6. Umai

I made 'Umai Ikan Yu' this afternoon. This is some sort of fish salad, a most popular dish in Sarawak. I just love it!

This is how it looked after I made it, ready to eat!


I am not a good cook, I cook according to my taste. I didn't learn much when I was a kid,I just learned by watching my mom cook and later learned tips on cooking from my aunties. Even now a grandmama I am still learning, from mistakes or recipe books lol...

Ikan Yu is shark fish. I used the flesh, just 2 pieces which was already sliced by the fish monger. All I did was clean them and sliced them thinly and an inch long. Wash them clean and let them drip dry.

To prepare -

Slice thinly a 2" ginger, 5 pieces of red onions, 5 red chillies or more if you want. Mix well with the fish.

Pound 3 or 4 more red chillies finely and add into it to make the color more reddish.
Slice into halves lots and lots of 'limau kasturi' (local small orange) and press the juices out into the fish.
That would make the taste more sourish. Add salt to taste.

Some people eat this with 'sago' but I don't. I eat this with rice.

Now I need to get Wiwi out of his cage and later will put him back again at about 9pm, just in time to see my favourite movie 'Midsomer Murders' on channel 702.

Cheerio.

5. Stingray Asam Pedas

Today it rained, on and off so the clothes were never really dry. I stayed home today with Alif. He slept for 45 minutes this morning from 915am - 10am so I had time to cook 'Stingray Asam Pedas'.

In a little hot oil, I fried some pounded ingredients of small onion, 4 pieces of shallots, 1 inch garlic, 2 lemon grass and 3 chillies, adding a spoonful of turmeric in it.


After leaving to simmer for 5 minutes I add some water to make enough soup, add some tamarind juice and add in the cutted up stingray into it. Add ajinomoto and salt to taste.

Stingray Asam Pedas


Cheerio.

4. Kaya & Toast

I've just had my lunch, it's 2pm. I wasn't that hungry earlier on but was when I took my lunch. It was a quickie, one bowl of rice with scrambled eggs with tomato sauce and cabbage with tiny prawns which I cooked yesterday evening. Nowadays I eat little amounts but often. I can't seem to sit and have a big lunch anymore. It is old age I think he he... but I feel good eating only when I am hungry. A friend said it is isn't good to eat odd hours and I think he is definitely right. But so far, I am all right with it. Any of you eat like I do? I know, I know, most of you will agree with my friend here :p

This morning my youngest daughter Nono asked if I can have breakfast with her before she goes to work. So I drove with her and Alif (my grandson) to Kaya & Toast. This cafe opened a couple of months ago and served light breakfast and opens daily from 7am till 7pm.

This is how the place looks like, more or less...


I asked for curry mee but the girl said no stock of mee, it must be because of the Chinese New Year, the chinese shops mostly closed and noodlemaker are still off. I was pretty disappointed so I ordered toast & 2 halfboiled eggs with Coffee C. Coffee C is coffee with sweet condensed milk.

My half boiled egg


Nono ordered French Toast (I remember to take a pic of it after she finished it all!)
and drank this...

It's cold milo drink with lots and lots of milo powder put on top of it. They called this drink 'Iced Milo Dinasaur'.

Alif shared my half boiled eggs. There were plenty of people eating at this place in the morning. I guess it must be those workers from the offices around the area who came to take their morning break there too.

We went home at 910am.

Cheerio.

3. Breakfast Buffet

This morning I woke up as early as 650am. I wanted to have a breakfast buffet at Mega Hotel Chatterbox Coffeehouse. Aya accompanied me.

The food are either Asian or Western breakfast. Asian means there were fried noodles, Tom Yam Bee Hoon, Porridge, Fried Rice, Squid Balls, Curried Beef etc., and Western food means there were French Toast, Half boiled eggs, Toasted Bread with jam and butter and plenty of different varieties of cakes & puffs.

Mega Hotel is centrally located in the business, entertainment and shopping hubs of Miri City. It is only 15 minutes drive from Miri Airport and about the same time from where I stay. Chatterbox
coffeehouse is one of it's food outlets, that was where I was this morning.

This is the Chatterbox Coffeehouse


These were some of the food that I ate.

This plate was filled with 3 items, on my left was some squid balls with Thai chilli sauce, at the top was curried potatoes especially for vegetarians and below it was the fried noodles.

I like the squid balls especially, and the curried potatoes as well. But the fried noodles wasn't very good because they aint salty enough and the noodles weren't springy. I guess they've been soaked too long before being fried.

Next, here was the Tom Yam Bee Hoon. Not as hot as the name 'Tom Yam' and not salty enough. But it was 'just okay' though. It also have some squids in it.



I didn't take the pictures of all the food because the rest were just bits here and there I picked from the food stalls. I drank lots of hot nescafe and mango juice. And ate toasted bread with strawberry jam and butter. Half boiled eggs as well :)

I ate too much by the time I drove home I was feeling a little tired and sleepy. Greedy me lol...

It was a good experience just eating and eating and I did not have to clean the dishes afterwards.

I even felt lazy to cook anything for dinner later, so I 'tapau' some 'lauk' from a friend's eatery shop before going home.

All I want to do was lie on my bed see tv or do some blogging the whole day later. And that was exactly what I did.

BTW,I have changed my blog layouts earlier on. They were created by Lisa from 'Scrap Your Blog' and I would like to thank her for sharing it with me. Thanks again :)
To everyone,

Cheerio.

2. Quiet CNY

I spend CNY quietly this year. I am off from looking after Alif(my grandson) for 2 whole days, Monday and Tuesday. Of course, as usual on Sundays and half day on Saturdays. I wasn't sure if I am going to use the car later in the day so I decided like yesterday to send Aya (my 3rd daughter) to work this morning.

I didn't have breakfast at home so after sending her I stopped at a nearby cafe called 'Mahyan Cafe' to have my breakfast. I ordered a glass of hot Nescafe and decided to eat their 'Mee Jawa'. I like having this dish here because they put some 'satay' gravy into the Mee Jawa. That makes it taste nicer and more 'lemak', with the taste of grounded peanuts added to it.

Mee Jawa (RM4.00) Hot Nescafe (RM1.70)


I stayed there for 25 minutes then I drove home. Zu(my eldest daughter) with her family who went out almost at the same time as me were already home. As promised, she was cleaning the 'ikan Lumek' that she bought and I began to prepare the soup to eat with it. After finishing with the soup I prepared to cook the cabbage with some prawns.

With all those ready, I turned my attention to 'Wiwi' my male cat and 'Baby' (Zu's persian cat). I cleaned their litter bins, add fresh litter sands and change fresh drinking water for both of them. I have let them out of their cages since this morning at 8am, so as usual I will let them back into their cages at about 12noon.

I went upstair to rest at 1230pm.

And here I am blogging.

Cheerio.

1. Eve of Chinese New Year

I can hear fire crackers cracking outside around the residential area where I am staying. It is the eve of one of Malaysian festivals, the Chinese New Year, the Ox as they called it for this year 2009. Eve of Chinese New Year the Chinese held reunion dinners among family members, exchanging red packets, fireworks and firecrackers.

The 1st day of the Chinese New Year falls on 26 January 2009, that's tomorrow. The 1st day is a day for visiting family members and friends. Friends are not only amongst the Chinese but friends of other races too visit their Chinese friends.

There are about 24 million people in Malaysia from diverse backgrounds or races. It can be said that in diversity there is unity because in Malaysia all the races, ethnic Malays like myself, and Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Eurasions, indigenous people (sons of the soil) and many others work and live together. And because of this, we have many festivals like 'Hari Raya Aidil Fitri', 'Christmas', 'Thaipusam', 'Deepavali' and like tomorrow it is Chinese New Year for the Chinese.

So indirectly, every races of people are involved in any of these Malaysian festivals. And unity among the people are strengthened in some ways here.

But on a more personal side, this CNY reminds me of a friendship gone sour. I guess right now any CNY will remind me of it. For the time being I'd rather not discuss about it but bury it deep in one part of my heart. I hope and hope one day this precious friendship of mine will slowly flourish as it used to be.

Meanwhile on this coming festival day I wish all who celebrate Chinese New Year this year I pray may the Ox brings you happiness and prosperity!

Cheerio.