Perkasa Hotel, Kundasang

I went to Perkasa Hotel mainly for business, we have organized a training program which last for 2 days. SO plenty of time to enjoy the cool environment. We visited a fresh water fish farm at Kg Luanti called Tagal, it's a conservation area where fishes and nature alike been protected by villagers. Fishes swim at the river happily without worry of being end up at some kitchen far far away. It was fun and after the having the evening playing with tame fishes, we went up to Perkasa Hotel for dinner. It was ok, not too bad. I had a good meal, but I don't fancy the place because there's lots of flies here in Ranau.
The soup is yummy, so is the chicken cooked in lemon sauce and Sabah veggie being freshly plucked from the farm early that morning is green and healthy, I am not sure where they get the prawn from but its certainly great because it's my favourite fried butter prawn. I had a good meal and end up so full, not even room for the desserts afterward.

Kuih Makmor

I really don't know how to explain what this to my foreign friends, it's tiny round ball like and cover with icing sugar to taste. I called it golf-ball cookies, it is locally known as kuih makmor, and some country I believe called it Ghee-ball. When I was working in west Malaysia, I couldn't find any of these type of cookies anywhere. Not sure why, maybe they don't have commercial value, however it is widely found in Sabah, my home town. Even then, every family came out with different recipe. I use margerine for the ingredient and sometimes if I want to spurge on good ingredients, I'll use ghee, which is awfully pricey. The ingredients is vastly flexible, so it's no right and wrong to these, its all in the mixing and type of ingredients you use.

so here goes:
Ingredients
100g ghee
100g butter
300g flour
50g brown sugar
Peanut(fried without oil,skinned and crush it into fine grain)
Icing sugar (for decor)

Method
Melt ghee with butter in wok in medium heat. Once both ingredient melted put aside to cool.
In a mixer bowl, mixed brown sugar with the cooled ghee & butter. Then add flour and mix all ingredient together. Put aside while we do the fillings.
We just mix the crushed peanut & icing sugar together and make sure you add icing sugar to your taste. (some prefer sweet, some not too sweet, it's really up to you!)
Then tear a small bit of mixed doh from the mixer bowl, fill in the peanut&sugar in the middle and shape them into mini round balls. Then arrange it in the baking pan. Make sure the size is twice smaller the intended size and put a decent distance between each biscuit.

Preheat the oven for 200 degree Celsius and baked the biscuit for 15minutes. Once cooked. Keep the cookies to cool in room temperature before you coat them in icing sugar.

Nyummy.. I think I'm going to make some of these cookies this Christmas!

Wedding Feast

Last Saturday, I went to a wedding reception for my ex-high school mate. The event is held at Ocean Seafood village near Wawasan Plaza and Promenade Hotel. Its very popular place to organise a big event, it can accommodate up to 3 wedding at one time. Before I move on about the food. I really have to complain about the parking space, imagine a place where there're 3 weddings happening at same time, and to add to my frustration is when it rained that day. No parking, wet pavement and with cars honking at you when you cross the road to the restaurant. Despite meeting my old friends, it really dampen my mood and in fact I decided not have my wedding in Ocean. There, I said it, I won't want to put my guests through the same thing happen to me.
IT really a big blow since the decor and food in Ocean is really not bad. I like the place actually, it just that the parking issue really put me off.
The night dinner starter is Three Hot & COld Combination which is surprisingly yummy and crispy. Then, we moved on to main courses which are sea cucumber soup with crab meat, Steam Red snapper, Deep fried prawns, crispy roasted chicken, braised sea-cucumber & mushroom with brocoli, steamed rice with lotus leaf (individually wrapped and this is also my favourite) and finally Shanghai Pancake(also I like coz it's warm and crispy) as the dessert.
My review about the food is ok, but I really can't stop thinking about the parking space and so seriously when you plan for a wedding, do consider about the guests too.

Healthy eating.

I seriously been trying to avoid writing about food. Ever since I started this blog, I've gained weight gradually, until I step on the bathroom scale..Yikkkss, I need to make certain rules in eating. No doubt my blog makes me hungry and being in Sabah is no help either. Too many good food.
So I started my simple plan and go back to normal eating habit, no more pigging out unnecessarily!!
Yesterday, It's holiday and since I don't feel like cooking, I went to Tanamerah at Lintas for a bit to eat. I had PBJ (Peanut butter & Jelly) sandwiches and tall hazelnut white coffee. Not sure if that help on my diet, but it makes me feel better. I have enough of meat & coconut milk in my meal. (sigh). The other food is nasi lemak chicken wings, hey, I didn't order that, it's actually for my lil' bros. Cost me RM7.80 for the nasi lemak & RM2.80 for the toast. Poor thing, he waited so long and finally when we asked, the waiter actually forgotten his order.
Prior to this, I went for 6 mth grueling training that involved endurance walk, climb and kayaking that put me in real great shape, best shape I even been in years. I feel really bad that after having work (or put to work) so hard in getting trim and shapely figure, I've let go of my sensibilty and gain kg(s) back, and even some extra kg too, don't know where that come from. SO now, my plan to get me a decent weight is by maintaining a balance meal, breakfast a must, lunch & dinner, I don't believe skipping meal can get me the ideal weight, I might lose weight but I don't think it will last. The second is hard for me, which I plan not to have anymore food in between meals. cut back on my favourite snacks, drink more water and start on my light exercise regime (thats the hardest part) I also decided that no more fried char kuey tiaw or fried rice for me, from now on, I will eat noodles soup. Sounded bland but if that's the price of getting me in shape for my wedding, then, one small soup noodles for me please.

Melting moment Recipe

Today, I feel like sharing recipe of my favorite cookies which I am too lazy to make this festive seasons. The cookies are well-known in Malaysia and normally served throughout the year. I hope you will enjoy them as light snacks or tit-bits for your guest. Children and adult alike love them. I tried these cookies last Christmas and its really easy to make and quite delicious.



Melting Moment (Cookies)
1 1/2 cups (210 g) all purpose flour
1/2 cups (70g) Cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cups (30 g) powdered (icing) sugar)
1cup (227 g) unsalted butter (do not substitute with margerine)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Topping (optional):
1 cup (110 g) powdered/icing sugar, sifted

In medium size bowl, whisk flour, cornstarch and salt. Put aside. In bowl of electric mixer or with hand mixer, cream butter and sugar til light & fluffy (cream light yellow color) for about 2 min. Beat in vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat til incorporated. Cover and refridgerate the dough for at least one hour or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or for me, I just use some left over butter and spread thin layer on the cookie tray.

When dough is firm, form into 1 inch (2.54 cm) balls and place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 12 - 14 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to brown. These also depends on type of oven you use, if smaller oven oven, then you need to make sure to reduce the baking time. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, line another baking pan or tray with parchment or wax paper. Sprinkle about half of the confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar onto the bottom of the pan and then place the slightly cooled cookies on top of the sugar. Put the remaining sugar in a fine strainer or sieve and then sprinkle the tops of the cookies.

Meal in Malaysia

Malaysia has varieties of food, but rice is our staple food. Rice is normally served with fish, meat, vegetable etc. Our meal range from simple (like fish,rice with gravy) to more abundance dishes (Bryanni rice,rendang,satay,lontong,lemang). I prefer my fried catfish with some gravy on my rice. Sometimes I have roast pork, veggie and rice, balance meal I guess. Such meals you can get anywhere around Malaysian's restaurant or even small roadside stall. Price would range from RM3-RM8. But no matter how much it is, you get a full meal anywhere you go. You can also have your meal "to-go" or tapau. I think compare to KL or west Malaysia, a decent meal in Kota Kinabalu is more expensive that's RM5 a dish with 2 veggie and 2 pieaces of small chicken. If you choose fish to chicken, then the price will slightly higher. I had a shock of my life when I have lunch downstair at the federal office cafeteria, the cashier charged me RM5 for 2 pieces of small chicken and tauge veggies, I even asked her how she get to that amount. She said 1 piece of chicken is RM1.50 (what the...!!!), I paid the amount because there a long queue behind me but I am satisfied that I make the clerk felt uncomfortable, the next day with same amount of food, she look at me and say, for you special price lah, RM3.50, there you go...hehe.
In west Malaysia, I'll be getting the same dishes for RM3.50 at chinese mix-rice shop in Kajang. Even cheaper if I have my meal near University area, they even throw in free flow of soup and free Liang Cha (cooling tea) for you.

Dessert with name so strange

My sister and I went to this local kedai kopi in Taman Foh Sang in Luyang on Sunday. Dad always like to drop by these joint for light drinks and snacks. There're many type of local chinese cakes, varies from traditional to modern ones. But none that can struck me dumbfounded when I saw the big newspaperclip on the wall, its one of the cakes, it has frothy white cream on top of the golden brown flat base, it looks so interesting. But what struck me is the name, my sister said its called Niu Xi or translate as cow dung, maybe she's wrong but it doesn't look anything like cow dung, I think it looks more like UFO, so I bought 2 pieces. It cost me RM1.20 each, abit pricey. My verdict, well, I don't like the smell (and no, it doesn't smell like cow dung, more like eggs.)The white layer is actually egg white beaten til light, the yellow is the yolk which is bake. I think the taste will be much better if eaten when its freshly bake. I should have come and buy it when it just came out of the oven.

Kababayan--Philipines Restaurant

We heard that there's a Philipino's restaurant in Api-api centre and decided to give it a try since we had good food experience in Philipines last year. The food I can say aren't as good as ones we had in Philipines, the service is really slow. Too slow and it doesn't look good if we are the only customer in the restaurant. We had 4 main dishes, 2 desserts and can drinks in fancy glasses. Apart from slow food delivery service, the food is mediocore and quite common, grilled meat and fish, chicken cooked on hot pan. The desserts however is actually good and is complimentary of the restaurant.You can see the pics the pudding on my previous posting in comfort food. All these amount up to RM74.

Sandwiches or Man tou or both??

I am always at loss when people ask where to eat, I feel that if the food turn out not up to their expectation, they are going to give you that look or say sarcarstic things like, so expensive or not good lah. Doh, coz I give simillar comment whenever people make wrong choice for restaurant. Remember guys and gals, think before you eat, we have to plan where to go before we start choosing place to eat. So the other day, my cousin ask, where are we going to eat ah?? The only snack corner that comes up my head is May May's at Lintas, it's located at the same row as Maybank. They sell varieties of sandwhiches, mantou with fillings that blows your mind. Cheese, bacon, shredded chicken, tuna and etc. They cost in range of RM3-RM6. It took me few minutes to choose my meal, they are so many mouthwatering meal sets that really spoil you to bits. I think the environment is sort of Kopi tiam or Kedai Kopi style but you can always meet up with friends and families for a quick bite here.

Comfort Food

Hustle & bustle of everyday pressure would lead to stress and if these issues are not properly taken care of, you might face serious health risk. That's why we can see fitness franchise is highly in demand nowadays, people are more aware that there're so many illness that could prevent them from enjoying quality life, what better way than to prevent it from happening, the saying "to prevent is better than to cure" come home to us. We heard that so many times and yet we priorities different aspect in life. After we bought a house (which is a neccessity now), we will need to look into homeloan (if we already have that, we will now considering refinance home loan to get a better offer in refinancing), also we will need cheap car insurance, credit cards reduction plan or credit card consolidation, term life insurance and many more, we invested so much on these things, yet the more you seems to earn, the more you seems to spend on acquiring asset that require you to spend even more, for instance, if you buy a car, you will need to consider a cheap car insurance. If you bought a house, you will consider to have home renovation which require home improvement loans and maybe home insurance. Can you see the pattern? The more you work, the more you probably earn, and the more you need to spend and the deeper you sink into debts. For me, I have learn my lesson the hard way, I used to worry over handphone bills, when Malaysian first been introduced to handphone, I also wanted to look hip and cool, so I register for a handphone line, I didn't even bat an eyelash when they said, the access fee is RM90 per month (that was 10 years back), so expensive and imagine if you times 12, warggg!! A lot hah? Needless to say I spend most on my credit cards debts consist of handphone bills. Now that's history but the issues still the same, to keep up with our lifestyle, we always focus on money issues, but what about our health? How do you handle your stress level? For me, I either go on my orbitrek and start paddling away, then I would sit in from of my telly and maybe have some chocolate (not too much) and it even better if you share, I feel less guilty if I share my food, hehehe. Do you think eating would relieve stress? Not really although some food like chocolate contents phenylethylamine could help to boost people's happy mood. I would say do things in moderation and always prioritise family & health over everything else, just remember if anything happens to you, how would your family cope? So why not pick a family day and go for a nice dinner with family or friends and then order a delicious mouth-watering desserts afterward like the oreo cheese cake we ordered from friend that cost only RM44 per kg (remember sharing is the best part!!). My comfort food are actually snacks (cheesy snacks) but I love cakes, pudding (the top left pics is pudding I ordered at Bella Italia, Kuching), and Venetta Ice Cream Cake from supermarket when I am craving for something sweet, mind you I have sweet tooth and proud of it!!

Asian Food

Here I am again, blogging about Asian Food. I hope people don't mistake me craving for food all the time and maybe a big fan of Chinese Restaurant. Hmmm, I suppose I am a big fan of Chinese cooking, growing up eating mainly Chinese food definitely give me a distinct preferences towards Chinese delicacies. Although I am keen to venture into another style of cooking, mainly because of the diversify culture in Malaysia. I have tried, Malay cooking, Indian food and of course Chinese food too. Even Sabah and Sarawak has specialities, Tuaran Mee and Laksa Sarawak have rave reviews from local and tourist alike, making Malaysia such beautiful and excited place for food-manics!
What about other culture? Yes, indeed we have restaurants provides food from other countries, which are Japanese Food (many to choose from), Italian Food(Little Italy,Bella Italia, Luna Rossa & etc), Korean Food(I saw one in Likas Square), Mexican food (I tried once in LittleMexico,Langkawi & KL Starhill-->for those who prefer hot stuffs) and Thai Restaurant (e.g. Tham Nak Thai in Api-api Centre). I am glad the past weeks we went to lots of restuarant for dinner. I can always indulge in my not talented photograph skills(sigh).
We celebrate 2 birthdays these 2 months. If only we have more shopping mall that offer sales for uiques items, well at least I didn't opt for best buy gift card, I actually bought decent gifts for birthday. Hopefully google adsense could earn me enough to buy better gifts for Christmas. I'll keep My finger cross!

Kedai Kopi Hilltop

This eatery hole is suggested by my ex-colleague few years back, and I been here once before and the food then was good, price reasonable. Wednesday, my family dine here to celebrate my big bro b'day. We had good meal, table is set outside and very airy. The restaurant kind enough to place mosquito coil to ensure their customer can eat in peace. So considerable. Food came out beautifully served and of good quality. We ordered fried butter prawns (highly recommended), stewed Ostrich(Okay), Fish maw soup (nice), sliced Fish with mixed veggies(also delicious) and Gu lau rou (Sweet & Sour Pork) . All the meal here comes with complimentary fruits. Not bad but price is alittle at steep side, RM180 for 9 people. Maybe there's other place cheaper but I can say the food is good.

Lemang oh lemang..

Every time when it's festive season, we would think of our favourite food, no doubt they have these dishes throughout the year but it is even more memorable to enjoy them with our families, love ones. This Hari Raya around I am fortunate to be invited t my muslims friends and relatives home. I without shame will definitely go and help them eat and enjoy the free foods.
I believe it isn't too late to wish my Muslim friends Selamat Hari Raya and thank you for welcoming me to your home during this festive seasons. Raya Main dishes consist of Lamban(Rice cooked in leaves) with Peanut Sauce, Lemang (Rice cook in Bamboo) with Chicken Curry, beef curry, rendang Chicken and Acar (local vegetable dish consist of cucumber,pineapple and shallot shredded or sliced thinly, then add vineger, sugar and salt to taste)
Assorted kuih raya (Raya Biscuit/cookies) are a must during Raya. My favourites are Kuih Makmor (round cookies cover with icing sugar) and Pineapple Tart. Since all are free, price is not stated here. I just love free food. Somehow the food would taste even better.

Food I found in Temerloh Pahang

I went for on village homestay program for 2 weeks in August, honestly I am not use to village life, but I am happy I made it through. I learn to love Temerloh because of their food, besides the family I stay with has a mom who cook really well, I had Fish cooked in Durian sauce (Ikan Patin Masak tempoyak) or deep fried Talapia. Temerloh is famous for the Patin fish which look like cat fish but the head is slightly wider. I tried these fish in many style of cooking here, fried, sauces, steamed and even grilled. The village where I stay throughout the program are mostly Kelantanese and during teabreaks or breakfast, I had lots of Kelantanese delicacies such as Satar and Lompat Tikam. Satar is fish meat that's wrapped in banana leave in cone shape and is grilled over flamming charcoal fire. Lompat Tikam is a very sweet dessert that has two layer, green and white, main ingredient are coconut milk with rice flour. The dessert is normally served cold with generous helping of coconut syrup or gula melaka. Another local delicacies are banana fritters or cekodok pisang, mashed banana that's mixed with flour, sugar and water and then deep fried til perfection. Most of the local delicacies are sold cheapest at RM0.30 to RM0.50. Fish dishes are expensive in Temerloh compare to the rest of town in West Malaysia. Patin fish could reach up to RM12 per kilo. But people always hunt for good food regardless the price, well not everyone but I am definitely one of them.

Rasa Nyonya Restaurant

I don't particularly like this restaurant, not because of the food, but the service is really bad. The waiter can't be bother with our order and keep looking another way, so that they won't be able to see us if we call them. Probably hoping we forget, get tired of waving our hands and walk out from the restaurant. However since my blog is about food maybe I should complaint about the food, did I say complaint? Hmmm, I mean comment on the food. First, There aren't many choices, and when we asked if fried bittergurd means deep fried, the waiter said "yeah", but it came out stir fried, much to my dad disappointment. I also found the fish slice has some kinda smell, too long in the fridge or something. Anyways, the rest of the dishes are okay, not so good but ok. We didn't ask for the signature dish which is Ox-tail soup, which I tasted before and it was superb. We had Fried fish with Thai sauce, sweet & sour fish, fried fillet on tofu, Fried Bittergurd and Stir fried Brijal with salted fish. The bill came out for 9 people is around RM140. Not bad but service could be better. I won't be rushing to this restaurant any time soon.

Fancy that!!

So many cakes and yummy sweet dessert in Manila, sometimes we don't know what to eat. I chance to see few cake house in Mall of Asia that sells fancy cakes, it's call Goldilocks. The one the struck me is the these Spongebob cake, on the right is Nemo. Just look at the vibrant colors, very striking!
I seen another creative cake topper, but its wedding cake and I found it very cheeky. I haven't seen anything like these in Malaysia yet, I really hope they do soon.