Chocolate Indulgence

Ice cream... Yumm...

Folks, I have been M.I.A. for good reasons, and the pictures here proves me right. My weekends are spent cracking my head with wedding stuffs. Yes, planning a wedding is a headache! It is a lot of fun too. Not that I hate it or love it so much.

After an evening of headache of not finding a wedding gown that I wanted, I decided to waltz in Haagen Daaz for some de-stress. Ice cream has always make me feel good on hot, stressful days...

Haagen Daaz is in deed an indulgence for me because, it is the best ice cream that I have tasted so far. And indulgence in deed because, just 2 small scoops of HD ice cream can cost me almost RM20! Price aside, it is worth every cent spent :-P

These two pictures - are all chocolates, from Choc choc chip, Belgian choc, Cookies n cream, etc, all our favourite. They cost about RM29.90 a set... My aim is to one day go for the Chocolate Fondue... Yum!!! F had this one below, I had the one in 3 scoops, plus a small cute cuppa melted belgian chocolate drink and, fresh juicy strawberry! I love lovedddd it so much...
Just to share on my wedding plans so far... it is 3 months from now. Check out my wedding blog on the right hand side. F has gotten his suit and bow tie, shoes, and a white baju melayu (traditional malay outfit). We've booked the wedding hall, catering, and photographer. We have our wedding rings customized and should be ready for pick up in a week or two. I am picking up my baju kurung (traditional malay dress) next week and still having a tough time looking for a decent wedding gown! We also have headache preparing documents that is required in order for us to get married in Penang. I guess different parts of the world has weird and unnecessary procedures to get married eh. Ugh!

I've visited some bridals in Penang and though the gowns are very lovely, they don't have the style that I want. So, as many bridals there are here in Penang - hard to shop around for choices. Anyways. Just my personal opinion. And, I need to make wedding invitation cards, find wedding favours, and a florist to do all the decoration for the event!

I really hope to catch up on food blogging... I miss cooking sometimes :-)

Freshly Caught Shrimps : What would you cook?

I wondered why my dad, brother and nephew has not come home at past 8p.m. - they usually come back early from fishing! So, I was having dinner when they arrived home... I saw my brother's face just smiling away, holding a big bag and showing off to me. It was a really big stingray! WOW.

Then there were some fish, clams and shrimps. Since I know the popular one would be fish and shrimps, it came accross my mind - hmm, what recipes would be perfect to cook these??
Prawns - my mum makes the best prawn fritters (cucur udang) ever. I hope she makes it sometime soon... so I can blog about it! :-P Other nice recipes are sambal udang which is served with nasi lemak, and simply stir fried veges with prawns.

Fish - these small fish are best deep fried and eaten immediately. They taste sweet and fresh, and even nice to eat with sambal belacan and rice... Yumm!

Dinner & Sightseeing at The Majestic KL Tower

KL Tower at night, from below. Lighting changes colours every few seconds

How many of you would love to dine in at 421 meters above ground, and enjoy magnificent view of Kuala Lumpur? Standing tall and beautiful, KL Tower stands a total of 421 meters from the ground. It was officially launched in October 1996. It is one of the best towers to visit around the world.

Traditional Malaysian Musical Instruments which are played by men
dressed in traditional costumes at time intervals

You can enjoy sight-seeing, with an audio headset provided for free for you to listen while walking around in the observation deck. Restaurants for banquet events such as wedding dinners, annual dinners, events and functions can be held there too. My first impression upon entering the banquet hall: In awe. It was breathtaking, looking at the outside view especially of KLCC while having to eat some fancy dinner there. Very friendly people there too. This was a function we attended briefly a couple of weeks back.

Gado Gado, fresh sliced cucumber, jicama, hard boiled egg and prawn fritters served with sweet and spicy peanut sauce.

At this dinner, they had Malay, Indian and Thai cuisine. All of which are equally mouth-watering, I had a hard time deciding which one to "attack" first! The decoration was done very beautifully, it was almost like a wedding - but it was not. :-)
Something good to drink that night was the Masala milk tea - very warm and comforting. I love teas, such as fresh mint tea, spiced tea such as cardamon, and infused ones like Earl grey, and fruity tea.
This was taken from the entrance to the banquet hall.
From the Thai table - they has starters consisting of mieng kham, fish cake and pandan chicken. It was real good, I loved it very much! And since I love Thai food so much, I am hoping to find some nice resipes and learn to make some of these tasty starters - they should not be difficult to make!The starters: pandan chicken, fish cake with sweet Thai chili sauce and miang kham.
Mieng kham - read about it here. It is some fresh coconut, ginger, chili, peanut, dried shrimp, and a spicy sauce wrapped in fresh bitter leaves. You might find it weird on the first bite, but after sometime, the taste blends in and it is very appetizing in deed!
From the Indian cuisine, there was briyani rice, and fresh naan. There was lamb, chicken curry, and a sweet and spicy chutney. Now I am bad at remembering the names of these dishes, but, all tasted good. Makes me miss my favourite Indian restaurant here in Penang!
View of KLCC and its surroundings from the observation deck. Cool, day or night!

Website: http://www.menarakl.com.my/

Sue's Open House Buffet featuring Lontong, Rendang Tok and more

Grapes, anyone? Give me seedless ones, I'll be popping away to berry good health! This is an overdue post I mean to get it out on the web a couple of weeks back. Been very, very busy with being a banker and a wedding planner. Even my weekends are workdays now. I still try to make some time in between work and wedding plans to blog about food. You may notice less home cooked blog posts these couple of weeks. I hope you still visit me sometime.
My trip to KL was not all about Tony Roma's or Italiannies or California Pizza Kitchen. This time, my sister, Sue had a small party: Hari Raya open house. She catered food from her husband's friend, who owns a restaurant in Ukay Heights (if I remember correctly).
Except for this salad, which Sue made on her own. Sue is not a big fan of cooking when it comes to parties. This simple Greek salad is a combination of small chopped red, yellow and green capsicum, tomatoes and cucumber. All marinated in a dsh of salt and some fresh lime juice. Freshness guaranteed.
The food was deliciousss! I kept eating even till the next day. I can never have enough of festive food like these. Nasi impit and kuah kacang (rice cubes with peanut sauce) is my favourite. The peanut sauce was very delicious, not too spicy, not too sweet.
Fried chicken. This one was gone rather quick, being popular with the men and boys alike. It tastes almost exactly like my mum's Belacan Chicken.
masak Lodeh, or Lontong - the yellow "soup" in this picture. It is a vegetarian dish, lots of veges like carrots, cauliflower, red chili and cabbage thinly sliced, cooked with glass noodles and tempe in a creamy coconut cream sauce. I must learn to cook this, although F would not prefer to eat this!
I don't see any lontong being sold in Penang - Anyone knows where to buy lontong in Penang?

We also had tomato rice with dalca, with lots of potatoes, brinjal and carrots. It was a fun and entertaining weekend, which I hope will come again and more frequently. Next is my brother and mum's birthday... I wonder what and where to eat...

Tony Romas: Ribs Ribs Ribs

This is a place we've always wanted to dine in but never made it because we were either too full or not hungry enough or broke. Ma-ha-ha-ha... We finally got our bums there last weekend! Did we enjoyed the meals? Yeah! Did we like the place? Well, yes. Did we finished our meals? Umm... the ribs were gone...

The place...

We met for lunch last Sunday and went shopping at Midvalley. Gosh it was tiring. Spent hours and hours looking for some clothes and umm, wedding rings. Not to mention we were not feeling so well either. But we got hungry and decided that we have to make that trip we've been wanting to each time we come to KL. so Tony Roma's Midvalley it is...

Soft buns and Garlic Butter

I liked the warm bun and herbed garlic butter served. In an interesting cone too. Reminds me of Swensen's... they serve chips like this, which makes eating so much fun than normal flat baskets. This one comes for free. The staffs were friendly, asked us how the food was. However, I did not like the fact that the manager "sounded" his staffs in front of diners. Salt and pepper whichever way - that was wrong - hey, we didn't even notice and, most importantly, never EVER scold your staff in the dining area. A big NO NO. Customers get turned off! Or maybe, he was showing off his "power"? Ugh! No!

Fried Mushrooms

Sliced button mushrooms deep fried to crispy perfection and served with honey lemon sauce (I think). Wow was this a really big serving portion - but since F and I loved mushrooms so much, we did finished this one! Yumm!

Ribs with Broccoli and Mashed Potatoes - F had this.
Mmmmph! We had our eyes on this even after the ribs came...
Ribs with French Fries and Tomato Pesto - I had this. I had no idea why I choose french fries - it was too common and tomato pesto?? I did not like tomato pesto with ribs! Me and my silly choices sometimes... Honestly, I could not finish the FF and pesto, but I did really really enjoyed the soft ribs with crispy edges and the fried mushroom.

:: Tony Roma's ::

Ribs Seafood Steaks

Restaurant

LG 217 Mid Valley City,

No.1 Medan Syed Putra,

59200 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 03-2282 82

Hope they open up in Penang soon!