Healthy Eating at Taman Segar, Cheras

I have not been posting lately because:
1. Been busy every weekend for the past 3 weekends cooking for various birthday/Mother's day and pot lucks. Sad to say I still can't bake the Perfect carrot cake yet. My parents and friends liked it a lot but hmmmm.... I've tasted even better ones so I'm still gonna try to bake it again.

2. American Idol mania. I have been watching reruns of the finale, the grand finale and then when David Cook was announced the winner, I started reading up all about him, going thru his journey in american idol from auditions right up to the finale. Phew! I want to post his pics up but Hubs may not appreciate it :( heh heh. (psstt my desktop is a pix of Cook)

Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. Steam food at K.T.L Restaurant at Taman Segar Cheras (nearby Leisure Mall)


Succulent steam fish with ginger, spring onions, red chillies and a very unique tasting soy sauce.
This is what I call healthy eating!

They also have a version of herbal chicken with wine, arrggh what do you call those red stuff erm keji or goji/wolfberries right? Hmm tastewise ok but the chicken was slightly on the tough side. I prefer the version at Jalan Pudu.

We also ordered steamed egg which came out very smooth and steamed veg. All in all, affordable and satisfying. Bill came to about RM10-12 per person.

Call Wilson Lim at 017 872 7567 / 012 308 7311 to book your choice of fish earlier coz more often than not it finishes by as early as 8pm on weekends.

Toast at Kuala Ampang Market

Here's a typical kopitiam that's worth a visit. We've been having our brekkie here for the past few weekends. I like the uncle here.

Lady: I want a kopi cham

Uncle: No such thing as kopi cham.

Lady: *perplexed*

Uncle: You either want a kopi, a teh or a cham

Me: (okaaaayy i better go thru what i want quick or face the wilting sarcasm of this uncle)

A refreshing tall glass of ice lemon tea with reeaal slices of lemon. Puuurrrfect after a *strenous* morning hike. Heh RM2.30. Guess who's that behind the glass.

And here it is - toasted buns with generous slashings of kaya and cold, frozen slices of butter that melts in your mouth. The friendly uncle uses the 5-star brand of butter. At first, we thought he meant it was a 5-star grade and that it was SCS butter. However, it really was the 5 Star brand. I wonder if its this butter here. I havent seen this brand anywhere in our grocery stores but it tastes really really good.

Hmm the buns look slightly dry here but they arent. I feel so healthy after eating it. Its a good dose of carbs, oil and sugar. You aint gettin any healthier than this.

The steamed version is also available. Soft and cushy like pillows.. The buttah melts fast here so u gotta gobble it down when it arrives. (RM1.60/set)

The soft boiled eggs are also good here but no pix though. (RM0.70/egg). Was too busy eating it and my hands were too messy to take any shots. Its a constant struggle every time I have good food in front of me. :P

Where's your favourite egg & toast place?

Meatball Soup Hokkien style

This is a dish I learnt from my MIL. Its a tradition for my Hubs side of family to cook this meal every Chinese New Year. Since its so delicious, we have it more often :). Its a fairly simple and satisfying dish and needs just 10 ingredients - minced pork, sengkuang (yam bean), Shitake mushrooms, onions, garlic, cornstarch. Seasonings - salt, pepper, dark soy sauce and light soy sauce.

First:

Soak the mushrooms till soft.

Chop up the sengkuang and onions finely. Mix them with the minced pork. Add some salt, pepper and a lil bit of dark soy sauce. Add some cornstarch to help the meat hold well. Roll them up into balls, pat on some light soy sauce and roll em somemore to get your hands all smelling porky.

Heat up some oil and deep fry them until a nice brown colour. Set aside.

For the soup, boil water, add in mushrooms, garlic and some of the oil used to deep fry the meatballs. Boil it up. Add in the meatballs, bring to a boil and serve.

I've made this 3 times and several tips to share:

- Make the meatballs slightly bigger than how you want them to be. They shrink after deep frying.

- Don't use lean meat and chop em up as your 'minced pork'. You need fat in the meat to make the meatballs nice and juicy.

- Add some ikan bilis to the soup to give it more taste.

- Don't be afraid to be generous with the oil you put into the soup. It gives the much needed flavour.

Enjoy!

Blondies & Plates

Blondies. Aren't they cool? I think not many Malaysians have heard of blondies as opposed to the darker half aka brownies. Blondies are basically brownies without chocolate. And they taste great.

To me and Hubs that is.

Coz we are both enlightened people and have no fear of a little extra sugar and all things sweet.

In essence, they taste like caramel in the form of a chewy cake. And the taste of dark brown sugar paired with butter is a winning combo - sooo deliciously rich.

I used the recipe from Elise here. Cut down the butter as several commenters said the base came out slightly oily.

I also fancy plates. Colourful, cheery, chic plates. They made my Blondies look better.

Arent they lovely? Got them from a charity bazaar last weekend at Great Eastern mall.

Doing my bit for charity at RM16/ plate.

Dallas & San Antonio, Texas

I blogged so much about San Francisco last year that I totally forgot to blog about Dallas & San Antonio!

In Dallas, Hubs was hard at work attending meetings and workshops and those things that make you sleep while I was hard at work shopping. I realised I didnt take many photos in Dallas - there really wasn't time. Every day was spent navigating my way through new roads, drilling myself to drive on the right side of the road, going to as many shopping malls as possible and covering every bit of it as much as I could.

It was a serious business of selecting and trying on tons of tops, jeans, jackets, shoes, accessories. I get giddy even just listing them down.

We visited their main hypermarts - Walmart, Krogers and World Market. I loved Krogers! There were so many varieties of everything! Dallas folks must love their frozen instant food, cakes and pastries. Rows and rows of em. Wow.



I ate Krispy Cremes with a burp (ala Homer Simpson style). Thought it was pretty good, soft and tasty with sweet glazing that will bring you one step closer to being a diabetic.



Its true. Everything's bigger in Texas. Food portions are just enormous, and they're half the price and double the portion compared to San Fran. Hubs and I should have done the decent thing and shared a meal but there was only so many days and we had to make the most of every experience. It was the only logical thing to do.

There's so much land that almost all the shopping malls are built with just 1 or 2 levels and sprawl across large areas. There's no such thing as insufficient parking. Houses are big too.

Hubs took a day off and we had a long weekend and made a trip south to San Antonio. All his colleagues said it was THE place to go (to do touristy stuff). We left early in the morning to start the 5 hour road trip. The thing I look forward to during road trips are the stops. Heh. Of course not toilet stopslah, the eating stops :)

i-Hop! HOoray! Spread all across the highways - you can't miss em. Young and old, fat and thin, tall n short, Hubs and me, every creature flocks here for a hearty breakfast.

yum yum..... Award winning, milky, fluffy pancakes with buttah and maple syrup... And coffee with free refills.

I want pancakes now!! Stomp Stomp.

We arrived at San Antonio and checked into our hotel - Hampton Inn. Hubs didn't know quite how to pronounce and called it Ham - Tan Inn (meaning salted egg in Chinese) and keep saying here we are Ham Tan Inn. We've arrived at Ham Tan Inn. Grrrr.

Anyway, let's give some credit to the man who took the shot above. He was really trying to compose some sort of 'artistic' shot and I thought watever it was he was trying to do, it came out pretty good.

First stop - Paseo Del Rio - The famous Riverwalk at San Antonio! (sometimes described as the American Venice)Located below street level, its a beautiful place with shops and restaurants lining the walkways. Just stroll along and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere or hop onto the boat rides for a cruise down the river.

Colourful duckies observing tourists

The next day at downtown San Antonio, we happened to be there when a street bazaar was going on. There were plenty of stalls selling gifts, souvernirs, authentic Mexican food and a live band. (If you can spot on the right of the pix below, this man brought his own portable chair, propped himself under a shady tree and just sat there throughout to enjoy the music.)

Here's my plate of tacos with lots of juicy pieces of beef, spicy chillies and creamy guacamole.

A cowgirl wannabe

One other IMPORTANT thing. If you ever go to US, you gotta try out Marble Slab Ice cream for "The freshest ice-cream on earth" home-made, delicious and oh so creamy! Choose your flavour and the counter girl will scoop it out, slap it down onto a cooled marble slab.She then scrapes and scoops it up, and slaps in onto the slab again several times. i think this technique is to make the ice cream softer and smoother before we eat it. Well, it works and we loved it, loved it, loved it!

We also went to the Alamo - another famous spot at San Antonio but I can't the find the pictures and am in need of sleep now.

Have you ever tasted

anything so good?

Behold the Siew Yoke (roasted pork).




Will you just look at that? Can you feel your mouth watering up right now?

Who can resist this?

Each piece of succulent pork is cut to just the right size for you to savour every single layer in a bite

the crisp, well roasted skin,

then the glorious melt-in-your mouth fat,

then the juicy, tender layers of meat...

Every mouthful is HEAVENLY. and too much.

You can't eat more than a half dozen pieces. Or you'd be overwhelmed.

Eat this on as rare an occasion as you can possibly. The heart would not take this lightly.

Each portion - one length cut into roughly 8 pieces is RM16 - steep but worth every cent.

Restaurant Wong Kee, Jalan Nyonya, Off Jalan Pudu, KL. Starts serving at 12.30 but park yourself there earlier.

For more details and pictures which will make you get off your butt and get over here this minute:

Whiff of Lemongrass

Boolicious

KY Speaks

Our 2nd Anniversary

Can you imagine, it was only our 2nd anniversary and we both FORGOT! (its a good thing i forgot too our hubs would be getting plenty from me)

So anyway, we celebrated it the next day at Ma Maison, a cozy lil French restaurant along Jalan Ampang. It was raining so the restaurant was quite empty when we got there. As usual, service was attentive but I think the menu was slightly different from what I remembered.



I ordered the Parfait de Foies de Volaille (homemade chicken liver pate). Hmm.. it was on the dry, crumbly side. I prefer pate to be creamier but the taste was alright. The tangy salad helped balance the overpowering taste of the pate.


Hubs ordered the tarragon spring chicken. The flesh was quite dry too - oh dear what a letdown for Hubs but the potatoes served at the sides were delish.


I ordered the lamb cutlets with mustard crust. Now this was good! You can tell something's good when you have someone at the side poking into your dish every minute and looking at it and then at his own meal forlornly. HAHAHhaha I can just recall hubs face then. Poor guy. The lamb was perfectly done - juicy in the inside, cripsy on the outside. It came along with a bowl of potato gratin and this was excellent too!


It was creamy, hearty and had a nicely baked top layer of cheese. Talk about indulgence.

Finally we finished off with Crepes Ma Maison (Apple pancakes with vanilla ice cream and orange sauce) hmmm I guess Hubs and I prefer the thick, fluffy American style pancakes vs these thin, delicate ones. The orange sauce was a tad too sour too.

I love the plate!

Also check out: Malaysia Alloexpat , Whiff of Lemongrass

Pasta & Pesto

Another pasta that I whipped up and absolutely loved it! Basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and the usual salt, pepper and parmesan are all you need.

You can either patiently chop the ingredients or throw them into a food chopper like me. But don't chop them too finely or they'll end up like mush with no texture.

I didn't lightly toast the pine nuts coz I was just lazy and wanted to fill my stomach as quickly as possible. As usual I went with all possible short cuts.

Chop up the basil and pine nuts. Add the garlic, then pour in olive oil a little at a time. Chopping them up together in the food chopper will infuse the aromatic flavours into the oil. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Cook the pasta till al dente. Toss them up together and add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Other variations include adding chopped tomatoes. In future I think i may saute the garlic first as the fresh, uncooked garlic tasted slightly too sharp.

Read also:

All recipes

Simply Recipes

101cookbooks

Bukit Tabur Melawati (updated)

And that is a picture taken at the edge of urbanised KL. Beautiful!

This is my fifth hike up this hill. For me, its been a month of great accomplishments. (Hey, let me claim some credit here. I know this is an EASY climb for my veteran frens haha.)

I'm the sort that's terrified of heights and ALSO hate to get hot and sweaty with bugs and weeds around me. I used to seriously wonder how could people actually ENJOY outdoor activities. Gimme a gym with TV,music and air-conditioning.

So then, I'm not quite sure why did I decide to still hike up this hill. it must be the beautiful view :) Even with my humble camera and Hubs limited photography skills, the pics still came out breathtaking.

Probably its coz I need some good physical exercise and also I wanted to overcome my fears. So every week we would go one step further from where we last stopped. I remember my first time up this hill, I literally froze halfway climbing a rock wall. My limbs just refused to move and I couldnt figure out where to put my feet. Good grief. And I swore never to go up again.

Now I actually ENJOY the climb. Its great to feel your limbs working vs just the fingers tapping at the keyboard everyday at the office - sigh. Talking about that, I can't really write properly anymore. Seriously, the only writing I do now is just to sign my name. I don't think even that's legible too. Boo.

To enjoy better pictures of Bukit Tabur and the dam, click on my fren's blog - Iron Will. He's a professional photograher :)

Broccoli salad

The past weekend was one which will be remembered in the annals of Malaysian history. Read about Malaysia's elections here, here and here although I know most Malaysians are already familiar with these influential political blogs.

I am proud to say I lived and participated in this period of amazing, miraculous change in our country. I feel proud to be a Malaysian, I feel proud of my fellow Malaysians and have all hopes that our country will be truly progressive, not living in the shadows of its neighbours and most importantly, the people will be known as ONE BANGSA.

As we wait for hopes to be realised, let's make broccoli salad shall we ? *wink :)



Sometimes we just need to eat healthy. Can you see the delicious cream dressing? No? Here's a close up shot.

See those droplets of precious calories and sugar? This dressing was taken from Simply Recipes. Apple cider vinegar, mayonnaise and honey. Its like a rainbow of tastes. Sweet, sour, tangy, rounded up by the creaminess of mayo. ( i made a smaller amount as I am quite a health freak 0_0 honest.)

I blanched the broccoli florets for a minute or 2 in boiling water. Quickly rinsed it under running water to prevent it from overcooking and becoming soggy. You still want the crunch in every bite.

Toss in a bowl with the dressing, some raisins, toasted pine nuts (yep still gotta finish that tub in my fridge) and chopped red onions.

Serve chilled.