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The days of cooking at home continues, and for someone like me who grew up on an island, fish is always a very familiar ingredient on the table, and when you have fresh seafood, the best way to prepare them is almost always by steaming.

Today’s recipe involves a block of fresh garupa fish filet from one of the local grocery stores, and instead of just normal steaming, I’m adding a bit of a twist – with BRAND’S Essence of Chicken.

I actually got the inspiration from this dish slightly more than ten years ago at Yap Yin & BKT restaurant in Seri Kembangan with their steamed haruan fish dish. The recreation for today is slightly different and simplified. Without further ado, here we go

Ingredients:

• 1 block fresh garupa fish filet
• 1 bottle BRAND’S Essence of Chicken
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 1/2 glove garlic, diced
• some wolfberries
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• salt to taste

Instructions:

• clean and dry fish, salt it lightly
• placed ginger both above and under fish in steaming bowl
• pour BRAND’S Essence of Chicken + soya sauce
• steamed for 10-12 minutes (depending of fish thickness)
• separately fry garlic till golden brown
• use garlic & spring onion as garnish, serve while hot

The result is a dish that’s also full of nutrient and also yummy to eat. Try it!

Check out more simple recipe here.

I was at a cousin’s wedding the other day, being seated by a bunch of relatives mostly a generation older, and while you can guess what the topic of conversations generally falls on – whose son just took UPSR, who’s on medication for diabetes etc, one surprise, to me, was this line:

“My daughter very smart doesn’t need to bring cash, all use phone to pay only”

And that of course, was the indication of cashless payments now reaching the lexicon of critical mass in Malaysia.

When it comes to cashless payments, or e-wallet apps, none is as ubiquitous as GrabPay.

Most of us already use Grab for other services such as e-hailing rides and food delivery, it makes sense to leverage on the platform and use GrabPay for everyday activities, which is one way to earn more of those Grab Reward points too.

dining at Mei by Fat Spoon

The skeptic in me (and undoubtedly some of you) will ask if GrabPay is up to the task to be a true provider of cashless transactions in everyday life. And whether or not a person is able to live completely cashless solely on their e-wallet.

To answer this question, GrabPay has added more opportunities and brands to its breadth of merchants to enable everyday users to go cashless via the app, from mostly F&B outlets to now including hypermarkets, health and beauty retailers, cinema outlets and even convenience stores. GrabPay is also the first e-Wallet to adopt Malaysia’s national QR Standard, DuitNow QR making cashless payments more seamless than ever.

Grab ride using GrabPay

Hence, the GrabPay Cashless Challenge – going one week cashless, with the aid of GrabPay as payment and carry on life as you would any normal day.

So, let’s break down what’s to cover for a whole 7 days of activities:

• 14 – 21 meals (you don’t exactly need 3 meals a day everyday.. I certainly don’t)
• groceries
• rides
• other supplies or gifts
• entertainment (maybe)

Kenny Rogers via GrabFood using GrabPay

For my typical 7 days, I usually go to restaurants perhaps 7-10 different times, food delivery another 3-5 times, cook few times, and enjoy free biscuits & coffee at office pantry the rest of the meals.

Some of the restaurants I checked out during this period using GrabPay includes Mei by Fat Spoon (their ox tongue was awesome), Gamtong in Kota Kinabalu (tofu pot!), and Universal Bakery (sourdough).

99 speedmart accepts GrabPay too

GrabFood was my next source of meal – Kenny Rogers (chicken), Mich’sology (poke bowl), Shepherdoo Restaurant (pizza), Thaqwa (roti telur for breakfast!), and DubuYo (soondubu jigae) where what I fed myself with. I also recently learned that GrabFood is now in additional cities around the nation, making it easier to go cashless as they only accept cashless payments.

I got my groceries at 99 Speedmart  too, grabbing some toothpaste, kitchen soap, and of course, the all important instant noodles for those late night emergency meals. Other grocers like  Tesco & MyDin accepts GrabPay too by the way.

Watson, cashless? no problem

I also took a trip to Watson for some supplies and holiday gifts – I mean, gifting moisturizer with SPF protection works pretty much 100% of the time, the sun is a gift and also a threat, people!

Watson even had a 20% discount for certain GrabPay purchases, a win in my eyes.

It can be hard to keep up with all the different promotions every e-wallet seems to be giving out these days but if you’re looking for a list of GrabPay’s exclusive deals, they can easily be found HERE.

can you sense I use GrabFood quite a bit?

Other merchants that have joined  the GrabPay ecosystem includes Zalora, MBO Cinema, Mr DIY, Dominos, and more. I have a feeling my relatives, despite their age, will be jumping on this platform soon enough. After all, they are already using messaging apps, playing games, and watching online news with overly loud volumes on a daily basis.

All in all with the expansion of GrabPay touchpoints that includes different merchant categories outside of just F&B outlets and with their ecosystem of services, GrabPay is definitely one step closer to being the everyday ewallet.

I’ve personally been on several live aboard diving trips before, usually in tropical water and on pretty “basic” facility and level of service. After all, the aim was mostly for diving.

However, if you’re looking for this sort of experience in Mediterranean with top notch level of luxury, then check out Luxury Yatch for Charter at Croatia.

croatialuxurygulet.com has many options when it comes to chartered yachts, and if you’re looking for ones with everything for a group of up to a dozen, consider My Mustique or Lady Gita.

These yachts are 55 and 49 meters in length, with 6 cabins comfortably takes up to twelve guests.

Other than enjoying good food and sun tanning on board, there’s also a host of water sports to be enjoyed while on the trip, such as kayaking, paddle boarding, jetski, and more. Other fun activities includes fishing, board games, and with My Mustique, there’s even a jacuzzi.

For a larger group of up to 36, consider checking out Freedom – a 48.2 meter yacht with 20 cabins – 2 triple, 14 double, and 4 twins. Again, there’s water skiing, jet ski, donut ride, a jacuzzi, and even a small pool on the main deck

More details and pricing information is available on the website at https://www.goolets.net/luxury-yacht-charter-croatia/

If you’re looking for an experience of a life time, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

Festive season’s here, and it is the time of gathering with friends, family, and as always, food makes up a major part of the agenda.

When it comes to feeding a group of hungry souls, it’s always not a bad idea to get some that offers great value, and this is where dahmakan comes in with a plethora of  yummy dishes at an affordable price – starting at just RM 12!

Use the code BETASTY063 for your first order and enjoy 25% discount, don’t say bojio!

dahmakan meal, starting at RM 12

For those who thinks dahmakan has a pretty limited delivery windows, well, it’s not true anymore.

You can now order your food to be delivered anywhere from 9 in the morning to 10 at night, and meals can be delivered as soon as in an hour’s time too.

a few clicks, sit tight, and food is delivered

So just fire up the phone or dahmakan.com, choose what you want, sit back, relax, and get served!

dinner made easy by dahmakan

I made an order to test out the combo and some of the newer items on the menu – kam heong chicken rice, rojak buah (fruit with prawn sauce), tealive drink with glass jelly, and a salted caramel biscuit as well.

rojak buah, salted caramel biscuit, kam heong chicken rice, and tealive

The result was a rather satisfying full meal, who says delivered food must be boring?

dahminum too, choose a drink to go with your meal

Additionally, you can also order drinks (dahminum?) and desserts (dahmanis?) separately to spice up your lunch/dinner, or even have them for those in between meal time snacks.

how about desserts?

Due to the growing popularity of dahmakan, they’ve also started to partner with different brands to pair with their meals. Take a look:

dahmakan with extras!

For those who hasn’t check out dahmakan’s menu for a while, do take a peek cos now there’re more items to choose from than ever, including drinks and combos to make it a wholesome meal right at the comfiest place on earth – home.

Remember, use the code BETASTY063 for your first order ya!

One of the most best things in modern living is convenience, we can contact anyone at anytime, have news delivered to us via the the internet, and of course, gets food delivered to us by a few clicks and swipes via services like GrabFood.

But of course, modern convenience also has some downsides, one of which is the increasing use of plastic as an enable. Plastic, however, is also linked to climate change and environmental pollution in several ways, from air quality to ocean toxicity, plastic wastes contribute to ecosystem disruption.

Upcycling Workshop, officiated by Shaz Mukhtar, GrabFood social media manager

As the major player in food delivery business in the country, GrabFood is in a unique position to make an impact in reducing single-use plastic by working together with merchants & eaters to reduce the use of single-use plastics, starting with cutleries.

The first step GrabFood took is by introducing a toggle option in the app to allow customers to opt for single-use plastic cutlery. Next time you use GrabFood, please do not opt in for single-use plastic cutlery unless you are stranded somewhere and absolutely have to use them.

Getting it done with otherwise waste material

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE are the three major steps in saving our environment, in that order.

To send the message across, together with others, I was invited to participated at an  upcycling workshop conducted by GrabFood in ME.REKA, a makerspace in Publika. ME.REKA is a space where you have access to tools and expertise in making whatever you have in mind – be it wood & metal working, 3D printing, and so forth.

getting busy with it

Our tools were hot glue, scissors, knife, spray paint, ropes, with material to be upcycled being plastic spoons and bottles.

By cutting the spoons and sticking them around cut up plastic bottles, we were able to make some pretty neat looking small vase. Check out some of them below, and of course, one made by yours truly. It was overall a pretty fun session and one that sent the message across pretty clearly.

succulent vase upcycled from single use plastic waste

So remember, for your next meal via GrabFood, please do not opt-in for single-use plastic cutlery and use those metal ones from your kitchen or office pantry. If your office doesn’t have cutlery, bring some metal ones to work.