: : 2004 Food Blog ~ Theme (Nomination) : :

For a blog that suddenly turn half-baked some time this year, I got nominated into a food award session. Wow! Thanks to whoever that nominated me. Many thanks to Kate for organizing the awards. Woohoo!

The 2004 Food Blog Awards is organized by Kate of Accidental Hedonist. Do stop by to check out the various awards in the category and if you so feel inclined, do vote for little ol’ me. Then again, I’m not hoping much because it’s been a really really quiet year for me this year in terms of food blogging.

And no, it’s not because I’ve ran out of pictures. I’ve still have about 100+ pictures sitting in my PC. Must clear it up.

Ok, must blog tonite. Must make effort to blog tonite. And a long posting too. Hee hee…

Can’t wait until it’s time to fly back to home. Spending a week in Miri so not blogging much. Then again, what else is new? hee hee…

Anyway, Merry Xmas to all.

: : 2004 Food Blog ~ Theme (Nomination) : :

For a blog that suddenly turn half-baked some time this year, I got nominated into a food award session. Wow! Thanks to whoever that nominated me. Many thanks to Kate for organizing the awards. Woohoo!

The 2004 Food Blog Awards is organized by Kate of Accidental Hedonist. Do stop by to check out the various awards in the category and if you so feel inclined, do vote for little ol’ me. Then again, I’m not hoping much because it’s been a really really quiet year for me this year in terms of food blogging.

And no, it’s not because I’ve ran out of pictures. I’ve still have about 100+ pictures sitting in my PC. Must clear it up.

Ok, must blog tonite. Must make effort to blog tonite. And a long posting too. Hee hee…

Can’t wait until it’s time to fly back to home. Spending a week in Miri so not blogging much. Then again, what else is new? hee hee…

Anyway, Merry Xmas to all.

: : Seng Kee Seafood ~ Miri : :

About 2 weekends ago, I made a trip back to Miri for Dad’s 55th birthday. On the night I arrived, Dad and Sina’ brought me out to eat some seafood at a place I’ve not been before. As always, I’m game to try out new stuff.

We made our order and I went around looking for things to take a snapshot. This is the famous Betutu Fish which is really expensive. I think it goes for something like RM30-RM50 (USD7.90 – USD13.10) per kilogram. Not sure about the English name though. It’s a type of coral fish which is very fleshy and the flesh itself is tender and juicy. It’s a sea fish. Famous in Asia and is known to be more expensive than what it actually costs in Miri. Sina’ and Dad usually goes down to a nearby town called Berkenu to eat this fish fresh and also, it’s definitely cheaper.

One of my favourite dishes : Drunken Prawn. The prawn used is the freshwater version, hence it’s big claws. Live prawns are dark grey with long blue claws. The size of the prawn can reach as big as one’s hand. The dish is cooked in ginger and chilli as well as a huge dose of Chinese Wine added in. Why drunken prawn? Well, from what I heard, the live prawn is cook in Chinese Wine, making it drunk. Hee hee… for us, we tend to use the frozen prawn as it’s cheaper and frankly speaking, we couldn’t tell the different between the cooked frozen prawn and the cooked live prawn. Anyway, we had to get this dish changed because the prawn was off. Yeah, it happens, even to us. That’s the thing about seafood – every once in a while, you’ll get something that is not fresh.

There are steam fish and there are STEAM FISH. We’ve always enjoyed eating fish and I’ve grown up eating them a lot. This is Steamed Garupa with soy sauce. Fried chopped garlic was added on later. Notice the plate is on a rack. Underneath the rack is a little candle to keep the meal nice and warm. It’s common in Chinese Restaurants in Asia to have this kind of plate and rack together to keep the fish moist and warm. Note that certain garupas has sweet and tender flesh that is suitable for this type of steaming method. There are some types whose flesh is kind of hard and more suitable for deep frying.

We also ordered a small veggie this. We had cangkuk manis stir-fried with egg. Definitely something good for folks with high blood pressure.

This was the replacement dish suggested by the cook after we sent back the Drunken Prawn. It’s steam prawn with egg white, ginger and (again) a dash of Chinese wine. Why egg white? Well, Sina’ and Dad are eating healthily these days so I just go with the flow. It’s actually not too bad and the flavours just come out.

Where is Seng Kee Seafood? It’s located at Jade Green Garden, a group of shoplots in the middle of the older part of Miri town. It’s behind the MAS office. If you know where to find the ais kacang @ iced peanut shop, it’s in front of this shop. It’s also in front of Apollo Seafood Restaurant. Nice place to eat seafood.

Cheerio all!

: : How to eat Home-made Ice-cream : :

Step 1 : Find an Ice-Cream Parlour speciliasing in homemade ice-cream

Step 2 : Select a flavour that will bring a smile to your face

Step 3 : Step up to the counter to make your selection.

Step 4 : Enjoy! This is cookies and cream.

After a year of having problems trying to eat at this parlour, finally managed to go with Sina’ and Dad. Why a problem? It’s either last minute cancelled appointments or shop is close or no time! But, the ice-cream more than made up for it.

Desserts is an ice-cream parlour in Miri (sorry Kuchingites!) which specialises in home-made ice-cream, cakes and tea. They also have some yoghurt on the menu as well. You can also buy their ice-cream packs to bring back home. It’s simply delicious and creamy and sweet.

We sampled some rose tea which was delicately flavoured and without the strong aftertaste of preservatives. There’s nothing like it. I enjoyed it as well as drinking in the dainty little tea cups. It certainly brings back memories of playing tea-time as a little girl.

The owner also graciously gave us some Christmas pudding to sample. On the left is the plain pudding, the right – pudding with brandy. This was so yummy! Ok, I’m getting my parents to order some for Christmas when I’m back home. There is nothing like a flambe Christmas pudding after a nice Christmas dinner at home. If you’re living in Miri, you can order the pudding from the shop. Not sure how much it would cost though. But, if the ice-cream menu is any indication, it’s going to be extremely reasonable.

Anyway, that’s my tea-time at Desserts. Check it out if you’re ever in Miri. It’s located at the Pelita Commercial Center and the signboard is pretty hard to miss.

See you all there sometime!

: : MMORPG : :

Well, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few months. From pirates to Egypt. While in Egypt, I met some developers for another game called Faction Wars. Check them out.

Oh yeah, just got back from Miri with tons of pictures of new eating places, including an ice-cream parlour with awesome dessert. Homemade ice-cream too and cheap as well. There was Dad’s birthday dinner at the Han Restaurant and simple seafood meals.

I promise I’ll put one up tonite!

: : Mango Tree : :

Ok, I’m back up and with some pictures too! Sorry for the long wait all. It’s like my PC has decided to declare it’s retirement.

I went to Mango Tree about a month with colleagues for a farewell dinner for 2 of our workmates. It was a great night : great company and wonderful dishes galore. Here’s what we ate at RM32 @ USD8.42 a head.

The table setting was like so. The cutleries all had rounded handles instead of squared ones. My Sina’ (mother in Kelabit language) mentioned that this is the tradition of the Thai people to use these type of cutleries.

As part of our starter, we had 3 cold dishes.

Som Tum : A lovely raw papaya salad with lime juice squeezed all over it. It came served with some raw long beans.

Yum Wun Sen : Glass noodles with some chicken and prawn. Served with a bit of cut chillies and the required lime juice to give us a “bit of excitement”.

Tord Mun Pla : the last of the cold dishes combination. It’s deep fried fish cakes that was truly delicious. The sauce was delicately spiced with some chillie sauce, peanuts and some raw mango(?).

Talay Phad Med Mamuang : Stir Fried Chicken with capsicum and mushroom. Yumm… it looks like a Chinese style cooking but the taste was different. I can’t quite tell what’s the difference but take my word for it, it’s different.

Tom Yum Goong : Now what is a Thai meal without some Tom Yum Goong? Spicy soup with herbs and seafood. It was delicately flavoured and yet spicy as well as slightly sourish.

Choo Chee Pla : Deep fried fish with butter sauce and spices. I have the breakdown of the menu but unfortunately it’s not with me right now as I update this page. Sorry. This was a fish dish and tasted really good.

Gaeng Kiew Wan Gai : One of my favourite. Green curry with chicken and eggplant. It was thick with coconut milk but truely, wickedly, sinfully nice. My cholesterol levels definitely went up that day.

Phad Phak Ruamitr : Stir fry mixed vegetables. Again, this dish didn’t taste like Chinese Cooking but Thai Cooking. Something about that taste that I could never quite place.

Kow Phad Gai : This is the final dish – fried rice with chicken. At least, I think it was chicken. Like I said earlier, I don’t have my menu list so trying to guess what all these items were.

So, looks good no? The Mango Tree restaurant is located along Crookshank Road, behind the Civic Center and nearby the General Hospital’s Nurses Quarters. So yeah, I had a great time. Been back there 3 times already. 🙂