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:)