Borneo Babymoon - Day 1

Hey all!! Sorry for the long hiatus. I wanted to post updates many times then i just got lazy much to hubs' dismay. He tried coaxing me into updating a couple of times but it didnt work so he gave up after a while. Anyhooo!! We came back from our awesome babymoon trip to Sabah lastnight. Most people dont know that i was born there, we moved back here when i was a year old and ive never been back since. So this trip was sort of like a bittersweet homecoming for me. Being hormonal, i actually teared up as we landed.

We stayed 2 nights at KK town and another night at Kundasang. I am eternally in love with Sutera Harbour Hotel where we stayed. We seriously want to go there again just to stay at the hotel- it is THAT awesome. Ill split this post into 3 parts as it's going to be quite lengthy.

Our hotel has its own marina and was super beautiful. We got a room facing the marina and the sea and i could just stare out the window for hours and hours on end. Our only gripe was the tv channels they provided. It didnt even have TV3 and no football channel. Considering its the football season i thought this was unjustified. Hubs was gonna leave me sleeping alone or drag me down (depending on my preference) and go catch the game at the sports bar downstairs. Thankfully, he was too sleepy to get up at 230 in the morning. Of course, me 'dodoi-ing' him back to slumber didnt help.

To fully explore the beauty of Sabah, one would need to be there about 2- 3 weeks as most attractions are spread far and wide. Of course we did not have the luxury of that. So in the 3 days that we had- we only managed to see the tip of the iceberg.

On the day we arrived, we took the hotel shuttle to Sabah Centre Point which is and old old mall (think Sg Wang/ Pertama Complex old) to grab lunch. The food court was under renovation and was sans floor. The tiles had been ripped off so it looks like ur eating at a construction site. I was famished by then so I didnt really care much for the ambiance. I was surprised to see that the chicken rice costs RM2.80 after hearing so much talk about how food costs a bomb here. I ordered the rice and a beef noodle for RM5. The rice turned out to be ordinary tasting but at RM2.80 it tasted above its price tag. The noodles however were awesome!! I have an obsession with noodles and this one made me really happy. The beef that it came with was perfectly cooked for hours till it was flaky and practically melted in my mouth. And hello?? Its 5 bucksss!! We went back for this on our last day and this morning i kicked myself for not 'tapau-ing' some home. The noodles are called kon lau mee daging or Tuaran mee.

We went to the waterfront to catch the sunset which is spose to be awesomely beautiful and swung by the Phillipine Market afterwards. The sunset, while gorgeous, could have done with better seating. We didnt go to the short strip of restaurants as they consisted of mainly bars and chinese eateries so we sat on some abandoned pipes and watched some local kids play on the dirty beach while the sun set. The restaurants claimed to be halal but i lost confidence after i saw 'buddha jumps over the wall' on the menu.

We had some fresh big prawns and huge squids at the market and it wasnt very good. The only saving grace was that the seafood was fresh but I got turned off by how dirty the place was. I did have a great time trying a bit of everything tho. However i gotta say, people here arent very friendly towards us Peninsula people (orang semenanjung). Their smiles turn into frowns when they hear our accent.

For some reason chicken wings are a big deal here. We tried some and it tasted nothing out of the ordinary. Hubs bought a chicken murtabak in case he got hungry later and it was quite good. It was deep fried as opposed to pan fried and was filled with fresh vegetables and eggs with mediocre amount of chicken meat instead of our normal meat and eggs filling.

I also filled up on avocado juice- my fav! Avocadoes here are really cheap as it is grown locally. In KL they normally cost me 5-6 ringgit each. I bought 2 kg's to bring home at only 13 ringgit.

We ended our 1st night in Borneo lounging by the hotel beach (hubs) and running around burning dinner by catching baby crabs (me). The beach was pretty small and private just how i like it. The picture above is of my footprints in the sand running zig zag trying to catch them crabs.

Ive got so much more to tell!! Will do so in the coming week! Toodloo!!

Free Mori Uptown

I know i promised to blog about Sushi Zanmai but i HAVE to write about this before i forget- Hubs was out with d boys lastnight and since i didnt like being home alone, I asked him to send me over to mum's before he left. My sister n i went out n i found the most amazing bakery ever!! Ive always been a fan of bread- esp steaming hot ones and desserts make me go bonkers. Which explained my squeal of delight when i spotted this pretty new thang in damansara uptown. Ignoring na's deafening demands for ice cream (baskin robins is just nx door), I walked into Free Mori like an excited fat kid.

The bakery is so purdeyyyyyy!!! There werent too many choices since it was past 9pm when we walked in so I guess they had sold out of most stuff but my eyes was glued to the chilled dessert display. They all looked so tempting!! I had a hard time choosing but I finally settled for the Leite mousse (pronounced Light mousse i assume) and the oh so cute tiramisu. the tiramisu looked more like an entremet then something that is normally made in a casserole.

Na HAD to have a sugar donut (RM 2.30 i think?). I dont get this girls obsession with donuts. And we got a golden bar or was it golden bread for free. Popped by next door coz the fat girl would not quit with her demands for ice cream and headed home straight after but our 3 minute ride felt so long coz my sister drives like a 90 year old.

The Leite mousse (RM 7.50)- was gorgeous! It was nicely creamy without much or any gelatine. I hate mousse that uses gelatine. But i couldnt detect any hints of almond tho. The sponge was cottony soft but was a tad too sweet from being over brushed with syrup stock. I scraped most of the mousse off coz they were just so good. This is def something i would buy again.

The tiramisu (RM9.90) had a bit too much gelatine. The coffee flavour was also really subdued which would normally be fine by me coz i hate coffee but even i felt that this could do with a bit more bitterness to it. The sponge fingers was also abit too drenched in syrup (this tiramisu is rum free) making it too sweet. But look at it! Isnt it just the prettiest dessert??

Na's donut was nothing to shout about. I found it to be too dense for my liking having been spoiled with fluffy hollow donuts like J.co and Big apple. Same goes for the golden bar/ bread. Was too dense and a tad dry.

The cakes and bread here are a bit pricier then most run of the mill bakery but i would def come again to try their creme catalana and other desserts next time. The staff was really nice and friendly which is a plus point. They also have cookies and some gourmet coffee i think? Their bread loaves also looked pretty tempting. In fact i may just go again tonight. We'll see :)

Free Mori is located between Baskin Robins and Chatime in Uptown. It sits next to the alley that separates it from Baskins. Its got a side entrance which makes it really unique.

Free Mori Bakery Cafe Damansara Utama
48 Jalan SS21/58
Damansara Utama (Uptown)
47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Tel: 03-7722 4157
Toll free: 1 800 22 9288

Sushi Q- One Utama

Sometime last week hubs and i took a day of work to have some R & R time. We finally went to the movies after so long- it had come to a point where i had forgotten what the inside of a cinema looked like. I declared it was my turn to pick the movie since we couldnt remember who got the last pick. I wanted to see ' What to expect when you're expecting' for obvious reasons. The cinema was pretty much empty since it was the first show on a monday morning (i think). I bought some sushi from sushi Q to munch on in the cinema coz popcorn doesnt fill me up. Hubs made me pack leftover lamb mandy rice from ar-rawsha for him to eat. We were like a bunch of kampung people going for a picnic lah basically. This is what happens if you dont watch movies often- the thought of going without food for 2 hours scares the crap out of you and u end up hogging a bag full of food enticing annoying you neighbours with wafts of your food aroma making their dull popcorn appear worst then it is.

I felt the movie was good- probably coz i connected to the characters in more ways then one. I must have cried thru out the entire movie much to the amusement of hubs- who could not stop yawning. I understood Wendy (played by Elizabeth Banks) so much when she said-  I just wanted the glow. The one that they promise you on the cover of those magazines. Well, I'm calling it - pregnancy sucks. Making a human being is really hard. I have no control over my body or my emotions. I too wanted that 'glow'- instead i got stuck with a face full of acne and ugly dry skin. My mom had to suppress looks of horror evrytime she looked at my face for fear i would burst out crying. And dont even get me started on the gas...

Anyways- sushi Q makes awesome sushi! They use fresh and good quality ingredients and is very reasonably priced. My favs are the prawn rolls (RM5). They make em really good and the prawns have a crunch to them that only comes from fresh good sized prawns. Cant say much bout their jelly fish salad (RM8 - i think) tho. It wasnt as crunchy as i expected them to be. They were a lil on the mushy side so avoid this. Was a lil disappointed coz this is one of my fav dishes of all time.

Sushi Q is on the 2nd floor, in between the New and Old wing.

Our next post will be about pasta zanmai!- stay tuned!

A nightmare on Old Klang Road- Homemade Soy Milk

I made soy milk last night. Ok last night would be an understatement... I hand squeezed soy muck at 2 am after i got back from reading the news. I had wanted to blog about it sooner while the incident was still fresh in my mind- and hair but didn't have time nor energy to get to it till this morning.. I got on to making them as soon as we reached home. I was (in my mind ) channeling a Malaysian Nigella Lawson what with my full studio make up and all. But boy.. was I in for a surprise! 

We had gone grocery shopping earlier in the day and i had grabbed almost a kilo of soy beans thinking it'd be a breeze to make them from scratch! Hubs was a lil excited but he's always happy when i blog- makes no difference to him if its about street burgers or beef bourguignon. I pre-soaked them at lunch and totally forgot that we would be busy the entire weekend and the recipe clearly states that they should be soaked 8-12 hours. By the time i got home last night they were all plump and fat after their 13 hour swim. It was between making soy bean milk at 3am- or throwing the entire thing out 2 days later. So i rolled up my sleeve and thought- how hard could this be??


I blended the beans at a 1:1 cup ratio and strained them with newly bought muslin cloth- ok fine i used baby napkins- but they were brand new. Ambitious me double layered the cloth to get a finer strain. After seeing the soy trickle down one drop at a time- i gave up and went back to single sheet straining. Even that was a nightmare wait. I admit i am a rather impatient person- but at 3am, i think i deserve to be. I scrapped the bottom of the cloth with a spoon hoping to hasten the process but it didn't help much. So i twisted the muck inside the cloth and made a little ball of it and squeezed hard. It was hard work but it did help make the draining process faster- for a while.

After my 5th attempt at doing this, thinking 'oh this is so easy!', the ball of muck i was squeezing- burst at the top and i had soy bean waste shooting out at all directions in my kitchen. Hubs came in upon hearing my screams and found me and my kitchen dripping with muck. I had them in my hair and on my carefully applied HD eyeshadow and god knows where else. After wiping some of it off, i threw away the rest of the un-blendered beans and muck- I had actually googled 'what to do with soy bean waste' prior to being having them splattered on my face- but after that incident i felt the only place they belong was in the bin.

I boiled the milk i had painstakingly extracted and despite the recipe calling for constant stirring- I was cleaning muck of the kitchen and myself- which turned out to be a big mistake. When i came back the whole pot was frothing and bubbling and made no attempt to slow down when i stirred it- and it boiled right over the top and onto my stove top. At this point i had long decided that i was NEVER making soy milk from scratch EVER again and had new found respect for Jenny Hong (THE soy bean lady)

An hour after i started, i sat down to a mug of 'too hot to drink soy milk' and Nigella was the last thing you would imagine, looking at my state. My eye make up had gone panda after numerous attempts of trying to get rid of grainy soy of it, I had huge clumps of more soy in my hair and more on neck and clothes. 


I survived this with 2 mugs and a bottle of soy milk to call my own- and it doesn't even taste phenomenal. I mean its good- if u ignore the bit of waste u might find at the bottom of the mug but it tasted like soy milk. The kind i can get a huge bottle for 6 ringgit. Granted it tasted less diluted but i would trade in my soy milk for a minimally diluted one anytime of the day if it means i get out of it without beans in my face and hair. 


So unless my husband asks for this on his deathbed- i am never again bringing soy beans into my kitchen for the purpose of making soy milk. If any of you are crazy enough to attempt making this- i suggest u cover you entire kitchen floor, cabinet, fridge, microwave, counter top and yourself before milking it ok. I didn't follow any exact recipe- just went with gut instinct


1 kg soy beans
Enough water for a 1:1 ratio with beans
Sugar to taste


1. Pre soak soy beans for 8-12 hours and blend with water
2. Strain using cloth strainer as the metal sieve isn't fine enough to hold muck
3. Boil with some pandan leaves if you have- but i didnt
4. DO NOT STOP STIRRING
5. Only add sugar once soy milk has come to a boil


So there you have it! A recipe for disaster! Let me know if any of you actually had the bravery to try making this ok! Have a happy weekend!!