My stick family

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Yummylicious in red

Fresh cherries for hkd 23+ per kg. These are not too sour, almost sweet. Good source of vitamins A and C.

Second round of lychees. This time I remembered to photograph these red wonders.

A close-up.

Tau ewe bak

Got the recipe from an online site dedicated to peranakan recipes (thanks to ahkim bel). Thought it would be the same as how mama used to cook it, but hers was much more simple. This recipe requires crushed peppercorns, for that added flavour. My version was also much leaner with tremendously lesser oil.

Pea sprouts

This is one of my fav veggies. It's from the taugeh family minus the plucking of the tail and head,.. equals to less work.

Pea sprouts with cabbage.

Oyster sauce chicken

My second time cooking this dish, and this time with more ginger.

Red on the outside, white on the inside

Bought some lychees the other day. HKD 15 for 2kg - can never get that price back home. No, actually, getting fresh ones is almost impossible. At least in Mlk. I love lychees, the fresh and sweet ones at least.

After the peeling. So tempting till I forgot to photograph the whole fruit.

The juicylicious sweet fruit that is full of vitamin C goodness. Annabel had two, and daddy enjoyed his in his iced ribena (ala sirup laici).

Breakfast today

We went english for the first meal of the day today. The breakfast set consisted of smoked bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, fresh tomatoes, english muffins, and good ol nescafe.

Hubby's

Mine

Ayam masak tempra

My first time using chicken for this tempra recipe. It's easy to cook. The combination of sweet-sour-salty taste is a delight to the tastebuds, giving this dish its unique tempra-taste. So unlike the tempra dish that we ordered at a local peranakan restaurant in melaka quite sometime back. It tasted kicap all the way. They can bluff their way to other customers (non-peranakans) but definitely not this one!

View from the kitchen

Yeah, I know, the window needs cleaning!

More flats!

Makan-makan and catch-up outings

June has been a fun month as we had three different visits from friends. It's really nice seeing familiar faces here. The irony of it, of all places, we managed to catch up here. *smiley*

My first trip to The Sweet Dynasty was with Ren En and Noreen. It was also my debut outing to the much publicised Tsim Tsa Tsui. More weird (and rude) people can be spotted there (and also on the way there, on the mtr).

The Sweet Dynasty is popular for their taufoofah, which came in a wooden bucket (good for keeping warm). Very smooth taufoofah - nice. But I still prefer our local gula melaka with ginger syrup. Annabel also enjoyed her share.

(clockwise from top left): Some sort of pork noodles, chee cheong fun (the way i like it), veggie wanton, and a pork dish.

Our second outing was with Cynthia. We brought her to Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop, and later dessert at Honeymoon Desserts, both at IFC Mall.

(clockwise from left): Fried prawn dumplings with sweet sour sauce (no big deal. i still prefer the one behind the old federal/rex cinema), fish congee (this is really nice and smooth - yummy!), chee cheong fun wrapped over yew char kueh (not bad - something different), and fried kueh teow with beef (yum-yum).

(clockwise from top left): Walnut soup & almond tea (mine), mango with taufoofah (cyn's), and mango & grass jelly in vanilla sauce (hubby's). Over here, one cannot go wrong with any mango desserts!

My second visit to The Sweet Dynasty was yesterday, with Elfie and Wei Chieh.

(clockwise from top left): Pork noodles (this is really nice and tasty), chee cheong fun (yet again), veggie wanton (and again), and fried rice (so-so only). Of course we also ordered the taufoofah but didn't take photos of it as it will still look the same as the first time!

Day four in London

On the way to the palace... such lush greenery.

The Buckingham Palace.
We managed to catch glimpses of the changing of the guards. There were loads of people and we couldn't really get a good spot, hence glimpses only. Oh, the photos were taken with (almost) maximum zooming. Anyway I wasn't in the mood to snuggle among the crowd just to get an excellent view. Plus I despise crowds. In the end, the changing of the guards was just that. There are some things that you just got to do when in London, and this is just one of those things.

More photos of the surrounding area.

After that we were off to Leicester Square again, this time to actually get our tickets and to a theatre performance. We took ages to decide on what to watch. Is it gonna be the Phantom (hubby watched already), Wicked (am currently reading the book),... and we finally settled for Les Miserables.

Then lunch at a nearby Burger King.

Of course we had to drop by Harrods for some window and souvenir shopping.

And later we stopped by Oxford Street again for some last minute shopping.

We ended our fourth day with Les Miserables. All that walking and sight-seeing were really tiring. I was snoozing on and off throughout the performance. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a wonderful show. The actors were superb, not to mention the singing and all. It was a great experience, minus the napping.

Dry chicken curry

My third attempt (i think) at MIL's dry chicken curry. I think this one turned out just about right. Will try the one with more gravy next.

On this day, the present

The many cute faces of Annabel. These were taken while lepaking with her just before leaving for dinner.

Mommy and little girl while waiting for the food at Zafferano.

Daddy's tandoori chicken pizza. Annabel had her share too. Mommy was starving and had forgotten to take a snapshot of her chicken tikka beriani.

On this day, two years back...

Happy second anniversary, dear!!!

Braised Mackerel with Tomatoes

The recipe called it as such. But it is actually one version of sweet sour fish. I sticked to the given ingredients (minus spring onions - didn't have lar) although I know very well that I could have added cucumber, pineapple, onions etc. I will surely add more stuff the next round. But I did throw in a teaspoon of chinese cooking wine.. just couldn't resist it!

Dumpling: nyonya style

I managed to satisfy my nyonya chang craving, all thanks to HL (hubby's junior cum my schoolmate cum half peranakan). She said the dumplings were a bit too peppery, but hey, beggars are not choosers right? Plus I love the spiciness of pepper. Hubby was also kind enough to donate half of his to me hihi ^_^

Before the attack.

Yea, still sempat to ambil gambar.

Stewed chicken wings in oyster sauce

Got this recipe from the internet. Modified a little as I didn't have ginger wine. Instead I grated some ginger and added a dash of cooking wine. Turned out rather well. I actually love it! I do wonder if it'll still be as nice if I compensate the wings with other parts of the chicken (minus the skin)?

Bukumuka

Facebook. It seems to be the most natural thing to do nowadays when you go online. Everybody is on it. A surefire way to be in touch with the world - friends that you see day in day out, old schoolmates that you haven't seen or spoken to in 20 years, colleagues that you are not too fond of (or your boss), one Mr A that you met only once, your general practitioner, a friend's toddler... you get the picture.

Facebook. This is the avenue where you advertise your humble self. Your status can be updated every hour to give an insight into what you have been doing, are thinking, or all the super cool stuff that you are planning to do. Through this, I learnt of one friend's exotic culinary adventure, another acquaintance's exotic escapade to never never land, and another's exotic dining experience. Oh, and not to mention those spoilers.

Facebook. You can create photo albums and fill them with memories - graduation, wedding, birthdays, holidays blah blah blah. And then comes the taggings and comments. Photos that are sure to derive loads of comments are of baby/kids and food. People just seem to connect well with these two topics. And the least comments I would say for your holiday shots. Jealous of others' happiness perhaps? Hmmm.. unless it involves them food! Of course those small people that harbour hidden feelings towards you will simply refrain themselves from any comments whatsoever. Let's not get into that.

Facebook. The wall. Where you are able to pen-down sweet nothings to your wife/girlfriend, in the eyes of the whole facebook community, therefore proclaiming yourself as the most romantic guy on facebook. Also, where you are able to send birthday greetings to Buddy A only to get Buddy B mad at you for not wishing him. And where you have conversation with friends for all to see.

Facebook. On etiquette. It is only natural to reply to a person's comments. Ok, an excuse is granted but only if you really really do not like the person, or are lost for words, or suddenly went brain dead. Like when people are talking to you, you will reply. The same applies here. If you answer to the comments, it will definitely encourage the commenter to say more things in the future. Now, you would surely like to have comments splattered all over your facebook, don't you? And it the long run, you would have developed a closer relationship. See, a win-win situation.

Facebook. I am not against it. In fact I love my facebook moments and it can be quite addictive. Ehem.. and I do indulge in the things mentioned above. I am only human. And I can just go on about this topic but let us just leave it for another day.

The Agaricus bisporus and Lentinula edodes

Mixed veggie with broccoli, carrots, green bell pepper and button mushrooms.
Chicken with chestnuts. Followed an online resipe but (self) added the shiitake mushrooms. Hubby didn't like chestnuts so I had to sapu everthing (not complaining :o)!

Chicken, dhall and fish

Chicken with tauchew and ginger.

Dhall with potato and carrots on rice.

Fish curry ala mama bel ^_*