Back to routine

After spending two wonderful weekends in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, going back to our usual routine took a bit of getting used to.

Recently, Da and I have been having our saturday lunches either at one of the Hainanese coffee shops located along Purvis Street or at a food court in People's Park Centre.

Ordinarily, one would not rave about a food court in a shopping mall. There are two food courts in People's Park Centre. One of the food courts is located at the centre of the basement level. They sell delicious "big pau" (which is not very fatty), among other items.

The other food court is also located at the basement level but at one end. I like their yong tauhu. A bowl of yong tauhu comprising 7 ingredients and noodles costs S$3.50. The best part is that you are given an unlimited helping of boiled peanuts. Yummy!

The next time that we visit this food court, I intend to try the food sold at the vegetarian stall. I was fascinated by their menu today. They sell dishes such as vegetarian laksa, vegetarian Hokkien mee, etc. Very tempting!

After we had lunch at basement corner food court at People's Park Centre today (Da ordered a chicken and century egg porridge whereas I ordered the yong tauhu), Da and I took a walk around Chinatown area.

As Chinese New Year is approaching, Chinatown is decked with beautiful decorations. This coming Lunar year is the year of the Ox. The Chinese horoscope comprises 12 animals - rat (or mouse, as I prefer to call it), ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig (in this order). Each horoscope year starts on the 1st day of the Lunar New Year and ends on the last day of that Lunar Year.

When the relatives went to Muar recently for my maternal grandmother's 1st death anniversary prayers, we were remarking that the extended family has someone born in every year of the horoscope except that of dragon. Well, I am sure that sooner or later, a dragon baby will be born in the family. We are Asians and hate to lose out (ie. "kia su"), so it won't do if we don't have a baby for every single horoscope, yah? *grin*

I am so proud of Da and myself! We managed to walk all the way from Chinatown to Da's office at Enggor Street (where our car was parked). Today, instead of going via South Bridge Road, we walked via Keong Siak Street, Neil Road, etc. It was quite an interesting walk as we passed by historic buildings on our way.

I was very thirsty by the time we drove off in our car. Undecided where to go for dinner, we settled on the hawker centre at Old Airport Road (known as "Old Airport hawker centre"). I had in mind to buy the whole soursop after dinner and bring it to my mother's home (which is located near the hawker centre).

When we reached the hawker centre, instead of going to the section that we usually patronise, we decided to check out another section. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a stall that sells only Penang food. Da's father originated from Penang and Da's aunt is an expert at cooking Penang food. As such, Da could not resist ordering the Penang Assam laksa. The black sauce that you see in the spoon in the photograph below is prawn paste (ie. "hae ko").

Da also ordered as Penang fried kway teow. I found the dish spicy.

I was tempted to order something from a stall selling Thai food. However, after standing there for about 5 minutes, I was still undecided what to order. As such, I decided to approach another stall and I ordered a dumpling soup with yee mee instead.

It was only when we started eating that we realised that the 2 main dishes and our side dish were all noodles!

After dinner, I approached the drink stall that sells soursop drinks. My family likes to buy the soursop whole from the stall holder. He would usually be prepared to sell us the whole soursop if he has extra soursops. This time, he apologetically told me that he only had 3 soursops left and he needed them to sell his soursop drinks. Oh well... next time, then.

We chanced upon a stall selling soft bean curd (that is, "tau huay") and decided to order some for my family. What makes the dessert from this stall interesting is that the soft bean curd comes with toppings. We ordered a soft bean curd with red bean.

We also ordered a soft bean curd with glutinous rice balls. If you were to bite into the rice balls, a lovely filling of ground peanut would ooze out.

As my mother likes ginko nuts, we also ordered a soft bean curd with ginko nuts.

During dinner, I had been eyeing the curry puff sold at a stall near where we were seated. I saw from the signboard at the stall that there is hard boiled egg inside the curry puff. As such, we ordered 4 curry puffs at S$1 per curry puff.

When we arrived at my mother's home, the little darling greeted us exuberantly. He was even more happy when my mother opened a packet of peanuts and he was given several peanuts to munch. He loves crunchy food.

While Da was reading the newspapers, I decided to use my mother's computer to type this post. My mother has access to msn messenger although I must admit that I have never seen her online (big hint, Ma! Go online!). As I was typing this post, the computer prompted me that I had a msn message. It was LSD! Hi, girl! It is good to hear from you and chat with you again. Hang in there, girl - all will turn out fine.