: : Joyous Shanghai : :

Since I got back from the US, I've been busy hanging out with my Mum as well as going to wedding dinners and trying to overcome the jet lag. Hence, the delayed postings in Mum-mum's over the last week or so. Tonight is the first night that I don't feel so tired so am posting something up. Yeah, I know the wedding dinner meal should go up first but I have too many pictures to sort out for that one.



A quaint name for a Shanghai Chinese restaurant in town where I had dinner with Mum and her old classmates from Form 6 days and their family members as well as Bob, the Brit-turned-Kiwi. Uncle Luke and Auntie Angelina ordered us an excellent tasting spread and everyone was patient enough to let me talk photos. Her youngest son was giggling while I was taking the pictures. We also had an interesting dinner conversation about many topics : New Zealand, Maoris, the USA, MAS and SIA and the list is endless.



We started off the meal with this beautiful roasted duck. The skin was extremely crispy and the duck cooked just right that it wasn't tough but very tender. I haven't had a good-tasting roasted duck (Chinese style) in such a long long time.



As usual, belachan midin was on the spread. Mum has been having cravings for midin since she came back from the US.



Some debate between Mum and I about the prawn dish. I said it was buttered prawns and she said it was crispy shrimps. Same thing lah!



An interesting soup but both Mum and I had tasted better ones. Still, it wasn't bad but could have been more spicy. It was filled with mushroom, tauhu and I think either some fish lips or fish skin. I'm not sure about the latter.



This was a very nice freshwater fish. I heard the word labang fish but Mum said that it was balang fish. The only information that I could find online mentioned balang fish as type of flying fish but this was a seawater fish so something is not right here. So, any ideas from anyone? As for the dish, it was steamed with garlic and soy sauce with some spring onions as garnishings. The flesh was extremely soft and sweet to the taste. Guess who ate the fish head? Bob! I was impressed. Even I don't eat the fish head although if the fish head is big enough, I will eat the fish cheeks where the flesh is very tender and sweet.



Instead of the usual pork leg stew fare, we had bellypork instead. The flesh of the pork was very soft and tender which went very well with the sauce and the pau @ soft white bread.

It was a very nice dinner and we all had a good time at the restaurant. Below are the restaurant details :

Joyous Shanghai Restaurant
No. 317 - 319, Bangunan Bee San,
Jalan Padungan,
93100 Kuching, Sarawak.
Tel : 082-331310, 336119
Fax : 082-337736

Some more facts about this restaurant. From the last dish, you can tell that the restaurant is a NON-HALAL restaurant. The waitresses are from Shanghai and there is a Chinese chef from Shanghai preparing the dishes as well. Entering the restaurant, one is carried back to the olden days of Shanghai from the pictures hanging on the wall and all the rosewood furniture used within the restaurant. Bear in mind to be patient with the waitresses because they did not remember to inform us early that the vegetable dishes (we had two more coming) were not available until the end of the meal. Hmmm... Anyway, the dishes was cancelled since we were already so full and it was getting late.

So, I'm off to sleep off a very full stomach and hopefully, my jet lag will ease off with tonite's rest. So, toodle-loo!

: : The Little Boy and his fish : :

Scene
At a wedding dinner.

Actors
Tidan, a precocious 3 yr old boy (my nephew)
Gwen, his mother (my cousin)
Julia, his aunt (my other cousin)
Lolly, Julia's sister (another one of my cousins)

Scene 1
A dish with a steamed red snapper in TeoChew style.

Tidan : No, no, put the fish back into the sea so he can swim. No one eat the fish!

As the young protector undertook the grave task of heroicly protecting the fish, he was the highlight of the evening. For up to 5 tables were laughing with him although his glare said it all about his irritation at us adults.

Scene 2
The bravest amongst all sitting at the table (and having not eaten Malaysian cooking in the last few years so the temptation was too great), Julia proceeds to cut a small piece of fish.

Tidan : No! No! No eat. (Smacks Julia on the hand like a mother cat disciplining her kittens.)

Scene 3
Now, another brave diner proceeds to cut away the fish. Lolly dear starts to do so.

Tidan : (Massive frowning on his little forehead and his eyes were pointing daggers to poor Lolly)

Lolly : (Starts to stroke the fish with the spoon in the dish) Sayang, sayang the fish. (Loving, loving the fish). See, Tidan? (leaves spoon in dish) I sayang (love/care) the fish.

An expert maneuver that averted an otherwise major disaster.

Who said wedding dinners are boring?

: : Merry Christmas : :

Merry Christmas to everyone. About 10-15 min. left for Christmas Day.

Once the clock strikes midnite, it will be Boxing Day as celebrated in England.

Anyway, I'm off to clear up my blog readings.

Cheerio! And Merry Xmas again!

: : Yummy Turkey : :

Well, since I didn't get the chance to have a nice Christmas dinner back home, I decided to do a posting on the Fried Turkey that I had at the Clarks. Beautifully done and the turkey was superb. They celebrate the Yule Celebrations which is about a week before Christmas.

Bob was the chef in charge of cooking the fried turkey. For preparation, he filled the pot up with water first and lowered the turkey into the water to see how high the water level would go up. He then made a mark of it and then removed the water. This is to ensure that there is enough oil inside the pot to cover the turkey AND not spill over the pot. Next, he filled it up with cooking oil up to the mark and heated it up.





Heating up the oil using a propane burner. The oil was heated up to 350 degrees F. Very hot, that's for sure.



Bob with the turkey.



The turkey is slowly lowered into the pot. Bob did not put the turkey inside immediately but was slowly lowering it until the boiling oil subsided. Note that oil tends to spit and spat when it comes into contact with water so one has to be extremely careful when cooking with so much oil.



Finally, the whole turkey was in.



The smell that came out of the pot ... absolutely divine. Everyone was drooling from the beautiful smell coming out of the pot. The turkey was left inside the oil for about 45 min.



And there it is : the golden bird. Puts KFC to shame, doesn't it? :p



Bob removing the turkey from the handle.



Finally, voila! Fried Turkey for Yule Celebrations. Compliments to the chef for cooking up the beautiful bird.



The spread at the table : cranberry sauce, Devil's eggs, vegetarian stuffing (think we had two versions), vegetarian gravy, meat gravy, homemade mash potatoes. Definitely a lot of food and we were all stuffed at the end of the day.



But everyone still had some space leftover for Daniece's trifle. Of course, that was like 2-3 yrs hrs later after we'd digested the food.

More information on how to fry a turkey here and here.

: : Christmas at KLIA : :

Well, if you're hoping for a great posting of Christmas dishes on this site, you're in for a disappointment. Doubt if I will have the chance to have a nice Christmas dinner, Western style. BUT!!! Nothing beats Granny's homemade dishes. Can't believe that I haven't been eating Chinese in a long time. Also, a lot of photos to download, edit and get it printed out to send to everyone.

Then, on 27 Dec, my nephew is getting married. The most of the family is down for the occasion, including Lolly and Devong. And, I got a dress while in the US. Check it out. Nice leh! And, it was on sale too! Unfortunately, it's a bit too long but what to do? Also, need to get it pressed after all that travelling and it being cramped into a garment bag. Well, at least now I know where to get the patterns from if I ever wanted the tailor to do another dress. Wonder if there would be copywrite issues here? :p

Another two more hours and it's off to Kuching. So, tara people! Off to clear Immigration. *shudder*

: : KLIA ~ Satellite Terminal : :

Well, I've finally arrived in Malaysia, safe and sound. Hopefully, the luggage is also here, safe and sound. It was starting to come to pieces at the back and I hope that the luggage strap managed to hold everything together. Would be dead embarrassing to see my clothes flying around on the luggage carousel.

Oh, a little note about that old man. I think he was checking the sites visited by various people after they had left the INTEL booth but wasn't sure. So gelik lah!

Anyway, am going to check out the massauers. Need another massage to ease my back pains. For RM28 for a 15 min, it's a steal compared to the US$20 for 15 min at Newark International Airport.

Also looking for food. Plane food makes me hungry.

Catching the morning flight to Kuching at around 8 a.m. Arriving in Kuching near noon. Then, it's off to some snoozing time. :)

Ciao people and Merry Xmas!

: : Addendum to DFW Airport : :

I swear that this old man helping to man the Intel exhibition counter is out to impress gals or shows that he is so smart. 's Luckily, he's not doing it to me but to other gals. Another thing is probably because of me sitting here for more than an hour but he can't chase me off. Ha! Doesn't say anything about having a time limit session on this thing. So there! :p

These days, the whole world is getting more and more wired up with so many gadgets everywhere. I notice that now, I'm carrying a handphone, PDA and digicam so my bag has become really big. In another two more years, perhaps I can afford a PDA handphone to make my life easier. No laptop yet coz those stuff are too expensive and I still love my desktop. Ah well. Can't play games that well on a laptop and besides, I still prefer the desktop big screen for games.

Cheerio (again!)!!!

(and that old man is moving around again.)

: : Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport : :

Well, I have another 1 hr 35 min in Texas before flying off to Newark International Airport. Then, it's an overnight at Fairfield Inn until the next day to catch the noon flight to KL. Then another 6 hr wait at the airport, am crashing at the airport and finally home.

I guess it's going to be a boring day in Newark. No, am not doing the tourist thing because of the short time and it's pretty cold as well. Hopefully, I will not get shock by someone coming up to me at the airport and saying, 'Hi Wena! I know you... you're the gal with the mum-mum blog!' Yes, Cheryl, I still cannot get over what happened at KLIA! :)

Thanks to Jas, Donnie, Bob, Daniece, Scott, Autumn, Skylar, Montana, Rashema and Michael for the great time yesterday. We had fried turkey (amazing! pictures up in a few days time), vegetable loaf (it's great and wholesome too!), trifle (yumm... in Christmas colours too) and loads and loads of other goodies. I love the dogs : Karsia and Fidget, as well as their cats : Little Bit and ...er... Hershey? Didn't get the chance to meet their other cat, Tank but meet up with the cutesy ...err... sky divers? Someone please correct me!!! Hehehe... too many sights and sounds for me to absorb that I'm sorta lost at the moment. Rashema, I will send you the movie shots once I download them to my PC from my camera. I hope they come out clear. Not sure whether the lighting was bright enough or not. But anyways, the important thing was that I got the beautiful harp music that you played. :)

This trip has been an interesting trip, that's for sure and it's been so many sights, colours and sounds to take in all at once. Had to leave some of the photos behind in Jas' computer as was too lazy to process it to ask her to burn it into a CD. So, took up the 15 day free trial offer at www.xdrive.com for 500MB. Going to be a hassle to download 76MB worth of pictures and movies on a dialup but we'll see how it goes. :p

Let's see, am now off to kill some time before the flight takes off. So, am off to the souvenir shops to get some Texan gifts for friends and family so cheerio!

: : Dinner with Friends : :

Had a small dinner party with my sister's friends : Cathlee, Wei Wei (who absolutely luvs this blog! ;) ), Rose and her bf, Kris. Dinner was a pretty simple affair. Cathlee brought over some maki sushi but the plate was half-finished by the time I remembered about taking photos. Anyway, here are the rest of the pictures :



My sis made a salad from spinach, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Yep, we're tomato lovers, especially the small cherry ones. Very sweet and juicy.



We also cheated a bit here. Bought an already seasoned pork roast (uncooked) from Walmart. Stuck it into the oven and hey presto! It's done. All one has to do is read the instructions at the back of the packaging. Sort of mangled it while trying to cut it but oh well. Don't have the electric knife that Dad has back home so had to make do.



It's been 4-5 yrs since I last made this dish : spaghettic carbonara. Only cream we could find at Walmart was heavy whipping cream so used that. Wasn't too bad. I thought it was too salty but everyone else seems to like it so okay then. Or maybe they were just being polite. Ah well.



Another cheat dish : apple crisp / crumble using Betty Crocker's mix. Went well with ice-cream. :)

That goes to show how simple an informal dinner party can be. ;)

Anyway, a quick note to say that there will not be much updates until I get back home for Christmas. Will be going down to Arlington with my sis to see Donnie, her bf, and also to help her move her stuff there. So, au revoir! Until I get back to Kuching, that is.

: : The Big Day : :

The day started out really bright and sunny so that helped to chase away the cold air. After the hamburger lunch, I took a nap after taking from Theraflu. Then, it was a rush to the Coliseum building where the Graduation Ceremony was being held. Dr. B. drop me, Mum and Euline off while he went to look for parking. It was a packed hall, with people coming in to attend the ceremony and people leaving the earlier ceremony. Met up with Donnie (my sis' bf) and his parents, Bob and Denise Daniece (oops! sorry) there as well. By chance, they were sitting just behind us.



Once we got to our seats, the ceremony started. It was about an hour's wait before we saw my sister moving up. She's the one in the middle. Finally graduated with her Masters. Woohoo!



The ceremony was interesting. For the postgraduate students, they are hooded by members of their respective faculty. Undergraduates do not wear a hood, just a white sash.



Then, it was off to the dinner party at the Royal East, courtesy of Mumsie dearest. This is a great place for Chinese food and Korean food. I only took pics of what me, my sis and Mum ate. Didn't feel it was polite to take pics of what the others were eating.



Since the three of us ordered Korean, the condiments for the food came : KIMCHI!!! Definitely something to warm up the bones in the middle of winter. The kimchi isn't as strong as those found in Kuching but it was still great. They also serve up some pickled seaweed with sesame seed which Mum loves. The poor waiter was rushing up and down with our orders and various requests.



This was the Hae Jang Guk which Jas ordered. It was a spicy beef soup with tripes, intestin and vegetables. Hot hot hot! But nice.



Mum had the Kimchi Jigae i.e. kimchi and pork soup with tauhu and rice cake. Didn't try any but could see that Mum loves it.



I had the Bibim Bap with the hot stone bowl. It was great to have rice after more than 4 days of not having rice. Wah! Siok lah!



Now what is an Asian meal in the US without the traditional fortune cookie? The cookie actually tasted a lot like kuih supit i.e. love letters.



Two generations of graduates. And I just had to close my eyes during the photo take! Ah well.

More food pictures later.

: : H is for Hamburger : :



Funny, the use of the word HAM in front of BURGER when it's made completely out of beef. So, it was a lunchdate with Mum, Dr. B. and the beautiful Mayor of Denton, Euline. We had lunch at the Denton County Independant Hamburger Co. located in the town center.



Mum had the Chilli Burger. I had the Hickory Burger. Dr. B. had the Old Fashion burger with chips. I tihnk Euline had the Chicken Fried Steak Burger but am not sure. Forgot to ask. Too cold and hungry.





Dr. B was very sweet. Kept mentioning to everyone at the cafe that I have a food website. Only problem was that he didn't know the URL. Ah well. Will let him know later. :)



The different salads available for order.



I think this is a pressing device for pressing out honey from honeycombs. Anyone?



While waiting in line for my turn, saw this cute poster. Haha! Very 'tongue-in-the-cheek' poster.



Some more posters. Most of it are very old posters and signages from long long ago.



Side orders for the dish : beans and chips.



Chips from California but burger from Texas. Interesting combination.



My burger with Hickory Sauce and Cheese and Onions. Believe me, it was spilling over everywhere. Had to eat it with a knife and fork.



Mum's burger with Chilli Sauce, Cheese and Onion. The chilli sauce is made from capsicum and not from jalapeno chilli which is abundant here.



Dr. B's Old Fashion Burger. Nice chips though. They fried it with the skin still on.



A Willie Nelson photo. Saw a lot of Willie Nelson stuff at the Prairie House Restaurant but that's for another posting.



A picture of a Victorian couple. Black was in, in those days.



More advertisements and posters.



A gumball machine. Old-fashioned one, that is.





Country and Western theme mural.



Article on the restaurant. Click on the image for a bigger picture. Else, click here.



Yo Veritas! This poster is for you! Haha!

Details of Cafe :

Denton County Independant Hamburger Co.
113 W. Hickory Street
Denton, Texas, USA.
Tel : 940-383 1022
Mon.-Sat. 11 am to 3 pm

Wouldn't mind going there again. :)