Celebrations! Good Times!

Choc & Cheese from Just Heavenly

First cake to kick off the celebrations... absolutely heavenly! Instead of icing, it's coated with cheese with just the right amount of sweetness (which is not too sweet). Dinner at Bellygood with fantastic folks made it a very special occasion.

Blueberry Cheesecake from San Terri

My family came from Ipoh for the celebrations this time (as was last year). Quiet weekend spent at home with my family made it a very special day indeed. Pure bliss!

But celebrations in my family are never without food so it was off to Chili's BSC (which turned out to be not a great encounter but we'll leave that for some other time). And since my younger sis celebrates her birthday just 6 days after mine, we ALWAYS have a joint celebration. Darned waiter put the wrong number of candles (a serious case of acting too smart) but the candlelight does make it look good :)

This year, my sis made me something very special for my birthday. Check out the custom-made jewellery she made for me. OK, it was initially just the bracelet but greedy me wanted the whole set so here it is! Thanks!!!

Mummy's Birthday.... Coming Soon

I'm back in Ipoh again for the weekend to celebrate Mummy's birthday which is on Sunday. Have planned an 8-course dinner at the new Overseas Restaurant and invited a few of my parents' close friends to join in the celebration. The more merrier. Let's hope the food is as good as they preach since the restaurant has opened a new branch.

On the menu is a starter dish, suckling piggy, steamed patin fish, chicken with ham & kailan, asparagus with prawns, tofu, longevity noodles and water chestnut dessert. Will update my food blog with pics and reviews of the dishes. So keep a look out.

Mummy also requested for a blueberry cheesecake. Of course I panicked when she told me that's what she wanted. I have no idea where to get good cheesecake in Ipoh, what more blueberry cheesecake. Turns out, it's mummy's fave, my sister's fave and my fave.

And so, JJ Cakes to the rescue. Have ordered it specially made for tomorrow. Now I'm just hoping that a 1kg cake will be enough to satisfy everyone's appetite. 

Decided to join my parents at their regular gathering with some friends. My objective? To sample the oh-so-talked-about stewed yam with pork (wu tao kao yok) that one of their friends make. OMG!!! It's just simply heavenly. The yam is soft and filled with the aroma of the spices. The pork is stewed to perfection. Juicy and the fatty part literally melts in your mouth.

And despite the age difference, (I mean, come on, the entire group are all my parents' age) we really had a great time. The jokes, the conversations.... who says it's boring to hangout with older people. They're probably more fun to be around as they share their stories and tell you jokes from their younger days. In fact, I think I should do this more often... haha...

I'm off to bed now. Early morning tomorrow as we're headed to some breakfast at the marketplace. My usual hong kong style chee cheong fun is waiting for me :)

Birthday Celebration

My parents and little sis made a trip to KL over the weekend to celebrate our birthdays. Didn't take much pics other than the homemade cheesecake and us :)

My Big Day

I am now officially.... 3x (age is sacred to the female)

Birthday came and went. It was a good day. Worked in the morning, attended 100-day countdown to GEW in the afternoon, hung out at The Curve and proceeded to Mid Valley for dinner at Chili's with Steven, Mei Lee and Terence.

Dinner at Chili's was quite a disappointment. I'm vowing never to have my meals there ever again, especially the branch at Mid Valley. Steaks came out with more tendons than meat. It was even harder to chew than chewing gum, can you imagine? It was just bad.

Quiet and simple celebration. Just the way I like.

The next day was also an eventful day. Mei Lee and Terence invited us to their house and they were going to make us a home-baked butter garlic lobster and beef stew. Was really yums! Much better than the food at Chili's, mind you. 

We had already made dinner plans with Janice and Ian. Introduced them to Kong Sai Chicken Rice. The chicken rice that Steven has been raving about in Facebook of late. We had half a chicken (the big foot of the hill chicken - dai san keok kai), curry pork ribs, baked yam with pork (wu tau kau yok) and vege. Sumptious! And I must say tastier and more satisfying than dinner the night before at Chili's.

Now we have new friends to jalan-jalan cari makan :)

PS: I just realized in all that excitement over the weekend, there is not a single photo of me :)

Mid-Year

Ok. It's not exactly mid-year but a little over. But I always like to mark the end of July as that means August is coming soon. August is always a month of celebrations for me. For one thing it's my birthday, followed my sis. And now to add to that, Steven's sis and then his bro. I just love August babies. We are a fun bunch and always a joy to hang out with.... Haha... self praise.... but I think friends can vouch to that!

One other reason is that I have nothing better to write late so I thought why not just write something... haha... sorry if you find this a bore but hey, it's my blog and I write what I want.

Life's pretty quiet these days. Other than the occasional eating fest, it's catching up on shows that I've been downloading. Finished watching Criminal Minds Season 6 about 2 weeks ago and am now anxiously waiting for Season 7 to start. It was such a cliffhanger ending in Season 6.... I want to know if The Reaper really killed Hotch!

Am now back to TVB serials. I have watched Forensic Heroes last year and now moving on to Forensic Heroes II. It's ala CSI style but with the usual HK drama and continuation. 30 full episodes of suspense and drama. Just the way I like it. Although the equipment and graphics may not be up to the standard of Hollywood but it's actually quite interesting how they combine Forensics Division with the Heavy Crimes Bureau division and weave several love stories in the midst of all those crimes. Oh well, being the serial addict, most series are nice and enjoyable to me... haha

This year, my birthday happens to fall on a Saturday, which means not a working day for me. Unlike past years where I will apply for annual leave as I make it a point not to work on MY DAY. Am still thinking what to do on that day though. No plans as yet. Maybe a quiet one this time. 

The past few years have been exciting ones. 2 years in a row I was up in Genting. Some winnings in the casino and lovely hot choc at Coffee Bean while enjoying the breeze up there. Last year same time I was in HK for a seminar.

Hmm... any ideas?

Weekend Of Birthday Celebrations

Was back in Ipoh for the weekend to celebrate my little sis' birthday. We headed to Pusing for some fabulous seafood. Apologies as it totally slipped my mind to take photos of the scrumptious. Was just too eager to devour everything served.

I did remember to snap a photo of the cake mummy had bought. Fresh mango but it was missing pieces of mango in it. All it had was mango jelly on the top. Disappointment! We're never going back there for cake next time.

Here's one with the candles lighted up.

And here's my little sis cutting the cake.

And then on Sunday, rushed back to KL to celebrate Steven's birthday with his siblings. Again, we were too hungry and forgot to snap photos of the feast we had. Roast duck and roast pork was on the menu.

Here's the cake.



Little Wen-Burque was fascinated with the candle lighted and was trying to grab the cake. He wanted to blow out the candle together with Steven but I think Steven was too quick :)


Steven cutting his cute little birthday cake. We each had 1 tiny slice. Had to keep space in the tummy for JJ swiss rolls :)

Daddy's 61st Birthday

Oops... Forgot to blog about dearest daddy's 61st birthday celebration. It was an intimate celebration as usual. Just the closest family. We had dinner at Moon Palace at The Mines Shopping Fair a few days earlier when the rest of my family had just returned from their holiday in Melbourne. Yes, yours truly didn't go along. Work commitments. Sigh...

Anyways, here's some pics. Of course food pics will be at my food blog as usual.

Daddy & Mummy enjoying a bit of karaoke together

Some fruit cake from a nearby stall in The Mines. Wasn't too bad. Not sweet at all.

On the actual day, Steven and I bought another cake for daddy back in Ipoh from Kings Confectionery. Chocolate & Banana... actually it's much better than the one from Secret Recipe.

Here's the cake!

Grandma's Birthday

Apologies for the silence but work has been hell with quarter close deadlines. And yours truly here is down with the flu. Wonder where the bug came from.

Anyways, was back in Ipoh over the weekend for my beloved Por Por's birthday. It's her 83rd! We had been cracking our heads where to head to for dinner. Knowing my dad, we'll end up in either Sun Lee How Fook Restaurant or Overseas Restaurant. No way!

So I thought hard and finally decided that Japanese it is. Por Por has never tasted Japanese food so I thought this would be a great time to expose her. But then the problem is I'm not at all familiar with the Jap food scene in Ipoh. Up went a post in FB and Twitter and lo and behold, the replies started flooding. Ah! The wonders of social media marketing.

We finally decided to go ahead with one of my schoolmates, Yin Fong's, recommendation. After all she's lived in Japan for a period of time so she would know how authentic the food is. It's a new restaurant called Aka Momiji somewhere behind Tesco.

Off we headed to the restaurant. We were lucky to be just slightly early as it was almost full house. Very good variety of food and bento sets available. Price wise is also good value for money. For 8 of us, the total bill came up to RM300 and that includes a bottle of sake which my dad ordered.

Por Por was very adventurous that night. She even dared try sashimi with wasabi. When we brought out the cake and sang her the birthday song, she was absolutely estatic.

Later, one of the staff offered Por Por a small tub of imported Japanese ice cream. Even June got a tub. We shared it among the 8 of us as we were just too stuffed from all the food and cake. Delicious!

Oh yah, the cake we bought was from JJ Cake House by Jennifer Liau. Pandan layered cake without colouring and preservatives and also low in sugar. Lovely!

Pics to come soon.