Roaring Tiger Year Day 8 @ ROM & Becky's Place [21st Feb 2010]

It was on the Sunday, the eighth day of the Tiger year. I woke up around 10am, had some breakfast before getting ready for to witness the registration of marriage between my cousin sister and her boyfriend. This memorable event took place at Sri Mahavihara Buddhist temple located in Brickfields. I was with Chee, and seriously it took us rounding a while before we finally able to locate the temple.

We were half an hour early before the ceremony kicks in. At about 1.45pm, my cousin sister arrived together with her family members. The swearing in ceremony started at about 2pm.

Swearing in moment

The senior group

With my Dad and Mum

I've got a cheeky cousin brother in law

Legally certified couple

Congratulations to both of you!=)

After the swearing in ceremony, there were some blessing ceremony by the monk there. I had some blessing and prayer too before leaving the place at 3.30pm. Congratulations to my Uncle and Auntie too on the memorable event. Not forgetting, thanking Chee for spending his precious time snapping wonderful pictures during the ceremony.

I reached home about 4pm, and too a quick shower knowing that Wern Ching were waiting with Aik Chung outside my place before headed to Taman Prima, somewhere in Sepang for Becky's mini open house.

Becky's sweet home

We were the first few that arrived and Becky was still seemed to be in the dreamland with her watery eyes. I supposed she just woke up or perhaps was touched by our arrival. Anyway, she handed us a few can of Shandy's before she went to dress herself.

Blackcurrant Anglia Shandy
Odd taste compared to the original Shandy. Epic fail.

I was so hungry because I did not took my lunch. Thankfully, it was not too long before a platter of grilled chicken wing fresh from the oven was ready on the table.

Grilled Chicken Wing
The first batch of this chicken wing was so good. It was so well seasoned and infused with the special marination by Becky. We did tried to ask for the recipe, and she unselfishly shared with us. But after hearing that, it was not an easy task, especially with the ingredients involved and I would just prefer to bug her to prepare instead when I crave for it.

Next, we had hot dog sandwiches. Time to make your own sandwich!

Pick your own ingredients

My Hot Dog Sandwich
They said from the look, it doesn't taste good, but I chose to ignore them because for me, it tasted good and that what matters the most. Haha, sorry, you guys could not spoil my appetite for it.

Potato Gratin

Becky, you need to do extra homework the next time you prepare this. Honestly, this was the least food that I liked for that day.

Otak-Otak Samosa

Deep fried food is unhealthy, but we leave that aside because it will be a sin not to indulge into this yummylicious Samosa. So good, when it was consumed hot!

If you thought the food was enough for the seven of us, then you are wrong, because at Becky's place, the food just can't stop coming. I was already kinda full before another dish specially prepared by her Mum came to the table.

Special Fried Bee Hoon
Tasted really nice in a special way. For me, the taste was a blending style of Thai, Siam and Nyonya. Obviously, the Bee Hoon texture was perfect.

Tom Yum Soup?
It was not a soup, but gravy for the Bee Hoon for some extra flavour and sogginess.

Dessert time! This time we weree lucky to try out someone's bakery skill.

Isky's Raspberry Cheese Cake V2

This was his second time baking cheese cake. That really wowed me, because for the second time, it was already that good. The only area to improve on was on the cheese layer that was too soft. Have you done your V3 already?

The open house was not just about eating, but also involved some board game session. This time round, we had the Big Taboo, a combination of taboo, pictionary, actionary and even the Elmo doll! It does sound complicated, but once you get a hang of it, you will be alright. It took me a quite a while though to have a hang of it.

The Big Taboo

Obviously, Eliz did better in this game since it was not a total Pictionary. And the award of best Emo mimicker gotta go to Isky.

During the board game session

Unfortunately, we did not able to finish the game because Eliz needed to rush home for a dinner. We left Becky's place at about 8pm. It was an enjoyable session, and thank you Becky for the invitation! When should be the next meet up?

For the night session, I was in Klang to witness the never seem to end fireworks display in Klang in conjunction with the Tee Kung Festival (God of Sky).

Non-stop fireworks

Reached home about 3am after having some supper at Sunway. That pretty much summed up my activities on the eighth day of the Tiger Year. Hopefully Tee Kung will bless us for a better year ahead.

Roaring Tiger Year Day 7 @ Strachan's Place, Sunway [20th Feb 2010]

The seventh day of the Tiger year, where we Chinese believes it was a day of everyone's birthday. After the family dinner, I headed back to Sunway for an open house at Strachan's place. Reached the place about 9.30pm, and saw Strachan welcoming to the house.

As expected it was crowded, and I went straight to look for my secondary friends. This will be the first time meeting them during the Chinese New Year as everyone were busy with their relatives during the past few days.

There were pretty much variety of food to choose from, ranging from noodle, rice and other spicy dishes.

I just took some of them as I was still quite full from my previous dinner. However, I believe that you must at least have something on your plate when you are attending an open house.

A little bit of this and that

Plum Blossom

Obviously, I went for some desserts before heading inside for the next gaming session.

ABC Corner

My special ABC, without the red syrup

Variety of Kuihs

While I'm inside the house, something at the corner caught my attention. It was the variety of cookies that were being displayed on the table. I couldn't help myself but to continue munching some of the cookies since most of them were my favourites.

Variety of Cookies
I enjoyed eating them so much, and Yee Yeeng your self-made cookies were good but could be better=p.

Time really flies, and it was 11pm already. A good time to start the gaming session. We started with Black Jack before playing a more stressful and mind blowing Texas Hold 'em. Poker face time!

During the gaming session

By 12.30pm, almost everyone had left with the exception of a few hardcore gaming legs. Time for a memory shot before most of our friends left.

All grown up

It was a good catching up session especially with Yu May, where it had been years since I last saw her. All the best to you Yu May in Melbourne. The poker session ended at 3.30am which was a far cry from what we had achieved before. There were years ago when we could stay up all night long till the next morning for Bak Kut Teh at Sungeiway. Well, I supposed our age factor is taking in the toll.

As usual, it was always enjoyable spending time with my secondary mates. Hope to see you guys real soon.

Thanks Strachan for inviting us to your open house.

Kedai Makanan dan Minuman New Grand View @ Taman Megah

On the seventh day of the Tiger year, my uncle called for a dinner at this Chinese stall located somewhere in the secluded shop lots at Taman Megah. This was his favourite stall for the past few years, and in fact has been the place where our family gathered for food. This will be my second day in a row, frequenting this stall but with a different food and a larger group of people.

On the previous night we had fried noodles while for tonight, we had different dishes to go with the plain rice.

Claypot Bean Curd
Consisted mainly Japanese Tofu, being cooked together with cauliflower, some French beans and slices of meat. The topping of the egg added extra smoothness and fragrance to the gravy.

Stir Fried Kai Lan
Fresh Kai Lan from my uncle farm being stir fried with roasted meat. The Kai Lan were just so sweet and juicy thanks to the fresh Kai Lan. Any fresher, we gotta eat it directly at the farm.

Fried KangKung Belacan
Decent, but not the best I have eaten. Has hint of "wok hei", but not great enough to be labelled as a fantastic place of Fried Kangkung.

Signature Spare Ribs
One of their specialty dish. The ribs were well infused with the well flavoured marination. If I could recall, I heard the marination consisted of some Guiness Stout. However, the meat was not as tender and juicy as compared to other better spare ribs that I had eaten.

Stir Fried Choy Sum
Our family loves vegetables and this will be the third vegetables for the night. Nothing much to comment about, a decently stir fried Choy Sum.

Curry Fish Head

This was a version of curry fish head that consisted a fair amount of cocunut milk. Definitely not a dish for those diet watcher. But, if you are just like me that preferred the cocunut milk version of curry fish head, then you will definitely enjoy this dish. The curry was full with fragrance of curry and hint of coconut milk. Just went so well with the plain rice. However, the portion of the serving were rather stingy especially the pieces of fish.

The total bill came to RM 128. The figure was being estimated by the lady boss who wants an auspicious number. I did ask for the bill to check out the prices of each dish, however my uncle mentioned that they don't operate on a bill basis. It really surprised me and I wondered how was it for those who wanted to claim the dinner under business expenses.

While I quite enjoyed the dinner, however I find the price was slightly on the expensive side, taking into the consideration that the Kai Lan was brought over by my uncle and the fact that my uncle was a loyal customer over here. Oh well, that happened when the bill was missing, perhaps the purpose was to save more trees.

Atmosphere: 5/10

Food: 7/10
Price: 4.5/10
Verdict: Food was above average but being let down by the price.

Kedai Makanan dan Minuman New Grand View
Location : The secluded shop lots facing the residential area in Taman Megah, Petaling Jaya.

Roaring Tiger Year Day 6 @ Taman Megah & Subang [19th Feb 2010]

The sixth day of the Tiger year, I tagged along with my parents to visit my uncle at TTDI during the afternoon. I did play a few rounds of Mahjong before calling up Eddie for a possible catching up session. In the end we settled for Piccadilly for some beers under the soaring temperature.

After the drink, Eddie fetched me back to my Uncle house. Thanks buddy! It was 6ish, and my dad was still playing Mahjong with my uncle and his wife. They continued playing till near to 8pm whilst I'm just watching from the bay. We then moved on to this stall which is my uncle favourite restaurant as of now located somewhere in Taman Megah for a late dinner.

We ordered a few variety of fried noodles. Usually we needed to wait quite a while, but surprisingly the food was served barely after 15 minutes of wait. Perhaps, the crowd were lesser on that night than of the normal day of business.

Fried Cantonese Style Yin Yong
You must be wondering, how come they were so generous with the vegetables. Well, the extra vegetables were actually being brought over by my Uncle who grew them himself.

Fried Cantonese Style Yin Yong

It was decent, has hint of "wok hei" but not enough to "wow" me. There is places that you can get better Fried Cantonese.

Fish Head Bee Hoon

I don't really enjoy eating this version of Fish Head Mee Hoon because uncle opted to go without the milk. I'd always preferred the milk version of Fish Head Mee Hoon. Making things worse, I have no idea on what type of fish they used, because it consisted way too many bones! Clearly not my bowl of noodle.

Fried Belacan Rice

Whilst the fish head bee hoon was a flop to me, this one ranked at the other end. The rice was fried so well, full with flavour and the "wok hei" was enormous. Adding on with the fragrance of belacan, it just gotta be one of the best fried rice I have eaten to date.

Fried Hokkien Noodle
Tasted way too bland and lacking in flavour. A very below average Fried Hokkien noodle.

I do not know how much the dinner costed because we left the place even before the bill was settle as my Uncle tend to hang on there a while more.

I continued the night with a visit to my sister Wern Ching place at Subang. Had some games there but the highlight of night was the losing streak in Mahjong. Throughout the years, Wern Ching place had been a kind place for me and Weng Onn when it comes to Mahjong. However, on that night itself, it tends to write a different history.

We stopped playing at Ching's place by 2am. The night was obviously still young for us and we decided to went for a poker session at one of Weng Onn's friend place at Sunway. Not a very good night for me I supposed as poker also tend to bully me. Reached home about 5ish in the morning and time for a rest before the next afternoon rolls in.

Fried Cantonese Style : 6/10
Fish Head Bee Hoon : 4/10
Fried Belacan Rice : 8.5/10
Fried Hokkien Noodle : 4/10
*(All non-halal)

Atmosphere: 5/10
Price: Unknown, but I suppose it should be the standard RM 5 per pax.
Verdict: More misses than hits, but the fried belacan rice was way too delicious!

Kedai Makanan dan Minuman Grand View
Location : The secluded shop lots facing the residential area in Taman Megah, Petaling Jaya.

Roaring Tiger Year Day 5 @ JPJ, Puchong & Sunway Pyramid [18th Feb 2010]

A Thursday, it was on the fifth day of the Tiger year. I woke up as early as 8 in the morning to accommodate the process of selling my car to my cousin brother in law who drove all the way from Ipoh. We headed straight to the JPJ headquarter in Jalan Genting Kelang the moment he reached our place.

Initially, I thought everything would be an ease, having experienced the process the last time I got this car. However, I was so wrong. When my queue number reached, I was told by the personnel at the desk that my car needed to be sent to PUSPAKOM for a test before the changes in ownership could be processed. I was like, "Are you kidding me?". My car has been tested and passed the test somewhere last November. However, I was informed that the test outcome would only valid for a month from the day the test result was out.

Knowing the fact that I can't drive my car all the way from Sunway to Setapak because of my expired road tax, I was then being directed to another department to apply for a temporary pass. Then I was told that I needed to apply for an insurance first before I could apply for the temporary pass. Man, I'm getting agitated at this point of time. It was like one leads to another one, and it doesn't seems to end.

The temporary permit application form

I went across the street to apply for an insurance and went back to the department to apply for the permit. I was being handed a form and was told to fill in the particulars. Then, I waited for a great 25 minutes just for the precious signature of the Head Department to approve my permit.

The precious signature

After that, we headed back to Sunway to get my car and drove back all the way to the centre for the PUSPAKOM test. Upon reaching the place, it was almost near to 12.30pm and we were lucky as my car was the last one to be tested before the lunch break kicks in.

Express lane for private car

The test took about near to 20 minutes, with them investigating the chasis and the engine of the car. It was a pleasant experience until my car was ready for collection. I was being asked by the personnel for the receipt of payment (RM 10) before I could collect the passed test certificate. The environment was noisy, and I could barely hear what he was saying so I asked him to pardon me. And guess what? He grabbed the microphone, shouted at it as though he has never used microphone before in his life. Obviously I could hear it this time, because it was just so freaking loud as the speaker was just above my head!

My ex-baby

We went for lunch while waiting for the ownership department to resume working at 2pm. I was given the privilege to head to the counter straight because my processing was in progress since I was there early in the morning. I thought everything would went smooth, but upon reaching the counter, the personnel told me to return tomorrow because it would take a day to process the changes in ownership. I was like " What the hell? I went through the same process last time, and all it take was only 30 minutes at most?". Maintaining my cool, I told her that I can't wait till tomorrow as it would be too tedious for my cousin brother in law to travel all the way from Ipoh again. Then she asked me to hold and she will get back to me.

We waited, waited and waited, for more than 40 minutes, but there were still no updates from her. I could see her proceeding with other documents but not mine. My patience has hit it's limit and I went to her to ask the status of my progress. Then only, she started keying in to the system and within 10 minutes, everything is done, inclusive the renewal of road tax. It does make me wonder, why can't it be settle in the first place when all it need was just a while? Oh well, then only I realized that I'm actually in a government department and it says all.

My ex-baby has found a new owner, and hopefully she will served the master well. Reached home about 3.30pm and went for a rest till near to 5.30pm before getting a call from Elaine confirming the gathering for dinner at Hee Lai Ton in Puchong. Thanks Lee Chuen for fetching me to the restaurant.

I was longing for dessert and Lee Chuen did recommend a place for desserts somewhere in Bandar Puteri. However, we have to end up in Station One Cafe because the desserts stall was not open.

While waiting for the rest=)

Some of the drinks that we had

Thanks Elaine for the treat!=)

We lingered around until 11am before heading to Sunway Pyramid to catch the 14 Blades movie by Donnie Yen at 11.50pm. I decided to give a try on Ireland Potato since I had long wanting to do so.

Located just right beside TGV Cinema at Sunway Pyramid

I needed to queue for a while before it reached my turn to order. This showed that Malaysians really fancied potatoes a lot! There were a lot of seasoning to choose from. I called for a Nori Seaweed seasoning. While waiting for my chips to ready, I could see them freshly fried my chips and drizzled them with the seaweed powder. It took near to 10 minutes before my chips were ready.

Nori Seaweed Chips (RM 5.80)
The chips were fresh and not as oily as typical typical chips. The seasoning meanwhile were just average, very much a resemblance of the Mamee Monster Snack powder. However, I regard it as quite pricey as the portion were quite small.

This time round I had the Ireland's Potato during the movie rather than the usual popcorn. I knew we were not allowed to bring in outside food other than those sell by TGV, so obviously I smuggled them in. Don't ask me how I did it, because if you wanted to try something badly, I'm sure you be able to come out with some ideas=P

The 14 Blades movie was great! I can't recalled when the last time I'd watched a Chinese movie of a great story line with decent martial art involvment. The movie lasted more than 2 hours, and it was 2ish by then time I reached home.

It was long and tiring day. However, it was great catching up with Kevin and all her angles that always with him. Hopefully it will not be too long before the next catch up, Mr CEO?