: : Family Dinner : :

This was the pictures taking during the Saturday family dinner. Was so sweet of Sina’ and Dad to arranged a get-together for my homecoming. 🙂 Everyone pitched in a dish, including 2 desserts! Yum!

According to Dad, it was a toss-up between a barbeque-cum-pot-luck or laksa nite. Easier to clean up after a barbeque compared to a laksa nite and less preparation as well.

Look through the pictures and realised I did not take a picture of Dad’s awesome chicken wings! Oh well. He made it using a marinade made from a barbeque sauce which he got from the supermarket. Can’t remember the name but it was definitely very nice. Still, I do miss his homemade marinade made from light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar and chopped garlic.

Dad barbequed a pomfret and belly pork. The belly pork was marinated the same way as the chicken wings. As for the fish, he just rubbed some salt and pepper on fish.

Sina’ stir fried some spinach and baby corn just to little Tidan. That little boy really loves green vegetables and he’s only 3 years old! His guy cousins thinks ‘He’s weird’.

Auntie Maria made this dish called kacang ma. It’s made from grounded kacangma herbs with pounded ginger and the FooChow red wine. A common dish that is eaten by women after giving birth. They eat it by the gallons. Alcohol does help to ease the aftermath of labour.

Sina’ also roasted some pumpkin strips in the oven on a slow fire. Unfortunately, I distracted her so much with my chatter that we forgot to check on the pumpkin!! Oh oh! Well, luckily only one side was burnt. The pumpkin was roasted on aluminium foil in the oven. The bottom half of the dish shows the cut bellypork.

Gwen, Tidan’s Mum, made brownies with a cheese layer on top. Got it from a recipe in Women’s Weekly. It was simply delicious and the cheese layer wasn’t too strong a flavour. The brownies weren’t too sweet either.

This is a very easy cheesecake to do without having to bake it. The cheese layer is made from low-fat cream cheese from Nestle, Philadephia cheese and unsalted butter. After each layer, Auntie Maria added Marie and digestive biscuits. Then she chilled it in the fridge until it hardens. Very easy to do, that’s for sure. She told me the recipe but I can’t quite remember how it goes. Must remember to write it down the next time.

Sina’ and Dad also made some punch for everyone. It’s just Sunquick’s orange cordial with Ice-Cream flavoured soda and Sprite with slices of lemon. Tidan likes this a lot but he was so excited that he threw up his dinner. Poor thing.

A picture of Tidan playing with the slinky that I got for him. Not the original Slinky but a plastic cheapo one from the toy store. Couldn’t stop playing with it. Hopefully it’ll last for a few more years after this.

Tomorrow : Dimsum (again!) at Grand Palace Hotel! Although, not so many pictures this time. Felt a bit too self-conscious taking pictures while eating with Auntie Mimi. Hmm…

: : Dimsum ~ Chinese Breakfast : :

After a harrowing plane landing and a beautiful dinner, had to wake up early to catch my breakfast meet with some old kiddy friends. Why the harrowing plane ride? It’s because the Miri airstrip is so short that pilots have to break VERY HARD just to prevent the entire plane from overshooting the runway. Very scary to see the overhead compartments shaking like mad. Also, the pilots must have this pantang (superstition) on braking so that there is no need to turn the plane around at the end of the runway to get to the airport. One of these days, the wings will break off.

Anyway, back to breakfast in the morning. Woke up very early at 7 am which was an amazing feat considering I’m a nite owl. Met up with Chipmunk and Mike who I haven’t seen since my last trip back to home. We have been meeting for dimsum breakfast for years now. Well, mostly when I’m back in Miri, that is.

As Mike was late, Chipmunk and I started off with breakfast i.e. dimsum. The meeting place was a coffee shop called Wawasan 2020. It’s always crowded and finding a place to sit down can be quite tough. There are 3 shoplots and more tables outside as well. Unfortunately, not halal.

Dimsum is actually the Chinese breakfast dish taken in the morning (obviously ;p). It comprises of many many MANY snacks in small dishes and can be quite expensive overall.

This is the chee chong fan which is actually just kwayteow noodles wrapped around some chopped char siew (sweetened roasted pork). This was the only version available at Wawasan 2020. Other versions include prawn and chicken fillings. How is it made? Well, the batter is poured over a thin cotten towel which is later spread over a steamer to be cooked. The chopped char siew was added to one side of the batter. Once the batter has been cooked, the towel is removed and the cooked kway teow is rolled until a long rectangular shape with the char siew filling in the middle. Sweetened soy sauce is then poured over the dish.

Next was the deep fried yam paste with charsiew. Didn’t taste that good that day because the yam paste was a tad bit too salty. Oh well. At least the one at the Han Palace tasted a lot better (that’s another posting for another day).

Siew mai (pork dumpling) is the most common of all the dimsum dishes available. Simple to do and always tasty. Yum.

Dish on the top was minced pork roll with fish skin on the outside. The red sauce is just plain tomatoe sauce : very sweet. Bottom part of the picture shows some pork ribs that were steamed.

Oh man! My favourite : hakkau @ steamed prawn. It’s very hard to find very good hakkau in Kuching. Usually the skin is too thick and the prawn too small. This one was just nite. Very tasty too. Worth every penny of it. Chipmunk thinks I’m a crazy dimsum addict. No denial from my side.

Wawasan 2020 is located at the Pelita Commerical Area where there are a lot of shophouses nearby. You can’t miss it. It’s the only coffeeshop with loads of tables outside. You can find other food and dimsum dishes there as well. There were a lot of other dimsum dishes like chicken feet and other varieties of siew mai as well as fishballs.

Well, that’s all for now. Tomorrow nite’s posting is the family dinner.

: : Suggestions for visit to New York : :

Am planning to go over to visit my sister in Denton, Texas in December. Have a stopover in New York.

Any suggestions on budget hotels and day tours in New York? Please provide links!!! Just drop them in the comments box.

Thanks.

: : Re Josh! : :

Great looking cucumber salad.

BTW, if anyone was inspired to try their hand at cooking the step-by-step dishes on this site (I know, it’s mediocre), do let me know. Would like to read about the success or failure (!!!) of it.

: : Apollo Seafood Restaurant, Miri : :

Well, it wasn’t fun tonite having one’s computer crashing more than 10 times due to some buggy error problems trying to update a software. Bah! If you see this page, you’re in luck because that means I’ve managed to post something up without having the PC crashing on me.

So, what’s cooking? How about a posting on a wonderful welcome home meal on Friday nite at Apollo Seafood Restaurant in Miri. Seafood is cheap in Sarawak compared to West Malaysia. Also, think Dad remembered that I just love drunken prawn and it’s definitely a must-have whenever I’m back home. The other absolutely must-eat dish is dimsum but that was already pre-scheduled for Saturday morning.

The last time I was back in Miri was in February to attend a friend’s wedding. Stepping out of the aircraft, it didn’t feel at all like the Miri Airport that I knew. The renovations that started a few years back was completed and it looked suspiciously a lot like KLIA. For a moment there, I thought I boarded the wrong plane.

Since I haven’t had dinner as was rushing to catch to 8 p.m. flight, dear Daddy and Sina’ (Kelabit word for Mother) took me to Apollo Seafood Restaurant in town. A good choice, that’s for sure. Also, surprisingly a number of families were still out and about eating dinner at 9:30 p.m. when we got there.

Veggie dish was midin cooked in FooChow Red Wine. I’ve taken enough pictures of midin that it’s starting to get a tad bit boring.

And here comes the food : drunken prawn. Well, not the authentic one where live prawns were put into a bowl of wine until they were drunk before cooking them. This one was something simpler, the prawns were cleaned and cut and cooked with Chinese rice wine (samsu), ginger, some chilli powder (I think. Have to check with parents on how they did it at home) and black fungus. The prawn are the freshwater type so they’re pretty big. This one was fresh out of the aquarium. Sina’ had some of the spicy, tangy soup whereas Dad helped to finish off the prickly and painful claws. Now, eating the claw takes some getting used to because of the sharp thorns on the outer skin. Pricked my fingers many times that nite but it was worth it.

Then Dad craftily walked off and ordered some mussels! Wah! Serious pampering going on that night. It came cooked in oyster sauce (ironic isn’t it) and ginger. Needless to say, Dad and I polished off the dish. Sina’ had some too but she was full from having an early dinner that nite.

Phew! Was so full that I couldn’t sleep early that nite! What a nice welcome home from parents.

Needless to say, they also planned a family get together on Saturday evening. Which they forgot to tell me until lunchtime on Saturday. It was a pleasant surprise though. That’s for tomorrow! :p

: : From Miri Part II : :

A little bit more about Borneo Post. Thanks to autreyu. 🙂

As for making kolomee, it’s not absolutely compulsory to use lard (pig fat) to make it. You can use normal vegetable oil. Chilli Peppers makes great HALAL kolomee as well as other HALAL chinese food. It has practically destroyed the myth that good Chinese food must be made by the Chinese. Hope this is helpful, Nick. :p