girly colour

One day, my friend texted me. He was travelling to Surabaya for business.

"Do you want a polo tee?"
"Ooo... yes please!"
"What colour and size?"
"Eggplant purple or coral red or shades of those. Size shud be M kua."
"OK"

A few days later...

"Got your tee!"
"Cool... thank you thank you"
"The colour of your tee... don't know how to describe it but it's girly colour la"
"Okay.... thanks!"

This is my tee.



It's light purple.

It's true, that guys only see primary and secondary colours.

three cups of this and that

Heeding my out-of-nowhere burning desire for culinary pursuits (for a couple of weeks now), yesterday I took to the kitchen. Now, I would like to think I'm a good cook who doesn't practice enough, that's all ;O)

One of my favourite food discoveries last year was the Three Cups Chicken or 三杯鸡. I first had it at Fong Lye and I thought it was a Taiwanese dish. Turns out it originated from the Jiangxi Province of China but is really popular in Taiwan. The aroma and taste of the dish was so unique I can't quite catch what goes into it. I thought it would be really hard to make but it's actually so easy peasy!



I got the recipe for Three Cups Chicken from this website. Because what chopped up chicken pieces I have looks like half a chicken, I reduced the recipe to 1/5 cup of everything. After all the simmering and the sauce has evaporated, the chicken was left soaking in sesame oil! What's good about sesame oil though is that it doesn't leave an oily aftertaste compared to normal cooking oil. Still, I'll cut down on the oil next time and I'll use proper rice wine or more shaoxing jiu. I'll also pop in a few gizzards coz they would taste soooo good in this pot.



Not quite Fong Lye standard but I kinda like my version better ^___^ And because my mum saw me taking pictures of my Three Cups Chicken, she insist I take pictures of the night's dinner. So here's some fish.



There are many other things I would like to make and that I think I know how to make, so look out for more cooking posts in the future! Well, provided this burning desire keeps on burning, that is.

Oh yes, the reviews for my Three Cups Chicken.

Dad: [Busy eating so no comments]
Mum: Not bad [Mum's a great cook so a "not bad" from her is seriously not bad]
Bro: Chicken very tough [It's kampung chicken, they're tough like that]
Bf: Regardless of what your bro said, I think it's good [Yayy]

a tale of 3 cities

#1. I flew into Kunming last week, and was immediately whisked away to a place called Panzhihua.


#2. On the way there, we stopped for lunch at this hole in the wall place just off the highway. Doing it like the Vietnamese, we dined al-fresco under the sun and in the cool air. So cool in fact that it got pretty cold not long after. But when the wind stopped blowing, it got too hot T___T


#3. What's famous here are their roasted chicken. Skin roasted to a crisp perfection, as crispy as Peking Duck.


#4. Beautiful golden crispy skin.


#5. After years of sticking plastic 桃花 (tao hua) or peach blossoms onto dead branches as Chinese New Year deco, I finally see real ones! I guess it's a bit cold coz most of the flowers looks kinda shriveled. Or maybe because it was growing next to this..


#6. A toilet without doors!

This would be my first of several encounters with doorless toilet in the course of this whole trip. Some are very rudimentary, with just two holes in the ground (to accommodate two squat-tees) and no flushing system (many thanks to the river system). Others look like your modern squat toilets minus the doors. In a 4-stall toilet, one of us would be in the first while the other in the last. And we wait OK, we wait until we both finish our business before we walk out.

The one above is actually quite interesting. See, the drain there is for you to pee/poop in and it's an extension all the way from the mens' toilet. Yes, it's one longggg drain. The toilet automatically flushes every few minutes, with water gushing like a fearless river carrying everything in its way. Interesting, right?

Word of advice is, wait till it finish flushing before doing your thing.


#7. The scenery along the way is just beautiful.


#8. The sky's so blue and the clouds are like a delicate lace veil, thinly spread across an otherwise empty sky.


#9. You'll know you're in Panzihua when you see lots of dust on the roads, in the air, on the trees, on dogs, on everything! It is after all a major steel manufacturing town and lorries from nearby mines comes in droves each day.

The next day, we moved on to Huaping, where we will eat shit and sleep for the rest of our stay in China. It's two hours away from Panzhihua. Here comes the food...


#10. Oh, how I miss you my mala (super-hot) hotpot. I miss you, I miss you, muacks.


#11. Black corn. Tastes like normal corn except not so starchy.


#12. A bug. I don't know what kinda bug but it taste... green, like grass kinda green. Apparently it's good for health but thank you very much, one is enough.


#13. Lunch fit for a wedding feast. This is only half of what we had.

See, eating in China takes on a different meaning, especially when you entertain guests. For the Chinese, it's about saving face. If your guests doesn't have enough to eat, i.e. plate is clean and all the dishes sudah sapu clean also, you would come across as stingy even if that may not be the case. So they will usually over order, and will continue to order even if there's unfinished food on the table. Yes, a lot of it goes to waste but that's their culture.


#14. We stayed at the best hotel in Huaping. As you can see, it's very basic. Actually, those are courtesy of the clients to ensure we have a comfortable stay. There's also two big and two small bottles of water, packet milk drinks and fresh fruits everyday. It's a nice touch and made me feel really welcomed.


#15. They even thought about this. For a fresh lemony lime scent on my laundry.


#16. This is what I'm up to in Huaping - mine site visit. A piece of coal modeled by my colleague.

How can you tell it's coal and not some random rock? Coal has shiny surfaces, ta-dah!


#17. A locomotive carting out coal from the underground mine.


#18. An instrument to measure density of the coal. I still grapple with how it works.


#19. Coal is gold.


#20. Orange so fresh that it still have green leaves at the stalk.


#21. Cute girl living with her family at the mine workers' quarters.


#22. Simple lunch at the mine consisting of black chicken, potatoes and forest tubers. A bit oily but it was soooo good.


#23. Coal carts. And that's the end of all things related to mining.


#24. As we had to catch our flight back to KL from Kunming, we hit the road after breakfast that morning as the journey will take between 5-7 hours.

The road from Huaping to Panzhihua is dotted with tunnels and bridges across valleys high and low. Some of the tunnels have dual-carriageways. This is the only one that doesn't have lights. It's scary coz you can't see the end when you enter it and you rely solely on the lights of vehicles in the tunnel.

Oh, digress a bit. We've got the coolest driver! See, customer service in China is actually very good. Even the attendant at the toll is super polite and pretty and smiley. Example:

"I received 100 yuan from you sir. The journey's cost is 60 yuan. Here is your change of 40 yuan sir. Have a good day."

To all this, our driver just stared blankly ahead and drove off without acknowledging the person at all. Wah, damn lansi.


#25. It was late by the time we got into Kunming. So we did dinner, a spot of shopping at Carrefour and camwhoring with Ronald.

It was absolutely freezing that night! It has to be something like 2°C or 3°C. Luckily the client has prepared some jackets for us.

See, they came to KL in mid December last year and the receiving party told them that it's a little cold in KL for it has been raining lately. For guests who came to Malaysia with swimming trunks (thinking that KL has a coastline), they were a little concerned upon hearing that. What's the temperature, they asked. 25°C. When they went back to Huaping, they bought some 20 down feather jackets ahead of our visit, haha.


#26. The next morning in Kunming, we wandered off on our own in search of some local breakfast. So tired of hotel food by now. This shop is nearby our hotel and is crowded with locals.


#27. Their signature dish is the 过桥米线 (guo qiao mi xian) or "over the bridge noodles". It's famous in Kunming and nothing too special in my opinion, but it's spicy just the way I like it!


#28. It says an chuan tao, which is basically condoms. The interesting thing about this vending machine is, it's on a public street and mounted next to a primary school!


#29. And that's it for this trip. Till the next time I'm in China again.

mr angry man

I know this person that has an explosive personality (explosive being an understatement). The forces of nature have conspired to result in my unfortunate luck of reporting to such a person. I could be doing something right, or I could be doing something wrong, but I still get shouted at, more than anyone in the office, and consistently too. I've been counting the days when I don't get shouted at in the past 2 months and those days were weekends or when he was away or we were away on business trips.

So what do you call this sort of person?

I don't know, but a barking mad dog comes to mind.



Like a crazy rottweiler, he will bite at you for no reason and not let go until his jaws get tired. Couple of weeks ago I would’ve reacted badly to any outburst which I deem unjust. The magnitude of my reactions would be a tit for tat, an eye for an eye, which naturally led to him getting angier and louder, intent on getting the last say. Nowadays, I just don't react to his verbal torrents but that seem to upset him more. Gah.



It hasn’t always been so bad. He was one of my favourite persons once. Now, I can’t even bear to sit on the same lunch table (can’t avoid meeting tables you know). I cringe when I hear him calling me on the stupid speakerphone that swallow words (he gets upset if he has to repeat what he just said) and I feel like going home everytime he ask to see me (mostly he orders me to see him). In fact, I don't particularly feel like getting out of bed, EVERY MORNING.



My rant can fill the pages of a Lord of the Rings novel, so it's suffice to say I will go insane very soon. What's worse, I may turn into him *shudders*.

Vietnam 2009: food diary

Going local

Just around the corner from our hotel, we saw a "sidewalk cafe" with loads of people and decided this has to be the place. You almost always can't go wrong where there's a big crowd and especially when they're all locals.

My Vietnamese vocabulary is extremely limited, but I've learned enough to know when I've chanced upon a porridge or noodle stall and when I should avoid thit cho at all cost. Yet my Vietnamese food words failed me as we didn't come across any pho or bun or chao sign. Still, we pulled out a small blue plastic stool and observed what the next table was having. We asked what it was they were eating and from what few English words we could discern, it seemed like some cow spare parts.

Unperturbed, I waved for the attention of a young man and indicated "one" with my index finger.



I got served a bia hoi. Tastes no different from back home and gave me a pink flush after.

Bia hoi is fresh local beer, which around this region is something they brewed daily. It's not an illegal activity so to speak but the "breweries" are not exactly regulated either. Bia hoi are stored not in barrels but jumbo metal containers with a short hose attached to the bottom, for pouring. An efficient use of garden hose I must say.

Let's try this again

With not much luck there, we decided to hunt down some bun cha (vermicelli with grilled pork and minced pork) instead. Walking further down from the "sidewalk cafe", we turned into Duong Thanh Street. By now, The BF was getting hungry (I had a bia hoi, remember?) and almost all the shops along this street had its shutters down.

As we persevered on, we saw Dac Kim (67 Duong Thanh Street) and the words bun cha... ahhh, a sight for sore eyes. As we walked in, they gave a welcoming smile and ushered us upstairs. A lady asked us how many portions we wanted. Besides bun cha, they also have nem, crab meat spring rolls. "Very good," she said. We asked for one portion of each.



If you think the picture looks good, it tastes even better! The BF, who's got burnt food phobia, lapped it all up without much thought. I guess bun cha takes precedence over phobia, hehe. It's so good I wished I have not had any breakfast or downed that stupid bia hoi, coz I wanted to order two portions of barbeque just for myself. The nem's rather so-so but The BF like it a lot. Prices of food are displayed prominently on the walls, so I'm quite sure they're fair.

Spend a bit

At Vnd100,000 (equivalent to about RM20) per head, it's still a tad too expensive for a kopitiam-ish, rickety chairs and tables set-up. But I really miss cha ca (fried fish) and it's one of the main reasons why I'm back in Hanoi. And the only place I would have this is at Cha Ca La Vong (14 Cha Ca Street).

Like my last visit here, the place is still really popular with tourists and locals. The BF went absolutely bonkers for it (something unexpected) and we ended up eating there twice.




The secret to a good bowl of cha ca noodles is undoubtedly the stinky goodness of mam tom (fine shrimp sauce). You gotta ask for it coz they won't serve it to you if you're not local. Without mam tom, I probably wouldn't enjoy my cha ca noodles as much. I dunno why I like stinky stuff like this and cencalok (fermented tiny prawns) and belacan (dried shrimp paste) but I absolutely cannot stand durians.

Cha Ca La Vong gets packed at dinner time, so one should either make their way there early or just wait out until someone finishes their meal.

Splurge a little

One of those nights we treated ourselves to a nice little dinner at Green Tangerine (48 Hang Be), a self-described gastronomic restaurant and cafe.



This restaurant has won a lot of favourable comments from various food/restaurant forums. I would call their food European with a light Asian touch. I'm not a big fan of fusion but Green Tangerine does it well. No such unsophisticated stuff like spaghetti with green curry sauce. Yucks.

We had 2 soup starters (US$5.40 each), a beef carpaccio (US$7.40), lamb racks for me (US$21.10), salmon for him (US$19.60) and 2 juices (US$1.90 each). Although I love fish, I was glad I had the lamb coz the fish tasted kinda bland in comparison. The interesting flavours of the cous cous coupled with the grilled lamb left me wanting for mooooore. I'm still thinking about it now! Wish I could have some pictures to show you but we were dead tired that night and nobody wanted to lug the camera.

Portions are polite but not à la French, and had we been our usual hungry selves, we definitely need desserts. Although it wasn't cheap by Malaysian or even Vietnamese standards (US$ and Euro spenders would find it more than decent), it was worth it for the quality of food that we got. I can see myself going there again. For better value for money, they do have set lunches at US$8.90 for a main course and dessert.

Reservation is recommended. We strolled in at 7pm to a fully booked restaurant and had to return 2 hours later. Do ask for a table outside, it's much nicer!

Sweets for my sweet

As we were strolling along Hoan Kiem lake one day, we saw this chic French cafe looking shop. We took a peek inside and to our delight, it's an ice cream parlour! Since our tummy was already bloated from overfeeding, we made a pass with a mental note to return.

So on Christmas Eve, after we discovered there's not much partying activities in Hanoi, we made the slow and hazardous journey to Fanny (48 Le Thai To Street).

It seemed like everyone are out in the streets that night. Hoan Kiem lake was exceptionally jam-packed with every boyfriend-girlfriend in Hanoi. The roads circling Hoan Kiem lake was chock-a-block with countless bikes and pedestrians, all apparently heading to St Joseph's Cathedral. If crossing the street was a challenge on normal days, it was an absolute nightmare bordering on suicidal that night.



It wasn't any better at Fanny. There was no queue and it's basically "you get the table if you're nearest to it". A concept not foreign to us Malaysians. We went for a table that's just about finishing and stood next to them quietly. Pressured by our presence, they called for the bill and waited a bit to settle and a bit more for the girlfriend to return from the toilet.

We took longer than necessary to order, thanks to their drool-inducing menu. Their range of flavours are somewhat regular with a couple of not-oft seen ones like nougat, ginger and avocado. BUT, I can tell you dark chocolate is the bestest ever! Order that with some fresh strawberries and float straight to heaven.



Fanny has a website here.

Coffee culture

The Vietnamese love their cuppa. It seemed less like a cup of caffeine boost and more like a lifestyle thing. At any time of day, weekdays or weekends, you can find a crowd in any coffee place, sipping on ca phe sua da (iced milk coffee), watching the world go by. It's as if they don't have to work.

Maybe I should move to Hanoi.

Cafe Nang (6 Hang Bac)