Eats: Shark Bone Soup @ Chuai Heng Restaurant

I was fortunate that Lil' Sis decided to give my mom and myself a lunch treat to Chuai Heng. She was introduced to this restaurant, specifically for their shark bone soup by one of her client.

So come Monday, I drove my mom and self to downtown KL to meet Lil' Sis at the restaurant. Chuai Heng is one of those modern Chinese restaurants, similar to Palace or Oriental group of restaurants. And typically at these restaurants, dim sum lunch are available but we decided to do their ala carte menu

So here it is, the star of the lunch. Double-boiled shark bone soup. I didn't get to read the menu when Lil' Sis placed the order, so I'm not too sure what was added in the soup apart from the obvious which is shark bone. Based on what i read online, the Chinese believe that shark bone marrow has healing properties such as healing joints and it's a good source of collagen. It's a very typical Chinese concept of to strengthen parts of the human body, you can do so by eating the same parts from animals (i.e. yi xing bu xing). The soup has a very smooth "gelatinous" texture to it, as a result of long hours of boiling. I would like to think all the collagen benefits have gone to my face and improve my skin texture! LOL!

This is stir-fry green dragon leaves (qing long cai) with garlic. I seriously have no idea how this vege come about but I can assure you, that it is the "rage" these days. Every Chinese restaurant you go in KL these days, they would be recommending this vege. And the price is not cheap as well when I check it out in the supermarket. I can't seems to find any English name equivalent and most sites just cite the direct Mandarin-to-English translation of this vege. It's from the Chinese chives family, has slightly broader leaves and less pungent than Chinese chives. The taste is almost like a cross between leeks and chives.

The last dish we had was steamed dragon tiger grouper (long hu ban). Apparently it's a cross breed between the giant malabar grouper and tiger grouper. As you can see here, we didn't get the whole fish, just the belly portion but even that it was too much for the three of us. The meat has a rather oily feel to it, very fleshy but firm. After just about two pieces, I was quite filled up already.

All in all, it was a very yummy lunch. Highly nutritious too after all the collagen and omega-3 from the soup and the fish. :)

****
Chuai Heng Restaurant
231, Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2141-5666

Eats: Wasa Light Rye Crispbread

Finally, I found another option to add to my limited repertoire of breakfast/snack, which at the moment consist only of
(1) cornflakes in milk OR
(2) instant oats in hot water and sugar OR
(3) Kraft cheese slice with 3-1 Milo (if I'm in KL) / Hot cocoa (if I'm in Jakarta)

Pretty limited stuffs but no choice coz I can't eat bread due to my worsening wheat allergy. The last time I had bread, I ended up in hospital, suffering from an anaphylactic shock. That's how bad it is now.

Even last week, after I had the 3-1 Horlicks drink, my mouth felt a bit burning and itchy. When I checked the ingredients, it contained trace amounts of wheat flour. No wonder the reaction!

Yesterday, when Hubs and I were in Bangsar Shopping Center looking for a french press coffeemaker, we decided to pop into Jason's, the anchor grocer, to see if we can find one there.  Instead, we found new breakfast/snack options for me at the biscuits and confectionery shelf - in the form of Wasa Light Rye Crispbread.

So tonight, I decided to try and see how it taste like. By the way, I have a tendency of getting hungry super fast when I'm working on an article. Kinda like it actually coz it's an indicator that my brain cells are working! :D

And here it is! I sandwiched a cheese slice between 2 pieces of the crispbread. It tasted really healthy though, a bit dry, but guess I have no choice. And for the uninitiated it's like our Asian soda crackers, just that this one is made with light rye.

Lord of the Rings

So Hubs was in Ho Chi Minh close to 3 weeks ago, and while he was there, he realised he has lost his wedding ring just few hours before he was due to fly back to Jakarta. When he finally got home to tell me about it, a drama erupted which I shan't go into.

Anyway, the outcome from this episode was that we decided to buy a new pair of matching wedding rings. So when Hubs was back in KL over the recently past weekend, we went to 1 Utama to look for our new wedding rings. A pair of plain wedding rings in pure gold in one of the shops caught our eyes but we decided to look around first.

At another shop, we didn't see any plain wedding rings on display and asked them if they have any. What the sales person said next really stumped me.

Me: Do you have any plain wedding rings?
Salesperson: You mean like Lord of the Rings?
Me: Huh? Errr.. plain wedding rings...?
Salesperson: Yeah! Lord of the Rings!
Me: Errr.. OK.. Let's see what you have...?

It was at this point I realised that the "One Ring to rule them all" is actually a plain gold except for the fiery Tengwar inscription that appears when placed in fire. LOL!

In the end, we end up with the earlier pair of plain wedding rings in pure gold. Surely, it IS the "Lord" of the Rings since it is the most traditional kind of wedding rings worn throughout the ages. :)

BTW, our drama surrounding the wedding rings does not end there. 

We then adjourned to lunch in the mall and when we were about to pay for the bill, Hubs reached into his khakis pocket and went "OH MY GOD!" and started laughing non-stop. I kept on asking him why and after a few seconds, he told me, "I found my wedding ring."

"What do you mean?!" I asked. And shocked as well! "Well, I found back my wedding ring. It was in the pocket of this pair of khakis all this while! It fell out when I was reaching for my wallet!"

This time, I'm pretty stumped!

Travel Stories: Chillin' Out @ Redang Island

We took a short break to Redang Island in May this year. It was an impromptu trip which Hubs planned for, just before I was due to go for a small surgery. We took Berjaya Air, which was a first for both of us and it flew us direct to the island. One small inconvenience though - since Berjaya Air operates out of Subang Airport, which is like 5 minutes drive away from our home, it was a little bit difficult to arrange for taxi transport to bring us to the airport. Luckily, Hubs has a reliable contact :))

A short 45 minutes ride and voila! we were at Redang. The airport in Redang is pretty basic, no conveyor belts which deliver the luggage and we had pretty much unload it ourselves.

Since the trip was impromptu, most of the hotels were pretty booked up. Even the hotel which I stayed in i.e. Redang Beach Resort on my previous trip 8 years ago was fully booked, as well as the more expensive Laguna Redang. Hubs finally managed to book us at Coral Redang Resort. I quickly googled up the hotel site and from the pictures there, it looked kinda aged. I had my reservation but we had no choice. Hubs reassured me that he specifically requested the newer rooms before he confirmed the booking. And everything turned out alright! The chalets were new like, 6 months new and more importantly clean! Seriously the management should update the site with pictures of their new chalets. Anyway here they are! :)

We made friends with one of the senior staff. His name is Arjuna and he's a really really decent and friendly chap. We even managed to get him to show us the deluxe chalets which has its own living area!

We took the full board 3D2N package plus 1 extra night stay. I dare say that everything at Coral Redang worked out well - decent and new rooms, friendly staffs and even the food is pretty good. Saturday night was barbeque night, and the grilled prawns were especially good and more importantly fresh. Other days was a mixture of Western and Malaysian food and no complains from me. :)

There were a few resident squirrels that were really friendly. They don't disturb the guests but were pretty curious critters. And you can see them scurrying and hanging around the hotel pool bar and restaurant area. Cute!

Eats: Kaca Mata @ Grand Wijaya Center

Kaca Mata is a small chain of Chinese restaurants (饭店) to eat decent Chinese roast meat (烧味) like barbequed pork (叉烧), roast pork (烧肉), roast chicken (烧鸡) and such in Jakarta. We came here to try it out after Hubs was having a debate with another friend which shop has better flavour, Kaca Mata or Kenanga.

As with these kinda of restaurants, I noticed there's always a "Nasi Campur" or "Nasi Campur Spesial" that offers a sampler of everything. At Kaca Mata, it is the "Hainan Campur" that serves up barbequed pork, roast pork, roast chicken, Chinese braised hard-boiled egg (滷蛋) and their specialty honey-barbequed pork, with Hainan rice. Hainan rice is basically rice cooked in chicken stock so that it absorb all the aroma and flavour of the stock. 

I would say that it's a good place to fix that craving for Chinese roast meat as they are a scarcity in this city. I especially like the honey-barbequed pork and the roast pork. Worthwhile to check it out when you have the craving.

Not too sure why they are named Kaca Mata, as it means spectacles in Bahasa Indonesia.

Nasi Hainan Campur!

****

Kaca Mata Chasiu
Grand Wijaya Centre, Ruko Bl C No. 4
Jl. Wijaya II, Jakarta
Phone: (021) 723-5228

Of robbers and muggers...

Last week, I had a sense of dread knowing that I was due to fly back to KL. Apart from another bout of separation from Hubs, it is knowing that I'm coming back to a land of crimes and daylight mugging that worries me. I don't even need to read online Malaysian newspapers to know who's the latest victim and the where, when and how it happened. Thanks to social media, I get to know what's going on in streets of KL on Facebook. In fact a family friend even added me to a social group created by a concerned FB-er to raise citizen awareness about the rising crime rates and what Malaysians can do. Just one click of the mouse and all the happenings are posted here!

But jokes aside, it is extremely unsafe for single females in KL these days. Just couple of nights ago, a new friend that I just made got mugged at the traffic lights in Bangsar. Her car window was smashed and the perpetrator robbed her of her bag and personal belonging which was placed on the front passenger seat. When the news came to me at midnight, I was thinking "this is getting way too close for comfort"

I can't help but to reflect on what happened to me that same day but earlier in the evening, when I flew into KL. While waiting for my friend to come and pick me at LCC terminal for Air Asia flights, I casually rested my handbag on top of my cabin-sized luggage and was holding on to the push-up handle. I was just keeping a lookout for my friend's car when I felt the need to shift my attention to this 50s looking thin Indian man walking intently towards me. Instinctively I grab my handbag and continued looking at him. At the same time, as he walked past me, with a glare in his eyes, his right hand swinged out and flicked away his ciggie butt which flew past in front of me.

I can't imagine what would happen had I not grab my bag. Because the glare he gave, made me uncomfortable and of all places, why did he need to flick away his ciggie butt right in front of me. Just too many coincidences that feels downright uncomfortable.

So be really aware of your surroundings especially in the streets of KL these days!