Foods @ Kota Kemuning - A&J's Western Cuisine [closed]

Many restaurants had started their business here in Kota Kemuning. Over the years, there are some come and go, some stays, some news. However, food business here is not as good as in places like Puchong and so. Families here still prefers to stay home and dine in. Only light portion of working small families may choose to dine out most of the time. For me, I would preferably stay home and cook, trying out all kinds of healthy yet tasty cuisines.

Story short, as it was once a in blue moon, we will dine out. Here comes a new Western cuisine restaurant, just started their business about a month ago. A&J's Western Cuisine is their name.

Ambiance of the restaurant was just nice, a bit cozy. Accompanied with soft music. MOst important after all, it must serve good food. Though it can be pricey, I would say it does worth the price for some of the specialties food.

Here's some photos for your references.

The internal setup..

A starter - chef's designed; seems its a Western presentation + Chinese cuisine style. RM26 for 2 pax.

Juice - my ever favourite Apple + assam boi juice.

Soup - one of my meal; its wild mushroom soup was creamy and fresh! nice...

Others that we had - Lamp Chop (no picture) and my Ceaser's Salad (no picture), which smells added on with lemongrass as dressing.

Here's the address. GPS Coordinate : N3 00.358 E101 32.149

Shop for your Garden @ Sg Buloh

I'm not a landscaper, I'm not a gardener, but somewhat a home may need some enhancement to enlighten life, once in a while. Thus, we may be spending some money for affordable water feature, water fountain and some decorations. It's always easy to shop for such item in a modern DIY shop, hyper furniture mall like Harvey Norman, but those place can sell at super pricey price. If you don't mind paying for convenience and comfort, it is all well and fine. But if you are someone whom enjoy hunting for quality yet reasonable priced item, it may be worth travel a bit further, shop under the hot sun, hunt for the best choices ever after.

Jalan Sg Buloh, a place where you can be spoiled of choice for landscape and garden necessary products, be it water features, plants, soil, grass, pots, etc...

We stumbled into several shops along the road, and finally landed on this best choice after all. This is the main factory selling water features, stone / cement made type. They have several branches located nearby. This particular one does sell variety of types, and most importantly they can do some minor custom cut if you wish.

Here's their name care. Look for Tropic Garden Design, Lot 71 & 72 along Jalan Sg Buloh. There are a few huge elephants in front of the shop.

Some little mini variety of water feature.

We bought this set, with some pick-and-match done. Promotional price was at RM250 only. Besides, the shop accept credit card (with no extra charges) :)

Expired Milk (过期牛奶之用途)

Look at the expiry date printed on this tetra packed milk. Picture was taken last weekend, and it has been way past due... to be honest, the milk is still in my fridge. What will I do with it?

After google'ing for a week, here's what I gathered and could share around.

According to The Greenists here, it can be poured into the toilet bowl, in which its enzyme will break down the content of tank. It is good for compose too.. make sense since it has enzyme. Watering rose plant can be an idea too...Not bad, it is equally the same from what I searched through from Chinese websites. By the way, if you have a bucket full of expired milk, probably worth trying to take a milk bath!

A Chinese site listed down the benefit of milk, which includes expired milk here.

过期牛奶的妙用

　　牛奶在开启包装以后，如放置时间过长，就会变质且不能食用，然而过期变质的牛奶依然有利用价值。

　　利用过期牛奶擦拭皮鞋先用刷子刷掉鞋面上的污垢，再用纱布蘸上发酸的牛奶均匀地涂抹在鞋面上，等到干了以后用干布擦拭，鞋面可光亮如新，还能防止皮面干裂。

　　利用过期牛奶擦拭复合地板将清水倒入变酸的牛奶中充分稀释，然后滴在地板上，用毛巾擦拭，地板可光亮如初。

　　利用过期牛奶除去衣服上的墨迹先用清水把衣服清洗一下，再倒入变质的牛奶轻轻揉洗，可除去衣服上的墨迹。

　　利用过期牛奶滋润肌肤如果牛奶刚过期，没有任何变质的现象，可以用它来洗脸，滋润肌肤。

　　利用过期牛奶擦拭皮质家具如果过期牛奶已有少许沉淀，但气味并没有改变，可以用它擦拭皮质家具，能使皮质家具恢复光泽，同时还能修复小的裂痕。

　　利用过期牛奶浇花如果过期牛奶已结块并有了明显的酸腐味，这时可用它来浇花，为了避免不好的味道产生，可以在花土中挖一个小坑，把过期牛奶埋进去。

　　利用快过期的鲜奶煮菜快超过食用期限的鲜奶，不适合生饮，可用小火加热煮沸，放凉后加到菜肴或点心中，也可和蛋液混合用来做吐司，或者放入鱼汤或浓汤里。

For the benefit of others, let me translate them as below :

1) Making use of expired milk as shooting cream for leather goods, i.e. shoes. Clear up dusk on your leather shoe with a piece of cloth; apply milk on the leather; finally wipe them off. It could prevent leather from hardening and crack.

2) Dilute harden expired milk with water; it is good for maintaining your wooden flooring.

3) Remove ink stain on your cloth; pour the milk on your stained cloth, rub it before wash.

4) Same as #1 above, it is useful to maintain leather products, like sofas.

5) Water the plant; it is something to do with composing and enzymes.

6) Cooking; it needs to be heated with lower temperature, then mixed with egg for toast bread or add-on into fish soups.

So.. is it worth to know the use of an expired milk. Don't waste, sure there is good way of handling waste.

DIY - Tibicos (菌菇）/ Snow Lotus (天山雪莲） / Kefir

Many might not know what is this, but many of my friends might have noticed this creature and started to culture it for good sake. Heard it is not meant for commercial, but people been distributing it for friends and family whom believe it works. Well, I had been checking the internet for the last couple of days, it seems this is something worth trying. Since I love cultivating healthy stuffs, don't mind trying this too. Of course, I won't think I will overdoing it, or even over-believe it.

Checking Tibicos out from wiki, it is a culture of bacteria and yeast. We take yeast in most cases from bread. If you heard of probiotic, which human today has it produced into pills. This is rather natural compared to those pill based, or kind of processed food.

Besides, it is also known as kefir. The water or sugar kefir. Seems like it is well known in the health organizations in the world. Where does the source comes from, it is from Tibet, the ground of Himalaya. Well, I even read in one of the article, saying this is non for commercial use, it has been be shared.

No wonder I ever learned this from a healthy friend's blog, mentioning it as Snow Lotus (天山雪莲). When I first saw her article and picture, I wasn't sure what was it till today.

If you ever curios on how to cultivate these so call mushroom, or bacteria, or gem, or so-what-it-called. It produces drink which is carbonated, from its ferment during its culturing process. Some may feel it is alcoholic, probably it is due to the fermentation plus its carbonate released.

Here's how it looks like, when it started its fermentation process...

I copied the steps on how-to do it from here. Steps given here had been the closest to what my friend told me. If you think the method needs to be improved further, please share me your recipe and so I could amend mine accordingly. Thanks in advance.

Here're the steps:

1. Scoop 2 spoonful of tibicos mushroom in a clean glass

container. (Do not use soap in cleaning the container, for it has contents that may kill the needed probiotics for our health drink. Use alcohol or distilled white vinegar instead.)

2. Dilute 4 spoonful of Muscovado sugar (unprocessed brown sugar, rich in molasses) into water (the water must be pure, best is boiled and kept overnight). Pour the mixture into tibicos glass container.

3. Cover the container with a clean cloth and fasten it with a rubberband

. This is needed because the Tibicos need oxygen to live.

4. Store the container in an undisturbed area for 24-48 hours.

5. Strain. (Use a plastic strainer, for a stainless one reacts against the Tibicos. Same goes with spoons)

6. Drink. Preferrably in the morning and on an empty stomach. If there’s spare drink, store in the refrigirator. (This part I would prefer to drink before going to bed)

7. Repeat the procedures. However, cleaning the container again or rinsing it may wipe out baby Tibicos. Thus, it’s not advisable. If you think there are too many baby tibicos cultured from the fermented process, scoop them out and store it in refrigerator. After many repetitions, the Tibicos will have been plenty for you to share with your friends.

Hope the above is simple. I have yet find much improvement from the drink.. will continue to observe it for couple more weeks. You may try if you think this is workable, if not... leave this aside :) It's more of your believe... as you can tell, I am still observing its effect.

Food Surprises - Hong Kong Polo Marketing (香港菠籮仔）

Really sorry, girls & boys, ladies & gentlemen... I'd really neglected my blog for such a long time. This post was drafted long ago, but till today, I am still writing on it. Blame it on the busy life and busy work... there goes my passion on blogging. Yeah rite! Many excuses -- plenty!

Before I stumbled into this shop, I was just dreaming of the Polo Bun I had when I was back in Kota Kinabalu 2 years ago. Gosh... time flies, it was really 2 years ago about this time, I remember it was end of July till early August. Gang of us went over without plans, with an easy going holiday mood, or course with a cheap air fare. We went into a coffeeshop, on a one fine morning, which located just below our B&B along Gaya Street.

Good enough, I saw a shop selling Polo Bun as their hot cake. There are lot of varieties in the shop, but I don't see many on display at the counter. That's because these buns are selling like hot cake! Really in good demand. Many been walking into the shop, just to order dozens of bun.

Buns they sell includes below （those tag which I saw at that particular time) :-

• Char Siew Po Lo Bun （叉烧菠籮仔）
• Mini Chic Floss Po Lo Bun (迷你鸡丝菠籮仔）
• YamPo Lo Bun (芋头菠籮仔）
• Mini Durian Po Lo Bun (迷你榴莲菠籮仔）
• Wong Kok Char Siew Soh (旺角叉烧酥）
• Custard Po Lo Bun (奶皇菠籮仔）
• Po Lo Bun Original (奶油菠籮仔）
• CreamCheese Po Lo Bun
• 。。。。

It was just so difficult to wait till the buns ready. I would think, they seriously need to implement a better ordering system. The personnel just could not remember who has ordered what.

Another skeptical note from me is, I would not sure if this particular bakery shop still exist today... hehee... as I had visited them quite some time ago. I will definitely check them out again, when I am hanging around that place again.

Here's the bun I tried, char siew Po Lo bun... was nice! (sorry, it's non-Halal).

Here's the location, sorry forgot to take down the GPS coordinate :P
Kindly refer to map below.