Note to self: never bet on football again!

I bet against Spain in Euro 2008 and ended up owing a home-cooked meal to Eiling, stupid Germany squad, hmph! Anyway, to keep to the promise, I went to Isetan last week and spent too much money on a Tefal frying pan to prepare one of my favorite traditional dishes specialized by my mom: fried mee hun with stewed pork.

tools, material, preparation, fruit of labor

On the day itself, I called up mom to recap the recipe since this was something I’ve never attempted before. According to her, the ingredients as are as follow:

• a clove of garlic
• some shallots
• mee hun for 3-4 pax
• a can of stewed pork
• a carrot
• cabbage
• some prawns
• dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, sugar and salt

Not overly complicated, she also mentioned I should remove excess lard and oil from the canned stewed meat. Lets just say I am one who does not like to follow recipes verbatim.

shallots and garlic go first

Now, this is slightly more complicated than the angel hair pasta with scallop that I made, but I’m sure with a little bit of practice and a few meals of mee hun to your pet dog, you will be able do it too. Here goes:

• soak mee hun in water for 30 mins to an hour
• prepare mixture of 2 sp soya sauce, 2 sp dark soya sauce, some salt, and some sugar with water
• fry chopped garlic and shallots until fragrant
• add prawn and cook till they start to turn red
• add mee hun, the sauce from 2nd step, stir
• add canned stewed pork, stir, add some water if your pan gets too dry
• add cabbage and carrot, stir till they are cooked
• slightly overpriced but awesome mee hun is ready!

can’t you smell it from here?

Believe it or not, the mee hun actually turned out better than expected. In fact, it was as good as mom’s! Eiling, Rachel, and I all finished our huge servings rather quickly and was very satisfied. The mixture of pork, prawn, and vegetable worked beautifully, and the hint of lard in that mee hun, *slurps*, you just have to try it.

Total cost of the meal was close to RM 30 for 3 person, but that includes a one time purchase of dark soya sauce. The canned pork was close to RM 10 but well worth it. Eiling brought a bottle of wine to commemorate the occasion too (that, or she’s just an alcoholic) It was a splendid dinner.

a bottle of red wine to go with the awesome dish

Take home chef signing off!

Tags:  eiling,  home cook,  mee hun,  pork,  rachel,  stewed,  vermicelli

Posted by KY | 45 Comments »

While having an extended talk crap session after dinner on a Saturday night, Tim asked:
“Eh who wants to go to bak kut teh tomorrow? This place serves the best fu chuk ever! We go there early, lets meet at 8:45am!”

WWQ, Kim, Rachel and I signed up immediately despite the fact that it was already past midnight when the idea was brought up. Personally I’ve always been pretty impartial with fu chuk (fried bean curd sheet), but I’ll try anything that’s claimed to be good.

looks like the aunty knows Tim!

Since it’s a pretty well hidden place, we decided to go there in a single car. Kim didn’t turn up as she decided to let insomnia took over the previous night and was unable to operate even at her own level, so it was four of us. The place is actually a sort of wooden shack opposite ESSO petrol station by Jalan Sg. Buloh along the Guthrie Corridor. Coming from Shah Alam you’ll have to be careful not to end up on the highway but to take the ramp to Jalan Sg. Buloh instead.

the fu chuk deserves an entire clay pot by itself

We ordered a 3-person portion of bak kut teh and an clay pot of fu chuk. Despite being sleepy, Tim’s excitement was very visible while waiting for the fu chuk. I didn’t think he care much about anything else, he was a man with a mission.

The two clay pots didn’t take long to arrive. The bak kut teh meat and soup was as good as any other, tender well cooked meat with teow chew style bak kut teh soup that is a little less stronger tasting than the Klang version. It was actually pretty good.

KY, Rachel, Tim, Wong Wen Qi

True to Tim’s claim, the true fu chuk was really really good. Slightly crunchy with just the right texture, the taste was very good especially with the soup. I never had so much fu chuk in one serving, it actually reminds me of the high grade bean curd skin I had in Japan.

Subang Teow Chew Bak Kut Teh is just opposite Esso station (wrong logo, i know i know)

The meal, with steamed rice for four and a pot of tea costs us RM 37. Very good deal don’t you think? I know I’m going to head there again pretty soon. Open from 7am to 2:30pm daily, closes on Mondays.

Address:
Lot 653 & 655
Jalan Subang
Bukit Cherakah Subang
Shah Alam
GPS: 3.13187, 101.52596
Tel: 019-261 5303

Others:
Masak-masak
Small Kucing

Tags:  Bak Kut Teh,  bkt,  fu chuk,  pork,  rachel,  subang,  tim,  wenqi

Posted by KY | 34 Comments »

It was a particularly eventful two week period prior to the start of this month. There were three events I attended, the Nokia N-Gage launch and Happy winner announcement invited by PR extraordinaire David Lian and the Hennessy Artistry at Aloha from Nuffnang thanks to Nicholas.

notice the N96? Jason, Suan, Kim, and Wenqi was there too

The Nokia N-Gage launch fell on the 22nd at Cafe Libre. We were introduced with the Nokia N-Gage gaming platform with their latest games, and I got a free full fledge game for my N82 from the good people at Nokia!

Mobile gaming has actually came a very long way, the graphics on my phone is just as good as the first generation PlayStation console, and you can even hook it on TV to play. As connectivity is everything on a mobile phone, many games also support multi-player gaming via N-Gage arena. You can compare score, play with each other, read reviews and ratings on new games, buy games online, and even chatting up with fellow gamers.

The game that I chose (we were given one free game) was the Space Impact Kappa Base, I remember playing the very same title on Sheryl’s old Nokia monochrome phone some 5-6 years ago when we were staying in Northern Virginia. The graphic is so awesome now and I found myself rather addicted to it. Newspaper is now optional in toilet. Check it out, awesome stuff.

Yeay Kim and I won the newspaper dancing game! (pics from Louis Photography)

Last Tuesday was the Happy Moment winner announcement event at Isthmus (their chicken wing was very good!), Mid Valley North Point. The participants from the top Happy blog entries and Happy videos were presence. I was very impressed with the top 2 videos shown, the organizer was torn between the two and ended up giving two first prize instead. See them here.

Of course, every Happy event comes with fun & games. I won myself some Jusco voucher again. Me and Kim also participated in this standing on newspaper dancing contest thingy and won it thanks to our awesome fit body that are also space efficient. The prize was some Body Shop merchandise that I could actually use as well. Nice!

Aloooohaaaa, party people! (pics from Jack)

Last Saturday’s Hennessy Artistry at Aloha was one of the better clubbing nights I can remember. Free booze all night long (not that I can drink at all), plenty of friends in the VIP area. Nuffnang had 3 tables with a few dozen people at the event, it was awesome.

People on photo:
1: Nicholas, KY, Eiling
2: Rachel, KY, Nicholas, Dree
3: Yap Thomas, KY, Nadia
4: KY & Rachel

The drinks were good, and music pretty decent, but above all, of course, is the company. There were some old buddies like shiang, dree, and new friends whom I’ve met less than a couple times, like chocolate lady Eiling and sister, the lanky Yap Thomas, the party girl Nadia, the drunkard Stephanie Kok, and more. It was fun!

I’m tired.

Tags:  aloha,  eiling,  happy moments,  kimberly,  n-gage,  nicholas,  nokia,  party,  rachel,  space impact,  suan

Posted by KY | 28 Comments »

I am a strong believer that you gotta do something slightly crazy once in a while to stay sane in this world, so last Saturday I invited a bunch of daring friends and hosted an Insect Cook Out. The attendees were Kim, Su Ann, Sammy, Terence, ST, Dree, and of course my house mate Rachel. The following 6 minute video is the whole insect cook out adventure, check it out!

The whole idea actually started right after Terence, Dree, and I went to Bangkok and had our weird and wonderful creatures including insects, worms, and frogs. Kim was protesting the fact that we did not bring back anything for her, and that’s when Terence came up with the idea that we should just cook some ourselves.

the ingredients from aquarium shop and grocery store

I eventually tabled the idea to Kim and she responded enthusiastically, then I got Su Ann, Sammy, and the rest of the gang to join in as well. This thing is actually going to work!

So I set up the official time for this unusual cook out at 5pm on Saturday evening. I went out to grocery store to get the seasonings: pepper, curry leaves, shallots, dried chili, and garlic. Just half an hour before the cook out, I got to an aquarium shop near Sunway and got a box of good size worms (RM9) and 120 crickets (for RM3)

ahhh, glorious protein enriched food

Contrary to Su Ann’s believe that we googled for the recipe, it was completely original sans the “salt juice” suggested by Terence.

First I fry some shallots, garlic, dried chili, and curry leaves to flavor the oil. These are then taken out and the crickets and worms thrown in the hot oil. Some salt juice is then added for extra kick. It’s that simple, and boy it turned out great! (the insects were freeze in the fridge for about 15 minutes prior cooking to prevent them from jumping everywhere)

the crazy diners

The dish actually tasted a lot better than what we had in Bangkok, and we didn’t even save up anything for my buddy Douglas who came late. The worms were a bit like soft shell crab (as described by Sammy), and the crickets still juicy inside while crispy on the outside. Very nice.

There’ll be another short video for this where Rachel and Kim ate the bugs raw, stay tuned!

I’m so going to prepare this again for the next x’mas eve party!

Tags:  cookout,  crazy,  crickets,  dree,  eats,  insect,  kim,  ky,  rachel,  st,  su ann,  terence,  worms

Posted by KY | 76 Comments »