2012 New Year... resolution?

I am using the same picture everywhere... got this cute lil candy box from Pacific Coffee yesterday, love it to the max! Mind you, there is small lil mirror inside!... to reflect one self's and remind us who am I. :)

Last day of 2011, it's usually the time where one will look back the past, and plan for the new year resolution. What's mine? Honestly, I don't intend to plan anything for my self anymore, as those planned will surely never happen, those unplanned will usually make one surprise & be blessed. I choose the later, as the main objective of mine living in this world, is to acknowledge and enjoy the precious 'moment' after all. Some memories still stay fresh in my mind, even after some of the years that went by...

Dear friends, let's "Live our life happily, without regrets.." who knows, the world might end some time in 2012 ?! *-*

DIY - Cola-cola Cupcakes

Adopted this from ParisPastry's recipe blog, here's the original recipe. http://parispastry.blogspot.com/2009/12/coca-cola-cupcakes.html, somewhat omitted the icing topping part.

I am so not used to measurement in cup. In such, I used a manual converter to convert them to either ml or gram. Here goes the converted measurement for my easy reference in future.

Ingredients for the cake:

160g all purpose flour

150g sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

120ml buttermilk (or 2 tablespoon plain yoghurt with 80ml low-fat milk, or 110ml milk with 10ml lemon juice)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

120g unsalted butter

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

180ml Coca-cola

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Beat the egg, buttermilk and vanilla in a measuring cup. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-cola, heating gently. Pour into dry ingredients, stir well with a mixer at low speed, then add liquid ingredients, beat till everything is well
3. Pour into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper baking cups. And bake on the warm sheet for 20-25minutes. The top of the cupcake will be cracked. Leave to stand 15 minutes in the pan before unmolding.

Getting ready to bake.

Ta-da... ready!

Surprisingly, it tasted so well. Cola blends well with the Van Hauten cocoa powder. :)

Food Surprises : BT Dim Sum House (好品味點心) Bukit Tinggi Klang

Oh no! Not another food blog over this festive season. Oh well, we didn't travel outstation, spending most of the time food tasting and on road trip around Klang Valley. Earlier plan was just to do grocery shopping at Bukit Tinggi Klang, but we ended up stumbled to a nice dim sum place somewhere around. The place was crowded at around 10am, and the shop occupies two shop lots. Indeed, we are sure it has to be good.

As noticed, there had been choices of dim sum offered. First, we were offered this mini char siew po lo pao. Hmm... nice, much better than the one I tasted in Hong Kong. It was RM3.50 for 2.

Chee-Cheong fun.

Porridge.

Curry siew mai. This is special and tasty. Worth trying. In fact, all their har gau & siew mai are stuffed with fresh prawns!

Look at the prawns..

Final bill..... ta da! RM32.80 for 10 plates, Geee.... :D I was awfully full that morning, and skipped lunch as well as tea of the day.

The address:

BT Dim Sum House

No. 55-0 - 57-0 Jalan Batu Nilam 5

Bandar Bukit Tinggi Klang

41000 Klang

FB site : https://www.facebook.com/pages/BT-Dim-Sum-House/159982394059810

Google Map : 3.01032,101.434115

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Foods @ Kota Kemuning : Nyonya Siew Pao @ NTS Restaurant

New discovery within the destiny of Kota Kemuning. Love it every bites, surprised enough to discover such a nice stall serving all kinds of baked food. Ranging from Siew Pao, egg tarts, curry puffs, kaya puffs, butter bun, chicken bun, etc....

Stall currently located within NTS Restaurant hawker center. Look out for a stall namely Nyoya Siew Pao. The owner usually start baking from morning, if you wish to get a full range of supply, don't visit too early. Probably 10am to noon you might get full range of baked pastry available. I first tried their chicken bun, love it to the max! Imagine the bun is like butter bun pictured below, but stuffed with the ingredient just like Seremban Siew Pao. So yummy!

I didn't had the picture at first. Packed t he 2nd time next day and tried other range of pastries. It was all good. I love the taste of butter bun, just like old school days bun.

The butter bun.

The curry puff, stuffed with large slice of potato.

The siew pao, absolutely tasty with less pastry flour.

The coconut tart, reminds me of old Hailam shop tart at my hometown, which was stuffed with strawberry jam at the bottom of the tart. :)

Looks good? Give it a try if you like baked pastry. Worth a try.

However, the hawker center may not be an ideal place for you to enjoy the buns and pastry. It will be nice to pack them and enjoy a cuppa at home instead, during afternoon tea session. Superb nice :)

The location:

NTS Restaurant Kota Kemuning

(GPS Coordinate : 3.005731,101.538531)

Jalan Anggerik Vanilla W 31/W

Food Surprises : Kanna Curry House @ PJ Section 4

This was my Christmas breakfast. Been avoiding this sinful tasty yet simple local food for awhile, this has been the gift for own self to enjoy it on a holiday season. A friend introduced me this place lately, and what attracted me was the use of Banana Leaf even for their Roti Canai!

Being grown up in an almost nil Indian community, seriously I have never seen this on even simple Roti Canai. The most could only being served during a Banana Leaf meal, i.e. lunch or dinner where full dishes of vegetables and rice are served.

Roti Canai on Banana Leaf! It is ever so greenery and environmental friendly. I can feel the nature smell of food, especially having them on a breezy lovely Christmas morning :)

The location :

Kanna Curry House

No. 31, Jalan 4/47, Section 4 PJ

Tel : 603-7784 2010

(Nearby Campbell factory)

Understand they could have several branches, not too sure if the others are still in business. One of the previous one (if I recalled my memory correctly, I had it once at Section 17 more than 10 years ago).

Foods @ Kota Kemuning : MG's Cafe (Vegetarian Cafe)

I am not a vegetarian, nor strong believer of a particular religion. I believe in healthy living and healthy diet, most importantly knowing what we eat and what our body needs. In a way, I do promote vegetarian diet at times, when I feel my body been too acidic and require more vegetables cellulose to break even the acidity in the body.

Pleased to know my neighborhood has more and more food stores in business, especially those cafe serving healthy foods, in particularly vegetarian diet meals. Personally, I wouldn't sure how much these cafes could sustain, how much could Malaysia accept the healthy diet model, where places like Taiwan and Japan has been much "in-to" the trend of diet control.

Quick tour of the newly opened cafe in Kota Kemuning. If not mistaken, this is their 3rd branch. Visit their official website for more info, including their menu. http://www.mgscafe.com. Follow with some pictures taken on my 1st visit to the cafe. There are still some room for improvement on their menu, will take you through a little below.

The menu.

Dragon fruit juice. The only disappointment for me was their drink. I ordered a 3 layered green tea milk, I would think it was tasteless. This dragon fruit fruit juice was so-so, but other fruit juices were slight diluted.

The foods... started off with some baked stuff. Potato au Gratin & Curry rice au Gratin. This gave more more inspire to serve baked stuff for occasions. Hehe..

We shared the Vege beef brisket Soup Noodle. The soup was great, but the noodle was too soggy to our taste.

Vegetarian frittata.

Vegetarian Sushi. This was good, and taste was promising. You wouldn't realise there was no meat in there.

Yam delight.

Cream of Mushroom soup with Flaky Pastry. This was great!! The group ordered more to share.

My blessed to those who strongly believe and able to practice diet meals once a while, if not always. Hope the food stores can sustain, and continue to promote good healthy diet plans for the society. Folks, choose your diet and be healthy :)

The address:

9-1 Ground Floor,

No. 8 Jalan Anggerik Vanilla BE 31/BE

Kota Kemuning

(new commercial area near the park & CIMB bank)

Tel : 603-5131 6020

Merry X'Mas 2011 & Happy New Year 2012

Recalled that I usually have a X'mas post at this time of the year. Without leaving this behind for the year 2011, here goes my snap of picture over my trip to South Korea last month. After visiting the place which full of teddy bear, I noticed myself fell in love with some fury brown teddy bear.... they are just too cute and adorable. No matter what, my vision still lies on the bears I had back from my Japan stay... it was not only cute but memorable. I could still remember my days back then, the memories.

Cutting my stories short, here goes my wish from now onwards. Leave behind those sweet memories, aim forward for other sweeter memories to treasure. Life is short to treasure all goodies.

Happy New Year all!

Korean Series - Love Story in Harvard (愛在哈佛)

It all came by co-incidently introduced by someone, I am happy to discover or even place my cursor to play this drama. Relatively nice and worth watching. I am not an action-packed person, romance and philosophized of drama is much more my type.

Love Story in Harvard, an interesting Korean drama shown on Korea SBS channel back on 2004. It seems to be a hit way back then. 16 episodes where half of it has scene taken in the United Stated campus life. The weather and campus life scene are just awesome. I like the picture produced by the actors/actresses at that time, it is way much natural, not much 3D animation, glaring pictures, over-sharpen colorized pictures. Natural should be the word.

If one has the time, and have the similar interest as I do... Grab yourself a copy of this drama series. Their conversation mainly in Korean language, but if you don't understand a single word as I, make sure you have English subtitle. The fact that, at certain time Korean may not speak a precise English as English is not their mother language after all. I find the story is meaningful :)

Reference:

http://www.koreandrama.org/?p=148

http://tv.sbs.co.kr/lovestory/ (official page in Korean)

Foods @ Kota Kemuning : 72 Heritage Cafe

Oh no! It has been a long while since I last blog (again). Can't complain this time, time has been fully occupied with some experimental hobbies. I still have some pending to-do list, which would need me occupying my MBP for the next few weeks....

Certainly, I am rather selective in food blogs these days. I tried many neighborhood cafes, some good some couldn't last a year or so. Quality does not seems to be consistent, or some may not exist after a year or so. Nevertheless, I find this cafe rather serve not bad Nyonya Food. They serves both set lunch/dinner or ala carte family dishes style.

It was my 2nd visit, when I reminded myself to have my camera with me. Light was rather dimmed especially at night, I could not capture good picture with my phone camera.

They have their signature dishes, I always go for their set (hehe, simple!)

Let's look at their ambience... filled with some local antique stuffs. Pretty authentic and unique, I would say. Whether its practical, oh well... I would assume the worker needs to clean the stuffs very often.

Here come the food servings.... The fried chicken set is signature dish, can't recall the special name of it. I like the tomato salad, rather unique and tasty.

I then had their Fish Rendang Asam, recommended set of the day. Not bad, wouldn't ever realize rendang goes well for fish as well.

The location of this cafe is rather secluded from the normally busy Anggerik Vanilla business area. It's the last row of shop lot, over looking The Lagoon residential area.

The address:

Jalan Anggerik Vanilla Z31/Z
Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam

Great Achievement of October 2011

This is the month of the year, I achieved the most in 2011. It was all about my life and own self!

OCT 2 It was the greatest achievement among all, for a non-athlete person like me to complete my first ever 10KM marathon! It was rather though, especially when I never ever had the time to start on with trainings. It was equally zero, except for the one time seasoning of my newly bought New Balance running shoe. I signed up for Adidas King of the Road (KOTR) NPE run earlier this year, the earlier objective was just to collect their jersey! Oh well, on the day of run, I decided to just fulfill my run with a continuos walk! Hit a few times, I felt like giving up (especially when running on a 2 lanes highway, constantly seeing others about to complete their race at the opposite direction). All in all, I completed my 'walk' in 1hour 45min, still eligible for my medal!! hooray...

The experience of running was so great. Greeted well with the good organizing team, love it so much. Understand from many runner friends, it is very rare to have such good organizing team, most race, especially in Malaysia are not very well organized. I was lucky! Indeed, there goes my expectation for other upcoming run (if I ever going to run again :))

There were enough water stations along the way... crowd was colorful with the many types of Adidas jersey distributed.

OCT 9 The following week after the run, I was once again hitting the ground and road for a 1/2 day walking trip within Central Market KL. We were accompanying a first time visitor abroad, maneuvering around the streets of KL. Showing him the multi cultural and unique religious temples around the streets.

OCT 12 I restarted my belly dance class after 1+ years. Though I am a little tired for the long hour exercise on the middle of the week, I do find it fun, learning up techniques in dance with my fellow yoga-mates. Pauline@Mystical Moves is my instructor.

OCT 14 I decided and chosen iPad 2 as my 2011 Birthday gift! Oh yes, and it was the heat around town after Steve Jobs' passing couple weeks before. It had been my 2nd Apple product I have within the year 2011. Great achievement?! Yes, in spendings. Nevertheless, the unique and cutting edge technology of Apple, did successfully changed the world of technology. We could admire lots of beautiful screens and picture, thank you so much to Steve (though I personally thought that Apple products been over-priced after all).

Here's my iPad 2 with Capdase casing... Love it much, compared to when it first launch, casing was so limited.

OCT 22 I had my 2nd massage with Helen @ USJ. The experience was great after all, but rather a bit suffering during the session. What made me felt even tired was the on-going queue for 2+ hours outside Bukit Jalil Indoor stadium for David Foster & Friends concert (by Enrich). It was such a suffering wait from 6-8pm outside the stadium, I just felt like giving up. Anyway, after sitted comfortably in the stadium, all suffering pain and anger was demolished as David Foster's piano and songs captured the audience well. He is such a humorous composer & artist.

A message to all... it is important for us to once a while treat us own self well. Be it with a nice spa and massage, a healthy & good meal, a nice concert, a night out with close friends and all. Life is rather short. Living as though there will be no more tomorrow, we need to be happy & cherish always. Be happy Guys and Gals out there :) Life is yours!

Gardening World - Roselle a.k.a. Hibiscus plant

This was a gift, from a friend who has been following my blog throughout these years. Thanks a lot for the plant and the support, knowing that I was earlier looking around for such plant. It caught my attention some years ago when I bought a packet of this from Cameron Highlands, I then saw it grown in a village home at Papan, Perak some time ago.

This was the first fruit on the tree.

And such, how it bloom from its flower to fruit.

The tree had grown up after over 4-5 months time, but rather it is still young, staying not very strong on its branch. It is time for harvest!

Ta-daaaa... here are the harvested roselle fruits from the tree today. Not a lot, enough for my cuppa roselle tea. :)

I always find it with great success joy, whenever I could harvest fruits that I planted. Especially when I know they are all grown organically... save the planet, save our earth!