the customer happy :P

Believe me, I have dined in restaurants where even after I had complained there was a STAPLE in my son’s food, they did nothing but solemnly take the plate away with nary a single word or apology.  The nerve!

Of course, that wasn’t the only good thing that came out of our dinner that night.  We met Angie, Bart and Julian too, who were celebrating their anniversary at Friday’s.  And that encounter resulted in this very adorable family portrait, courtesy of Bart.  Thank you, it’s awesome!  We’ve not had a family picture taken for a long time now, and this was a splendid one…

Stress plus Cheese equals? April 28, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking , 26comments

It was the stress that drove me to it. My facial therapist commented that I have these really knotty stress knobs around the area between the base of my neck and my shoulders. The more stressed up someone is, the knottier the knobs are, it seems.

Well, oookay…stress AND craving for cheesecake made me do it. It had been ages since I made cheesecake and I thought why not? I used to make a similar non-bake cheesecake years ago, and since I recently stumbled on this Philly non-bake lemon cheesecake recipe, I decided to give it a go last Friday. I love it because it is so simple and easy to make and also, cos I didn’t need to turn on the oven. Plus it is extremely comforting to stuff myself with it and (hopefully) reduce the level of stress. Heh.

When I opened up the packets of Philadelphia cream cheese, lo and behold, I discovered that the recipe is actually contained in the box cover itself. There was also a recipe for dark chocolate cheese cake, which I might try at a later date. Y-U-M.

Philly Non-Bake Lemon Cheese Cake

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sweet biscuit crumbs (I have always ever used McVitie’s digestive biscuits, so that’s what I used this time round too)
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 x 250g Philadelphia brand cream cheese, softened at room temperature
2 teaspoons gelatine dissolved in 1/4 cup boiling water
1 x 400 g can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

DIRECTIONS

Tip: 1 cup biscuit crumbs equals approximately 10 sweet biscuits crushed. (with the Mcvitie’s digestives, it’s about 5-6 pieces)

Because I didn’t use a springform pan it was rather difficult to cut up that first piece of cake into a nice little slice, but it still tasted divine. I should rename the recipe to Lemon Crumble cheesecake or something, eh? Had a slight sore throat after downing the cake, and hubby thinks it’s the cheesecake, but I beg to differ….although I am taking it easy with the helpings now. Hehehe… The strawberries taste sublime with a dollop of that cream, though.

I wonder if Andie wants to trade a slice of her peach cheesecake with mine?

Yummy tummy mummy! April 4, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Close to Heart & Home, Drooling & Cooking , 24comments

My parents are here in Penang for a short holiday and of course, also to spend some cool quality time with their grandson.  Yesterday, while I was working from home, my parents were out running some errands downtown.  They came back in the afternoon with some surprises for me.  Cool!  You know how I love surprises!

Look! Mini darling ang-koos & chneh-koos!  The red ones contain grounded green pea paste whereas the green ones have coconut filling.  Who’s to say good things don’t come in small packages?

My parents also tar-powed one packet of char koay teow for me which I finished in a jiffy, hence no photos lo…

Tonight, Mama prepared a splendid concoction of Ba Zhen chicken soup, with kampung chicken and all the herbs and stuff.  Sorry, I don’t know the correct terms for these herbs, but they are supposed to be good for health and vitality la. I ain’t complaining cos it tastes great and I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep tonight…

Easter with the Giddy T’s March 24, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Christianity, Close to Heart & Home, Drooling & Cooking, Thoughts & Scribblings , 11comments

This year, Easter is celebrated much earlier (March 23rd) than other years. In fact, the next time this would happen would be in the year 2228 (220 years from now) . Good Friday saw me fasting and praying for the first time in at least three years. Since I am neither pregnant nor breastfeeding this year, it was the perfect time for me to fast, pray and dedicate my thoughts solely to the day Jesus gave His life on the cross for me. Hubbs and I had planned on going to church for the service at noon, but due to unforeseen circumstances, we didn’t…and we are kicking ourselves for that because had we gone, I might have been able to post a picture of the Giddy Tigress with the newly appointed Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng. Not that we are stalking him or anything like that, though…but if I do bump into him, I would love to extend a warm hello and welcome as a friendly *neighbour*.

On Saturday, we made a day trip to Ipoh to celebrate my nephew Collin’s full moon. It was again another excuse to stuff our tummies with food. Hehe… no regrets there. In fact, we were so full after the lunch that all plans of tar-powing the famous Canning Garden chee cheong fun vanished into thin air (although the stall was only a stone’s throw away). Ah well. There’s always next time.

Then came Easter Sunday. As usual, the church was packed full to the brim with parishioners (methinks some of them were hoping that the CM would make another appearance). We had to make do with sitting on plastic chairs placed by the pews, because we were ummm….a few minutes late. Actually, it was rather a blessing in disguise because we had a full view of the altar and was able to concentrate 100% on the sermon being delivered. Well…maybe 90% because of intermittent distractions from Ethan.

It was also Race Day (Sepang Formula 1 Grand Prix) and Super Sunday (Barclays Premiers League) that day, and hubbs hinted VERY loudly that he would prefer homecooked food for dinner that night. So I bought a few items from Jusco for cooking dinner. I was only able to start cooking at 5:55p.m. though, that’s when Ethan finally fell asleep. One hour later, I managed to whip up a piping hot dinner, one which hubby gave the thumbs up to, much to my delight. *grin*

Although Race Day ended with Kimi getting what he deserved (yay!!!), I shall choose not to say anything about the Super Sunday score, which I don’t think was super at all. Bleagghhh….

Chillout session at Chili’s March 3, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking, Ethan , 14comments

It was a really a spur of the moment decision.  The claypot chicken rice I had cooked for lunch was all finished, thanks to our lunch guests: uncle-in-law, brother-in-law and his fiancée.  So we had the perfect reason to go out for dinner last Saturday night.  What started out as a trip to McDonald’s ended up with us walking into Chili’s Gurney Place.  Would you believe it was our first visit there, since it opened so many moons ago? (well, a few months ago we *almost* ate there, but were turned off by the non-politeness of the welcoming crew)

Anyway, we stood outside and waited to be seated.  No one came for a good one minute or so, and when the lady came to ask us how many people in our party, she did so with nary a smile.  But we thought we would bear with it and see how the whole experience would turn out to be.  We were then ushered to our table and provided menus.

Hubbs ordered the lamb shoulder and I ordered the chicken monterey.  One cool thing about Chili’s is that they offer bottomless fruit juices, so of course I went for the mango juice, while hubbs went for the pina chillada (non-alcoholic, mind you.  Pina COLLADA is alcoholic, CHILLADA is not).  

By the way, don’t you think the mosaic design on the table is way cool?  Really unique.

Just like Friday’s, kids get to dine for free at Chili’s too, so I ordered a plate of spaghetti for Ethan and I was also pleasantly surprised that Ethan’s drink was on the house too.  My boy loves iced lemon tea and since it was not in the list of kids’ drinks, I requested for it and was delighted that they willingly obliged.  He finished the whole glass all by himself too!

All in all, the food was fantastic.  I especially loved the lamb shoulder and would definitely order it the next time I go, IF I go.  Service was well below par, I’m afraid.  In addition to the no-smile-greeting we had, right in the middle of our meal, someone interrupted us in a weird manner, I might add, and asked us how we found our dinner.  I notice this is something most restaurants practise these days, but unfortunately, it wasn’t done with tact, and so it appeared rather fake-ish. 

When we were leaving the restaurant too, no one thanked us for coming, unlike the jovial goodbyes we get at Friday’s.  There were no free balloons to give out to the kids at Chili’s too.  But then I suppose most Malaysians tend to overlook the bad service and go for the food, huh?  As long as there is bottomless chips, drinks and free food for the kids?

Wordless Wednesday 005 January 30, 2008

Posted by The Giddy Tiger in : Drooling & Cooking, Relax & Celebrate , 15comments


~ Wordless Wednesday ~