Labour Day

1st May 2009

This is a day where labourers and non-labourers alike rejoice - the former longing for some rest time at home while the latter waiting to paint the town red. Well, for today the non-labourer got her way ;p

Our first stop was the Windsor House for Toysrus. But before that we just had to fill up our stomach so we decided to try one Ajisen Ramen there.

A pair of chopsticks on top the serviette. Duh!
Hubby's lunch of japanese pork and rice.

Hubby said one cannot go wrong with pork dishes in HK so I decided to try the spicy pork fried rice. Yummy.

Some salad thingy and miso soup that came with my fried rice.

Free advert.

Later, we walked to Times Square.

Saw this cute giant of a doll outside Times Square.

And another one inside the mall.

What we got for Annabel at Toysrus...

Her first masak-masak set. We decided to get her one as she has shown some interest in cooking. She was 'helping' mommy with the beansprout just the other day, and she always seem to want to play with her food!! Pening!!

Her first (and most prob her last) xylophone set.

Annabel, so engrossed in creating her music and entertaining her parents.

Of curries and beansprout

Fish sambal curry. Own concoction. Hubby loves it. Same here.
Spicy taugeh.

Dry chicken curry according to MIL's recipe, with additions here and there. Hubby said that it tasted almost like the original *weee*

It's CDC day!

It is Saturday and on this day I dedicate especially to Cafe de Coral, a local fast food chain in hk.

My rice and steamed veggies...
... that came together with the mutton curry. Background: my teh peng.

Hubby's choice for lunch...

... and the sauce that goes with it.

And finally, my soy sauce chicken for dinner!

Egg tart

Hubby bought this from a local bakery. I am not really a tart person, but since I am here of course I need to have some egg tarts every now and then (all in search for the perfect one). This one is not too bad, and it has flaky puff.

Off the frying wok

My second attempt at chicken frying. Much better.

My first attempt at fish frying. Finally managed to overcome the phobia of splattering oil. The secret is to fully coat the fish!

This and that

Stir fried assam fish. Managed to get the tamarind paste (after searching high and low for it) at the GREAT food hall at pacific place. It is a supermarket food haven there!

Steamed lemon chicken. Got the recipe from the world wide web but modified it as I didn't have any cooking wine.

Steamed fish in tamarind paste.

My first attempt at dhall. Bolehlah.

Salsa dip.. own creation.

Eating out

19th April 2009

Yay, i do not need to sweat in the kitchen today. It's no-cook-day!

We had lunch at a local coffee shop (that serves the type of food HK cafes back home serve) somewhere near lan kwai fong (walking distance to Coach). Lots of variety with reasonable price. I foresee us coming here quite often as it is not too far away from the church.

Prawn noodles with XO sauce. Was contemplating between this and the hainanese chicken rice but decided on the former as i had been craving for prawns. Basically it is like wantan mee. Nothing spectacular.
Hubby's tender pork ribs noodles. It's something like canned pork on maggi mee. Who says canned pork is not yummy?! Slurp!

Cloudy looking pork soup that came with our noodles.

My milk tea. Not the perfect one yet..

Hubby's milk tea.

Then later we had dinner with hubby's junior which also happened to be my junior in school. Small world really. We ate at a nearby char chan teng.

Beancurd soup.

Sweet and sour pork ribs.

Stir fried long beans.

Fish slices with ginger and some green leafy veggies underneath.

Day three in London pt1

Day three took quite awhile to make its appearance here as we did most of our sightseeing then, therefore there are simply too many photos to compile! So here goes the first part of it.

We started our day with a so-called english breakfast at the hotel. Quite sad really cos there were no eggs and only one type of ham. Not to mention the exact same thing two days in a row (as we stayed there for two nights). Anyway I still had to have a pic!

Our first stop was the much talked about London Eye! Finally got to see it. Above is the various views OF the Eye.

And these are the different views FROM the Eye! Simply beautiful. You can really see practically the whole of London town from the capsule. The whole ride took about half an hour but I got bored way before that (after taking all the necessary photos!).

And these photos give a rough documentation of our River Thames cruise. I actually enjoyed the cruise more. Most probably due to the funny cruise guide. I couldn't remember all the buildings that we passed (unless I google it or something) but we did pass underneath lots of bridges including one 'wibbly wobbly' bridge (centre pic on ur right) and of course the Tower Bridge (or more often than not mistaken for the London Bridge!).

Like it or not i have to get it done!

I know I should be doing my taxes now. But I don't want to be disturbed while doing it. And Annabel could wake up any moment now. So I shall,.. no, I must do it tonight!!! Well, hopefully lil Bel sleeps at a decent hour tonight then.

Temptations

Two window shopping outings left me salivating on things I do not need.

But of course I can provide excuses on turning my 'want' into a 'need'. The ones on your right are so suitable as a baby bag. I can just dump everything in it. Plus I don't have a proper one here. And the ones on your left are just pinky lovely!!

Annabel the adorable

I am enjoying 'me-time' now. Annabel has been sleeping since 1pm. And it's 4pm now. She should be up any minute. Or else I'll be in trouble tonight! I have prepared the ingredients for dinner and also steamed an apple for Annabel to dip her bread in. So let me blog for awhile.

Today's topic will be on Annabel. She has gotten used to being here, far away from what she used to call home. She doesn't cry while bathing anymore. So that's good. She is getting extremely naughty, otherwise cheekily adorable. It drives me up the wall at times. We always say that her saving grace is her cuteness. Lucky her. She will point and gesture at what she wants, and will wail and cry when she doesn't get her way. Not to mention kicking her feet. She likes to stand and walk here and there. So mommy or daddy has to hold her hands high up her head to guide her. She loves going out. A future kaki jalan, evident with the beautiful mole behind her right leg, near her ankle.

She enjoys music and singing - hymns, Akon's Mr Lonely and tv advertisement jingles especially 'Are you smarter than a fifth grader', AI and the list is growing! She will shake her head and bounce about and move her little hands around when she hears music especially the ones she like. She will at times 'sing' along as well. She now speaks swahili. But at times it sounded hindustani. An example of her speech, "Chikugunya mengah mengah cupacake!" She could just go on and on and she sounded so cute talking. She now knows papa is daddy and mummum is mealtime. But she will only cry mamamama when she is in desperate situation like when she wants mommy to carry her but mommy is too busy doing other things.

Here are some shots of little Bel doing what she knows best.. looking cute!

And.... here is Annabel's favourite tv jingle!!!

My chicken rice

The aromatic rice. Do ignore the black dots. It is actually burnt garlic. I have not yet master the art of frying garlic. Any tips?
The fresh cucumber and tomatoes. I almost couldn't recognise raw cucumber at the market cause it looked different than back home. Plus the stall had three different varieties!
The secret weapon: a very mean chicken rice chilli (thanks to mom's secret recipe hihi)!! This goes perfectly well with the cucumber and tomatoes. Yummm..

The sesame oil steamed chicken.

The satisfaction? Hubby dear simply loves today's meal!