: : Kuching Fest Food Carnival : :

Sorry guys but came back late tonite. No pics today of the fest.

Could only post a few pictures of little Lebanon.

However, if you want to check out what is offered in the stalls, took two pics of the stall notices.

Pic below is the view of Little Lebanon.

: : Little Lebanon, Renovated Courthouse : :

Pam : Are all security guards this friendly? Helping you to park your car and opening your door to get out?

Before anyone starts wondering who Wena really is, she owns a very humble green Proton Iswara and not a flashy Merz. I took Pam (who is from KL) to the Kuching Fest where all the food stalls were. We also walk quite a fair bit around the area. Also, check out two Honda models : Jazz and City. Very nice. Better stop before I digress further.



After the Kuching Fest, we drove to the newly renovated courthouse to have tea and dessert at a new restaurant called Little Lebanon. A Lebanase themed restaurant, it was recently opened to the public on Wednesday, in conjuction with the opening of the courthouse. As we drove in, the security guard guided us into the parking lot. I think he was more worried about us banging a YB's Mercz than for my car getting scratched. Still, he graciously opened my door to help me out and chit chatted with us for awhile. Pam was most impressed. Then again, she is most impressed that I can get the waitresses and waiters wrapped around my finger. :p It's called being charming AND courteous. :p



I actually took photos of the menu but as the waiters and waitresses starting gesturing wildly, I pretended to take a picture of Pam instead. Phew! Close call. Anyway, the pics didn't come up well so doesn't matter.



We ordered some Arab sweets. No turkish delight though, thank goodness. Those sweets are extremely sweet! We had something else equally sweet but not so sweet. The green stuff are pistachios, I think. Didn't get the names of these sweets. Too tired to ask so much from the waitress and poor thing look so nervous. New to the job.

Anyway, that's it for tonite. Address for the restaurant:

Little Lebanon
Middle Eastern Cuisine

1st Floor, Japanese Building,
Old Court House, Jalan Barrack,
Sarawak Tourism Complex,
93100 Kuching, Sarawak,
Malaysia.
Tel : 082 - 247 523
Closed on Mondays
Lunch : 11.30 am - 3.00 pm
Dinner : 6.30 pm - 10.30 pm

Enjoy!

: : A toast : :

Abbreviated conversation during Carvery dinner last Friday. Forgot to blog it down until today. Two chaps.

After-effects of Ballintine Whiskey aged 12 years :

[K1] : I propose a toast to Wena's website... what is it again?

[K2] : mum-mum dot blogspot dot com.

[K1] : yes yes...let's proposed a toast to mum dot blot dot...

[K2] : eh! it's Mum-Mum Dot Blog Spot Dot Com.

[K1] : say that again?

[K2] : MUM_MUM_DOT_BLOG_SPOT_COM

[K1] : blot? B-L-O-T?

[K2] : no no no, it's B-L-O-G.

[K1] : okay okay. A TOAST TO WENA'S MUM-MUM...err...

[K2] : DOT

[K1] : dot

[K2] : BLOGSPOT

[K1] : blog SPOT!

[K2] : dot com

[K1] : dot COM!

All I can say is SALUT! Talk about a stand-up comedian. :p

: : Chilli Peppers, King Centre : :

Khai's last day today. :( There goes one fun guy. So, went to lunch at everybody's favourite place. AGAIN.

Menu of the day :

Air Kundur (Wintermelon Drink)
Barley Lemon
Roasted Chicken Rice
Tomato Kway Teow

Air Kundur (Wintermelon Drink)



Wintermelon juice is such a cooling drink. One of the 'cold' drinks around. Great when wanting to cool down the body after such a hot hot day.

Barley Lemon



What can I say? Picture speaks for itself. Another 'cold' drink. Delicious.

Roasted Chicken Rice



Tasty, yummy AND halal. ;p

Tomato Kway Teow



Another version of tomato kway teow. This time, more orange. Great taste too! There goes my Atkins diet. Sigh.

Can't find a single thing wrong about Chilli's. Always tasty. Always a WIDE variety of food.

Posting kinda short today because just got back late from Kuching Food Fest. :) Pics are going out tomorrow. Extremely long blog for sure. :p

: : Chilli Peppers, King Centre : :

Usual lunch spot. BUT!! They're good, especially for my Malay pal, Harris! Halal and tasty Chinese food.

Started on my artistic-photo-taking now. Let's see, what was interesting today...

Ais Kacang Campur
Mee Jawa
Sarawak Laksa

Ais Kacang Campur



I've never seen such thick santan (coconut milk) before, in ais kacang that is. Was tempted to order one as well. Seriously tempted. If you look closely, you can see the red beans, cincau (black glass jelly) and cendol (green green jelly that looks like worms but taste mmmm...). Anyway, let's not digress but move along to the next meal.

Mee Jawa



Looks good. Looks D*MN GOOD! Should have ask for a teeny wenny try bite for mum-mum.

Sarawak Laksa



Not as good as my Dad's. Jas, you are one lucky woman to have Dad cook for you tonight!! Am so green. :(

That's it. Chilli Pepper's? King's Centre, next to Systematic College. Can't miss that original big big sign in this big big world.

: : Childhood Days : :

Remember cupcakes?





Granny bought them for the workers carrying out some house extensions. She got them from the nearby grocery stall.

Brings back many memories.

: : Kuching Fest : :

Found that someone has decided to create a blog for the entire Kuching Fest 2003.

Only one posting though.

But am sure more will follow suit.

Get the feeling that it's an old friend (a chance encounter during the Carvery session) is doing it. True or not, Mr. P. Wong? :p Anyway, I'm hoping to see PICTURES!

On another note, to view the orchid pictures that ofoto.com, you'll need to signed up with them. It's an inconvenience to everyone but tell me where you can still put up more than 1GB of pics without having to pay for it? Would be interested to find out.

Also, here is another interesting link about Kuching : Kuching Quick Guide. Prepared by Philipp Lassen from Germany who was here for awhile. Some nice pics of Kuching as well. I'm sure Mr. Ooi will start feeling more nostalgic. :p

: : Granny's Cooking : :

After a hectic Monday, Granny had a nice surprice waiting at home. Try guessing what it is.



Makes you wonder whether you're seeing the right things. Is it beef with prawn? Here is the full pic.



It's pineapple curry with salted fish and prawn. Granny make the salted fish herself from fish caught by Uncle Cyril. When the salted fish is cook this way, it is no longer salted so can be eaten like normal fish. The taste? Well, curry flavoured, of course, with a taste of sweetness and sourness. Not salted at all. Mmmmmm....

: : Photo Album : :

Photo album of a demented 'tourist' let loose in a Garden Fair.

Here are the remaining pics from the trip to the MBKS Garden. Am still searching around for a place to dump this pics online in case anyone wants to download it. Only problem is storage : 60 MB required. Yep, picture size is big.

If anyone wants a resized picture for their desktop, drop me your email with your desktop settings in the comment box below (No Speak / Speak) and will email out the relevant picture to you, resized to those settings. Or drop me an email at myremi@yahoo.com .

: : Garden Fair : :

The first mum-mum posting without food. Shocking, ain't it? The flowers were too pretty to NOT post.

Went with Granny to the Kuching Garden Fair at the MBKS (Majlis Perbandaran Kuching Selatan / Kuching South Municipal Council) park. We went around 4 p.m so most of the stalls weren't open yet except for the place where the orchids were being sold. Anyway, here are some of the pics taken at the orchid stalls as well as some of the garden flowers.















The Garden Fair is part of the monthly long Kuching Fest held annually to commerate Kuching City Day. There is also a Food Fest but the stalls weren't open yet. Maybe next weekend, will pop by and search for some bamboo chicken. :)

: : King of Fruits : :

Dedicated to my mother in Michigan, USA.



Thank goodness there is only one phoneline in this house. Else she'll be calling me up to scream down my ear. :p

Picture was taken at Choice Daily Supermarket, Tabuan Laru. Durians are from Thailand, the ones that do not give out such an offensive stink.

And yes, I do not eat them. Oh well. No accounting for taste, right? :p

Granny used to have a Siamese cat called Kiti which loves to eat durian. Used to eat 2-3 entire pods by herself! Same goes for Granny. CHOLESTEROL!

[ Postnote : Correction here. Not cholesterol. Didn't know that anything GROWN from the ground doesn't have cholesterol. As pointed out by kbpmy.]

: : Granny's Cooking : :

Surprisingly, I got something to post up after all. Thought today will be the very first day that mum-mum doesn't have a posting on food.



Granny cooked some delicious Sabah Veggie. Yum. It's actually another variety of fern found in the market but as far as I know, not grown locally. Mostly imported from Sabah.



My first artistic picture. Hmm... which one do you all prefer? An artistic picture or a picture of the whole dish? Leave a note in the comments section.

: : Kuih : :

Mouthwatering U CHAR KUEH! Going to get whacked for posting this pic up for sure.



Feels like rubbing salt in the wound eh? :p

: : Brunch & Granny's Cooking : :

Well, brunch was a really quick affair. After 6 hours of sleep, felt refreshed. Granny had gone grocery shopping and bought back some kueh chap.



I think Kueh Chap is a local Sarawakian dish. Don't recall seeing it in the Chinese coffeeshops in KL. The big flat pieces of noodles is actually uncut kway teow noodles. Kueh Chap is a high sodium content meal. Imagine all the soy sauce that goes into the dish. However, note that it's a non-halal dish as it's usually cooked with pork : lean meat, skin, intestines. I think the pork can be substituted with chicken. Beef might be a bit too strong but I suppose if one tenderizes the beef before hand, can be used. The kueh chap was bought from Kenyalang Park, one of the foodstalls there. Tasted a lot better than the one I posted much much earlier.



Granny also cooked some Japanese Egg Tauhu with Leek. She used some spicy Sze Chuan tauhu as well to add in some spicy-ness into the dish. Yummy!



And added bonus : Lotus Soup! I love this! Granny put in some pork spare ribs and chicken meat in. For the Muslims, just add the chicken is sufficient. But, you'll need to boil the sliced lotus pods for a long time to soften. Granny cooks this over a slow fire for a few hours. Add chicken in later as well as salt and pepper to taste.

: : Carvery, Pending : :

I have known Yoon, a fellow Korean collegue, for about 4 years now. When he announced that he was resigning, the entire department decided to 'chia' him to a excellent dinner at Carvery. WARNING! VERY LONG BLOG!

Note that some of the photos are slightly yellow as I did not turn on the flash thinking that I could edit the pictures. Talk about being an idiot.

As usual, Malaysians are generally not so punctual so there were only 5 of us who started first including Yoon. Too hungry at 7:30 p.m. so we hit the salad buffets. Also, Opa (brother) Yoon contributed a bottle of whiskey. Wah!



Hot Salad Buffet
Cold Salad Buffet

Hot Salad Buffet





There were a lot of varieties here : baby carrots, stir-fried (FRESH!!) mushrooms, brussel sprouts, fried rice, lasagna, brocolli, baked potato, cauliflower. I'm a sucker for fresh mushrooms!!



To the right of this buffet, minestrone soup was also served. I added a touch of Tabosco sauce to it to add a little spice. Spaghetti noodles were also added into the soup as well.



Now the soup definitely went well with the homemade bread. There aren't that many places in Malaysia that makes decent bread. If anyone says that Gardenia is the best bread there is, he/she deserves a whack!

Cold Salad Buffet

The pictures speak for themselves.













One has to pace oneself when it comes to eating at this place. Portions are just huge! Anyway, here is a the menu for the main course : CARVERY! The meat is cut or served immediately on the diner's plate. Take note that there is an extremely sharp knife so one needs to be careful not to get too close or to move in the direction of the blade.

Beef Ribs
Mussels
Chicken Wings
Lamb Chops
Smoked Beef
Smoked Chicken
Beef Sausages
Chicken Breast
Chicken Sausage
Fried Fish in Batter
Chicken wrapped in Beef Ham
Ribeye Steak
Rump Steak

Beef Ribs



Hmm... the pic wasn't that good. I didn't take this but the others did. They loved it!

Mussels



Another weakness. I think LSL and I had 6 pieces each. Definitely going to visit Lorraine in Brussels to eat the mussels!

Chicken Wings



Better than KFC. I couldn't identify the taste but it was delicious!

Lamb Chops



Delicious! Of course, it does have a strong smell but who cares? Also, the mint sauce that came with it is made right in the kitchem. Mmmmmm...

Smoked Beef



Be forewarned that this is very salty so you'll need to eat it with some bread, rice or veggie just to get rid of the salty taste. Other than that, it's simply too beautiful for words!

Smoked Chicken



I never like smoked chicken until I tasted this one. The best thing is that it doesn't come apart.

Beef Sausages



Very salty yes still tasty. I love sausages.

Chicken Breast



By the time the chicken breast came, I was starting to get too full so needed to stop. Looks good though. The guys just had nearly everything.

Chicken Sausage



I actually thought that this was the cheap sausage until I tasted it. Talk about taking appearances for granted. It tasted SO GOOD! However, was too full to ask for seconds.

Fried Fish in Batter





No chips! Ha ha! The highlight was the tartar sauce. They made it there and tasted great! I'm extremely fussy when it comes to good tartar sauce for fish.

Chicken wrapped in Beef Ham



I skipped this one as well. Think after this, I skipped all the food. Too full. The guys were still going on strong.

Ribeye Steak



Man. So much meat! Too much!

Rump Steak



Aiyo! Sayang (pity) cannot try it. Sigh. Looks so good!

A few of my collegues decided to go for the ala carte menu instead. They ordered the lovely lovely salmon steak that comes with salad.





Phew! Then came the farewell speeches from everyone to Opa. Was a rush to make a movie using the digicam. Exchanging batteries and memory sticks. In the end, couldn't capture all the speeches but got the important bits. Adjourned later for a karaoke session in town.

For those who are interested in trying out this fabulous food fare, here is the address and a map of carvery.

Carvery
Lot 2069, Jalan Utama,
Bintawa Industrial Estate,
93450 Kuching,
Sarawak.
Tel : 082-345428, 345429

Opening Hours :
Opens on Monday to Saturday.
Lunch : 11.30 am - 2.30 pm
Dinner : 6.30 pm - 10.30 pm
Closed on Sunday.

Map