Christmas Service 2012

We were all gathered in church for Christmas service on that Christmas morning, followed by a buffet lunch.

This round, hubby and I were not part of the worship team; so we were able to join the congregation singing Christmas carols. There was also a presentation of Christmas carols medley by a few of the young people. They were really good!

Pre-service prayer

The worship leader leading people into singing Christmas carols

Part of the congregation

Daddy delivering the Christmas message 'What can we learn from the Magi'..

The buffet lunch

Overall, I enjoyed myself. The Christmas message was meaningful, and I had a good catch up with my old friends whom I see only during Christmas. As you can see from the below picture, all of us here grew up together; from church school to MYF.  Many of them are now working in big cities (KL, Singapore, Sydney), and Christmas is the only time we could gather together to catch up.

The old MYF-ers  (with their spouses)

I am not sure how many of us will be back to Alor Setar the next Christmas, but I can't wait for the Christmas where we can take another shot of us together (maybe this time with more plus one and little ones).

Pre-Christmas Dinner 2012

As usual, the company I worked for had the annual Christmas-New Year shut-down and we were 'forced' to take 5 days of our annual leave. It was not a bad thing considering I was looking forward to a break from work and that many of my friends will be back for Christmas.

Well, this Christmas was certainly a memorable one. It started with a pre-Christmas family dinner at my place. After thinking for some time, hubby and I decided to attempt the Greek Souvlaki with tzatziki dip.

We decided to barbecue the pork instead of grilling them. Somehow it didn't work as it caused the meat to be quite hard, compared to what we had in Greece. I think grilling is key to a successful souvlaki, correct me if I'm wrong. Albeit the hard texture, the meat tasted good.

Greek Souvlaki

The tzatziki dip called for Greek yoghurt which obviously couldn't be found here. So following the instructions from the recipe, I strained plain yoghurt over a coffee strainer for an hour. The other ingredients were cucumber, garlic, lemon juice, black pepper and mint all blended until fine. This mixture was then added into the yoghurt. Tada! ..the tzatziki dip.

Home-made tzatziki dip

The rest of the meal were what we've conjured up previously; the German sausages with apples, Barbecued calamari and simple Spirali pasta.

German Sausages with apples

Barbecued calamari

Spirali pasta

The entire Pre-Christmas dinner...

Our Pre-Christmas dinner

Stay tuned for the next post, our Christmas church service..

Just the 3 of us....

It had been some time since we took a 'family' photo shoot so I suggested to hubby that we should take some. The last time 3 of us took a photo was about a year back.

It's not easy to get Brownie to pose for the camera. Here are the shots:

Getting Brownie up the chair:

Sit on chair? Sounds fun:)

First shot: Brownie looked at the camera because he was curious of the sound coming from the camera timer (tik..tik..tik..tiktiktiktiktiktik....)

What's that sound? (referring to the camera timer)

We attempted few more shots; but he was already used to the sound of the camera timer. He looked left..

Why are they forcing me to look at the camera?

Then up....

I adore you..

Then right...

Boring...

Can see hubby's getting annoyed.. how to get him to look at the camera?

Decided to use treats, but Brownie ended up more interested in smelling my finger.....

C'mon give me the treats!

Decided to take a break and I told hubby that I'd just take a shot of him and Brownie..

This fella now decided to look at the camera (well, actually looking at me...)

I'm handsome:)

One shot with momma....

See how much I love momma...

We resumed taking many many other shots..,and could see Brownie was really tired...(of being 'forced' to look at the camera).

Can I please come down now?

Here's the best picture we got for the night...

Happy Birthday mummy! Love you and daddy very much

Agua Restaurant, Straits Quay Penang

Boy, it has been 2 weeks since the last post. Had been very busy with work and also ran out of topics to blog about.

Last Friday, hubby came up to Penang, and I suggested that we drive to Straits Quay for dinner.
After beating the 1 1/2 hour traffic jam all the way from Bayan Lepas to Straits Quay, we finally arrived almost 8pm. Since we were still on the hunt for Greek/Mediterranean food, we chose to dine at Agua; the restaurant serving Mediterranean and Spanish cuisine.

There were only a handful of guests dining at that time, and we enjoyed the privacy. I looked around and saw that they had some beautiful posters on the walls.

I told hubby that I wanted something like this on the walls when we have our own place, and he immediately said 'no':(

We browsed through the menu, and to be honest found it a little difficult to choose what we wanted to eat.
Finally I decided on the set meal which comes with a prawn salad, salmon spaghetti and a dessert (RM 48). With this set, we also ordered a glass of house wine. Hubby ordered one of their popular tapas; albondigas and also the moussaka.

Hubby kept mentioning that he liked the salad...

Tuscany Prawn salad

The meatballs are on the salty side, but tasted good nevertheless.

Albondigas (garlic and herb beef meatballs cooked in picante tomato sauce) - RM 18

I liked this spaghetti. As the portion is not too much, one can eat this and not feel 'jelak'

Spaghetti al Salmone (Salmon spaghetti)

I fell in love with moussaka the moment I tasted it in Santorini and then in Athens (read about this here). Before arriving, I've actually browsed through Agua's menu and found that they do serve moussaka.
Well, in our opinion, the moussaka was a let down. I'm not sure was it because we were expecting Agua's moussaka to taste like those in Santorini and Athens, or because this moussaka tasted like shepherds pie. We ended up putting lots of tomato ketchup on the moussaka (to get the tomato taste). The cheese was supposed to melt in your mouth, but this one tasted like they were over baked!

Moussaka (RM 34.90)

I am not a fan of desserts, but once a while, I like to end my meal on a sweet note. This banana lemon mousse was a little too sweet for our liking, but somehow we managed to finish most of it.

Banana Lemon Mousse

Happy:)

The total cost was RM 126.30 (including service charge and taxes). Will we come back again?
Yes, one day...only this time for the paella:)

German, Italian and Chinese fusion...

It's a brand new Saturday and since we both had no pre-planned activities going on, we decided to cook.
Brought Brownie for a walk to the sundry shop, and got some onions and an apple.

Within an hour and a half, we came up with 3 dishes. Let me present to you:

a) German sausages with caramelized onions and apples
b) Chinese-Italian spinach with garlic
c) Italian inspired tomato rice

 Hubby went back to Kuching, Sarawak and brought back a bottle of Meica German sausages. Searched for recipes online and found that most of the German sausages are accompanied by sauerkraut. Since we do not have that, we searched for some simpler recipes and found some with apples and onions.
We got the main ingredients and voila whipped up this dish. I did not follow the measurements and added some Italian herbs, beef stock, apple cider and result tasted awesome!

German sausages with caramelized onions and apples

The second dish is typically a Chinese dish, spinach with garlic. However when we were in Rome, we were also served spinach with garlic, but the spinach was rather bitter. Hubby decided to modify this dish. He first stir fry the garlic and spinach in the wok until soft (add brown sugar and salt), and then transferred them (without water) into the frying pan, and added the herbs and black pepper.

Chinese-Italian Spinach with garlic

The Italian inspired tomato rice is something like the tomato stuffed rice we made previously (see here), but this time we added mushrooms, some leftover smoked ham and of course cheddar cheese.

Italian inspired tomato rice

Now you know why both of us are growing sideways:)

Xuan Feng Restaurant

'Daddy said every time when he reads your blog, it's always about food'...mom told me on the phone a couple of days ago.

Well, what can I say? I love food:)

Xuan Feng Restaurant is located at Krystal Point. Prior its opening, I've been telling MM that we should go once they're opened for business. So we made plans and both of us ended up there last night.

From across the road

 Simple, yet cozy interior with about 10-12 tables inside.

Interior

Free wifi available

The price of the food was quite reasonable, I'd say.

Menu

The 2 items below were essential in enhancing the spiciness of my ramen..

Chilli powder and sambal

I ordered the Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen. The soup base was full of flavour, and the portion was just nice for me. This ensemble contains black fungus, char siew, bamboo shoots, spring onions, egg and chilli spices.

 Although I still prefer Goku Raku Ramen (which is all the way in Gurney Paragon), I would come here again for a quick fix.

Spicy Tonkotsu Ramen (Small)

MM ordered the Xuan Feng Ramen.

Xuan Feng Ramen (Small)

The total bill came up to RM 26.90, with service tax (5%) but no government tax.

I think I will come back again, this time to try the 3 cup chicken (San Bei Chi).

Food and board games..Oh what fun! (Part 2)

This is a continuation of my previous post....

After lunch, we headed back to JJ & Elsie's place for board games. It was about 2.30 pm and we had 6 other friends who joined us for board games making a total of 11 of us. I couldn't take a picture where all of us were intently playing, but here's a snapshot.

We played The Resistance. This game is something like Mafia, but unlike Mafia this game does not have a detective or a doctor. In this game (could be up to 10 players), the mission leader is to choose a team to go on a mission to topple the government. The team can be made up of both spies and the resistance, but the team leader will not know who the spies are, unless he/she is a spy. There are 5 rounds all together.

Shaun explaining the rules of the game

At about 4 pm, we paused for tea. JJ & Elsie prepared Creme Brulee for us. Thanks you two:)
Earlier that morning, I had the opportunity to use their blow torch to caramelized the sugar topping.

The fun part...yee haaa!

Didn't dare to put too much sugar....

All mine:)

Yummylicious!

11 of us continued playing until almost 6.30 pm. The spies won most of the time; the resistance won once at the last game.  The rest of them left after the game, and 5 of us (yeah..the same 5 from lunch) went to Karen Kitchen for dinner, and another round of board game...only this time we played 7 Wonders. This is my favourite game so far, although I'm usually one with the least victory points...:(

Overall, I had the most fun and amazing food and board game session this Deepavali.

I'll blog about Karen Kitchen the next time...

Till then..

Have a great week!

Food and board games..Oh what fun! - Part 1

So, it was 2012's Deepavali and it was smack right in the middle of the week.
Since I am unable to go back to my hometown, and DH was back at his hometown, I stayed put here in Penang and spent an awesome day with my cell group members.

Initially we wanted to try out ECCO Restaurant in Georgetown but it was closed. So we ended up at Sun Yoon Kee Restaurant at Cintra Street, recommended by JJ.

Food was delicious, and portion was just nice.

Pork spare ribs (RM 12)

Stir-fry kailan with garlic (RM 8)

Just look at those mouth-watering prawns....nom nom!

Sun Yoon Kee's signature tofu (RM 10)

Salted vegetable and duck soup has always been my favourite. My family has this soup every Chinese New Year, and those days (many years ago) we used to have 2 bowls of rice to go with this soup.

Sun Yoon Kee's salted vegetable-duck soup is rather on the sourish side, but I kinda like it. There are peppercorns in the soup which brings out the flavour of the soup.

Salted vegetable and duck soup(Kiam Chai ark) - RM 14

 Before we ordered the dishes, JJ told us that Sun Yoon Kee is famous for their siu bak (roast pork).
Indeed so..the outer part of the siu bak is crispy whereas the meat is tender and juicy.

Siu bak and Char Siu (RM 16)

 This was the last dish we ordered, and we thought that we had ordered fish alone, but to our surprise this came with hor fun. According to the boss, this is their signature dish. I felt that the fish slices were tasteless (saltless). Good thing the gravy balanced up the entire dish..

Fried fish with hor fun (RM 20)

The total bill came up to RM 89 (including 5 bowls of rice and 1 refillable pot of tea). Cheap cheap!

If you want to pay a visit to this restaurant, here's the address:

 Part 2 coming right up.....