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!!

Thai Sabye Sabye

We went to Thai Sabye Sabye for the 1st time a couple of weeks back when hubs lost a bet we made on our baby's gender. Read here for my victory story. I told mama about our dinner there and she got excited listening to me rave about the egg yolk soft shelled crabs. So i decided to treat the family to mother's day dinner there. Papa was none too happy coz Old Klang Road spells -JAM to him in bold capital letters but had to agree coz it was mama's day!- plus my brother offered to drive so he relented.

We got there at about 830pm and there was only 3 other occupied tables- not sure what this means coz the last time we went on a weeknight the place was also almost empty. Not sure of their weekday lunch or weekend crowd but seeing that this place has been around since i was a kid- i think they're doing just fine.

We ordered the soft shelled crabs of course and the egg yolk fried sotong (yes were in a race to c who goes into cardiac arrest 1st), Thai Sabye Sabye fish, kangkung belacan, and mixed tomyam. Service was pretty quick but this was to be expected considering the near empty restaurant. They served pandan agar agar as appetizers which i found to be weird as this was normally served as dessert. But it was polished off in a matter of minutes by my ravenous brothers. I only caught a glimpse of it before starting a 2 minute conversation with my sister- in which time the jellies dissipated into thin air. Magic really.

The crabs were- as promised, delectable. If you are not watching your calorie intake, this dish is just perfect. Its creamy and delicious but can be a bit too rich for some people. Its also a tad oily but that only adds flavour to the dish. Ok im being biased coz i love it so much!

We ordered the sotong to be cooked the same way as the crabs and this turned out to be a mistake. While delicious- there was only so much oil and yolk the palette (and heart) could tolerate. After a while it got to be too cloying and we ended up with leftover crabs. But only coz the squid came first. I had the crabs for lunch the nx day and they were still awesome- albeit much less crunchy.

Look at that impatient hand- i think that was my dad's who was too far to be slapped.

The kangkung belacan was nothing to shout about but was still a welcomed addition as its spiciness help cut thru the cloying yolks. The fish could have done with more chili padi. It lacked zing but for non spicy eaters like mom n my sis- it was fine. But the siakap used was fresh and was perfectly fried.

I dont quite fancy the tomyam here. Its a lil too salty and thick for my liking. I prefer the light, super spicy, non-milky version like the one served at vichudda so i didnt finish my portion. But I dug out the condiments tho and found the prawns to be super fresh and crunchy- love!!

Hubs was super hungry when we arrived so please excuse the photos. Between wanting to take pictures quickly and slapping the occasional impatient hand grabbing for the dish- you really couldnt blame him.

She insisted on taking pictures after dinner so from then on- all our pictures was upside down

I tried the fried rice here once n it wasnt very good. But their lauk-lauk is pretty good so ill stick to that from now on.

Thai Sabye Sabye
G62, Ground Floor, Lucky Plaza
Old Klang Road, KL
Tel: 03-7981 2887

Coffee Cupcakes

So i've been mulling over what to write for days, since i had promised to do a review on my own cooking. Thing is- the only thing that ive cooked so far since we started this blog has been mundane everyday cooking and the only photos i have are of crunchy fried anchovies with onions n potato and beef masak kicap- which are hardly worth blogging about.

But two nights ago, I woke up at 3am with one thing on my mind- coffee cupcakes. I could practically taste it at the back of my throat but at 3 im the morning there was nothing i could or wanted to do about it. Problem was, I only wanted ones that I made. And since we were doing nothing sunday, I thought why not make it today!

And voila!! Coffee cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting!! I have never been a fan of coffee- in fact drinking it gives me migrain. But i tried making these once about 2 years back and have been in love with it ever since- not coffee, just these cupcakes. But since getting married I've been baking less and less coz hubs isnt a fan of sweet bakes. Whenever I do bake, I share my bounty with the guard downstairs :)

These cupcakes are moist and fluffy and delish!! I've used this recipe to make vanilla, butterscotch and coffee cupcakes so far and they've all turned out awesome. I got this recipe off my sister. I think its from Peggy Porschen.

Here are the ingredients you need.

1 1/2 cups of flour (ive used multipurpose to cheap ol' wheat four- it works with anything)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp baking poweder
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups milk
Vanilla essence
1 1/2 tsp of instant coffee diluted with warm water

1. Cream butter till fluffy, then add sugar.
- For ameteur bakers, by fluffy i mean till the butter turns a very light creamy yellow.

2. Add eggs bit by bit then add vanilla and coffee essence.
- Make sure eggs are at room temperature or risk having you batter split. Add them bit by bit in 4 batches at 30 second intervals.

3. Add flour slowly one tbsp at a time then add milk. (also at room temperature)
- Most recipes will ask you to sift the flour but im to lazy busy to bother and the cakes still turn out fine.

4. Bake them at 170 - 180 degrees (depending on your oven) for about 15 minutes or till it looks a promising shade of brown
- do the skewer test and if it comes out clean its done. I normally take it out as soon as its done coz i like them super moist.

Coffee frosting

250g butter
500 g icing sugar
1 tsp of instant coffee diluted with warm water. Throw all of these together into the mixer and blitz them at hi speed till it doubles in size. For normal vanilla frosting- just replace the coffee with vanilla essence.
                                                                                                                                                

Dont forget to cast your votes so we can pick where to go for our next review!

Our next review will be on Thai Sabye Sabye where we celebrated mothers day last week! Yum yumm!!

Mukha - Taman Tun Dr Ismail

Do you like our new banner?? Isnt it puurrrdyyy??? My husband made it- coz i know as much about all this techy stuff as a potato. All i did was sat next to him and demanded this and that from strawberry prints to apple shadows. Very useful i am...

So last weekend we were guests on Bella on NTV7. I was invited by a producer friend who was looking for expecting mom's. I was pretty excited esp when they told me to bring hubster along for a surprise on the set. Of course i didnt tell him- which resulted in him wearing somthing I totally didnt agree with. But I couldnt argue when he went- "Bkn nye i yg nk masuk tv kot!". Next time listen to your wife ok?

I had fun on the show. Daphne really makes you feel at ease and truth be told I was not the least bit nervous. It felt to me like a group of friends sitting around discussing things we're goin thru in our pregnancy.

Anyways, after the show i was famished (when am i not??)! So we decided to try out Mukha at Taman Tun. I have read a couple of reviews of the place and since we we looking for something new- i thought why not!?

It was super duper hot day when we arrived. We both immediately placed orders for their root beer float which is RM 6 each before proceeding to check out their menu on the wall. None of those flimsy paper menu's here- no sir! Evrything they offer is written in chalk on the black wall which i thought was pretty cool.

The furniture at mukha is very vintage chic. Mismatched tables and chairs, gunny sacks with arabic words hanging on the walls, the odd guitar case in the corner and beautiful ornate lightings that looked like it was bought at some old market in Istanbul or Pakistan.

Hubsters attemp at taking artistic looking pics

The hot weather put me off anything too heavy or full of heaty spice. I settled for the steak sandwich (RM 13)while hubs ordered the chicken kebab (RM 13). While waiting i sneaked in nx door to get their dessert which everyone has been raving about. Unfortunately they were mostly sold out. I came just in time to c a girl get the last of their pavlova's :( I saw some meringue resting before being baked- but pavlova's take about 2 hours to bake so i knew i wont have a chance to try them this time around. I settled for their carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting (RM 2) and something called custard fluff (RM 4)which actually looked pretty much like ordinary japanese cheesecake in a muffin cup.

Never underestimate a boring looking cake

Hungry me ate dessert while waiting for our food to arrive. The carrot cupcake was moist and tasted a little too strongly of cinnamon. It didnt have any nuts in it which would have been nice. The cream cheese was good tho. The ordinary looking custard fluff blew my mind! It was really good! It felt like i was eating clouds or cotton with a dollop of custard in the middle. It was just mildly sweet and creamy without being too heavy.Twas just perfect!

Our food came and i was surprised to see purple sweet potato chips in my plate. The chips werent fried till crispy and were a little under seasoned. My beef was sandwiched in half a 'roti arab' and was pleasing to the tummy. It was just mildly spiced. I ate it doused in bbq n tobasco sauced and drizzled with the mint sour cream it came with. This is good for a light snack and kept me full for an hour before i was rummaging around for food again.

Hubsters chicken kebab had a tad more spice then my beef. But according to him it's too 'Malaysianised' compared to the one he had at Adelaide. This was served with ordinary pita bread. It was essentially a deconstructed pasar malam chicken kebab. The only difference is that the mayo it was served with had a touch or garlic. It was good nonetheless but you can get the same thing for RM2.50 at any pasar malam.

Overall the food at Mukha is just okay. However it's a great place to hang out and their desserts are definitely worth coming back for! Would love to be back for their famous red velvet and banofee pie!

Mukha,
15, Lorong Rahim Kajai 13
Taman Tun Dr Ismail,
600000 Kuala Lumpur

03-77322248
http://www.mukha.com.my/home/

Stay tuned for our next update from Jane's own kitchen!