Say what you want…

I wrote this poem for a contest on TraxxFm and it won me a free one-night stay with buffet dinner for two at Hotel Melia (opposite Berjaya Times Square) in KL…

KETUPAT
Like the rigid palas leaves
Bending but not breaking
Thus are the people
Of different colours, different creeds
Interwoven as ONE

Like the individual grains of rice
Tightly wrapped within
The diverse cultures
Of each and every single race
Merge together as ONE

The savoury flavours blend
With the sweetness of santan
Likewise, through thick and thin
The people endure the bitter and the sweet
Sailing through all storms as ONE

ONE people, ONE nation
Together side by side
Hand in hand in perfect harmony
Amidst peace, progress and prosperity
We are ONE, we are MALAYSIA.

Somebody has asked me why I have never published it in my blog all this while.  Well, the simple reason is that I just simply do not see that kind of true Malaysian spirit as I had spelt out in the poem anywhere in our midst, that we would just have to admit…and I did not want to sound pretentious or hypocritical and come across as an ostrich sticking its head in a hole and pretending that everything is all right. Well, THAT was in 2005, long before all this big hoo-haa about 1Malaysia, all that typically Malaysian ultra-superfluous pomp and pageantry like it is going to make one hell of a difference. Well, say what you want but I simply cannot foresee how that is going to happen when on one hand, one says this…

…and on the other, somebody else in the pack says this…

Just pick up any day’s newspaper and look at the headlines! Every day it’s the same old story…

It is always a matter of you or me…or even you and me, but never US!

Happy National Day, everybody, for whatever it’s worth! May God bless this country of OURS…

Turn back the clock…

I came to Penang last Friday (20th) to spend my daughter’s one-week break with her on the island…

…and my radio-friend in KL, Mandy, was so kind as to arrange her work trip to coincide with my visit, so she could be around these parts at the same time and she even went out of her way to pick my daughter up at Sungai Petani and bring her over to the hotel on the island. Such friends are real gems, worth their weight in gold…and believe you me, she’s no lightweight or featherweight! LOL!!! Well, I’ll be seeing her again tomorrow in KL…

And a big thank you to you too, my niece BDQ and Jon for taking us out for lunch. Nice guy, I must say! Wonder when they will finally decide to pick a date…LOL!!!

And I am also glad to get to meet Shenton Geikie – a friend I made on Facebook…

I knew the aunt way back in the 70s around the time when she was Miss Tourism Sarawak…and just imagine, after all these years and on the other side of the country, I got to meet her nephew. Life can be so interesting, don’t you think?

Then, there was also my ex-student, Mac, who also drove all the way from KL…

…with his friend, Joseph, who’s originally from Penang…

…and the two of them came in this black thingy…

…to take me out for lunch in Air Hitam. We had what Joseph claimed to be the best Penang char kway teow on the island…

…and then, we adjourned to another place where the two had Penang assam laksa, the best as well according to Joseph, but I was already too full by then and decided to give it a pass…

My best buddy from Penang, Eng, is back also and we managed to go out for dinner and so on a couple of times. If you can remember, he flew in to Sibu the evening before I left to come over here. He said he’ll be dropping me off at the airport tomorrow…before sending my daughter back to Sungai Petani. I am truly blessed to have such good friends all over…

We also went out for lunch at the Chinese Recreation Club (CRC) with Edmund, a close friend of mine from way back in 1973 when we were in Singapore – 36 years ago! I will have a post on that at a later date.

And last but definitely not the least, it is my honour and utmost pleasure to have had the chance to meet Penang-blogger, Eugene, and his very lovely wife and two sons…

They were so nice as to take the afternoon off to bring my daughter and me out shopping and eating nothing but the best in town. Thanks so much, Eugene – I owe you one! Do come over to Sibu one of these days, you and your family, and I certainly hope that I can treat you all just as well.

Gosh! How time flies! I will be flying off to KL tomorrow, staying there till the 1st of September when I’ll be on the morning flight home! Then it will be back to the grind!….Sigh!

P.S.
I reckon there will not be any updates while I am in KL…so everybody will have to wait till I get back to Sibu to find out whether I’ve been (mis)behaving myself while I am there. Have a lovely weekend, everybody!

Every day I love you…

I’ve always loved yong tau fu – all the fish balls, the ladies fingers, brinjal stuffed with fish ball, the tofu also stuffed with the same, the dried bean curd and so on and so forth served in refreshing clear soup…

But lately it has become very expensive. The above, with a few selected items came up to RM11.00. Good grief! This is getting to become as bad as eating at those daylight robbers’ place – the nasi kandar shops! This plate of nasi bryani with one salted egg, one piece of beef liver and one sotong (cuttlefish) came up to RM8.90 and actually, this can be considered very cheap already as normally, it would go up to over RM10.00…

The saving grace was the cucumber was free and so was this plate of pappadums, unlike in one shop in Sungai Petani where they were sold at RM1.00 a piece……

I don’t know when my daughter got to acquire a liking for yong tau fu for as I can remember, she never liked fish balls or whatever that has anything to do with it…and I can’t recall her ever eating tung hoon either. Sigh! My little girl is growing up…and I am not around to watch her change. Well, these were her selections, with tung hoon (glass noodles) – also adding up to a whooping RM11.00…

And believe it or not, she wanted it again the following night…

This was fairly cheaper – RM8.00 only…and when she wanted it again the next night, I didn’t want to take any more photographs of the stuff anymore as basically, they all look the same. Anyone that crazy over yong tau fu too?

Do you want to know a secret…

Well, it seems that not many people know of this Ipoh delicacy…

…but actually, I’ve eaten it before. There was a bakery in Bintulu making it and my friend, Jimmy, used to get them for me a couple of times until I found out that it cost RM10 each! Considering that it was just bread with an aluminium foil tray of chicken curry concealed inside, I thought it was quite expensive. I might as well buy my own loaf of bread and cook my own curry to eat the bread with – it all boils down to the same thing, don’t you think?

I have also seen this featured on one of the shows on Asian Food Channel – some place in Singapore was selling it too, it seemed…and when I saw it at one of the stalls here in Penang the other night, I decided to give it a try. It was RM12.00 each…

…but it certainly was bigger than the ones I used to get from Bintulu and there was a lot more chicken curry inside. Tastewise, however, I feel the Bintulu ones were far nicer…especially the curry which was kind of bland and not spicy at all.  I wonder whether those in Ipoh are nicer than these ones here in Penang or not.

I also had some beef noodles the other night…

As a matter of fact, they were no ordinary noodles. These were handmade – you may have seen it some place or on tv the man twisting and turning the dough and pulling until the strands of noodles appear like magic! However, I’m afraid I did not like the noodles. They were a bit too soft and not to my liking…and the beef soup was so diluted that one could hardly tell that it was beef. It certainly was a far cry from the ngui chap I had in KK, Sabah…and even in Sibu, we have better beef noodles at a number of places in the town.

Given a choice, I think I would just stick to the Penang char kway teow. It’s no secret that there are places that may be better than others, or maybe I am not discerning enough but generally, I find that they’re all pretty good and would always be a safe bet when looking for something to eat. What do the rest of you think?

Sacrifice…

I’m sure every parent – father or mother – possesses strong paternal or maternal instincts and whatever they do, they will always think of their child(ren) first.

This actually happened when I was still back home in Sibu, that is before I came over to Penang to spend my daughter’s one-week break with her here. One fine day, I told myself that perhaps I should go and get myself a cheap digital camera…and since I’m not into photography nor is this a photo blog, as long as it could take some decently-presentable photographs, that would be good enough for me. So off I went to this studio opposite the school where I used to teach. I always went there before to develop the photographs for the school magazine.

The guy took out one Nikon, selling for RM550 and started to show me how to take photographs with it and then, he took out this one

…a Canon IXUS 95IS and he went through the same routine. I was impressed by the superior quality of the photographs taken compared to the other camera and the colours were so much more vibrant and beautiful. Why, I could even press the shutter while shaking the camera and the photo would come out absolutely clear. It came with a very nice pouch…

…and when the man told me that there were other colours available, I declined politely as green is my daughter’s favourite colour. Wait a minute! What has my daughter got to do with it?

Somehow it seemed that the fact that I went there to get myself a digital camera had slipped my mind…and I was thinking that it was a good camera and I should get it for her. After all, she would be leaving for Wellington, New Zealand next year…and with this better camera, she would be able to take much nicer photos there.

So, in the end, I bought the camera…

…for my daughter. Actually, she’ll be 20 on the 17th of next month (September) and once again, she’ll be celebrating the occasion on her own in Sungai Petani, so I thought I could give it to her for her birthday present – a little bit in advance.

As for me, I can always use her old camera – the one that I bought for her in June, 2007 for around RM700.00…before she left home to further her studies. In fact, it’s as good as new…

…and is certainly good enough for me.

I miss you…

Here I am, still in Penang…relaxing in my hotel room and enjoying the breathtaking view from my window…

…and indulging in all the delicious food all around. But, the other day, I suddenly realised that we had not had rice for a number of days and I was beginning to miss it…and since it was raining, my daughter and I could only venture as far as the corner coffee shop for lunch. We had rice…

…and this plate of mixed meat – roast duck and chicken, roast pork, char siew and braised eggs…

…but truth be told, I think we have places in Sibu that serve much nicer stuff than this. That night for our dinner (at Red Garden, where else?), my daughter ordered the mutton bryani rice…

…while I had the salted fish fried rice…

This one is one helluva bomb, I tell you. The fried rice with the fragrance of salted fish is simply out of this world…and if you add the belacan dip that came with it, believe you me…you’ll be transported to seventh heaven, that’s for sure! I’d give a double thumbs up for this one! Really, really nice!

So, that was the day when we had rice…rice and more rice!

Blue is my favourite colour…

People keep telling me that whenever I come to Penang, I can just forget about the restaurants and all those and must go for the hawker food only – cheap, so much to choose from and so mouth-wateringly yummy!!! But the other day, my niece BDQ and her boyfriend, Jon, took my daughter and me to this place for lunch…

My daughter had their fish and chips with their traditional beer batter…

…which she did not quite like because she doesn’t drink and the batter had a strong beer taste, she said. Jon had a fish dish too…

…and BDQ had pasta…

I had their paprika chicken as I was intrigued by the mashed sweet potatoes that would come with it….

Not bad…pretty nice, in fact! I think I can try and make my own when I go home to Sibu. It would be a welcome change from the usual mashed potatoes, that’s for sure. We had crème brûlée for dessert, orange….

…and raspberry, I think…

It certainly was a delightful lunch and I enjoyed it a good deal…but I still think visitors to Penang should just stick to the hawker stalls as they have so much to offer. I have so many photographs of so many different local delights that I really don’t know how I will ever be able to post all of them. As for Penangites and permanent residents, that’s a different story altogether, of course…

Queen of my heart…

After lunch the other day, my daughter and I went to Queensbay Mall just to browse around…

Perhaps it was the afternoon of a working day, so it was not very crowded and that was fine by me especially with the H1N1 virus on the rampage. There were a few people who had their masks on…

…which was a good thing. I tried wearing one myself but found it suffocating, so after a while, I just gave up. I was glad to have the chance to meet my Penang blogger-friend, Eugene…

…and his missus. I must say that the photo does not do him justice at all. Gosh! He looks really young and handsome…and the wife is so sweet and pretty. (Ok, Eugene! When are you taking me out for dinner? LMAO!!!) We did stop by Secret Recipe for tea, and I had the rich white chocolate macadamian, my favourite….

…while my daughter tried one of their new cakes – the pecan nut raspberry…

…and if you asked me, I would say that they were more or less the same. The bill came up to almost RM30.00, or twenty over to be exact, and that, I must say, was extremely expensive. Well, since we do not have Secret Recipe in Sibu, stopping by for a bit of indulgence may make a bit of sense…but if there were one in Sibu, you can bet that I would not be frequenting the place at all and only go to buy the cakes for birthdays and other special occasions.

When I got back to my hotel room, I spotted this note on the minibar…

It was from Maharani, the sweet and pretty chambermaid from the housekeeping department who cleans my room every day at Cititel Penang. It was such a sweet gesture on her part to go beyond her line of duty and boil some water for me. The next day I gave her some of the made-in-Sibu Mee Daddy (packet of 5) that I had brought along to give to friends. Good grief! She did not dare to accept unless I wrote a note saying that it was a gift from me to her as she would have to explain to the manager where she got it from. That is good, isn’t it?…On the part of the hotel, that is!

Well, to end this post, if it is of any interest to any of you, here are a few photos that I took in the vicinity of the hotel – glimpses of old Penang…

Have a nice day, everybody!

A whole new world…

BDQ, my niece, came to take me and my daughter to go and eat this “RM8.00 Penang char kway teow” in some lane here but it was the beginning of the Hungry Ghost Festival and the shop was closed. They had set up some altars and stages all over the town…and there were a whole lot of burning of joss sticks and Hell money here, there and everywhere. In the end, she brought us to this relatively new place in Georgetown – the New World Park…

I heard that it’s owned by Robert Kok, one of the most loaded in the country. We went there for lunch and it was quite crowded…

This is a stall selling pies…

…but the truth is I wanted to take the photo of this curry mee stall…

…because among the options, you can choose to add some “cocker”! LOL!!! I had this plate of char hor fun…

…which was really delicious for RM5.00 only (egg added). My niece had their Penang char kway teow…

…while my daughter had the chicken chop with garlic gravy (RM7.50)…

…but she felt she could get something like that, or perhaps even better and more substantial, in Sungai Petani for only RM3.50. I also had this for dessert – black glutinous rice (pulut hitam) with santan/coconut milk…for only RM2.00 – it was really heavenly…

…and we also had this steamed or-koi (yam cake) with a sprinkling of fried dried prawns/shrimps (looked more like bubuk to me) and hay-kor (prawn paste)

…which tasted absolutely great and was really worth having!

After lunch, my niece sent us to Queensbay Mall for a bit of shopping…but that would have to wait till another post!

Have a great week ahead, everyone!

Before and after…

Call it bad timing or what, but my friend, Eng, from Penang was asked to go to Sibu from the 19th till the 23rd of August and I was supposed to leave for Penang on the 20th. Besides, my blogger-friend, annant popped up in town suddenly on the 18th…so, the best that I could do was to host a dinner on the evening of the 19th, before taking off early the next morning.

I took them to the usual place for the usual fare…

Photo from antzworld.net

…but this was something we had never had before – steamed black pomfret (ikan bawal hitam) with Portuguese sauce or something. It turned out to be some kind of sambal, but I must say it was really very good and I wouldn’t mind having it again the next time around..

Photo from antzworld.net

I also invited Louis J and Richard, regular commentors in my blog, to join us. Richard, of course, had given me some of his homemade nyonya chang every year without fail and I had yet to reciprocate his generous gesture by treating him to dinner, so this was a good opportunity for me to do just that.

The next morning, I left for Penang…and my radio-friend, Mandy (from the TraxxFm’s “Pat and Mag in the afternoon” show) was kind enough to drive all the way to Sungai Petani to get my daughter, Melissa, and bring her over to the island. We had dinner together that night at Red Garden, the hawker centre right across the road from Cititel Penang and we had ikan bakar (grilled fish) – black pomfret/ikan bawal hitam no less…

I liked the way they grilled the fish with minimal seasoning and the sambal would be provided separately as a dip. That way, one would be able to enjoy the freshness of the fish which would not be drowned by the strong sambal the way they do it at the stalls in Sibu. Of course, we had my daughter’s favourite – the or chian or oyster omelette…

…and this grilled garlic brinjal…

…which was not very nice and not really worth the price – RM8.00. The fried chee cheong fun was nice though…

…and so was the lor bak that we had…

My daughter could not resist ordering this Japanese bento…

…but there were simply too many things to eat and she could not finish it in the end. Thankfully, I never really care for Japanese food, or else you can imagine who would have been the one to sweep everything clean… LOL!!!

Gosh! All that food two nights in a row! Luckily, it’s not like this every night! Phew!!!