Irfan’s fourteenth birthday came and went. So did Irfan’s grandparents from Perak. It would be easy to say “I can’t believe how tall and how far he’d come” but the truth is that I am not surprised. With the opportunities and facilities available to him here – as opposed to the Klang Valley where he would have to fight with the sheer number of students in school for available teaching and learning resources – Irfan is surely and gradually turning into a young man with the powers and abilities of a teenager. What would be best for us to celebrate a fourteenth birthday? I have no idea, so we decided on going our for pizza! When the pizza arrived it looked appealing and it was quite delicious. My personal criteria for “delicious” was fulfilled thanks to onions. We took a group photo with our prey, before we finished it off […]
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The spread
A collection of blog posts in which photos of food make appearances for one reason or another…
Driveway Apam Balik Station
One Saturday, our driveway became an apam balik station. Many visitors came to obtain free apam balik as dessert to go with their meal. The driveway had been converted because of the wedding feast held by our neighbour to commemorate the wedding between his son and daughter-in-law, and his daughter and son-in-law. A twofer! The previous day both Ain and I helped out with the preparing of the food. I helped cut up the beef into small pieces while Ain had her fingertips chemically seared off when she attempted to remove the skin out of a million metric tonnes (or so it seemed) of garlic. Apparently de-skinning a large amount of garlic can be painful to your fingers. There was a meeting some weeks back and we had given them permission to set up the apam balik station here. Across the street where the food was being served, an ais […]
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Finally, Furniture and then Ice Cream
After eighteen months of sitting on the floor watching television, we finally got enough cash this month to purchase a sofa set! Atok and Opah were visiting, so we thought it was great that they could have something soft to sit on in the living room. There’s also a bookshelf. As you can see the Star Wars RPG books have made themselves comfortable on the new bookshelf. To celebrate, we headed for Changlun where there was an excellent coconut ice cream stall. It was made of vanilla ice cream scoops in a coconut husk with coconut flesh, nuts, crouton, pulut and some other stuff.
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Nasi Kerabu: A Bus Ride Follow Up
During our bus trip over the mountains the other week, Ain made friends with a fellow traveller, a Kelantanese who lived in Perlis. She had a nasi kerabu restaurant in Kangar. That only meant one thing: we had to check it out. They only open in the mornings. When we were in Kelantan we were disappointed were unable to visit our favourite nasi kerabu restaurant there. It was a stroke of luck that we discovered one here in Perlis that sells delicious nasi kerabu comparable to the restaurant in Kelantan! We foresee many weekend breakfasts at this place.
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Celebrating One Anniversary and One Birthday
The twenty-ninth of each year brings about both the birthday of Sila and the anniversary of our parents. She has always quipped that she was Atok and Opah’s third anniversary present. Atok and Opah were on site in Perlis on this day, so we thought we would go celebrate at the restaurant where we celebrated Ain’s birthday not two weeks earlier. This time I took a photo of Ain’s burger, which was enormous. Atok ordered a burger too while Opah had a chicken chop. I wish Sila, Vin, Yaya and Rafiq were here to celebrate with us. I really miss them, having last seen them recede into the distance at the airport almost six years ago on a very dark day. Happy anniversary Atok and Opah and happy birthday to Sila, Adik the Elder! May all of you be blessed with laughter and contentment.
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A Birthday Dinner Appeared Out of Nowhere
What words can I write that would do justice in wishing a happy birthday to a woman who has always been on my side through it all and still can smile and laugh with me? Probably nothing, except Happy Birthday. And sorry I forgot to take a photo of your burger. LOL! It’s as yummy as Irfan’s chicken chop up there.
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15th Anniversary Pizza
Fifteen years since we that day Ain and I got married. We’ve had a number of anniversaries over the fifteen years. Fifteen years of juking and barrel rolling and Tallon rolling and drop kick Koiogran turn just to stay out of reach of blaster bolts from the rear. Sometimes, we would get it and it would hurt because it would mean I failed to keep my family from hurt and harm. Most of the time, we would pull through by the skin of our teeth. This was the first year we celebrate our anniversary without anyone attempting to acquire a target lock on us. It was amazing. I felt like it was the first time I managed to get the ship out of the asteroid field and away from the savage squad of pursuing fighters. We were able to spend some on pizza without worrying about the cost killing us […]
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Is that 13 Solar or Lunar Years?
And just like that, our once-newborn son is a teenager. As Irfan is so fond of reciting, “Masa berjalan begitu saja.” Although Atok and Opah had treated us to an early birthday dinner with Irfan back in Sitiawan, we went to Burger Republik once more to commemorate the day. From the urban inner city streets of Pandan Indah (which we rarely allow him to be on unsupervised) to the more relaxed conditions of Perlis! Happy birthday and may you continue to grow and burgeon with wisdom and positivity. His birthday present, by the way, is a book.
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Visitors to Burger Republik
When the visitors formerly from the tenth floor visited, we thought we would take them to some place fancy, namely Burger Republik. For the occasion, two tables were joined together to form the robot lion. The day the sign was made, they told us that anyone who pointed out the spelling mistake of “oren” got a free orange juice. So anyway… this is Ciksu’s burger. It has all the onions, which makes it more awesome than awesome. Many ordered the chicken chop, including Ain, which as usual had a great flavour to its gravy. Cikma ordered the salmon. I thought I would just enjoy the burritos. Because it should be a burrito day everyday.
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A Return to Burger Republik
Because we sent some freelance proofreading work in the direction of the proprietor of Burger Republik, they invited us over for dinner on the house. I had the chicken kebab which was perfect and juicy. Especially the onions. Because onions! Ain had ordered a new item on their menu, the salmon. I thought the bean sprouts gave the fish a great taste and texture. Although I loved my kebab, I quickly wished I had ordered the salmon instead. But all is good, because we all share our food with each other anyway. Irfan had a “Broadway Burger”. But there was no photo of it, just this photo of Irfan devouring said burger. Because we found the selection of Burger Republik’s menu quite appetising, we shall return there!
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Birthday Burgers
Ain and I couldn’t celebrate our recent birthdays during our birthdays for one reason or another. Then we both received some extra coin for doing some freelance work. So we all went for some cheeseburgers at Burger Republik, which I hope would not be appropriated into Burger Imperial at some point by Palpatine. It’s not too far from the house, just over a klick away en route from town. I have made an observation before that this town might have a higher density of burger joints in a single area than Kuala Lumpur. They also have chicken chop, which looked tantalising on the menu but they were not serving any today as the chef was called away for wedding food and beverages duty. Ain’s was a double beef patty and you could still order a triple. Mine was a mutton patty. Ain or course, would not touch mine. Irfan’s towering […]
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Iftar at Some Place Fancy
We rarely ate out for iftar this year. So we thought we’d go to the Kluang Station restaurant before Ramadhan was over. The Kluang Station restaurant was nearby and not in Kluang; though I’ve been to the Kluang Station restaurant in Kluang. Ain headed there after work to get some groceries. Irfan and I rendezvoused with her there after Maghrib for dinner after breaking our fast first. It took a while for the special iftar buffet to end before we could order ala carte. I got some seafood broth and Ain had nasi lemak. Irfan had a burger. Irfan loved that burger.
Continue readingA Return to Bread
So it has been a very long time since I baked bread. My old toy‘s motor died in 2007 or early 2008 (after 3 years of weekly bread baking). Despite looking around for a handyman or an appliance repairer, we were unable to find one who would work on my poor mixer. Apparently, people no longer repair small appliances, they just go out and buy a new one! And then we were distracted by the arrival of a certain cantankerous addition to our home, and then another. So there was never any time to actually bake bread. But now that the baby is two years old, and his sister is a toastivore, we decided it was time to go back to baking our own bread. And, since we couldn’t get the old mixer fixed (I am still sad about that), we got a replacement for it. [[image:2014_breadjanfeb01.jpg:Unpacking the box together:center:0]] […]
Continue readingRafe’s 25 Month Birthday
The boy is twenty-five months old now! [[image:2014_0129_rafe02.jpg:Happy Adik!:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions Speech status: it is unbelievable how many words the boy can say. He is also formulating his own sentences and is a master of imitation. For instance, when we need to give Yaya a time out, we tell her to be quiet and to go sit on the sofa (her time-out area). Adik might run behind her, saying “be quiet, Yaya. Sit onna sofa!” and laughing. He is starting to talk back when he is being scolded. If we tell him “no, you can’t do [XYZ]”, he responds with “YES I CAN!!!”. In fact, “Yes I can” is his answer to every negative response that he receives, on some days. No Adik, don’t stand on the chair. Yes I can! No Adik, stop running with that stick in your hand. Yes I can! Adik, […]
Continue readingAin’s Birthday Dinner
Ain levelled up yesterday. She’s gained a year, so we thought we’d splurge a bit on a proper birthday dinner. It would be a proper dinner with proper food, namely burgers. Meanwhile Irfan made his specialty ice cream cheese cake. [[image:2014-ain-birthday-01.jpg:Mixed flavour of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry:center:0]] That evening we went to this burger restaurant at the Ampang Waterfront. It seemed to be a great place to dine on burgers. If I were to go out and have burgers for dinner, this would be the place I’d go to. [[image:2014-ain-birthday-02.jpg:Wish I could do this for Ain every year… can’t even buy her a present:center:0]] Irfan and his Cik Su scour the menu for consumables. Irfan is happy with stuff smeared with tons of cheese. [[image:2014-ain-birthday-03.jpg:As I write this I hear ‘ass thrusters’ coming from the TV:center:0]] A fried egg (or perhaps the interstellar neural parasite that killed Jim Kirk’s brother […]
Continue readingChristmas 2013
So this year we decided to participate in the Christmas tradition. Yaya is old enough now to enjoy it and in fact, she asked for it. So here we go! Our first family Christmas. Also, since we have had a lot of work travels in recent months, we decided to forgo our usual end of year trip (someplace warm, usually) and stayed home instead. So bring it on! We start with the obligatory photo with Santa: [[image:2013_christmas31.jpg:Yaya was happy but luckily Adik did not cry (he thinks Santa is an evil overlord):center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions We begin with a build up to the big day. Progression of the Christmas tree (artificial as Yaya was sad that if we had a real tree, it would die), decorations, and presents under the tree in the week leading up to Christmas. We pretty much wrapped a few presents every […]
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