The Naked Truth About Strawberry ❤

There's nothing to be ashamed of. Those strawberry cupcakes, I admit I was a bit disappointed when I thought it was going to collapse in the middle again. I said again because of this...

I made this earlier. It was a real collapse in the middle which I covered with thick glaze. It was too sweet as I was told not to reduce sugar so I followed the recipe to the dot including the amount of caster sugar to be used. The whole batch was a flop but my guinea pigs love them because it was actually very delicious, but wasn't perfect to the eyes. And that's a lemon cupcake. 

Before I started the timer on the oven for the Strawberry ❤, I was praying for the Holy Spirit to deal with it while I went upstairs to keep my anxiety in check. I actually stood and stared at the cupcakes through the glass door of the oven. When I came back down after 20 minutes, I was thankful and said a little prayer to thank my Helper. The cupcakes were perfect. You see, I can make something using the same recipe but every time it would come out different. Now I know that I need to start everything with a little prayer.

New Shekou: Sea World...

Good things will always be kept in mind. I still remember the day we came back from Beijing, Pinky's dad came back for the weekend from his work in another state. We've visited him in the work place before. The next morning, Pinky's dad drove us to a new place. 

We were on our way to Shekou and I was like jumping up and down in glee. No need to walk like 10 miles a day, no need to squeeze with other passengers in the subway, no need to walk and walk and walk. I drive wherever I go back at home. But then the traffic in China was horrible. I wouldn't know how to drive there and I sure did not enjoy the congested traffic. I would rather walk and I heard the petrol was and is expensive. For a middle income earner, you might be able to buy a car but you might not be able to feed the car.

Shekou Sea World is not even a tinge bit like Bai Shi Zhou. They were two worlds apart. Shekou is more of a Westerner's hang out place with Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and lots of imported outlets where people just sit there and waste their time away make full use of their leisure time associating with others. Did you see the ship as the background? It's a seafood restaurant. Heard that it was pricey with lousy food that would not be up to my standard.

Even the construction of buildings adopted the English designs. The place doesn't look 'Chinese'. Don't ask me how I define a place as a 'Chinese' place. It just feels that way. It has the atmosphere of the Western feel.  It's a high end place, more like walking around Gurney Drive with all the expensive restaurants. It's so expensive that after I did a fast conversion on the rates, I would rather spend it when I go home. 

I was attracted with one of the advertisements pasted along the wall. McCawley's Burger Challenge. If you could gulp down the whole burger which was obviously impossible to swallow in one bite, and you finished it in less than 15 minutes, the burger would be on the house. If you lose the feat, then you would be 150yuan poorer. 150yuan (RM75) for such normal beef burger? That's cut-throat expensive.

Anyway, Pinky and I had a great time walking around as we were more exposed to Western culture and we like the clean place, without spittle on the ground. The crowd would only fill up the place at night, when all those whole love to have a good drink at the Bierhaus, would patronize the place. The parking fee was damn expensive so we quickly drove off to another place. Pinky's dad was very eager to show me that place and I was very eager to see what the Old Shekou has in store for me. This new place was the New Shekou.

Submarine in the Park?

It wasn't even a park. It was just a... I don't know what that place was either. It's with green grass where we walked over to the other side of Walmart. Pinky didn't even know what to describe about this thing sitting in the middle of nowhere. It couldn't be a one-man submarine, could it? It was so weird. Was it a steel porcupine? And what's with the direction pointers? North, south, east and west. What the heck was that? I'm very curious. I just wish someone could tell me what that was. It was in Shenzhen, somewhere near Walmart. 

I Can't Believe What I Just Did~!!!!!!

I did something scary. It wasn't as scary as when I started the water sports business. The water sports business gave me lots of headache. I started something called A Humble Beginning. That name just came popping in my head. Mi amigas and loyal guinea pigs have been asking me to sell everything that came out from my kitchen and I've brushed their comments aside. Then, I did wonder to myself, since they kept on saying it, why didn't God show me any sign to give me a bigger push. I need to be pushed hard to move. 

Then, one day something appeared on my Facebook wall. It was someone's album on baking. And they looked so simple that mine looked really complicated with decorations and stuff. I like beautiful things. Neat and beautiful. So, I was thinking to myself, if Lee could write a book, two books at that and that lady in my Facebook could sell the simple-looking cakes without any decorations on them, why couldn't I sell anything. 

The person who inspires me most in baking is none other Bunga Emas. That's her Facebook name. She has been asking me to start baking since two years ago. She will always give me the cakes that she tried doing and she's a fantastic baker. Couldn't I be like her as well? No harm in trying.

You know when I made those burgers, it was something non-existent that I always think of doing. There are so many types of burgers on sale now but I won't launch my Ju's burgers yet. Not going to use the name McJu just in case McD decides to slap me with a fine like what happened to McCurry.

What am I doing? Geez... I don't really know what I'm doing. I just started clicking here and there... Just click on this --> A Humble Beginning. I'm not really sure about what I'm doing now but do Like the page and follow on. It's a humble step at a time. I'm not rushing anywhere so I'm not going to rush into doing anything big. I have no problem in teaching as I've been doing that for 8 long years coming to 9 so... this is completely an alien platform to me.

Cake Overdose...

How does it feel like never to have a birthday cake? I made that orange and lemon cake for Danish, an eleven year old boy in my class. I did it just for the fun of baking. When we were waiting for him to cut the cake, he didn't do so. He felt kinda elated but awkward. He didn't know what to do with the kitchen cake knife. He didn't even know where or which part of the cake to start from. We asked him whether he has a birthday cake of his own before, which he said he has never had a birthday cake. So, this is the first cake for him. I have to say that it's not that beautiful, but hey, I'm a newbie trying out on baking. Give me a pat on my back. I was wrecking my head thinking of how best to decorate it. He likes Angry Bird but heck, I don't even know how to draw an Angry Bird on paper let alone doing it with a piping bag. We had this on Sunday, the 2nd of September.

Out of Danish's cake, I made another cake for ourselves. I made a couple of orange and lemon cakes but we've never even tasted it before. So, I separated the cake mixture and made one just for us. Couldn't think of any decoration method so I just use the writing fudge and started scribbling. Anyway, it's going to go into the stomach, as long as the cake is good, the decoration shouldn't be a bother. It's better to have an edible cake than having a nicely decorated cake that is not edible at all. We had this on Monday, the 3rd of September.

That's the very moist chocolate cake that I made for joey the kangaroo Zoe for her 15th birthday. It's good practice. I have lots and lots of guinea pigs to try out whatever that comes out from my kitchen. It was a really great experience making that chocolate musical pieces. And I learnt that by mixing a few drops of lemon juice to the whipping cream actually curdled the smooth texture. We had this on Tuesday, the 4th of September.

This is the imperfect sugee cake. Hubby loves sugee cake so I try to bake one on his birthday. I like pink colour. I'm the one decorating, so I like pink and I decorated the cake in pink. I love it to the max because it's my hands that did this. We had this on Wednesday, the 5th of September.

Oh, wow~! That's the UGLIEST cake ever~!! You'll have to agree with me when I say that but it's the BEST cake that I've ever baked. It's the nicest chocolate cheesecake. That you have to agree with me if you've tasted it. That cake gave me lots of problem while I was decorating it. Even from the moment it came out from the oven, it was on the verge of collapsing because I did a simple mistake... of removing the cheesecake out from the springtin immediately after it's out of the oven. We had this on Thursday, the 6th of September.

Visarn wanted something totally different. He's not a fan of cakes so he asked for pancakes instead. He thought it would be easier but it was even harder. I had to make the pancake one at a time which was so frustrating because it was my first time doing it and I was not good in controlling the fire because my stove is of hot lava, which means it burns really hot so that I can boil the soup and get food cooked in a very short period of time. Oh, I made Visarn the buttermilk and pandan pancakes with lots and lots of honey. He drinks honey straight from the bottle. He's worse than Pooh bear. Well, we had that on Thursday nite, the 6th of September.

Now you understand how all of us were cake overdosed? 

Juju's Burfday~!!

 It's Juju's burfday so what do you think we did for her? There wasn't any plan at all. I was very busy with the chocolate cheese cake and there was a huge problem with the cake due to my lack of experience in handling cheesecake. The cake was delicious beyond words but I do admit that it's the ugliest cake that I've ever seen or made. Judz has a surprise in store for Juju... Ta da~!

 We got her the inner wears which prove very useful... why... don't you agree with me? Don't we all need inner wears? So is there anything wrong with the gift? Well, she's definitely not accepting the gift. She returned us the gift... how honest that lady is... she's honest that she doesn't want that kinda gift as her birthday pressie. 

The tradition of blind-folding. Well, who started that kinda tradition? It must be Judz who set this trend :D ... I got blind-folded on the way to the nasty La France... was that the name of the restaurant with the rude owner? HHmmm... hhmm.... Judz is the only person who didn't get herself blind-folded on her birthday... come to think about it... hhmmm... hhmmm... she will DEFINITELY be blind-folded next year. Look how stunningly beautiful Juju was on that day. She was clothed in much splendour like a Sarawakian. We didn't plan it that way. Judz brought everything and they started dressing her up.

We led her to the garden to have the feel of the wilderness. It must be of Sarawak's natural environment. There's another bigger surprise in store for her. This time round it wasn't from any of us. The surprise came all the way from Kuching so it was just a coincidence that we dressed her that way. 

Well... well wasn't that a surprise. She was wondering what bundle was she carrying. It was a very nicely done bouquet of six roses with two Russ bears to resemble Jack Jack and Billy.

We had a great time taking photos at my garden. That palm behind makes the place good enough for snapping photos. There wasn't much standing space in my garden because of the vegetable plots but we did fine. 

We're good in using our free time. We were snapping photos using different functions. It's nice snapping photos because I love photography.

Lunch treat was in Tao, E-gate. We were there from 12 noon till 3:30p.m. the last order was at 3 p.m. Truth be told, out of so many types of food, I only like the abalone strips which I regretted for not calling for more. And we love the tender juicy lamb. We ordered again and again. It must be scary looking at the way we ate. The place wasn't worth going for the second time. The chuka idako tasted so bad we thought the octopus were having a high fever. The sashimi wasn't fresh enough. Happy birthday girl~! We know you truly enjoyed yourself... and it wasn't even your real day yet~! This was just the opening to Juju's burfday. We were given the honour to do the closing ceremony as well.... stay tune for more... for now, good nite~!!!!

My P's Burfday...

My hubby's burfday fall on the 5th of September. I treated him to Yosenabe, a Japanese steamboat restaurant that's very near home. The last time I was there, it was a very long time ago, more than two decades ago. The restaurant is still existing which means only one thing, the food is good enough. It's actually quite simple and mama we can simply do it ourselves next time. The next time I go with hubby, we'll only be frying the New Zealand beef which was really delicious. 

And that's hubby's burfday cake. I decorated that cake in less than an hour because I already have in mind how I wanted to do it. It's a sugee cake but not that perfect because of one the ingredients which make it bitter when you bit into it. I made another one a week later because I wasn't happy with this one. I perfected the next sugee cake... perfect to bits but if you're one who dislikes sweet stuff then you'll say that it's too sweet. A cake without sugar is not a cake. I've tested that many times where the cakes went straight into the dustbin. 

Grocery Re-education...

Please do not think much about the title of this post. I just feel like writing but I don't have any title that I can find suitable for any posts. That was my long-awaited post of the continuation of my travels in Shenzhen. Whenever Pinky and I walked from the MTR station, we would have to pass by Walmart to get home. I was thrilled to see Walmart and I couldn't wait to get there but since Pinky said it's so near to home, it would be last on the list of places to visit. So, I walked past Walmart a few times a day but we just didn't have the time to go there. That Saturday after breakfast, we had a few minutes to spare before our next destination. It was drizzling but we managed to run across the park to Walmart from the dim sum restaurant. 

Hhmmm... cultural shock? Nah... more like hypermarket shock. Walmart has items lined along the travelator.  Aren't they afraid of grocery thefts? I've never seen this kinda arrangement before back at home. I do my grocery shopping every week in Tesco. There's no Walmart in Malaysia. 

Oh, deep sea fishing? You have to catch your own shrimps and also fish. Grandma said that if the fish and prawns aren't swimming, then they are not worth buying. Grandma buys everything fresh from the market. I can't imagine myself catching at and counting the prawns like what I'm doing back here. I count the number of prawns so that  I don't overbuy and no one overeats in the house. 

There were lots and lots of food at Walmart. You look at the entrance of Walmart, it was so small but once you walk into it, it's endless and yet Pinky told me it was one of the smallest Walmart. It's bigger than our main Tesco over here. They sell weird kinda food... it's weird because it smelt weird, something that I couldn't recognize and I dare not even try any of the food because I believe that if it smells weird, then it will not be nice. My taste buds depend strongly on my sense of smell.

What's that? Cooking oil for the price of 73 yuan. I did a really fast mental calculation and converted the price to Malaysian Ringgit. It's freaking expensive. RM36.50 for cooking oil? Oh, Lord... thank you that I'm staying in Malaysia... I will never be able to afford such expensive cooking oil. I will want to eat everything steam since it's so expensive. Or maybe I cook chicken then wait until the fats start to leak out and then I will keep some for frying eggs and vegetables. 

You gotta be kidding me. 38.80 yuan for 12 eggs. Is this some kind of a joke? It's only RM9 (18 yuan)  for a tray of 30 grade A eggs and that's not even grade A eggs. Pinky told me that most people will opt to buy smaller grade eggs. Extra large eggs are not the choice of many. Weird right? Looks like cost of living in China is very high... way too high...

Chuka Idako~!! Pinky and I love this to the max~!! And it's cheap... so we bought that home... you just gotta love the baby octopus...

What I'm Doing Now...

Yeah... right now. Hardly do I share what I'm doing right at the moment. I'm currently typing here, under a spinning fan with my MP3 singing from the album Cornerstone and my Facebook chat is blinking coz I'm chatting with Veryniceperson. My lappie is moving at the speeed of a tortoise. I can mop the whole house while waiting for my lappie to come to life. I better not multitask or the whole system will go haywire. 

I'm wondering how come my cute Mickey t-shirt is stained. From the cake or from marinating Inche Kabin, the Nyonya fried chicken

Made this for lunch just now. I wanted to do it yesterday nite but I was kinda tired so I made this just now after our breakfast together. It's Thursday... and it's a marble cake... perfected with no earthquake cracks. We finish the whole cake. I thought Judz, Gracie and Mandy were on strict diets...  how can any of you resist the wonders of my hands? Muahahaha *cynical laughter*

Class starting at 6:30pm... hhmmm... Science... *bah* Hey, I saw something on my Facebook wall that's worth sharing. 

 The new house needs no heater so this is what I do EVERY morning... without fail¬! Whoever drew this is a genius. I do kangaroo jump in the shower as well... hehehehe.... I can't wait for dinner although I'm not hungry. I have really meatball soup on the stove. Nyum nyum... Love the kitchen... Ooops I'm suppose to go check out the best butter cake recipe but looks like I'll only do it tonite... toodles¬!

Hey, if you're not interested with what I'm doing right now, then don't bother la... I'm just having fun right now... me time... I wanted to watch a movie but with only 30 minutes to spare it won't be enjoyable. I wanted to go jogging but I'm too lazy to take another bath. 

Locked In...

Now, I've experienced both being locked out and also being locked in. If you've read before, I got locked out twice from my own house. The first time was, I happily clicked the wooden door and banged it shut, then when I wanted to lock the grille with the padlock, I realized... to my horror... my whole bunch of house key PLUS my car key were on the table... inside the house. I have my big sling bag with me and thank God for that, I have money. I took the public bus to hubby's workplace, told the bus driver that I wasn't going down, so hubby waited at the roadside and passed me the keys. I followed the Rapid bus all the way to the last depot, the Balik Pulau depot. Then, I took the next bus home. My 2 hours flew away just like that.

Then the second time was my hubby's set of keys and mine were on the table and again, we were rushing for time so we just shut the door. This time round, my eldest was with us so both of us started breaking into our own house. We broke into our own house in less than 10 minutes.

This happened a couple of weeks back. I was locked-in in my house. I left the keys in the car. I have my car keys with me :) There are many locks to the house and it's just impossible to break-in or break-out from this house. I called Gracie but she did not pick up. I didn't know who else to call to come and rescue me. I called my student's mom because I was suppose to be at the student's house at 9a.m. I called and called, surprisingly, when you needed help, no one seemed to pick up their phones. I sat at the small round cushion which I placed outside my house and started to think. There were a group of rowdy boys playing football at the football field. I was very tempted to holler to them to jump over the gate and grab me my house keys. I didn't scream for help. I just sat there weighing the pros and cons of doing so. If it was my neighbour then I wouldn't mind them jumping over the divider, but those rowdy boys... if I let them jump-in for the first time, they might do it often thinking that it's okay to do that. After waiting for 10 minutes or so, my student's mom called back. She came over to rescue me. 

She's in the compound in three steps. It's good that nothing has been done to the gate. If I have gates as high as my neighbours' I would be tempted to call the fire brigade to come and rescue me. There... there... spare keys... spare keys... I need them everywhere...

The Significance of Char Koay Teow and Penang Island

When you speak of going to the casino, there will be a few places popping out in your head. If you think locally, you will want to drive up to Genting Highlands in Pahang. If you think further, you will want to go to Singapore. Think internationally, you will end up in Macau, China. 

Talk about food. Street food. Don't believe the listings done by famous magazines or food channels. Bangkok may be listed as first for street food followed by Singapore... oh, puh-leez... well, let's not pull hairs about which country should be first. If you really know how to choose your food and you have very sensitive taste buds, you will know that Penang Island boasts of the best street food ranging from Malay to Chinese to Indian to Mamak... Mamak means Indian Muslim, understand?

Now, the main topic that I would like to touch on is the significance of char koay teow to Penang Island. Yes, you can find street food in any other countries but can you find char koay teow in other countries? Even if you can find char koay teow in London, most probably the restaurant selling it has a Penang-born chef hovering all over the kitchen, cooking up a Penang storm.

Sisters' in Macalister Road used to have queue stretching along the main road. That was decades ago. History of street food. Ah Leng char koay teow, opposite my place, took over the fame and name. It went straight into the drain once the son took over. I can fry better char koay teow if I want to. Char koay teow in Lorong Selamat is still famous among tourists that is because the express buses always take them their. BIAS~! The best char koay teow is not in town. It's in the outskirt, if you call Bayan Baru outskirt. Use Google map to search for BB Coffee Shop, behind Sunshine Square. There you can find the best dry char koay teow. I'm saying dry because I am about to introduce you the wet char koay teow. The dry char koay teow is usually fried by Chinese and it's oily. I don't eat char koay teow by choice, but I'm telling you this one is the best~!! 

Introducing to you Lis Char Koay Teow. It's the same place as where Sany Char Koay Teow used to be. We spoke to Lis... Alice... and he/she is a very friendly person. I do not judge one's sexuality as I was there for the good char koay teow. As long as one wants to be a transgender and as long as you're not robbing me or threatening me, then let it be. I've came across comments about Lis being a he or she but why talk about the person when we're talking about the food?

We're very blessed. See, God blesses His children no matter where we are. Lis requested the cook to give us extra large prawns where the prawns are bigger than those ordering for the special platter. If you've googled about Sany Char Koay Teow you would have probably read that the koay teow from Lis was just a replica of the original Sany Char Koay Teow. For your information, you need to know HOW to have your char koay teow cooked to have the best taste. This is a wet plate of char koay teow, not the dry one. If you're having a plate of dry Chinese char koay teow, then you will need bean sprouts *taugeh* to add on to the taste. But please, this is a wet plate with gravy. You MUST order for a plate WITHOUT bean sprouts. The bean sprouts made the gravy watery thus, the original taste was diluted. So before you go reading from others about how bad and how bad the taste is, be more professional when ordering your food.

Lis Char Koay Teow is just opposite Young Ones at Sunshine Square. As I've said before, good food deserved all the recommendations. By the way, it's way much cheaper than Ah Leng or Lorong Selamat's char koay teow. Hey, it's the first time all of us had supper together... cool...~!

Yummy Cuisine...

A couple of months back, on Gracie's burfday, Gracie and her friends, me included of course, were invited to Yummy Cuisine. It was my second visit there and the food was fabulous. I'm not overreacting. Getting an invitation to have lunch there doesn't mean I have to say that the food is DELICIOUS, SUPERB AND AWESOME. That's what most of the food bloggers do. They overpraise the place as if they have a share of the restaurant. I'm writing this because the food is really great, coming from a person who can cook, I'm saying it is worth going not once or twice, but it's a place that will make keep going back. That's the lady boss, May... did I get that correct?

Bamboo prawns

*lip smackingly good* That's because I love prawns *drooling all over* I can finish a kilo of prawns all on my own and assam prawn is the best. How to eat prawns the proper way:

1. Pick a prawn of your choice.
2. Such the gravy until covering the prawn.
3. Don't suck the prawn head as it will contribute to the increment of your cholesterol level.
4. Pin the prawn onto your plate with a fork.
5. Use your spoon to remove the prawn shell by peeling it off from the legs.
6. Start biting on the crunchy prawn.... you will never regret this...

Hot plate fish

 Tis' I also like. I like this kinda flavour. A little bit salty, a little bit spicy, a little bit sour-y and I love fishy fishy... 

Nyonya fish

 This I don't really like. I don't like doesn't mean it is not nice. This is more sour than the other fish...

Kuchai Pia...

 Deep fried batter with chives... don't know how to do this but it's crunchily savoury...

Lamju... it's pork... non-halal 

 Pork~! Nice... the whole table has a very good combination of dishes to go along with a plate of rice...

The signature tofu

Signature dish means it's a well-known dish from the house. You have to try it out yourself. 
The hardest part of writing as a food blogger will be the explanation of taste. I'm thinking through whether to write in great length or just to share the photos then you can use your imagination to the fullest about the taste of the dishes. Okay... I've think it through, you can read a little of the description about each dish below each photo. I'll do my best to describe but I've made my conclusion: They are good, two thumbs up. If a dish is not tasty, no matter how lengthy you write to try to sell it off, nobody will ever believe you again once they tasted the badness of a dish. 

I'm still NOT a food blogger but a good place deserves to be advertised to the world. Let it be known so that the business will continue to flourish so that when lazy me decides not to cook, I can go there for either my lunch or dinner. Please check out Gracie's post on this. Click this --> Yummy Cuisine by Gracie

Oh... oh... the most important piece of information... the ADDRESS~! I don't have it with me... you know how to get to Sungai Ara's KFC? You know what is KFC right? It's just behind KFC, or should I say the next road? Check out Gracie's post on this. That will give you more information.

Once Upon a Breakfast in Shenzhen...

How could you say NO to the array of food nicely displayed at the counter top? That was the best dim sum I've ever had after 5 days of not having good food in Beijing. The Indonesia Seafood Restaurant has lots and lots of scrumptious food. Pinky was still in dreamland while I chose to go with the whole family for a wonderful breakfast. 

As it was a Saturday, the crowd was exploding in the seams of the restaurant. We were suppose to queue up and wait for the table but grandma went straight to a table that has just emptied a minute ago. A young waitress told me that we shouldn't just sit there, we should wait to be seated like others who were at the queue. I told grandma that and she said not to bother about that as they are regular customers. This wasn't my first time at the restaurant. It was my second while grandma and grandpa could be seen in the restaurant every morning without fail. Grandma stood up and walked over to the manageress who apologized profusely for the mistake uttered by the young waitress. The dirty table was cleared within seconds and a new table cloth was spread on the table top. Grandma did not even raise her voice, but she just put her arm around the manageress while speaking in her sweet voice... hey, moral of the story was: A voice raised might not be heard, but a friendly tone will always be noted. 

The serving of dim sum in the few restaurants in China that I went to was a bit different. The dishes would not be served from table-to-table like what we have back home. Everyone MUST walk to the counter and start picking or pointing at what they want. They were elbowing one another in a very rough manner like the food might be gone in a second... which was actually true, the platter of deliciously deep-fried dim sum disappeared rather fast. I have no skills in elbowing  as they were professional elbowers. I'm not even train to do that. Grandma went and I followed after her, not to take food but I was more afraid that they might push her. I think I should known better, grandma is made of steel. Grandma has such a look that people automatically make way for her and gave her the honour to grab the food first. Grandma grabbed lots and lots of food.

There were so many things to eat. I pity the hungry Pinky who was still snoring away in her bed. She was too tired to even get up earlier for breakfast. We tried calling her but she sleeps like a log, just like me. I miss the time back in Shenzhen... I definitely DO NOT MISS BEIJING... but if we go again, we're gonna go on our own....

Frog porridge was the best~! Pinky waltz into the restaurant when only 10% of the food was left on the table. She did justice to the food. The table was sparkling clean when we left it. That was the last time I had breakfast there as we were bouncing off to some other places since I have only 4 days left... I think....